I think this article is so important that I'll post it separately.
I couldn't find a nicely formatted original anywhere, so I suggest you download a copy in pdf
An excerpt from the book "Waking Up. Spirituality Without Religion" by the well-known publicist and neuroscientist, who in his youth traveled across Tibet, meditated, and dropped LSD. Unlike Lama Ole, whom the same kind of stunt prompted to become a preacher and the helmsman of Diamond Way Buddhism in Europe, Sam Harris ultimately became a neuroscientist with a PhD. He fights against religions, and promotes the topic of modern spirituality: the non-religious kind. His thoughts resonate with me deeply.
I discovered that the experience of sitting quietly for three days against the backdrop of pristine breezes and starlight in idleness - doing nothing but contemplating the mystery of my existence, could be a source of perfect misery – and I didn't understand how it depended on myself. My letters home, in their bleakness and self-pity, could rival similar writings from somewhere at Shiloh or the Gallipoli peninsula.
These reflections were accompanied by a certain euphoria, but the core sensation remained one of absolute uncloudedness – and I felt a moral and emotional clarity the likes of which I had never known before. It would be no exaggeration to say that I felt normal for the first time in my life. And yet the shift in my consciousness seemed completely unequivocal. I was simply talking to my friend – about what, I don't remember – and realized that I had ceased being interested in myself. I was no longer anxious, self-critical, protected by irony, competitive, avoiding embarrassment, ruminating on the past and future, or allowing myself any display of thoughts or attention that separated me from him. I was no longer looking at myself through the eyes of other people.
The book is small, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available in Russian.