Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Again, I find myself reading another travel memoir, after reading Catfish and Mandala.  This time I’m reading about “One woman’s search for everything across, Italy, India, and Indonesia,” after a difficult divorce and what seemed like a mid-life crisis in her 30’s.

What a beautifully written soul-bearer! Even though at times I wanted to strangle the author/protagonist because of her ridiculously whiny explanation for her divorce and love-ache (I could not help but think that SHE did this to HERSELF! ugh, victims), she manages to be likable throughout most of her book and most of her spiritual journey.

The book is separated into three equal parts for each of the three countries she lives in, and my favorite part was her spiritual/devotional journey to India. Without giving it away, here are some choice excerpts from the book:

Page 61:

Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today. But as Luca Spaghetti pointed out, we seem to like it. Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes. Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure). Americans don’t really know how to do nothing. This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype–the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.

Page 186:

…the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame. As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff of it is bad for you. I mean, what kind of prayer is this to imbibe–“Give us this day our daily grudge”? You might as well hang it up and kiss God good-bye if you really need to keep blaming somebody else for your own life’s limitations.

Page 196:

The topic of the retreat, and its goal, is the turiya state–the elusive fourth level of human consciousness. During the typical human experience, say the Yogis, most of us are moving between three different levels of consciousness–waking, dreaming or deep dreamless sleep. But there is a fourth level, too. This fourth level is the witness of all the other states, the integral awareness that links the other three levels together.  This is the pure consciousness, an intelligent awareness that can–for example–report your dreams back to you in the morning when you wake up. You were gone, you were sleeping, but somebody was watching over your dreams while you slept–who was that witness? And who is the one who is always standing outside the mind’s activity, observing its thoughts? It’s simply God, say the Yogis. And if you can move into that state of witness-consciousness, then you can be present with God all the time. This constant awareness and experience of the God-presence within can only happen on a fourth level of human consciousness, which is called turiya.

Page 260:

I keep remembering one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.

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