eat pray love

I just finished reading eat pray love.

This book has received quite a bit of attention. Liz Gilbert was even nominated as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people as a result of writing this book. The book chronicles the year she spent traveling in Italy, India and Indonesia following a divorce and a terrible rebound relationship. She resolves to remain celibate for a whole year and embark on a journey of exploration and discovery. In Italy she relishes in the pleasures of food, in India she immerses herself in spiritual nourishment and purification and in Indonesia she sets out on a quest for balance.

I was ambivalent in the first third of the book and couldn't help but feel that the book was not really worth all the fuss but after finishing it i decided it was at least very worth reading. Liz Gilbert is inspirational really and the book is fun and chatty and humorous as well as reaching surprising depth of insight on a number of occasions. If I were to put together a recommended reading list for Baha'i women in a year of waiting this book would definitely be on it.

Let me post a couple of random quotations from the book:

"I can't seem to get my mind to hold still. I mentioned this once to an Indian monk, and he said, 'Its a pity that you are the only person in the history of the world who ever had this problem.' Then the monk quoted to me from the Bhagavad Gita, the most sacred ancient text of yoga: "Oh Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding. I consider it as difficult to subdue as the wind." (p. 131)

Reading this book has actually made me determined to put a little more oomph into my own daily meditative practices. This morning I almost made it up at my goal time of 5:30am. I want to really take this early rising in order to pray and meditate seriously as a daily life practice. This morning I put on some meditative music--I thought I would start this attempt at daily meditative practice with something Yogic in honor of Liz Gilbert's Indian inspiration so I put on Aruna Sairam [one of the world's most renowned performers of Carnatic music]--it is quite possible you will not find Aruna Sairam conducive to meditation but it worked so well for me this morning.


I LOVE the drums. Drums have SUCH a power to take one to a place of transcendence. While listening and sitting in a yogic crosslegged posture I endeavored to focus on my inner connection to God, my inner divinity which seemed in keeping with Liz's experience in India. I focused on the verse from Baha'u'llah's "Hidden Words"

"Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting." Arabic Hidden Words, no 13

And then performed my 95 Allah'u'Abha's as my "mantra" with so much more purpose than usual. When I got around to my morning prayers and readings there was a very marked increase in my ability to focus my mind. I wonder what might happen if I could really make a life habit out of daily practice of pre-dawn meditation. It really has been a wish and longing of mine to actually be able to accomplish such a thing and when I think of all the things that people wish for in the world this seems so incredibly accomplishable. Let me see if I can do it again tomorrow...

And the inspiration from Liz that got me thinking that maybe I could really do this:

"The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon your comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered you in return for what you have given up. Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple--get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. We all agree that it would be easier to sleep in, and many of us do, but for millenia there have been others who choose instead to get up before the sun and wash their faces and go to their prayers. And then fiercely try to hold on to their devotional convictions throughout the lunacy of another day." p. 175

The above is an excerpt from chapter 57 which I think might be my favorite chapter in the book. She goes on to meditate on faith. A few more excerpts from this chapter:

"The devout of this world perform their rituals without guarantee that anything good will ever come of it...Devotion is diligence without assurance...Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God adn the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith adn it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy.
I am not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I could care less about evidence and proof and assurance. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way the sunlight amuses itself on water."

Finally, I love this greeting that she received from someone she met in India..

"Congratulations to meet you"