Book Club: Eat, Pray, Love: 18-20

The second book in our book club series is Eat, Pray Love. Is it a Hindu book? Not exactly, but it is very relevant to the experiences of non-Indian Hindus. The author has a Hindu guru (whose identity has been rather easily found out by those familiar with the world of Indian gurus). Julia Roberts after playing the author in the movie, claimed to have become a Hindu. So I think it will be worthwhile to examine the experiences and stories that led these women towards Hinduism…

Bead 18

Here Gilbert describes an interesting way to talk to God. Or maybe she’s just talking to her inner Self or her subconscious. Have you ever done this before? I have, though it was a long time ago and I haven’t thought to do it recently.

She has a notebook and she writes part of a conversation or a question and then she feels a response and writes that next.

In times of great despair in my life I’ve done the same thing. I have old journals in which there is a conversation between my limited, ego-driven self that is caught up in the drama and a calmer inner voice that can see the big picture. I found it a very valuable exercise. I should try that again.

Not that I have despair now but I have trouble accessing my feelings. I often find myself crying or feeling “blah” and I have no explanation. Nothing I can point my husband to to say this is the cause of my suffering. All I can say is...I don’t know.

Writing it out and waiting for explanation from the inner voice might help distill where my angst is coming from.

Gilbert also describes a moment where for just a second she didn’t recognize herself in a mirror and her mind instantly said, “Oh, you know her. She’s a friend.” As silly as it was, she tries to remember that her mind recognized herself as a friend.

I think you have to treat yourself as a friend. We beat ourselves up too much and say things to ourselves that we would never say to someone we really care about! I think we also mistake which inner voice is the real us. We seem to have a tendency to hear the inner criticism as authentic. I’ve been practicing dismissing that voice. When I hear that one that tells me I’m fat or worthless or stupid or bad at something, I think of it as a little demon inside me but that voice is not me and that voice is not right.

Bead 19

Gilbert discovers that Yoga and Rome are not compatible for her. She was doing yoga at home regularly, but “the culture of Rome just doesn’t match the culture of Yoga.”

I’ve always thought that you’re always you no matter where you travel, but I’ve also been told that every place has its own…for lack of a better word, vibe. And I have lived places that haven’t supported me being who I am. Los Angeles was a bad fit for me, for example. The atmosphere there didn’t support me being the person I want to be and I felt constantly at odds.

Where ever you go, your problems do follow you (as Gilbert discovered when Depression hit her in Rome), but different places also make it harder or easier to do certain things. Perhaps we should choose where we live based on where our desires and natural inclinations are part of the flow. Perhaps we already tend to do that subconsciously! Maybe that’s why some people feel a strong urge to move to New York City and I never have.

Bead 20

Gilbert talks here about the many friends she’s making in Rome. Her descriptions are so fun. I can practically feel the delight that she’s experiencing there. I have no particular desire to go to Italy, but Gilbert makes it sound tempting!

One interesting part is when Gilbert describes a couple she knows where the husband is Italian and the wife is American but fluent in Italian. During an argument once, the wife felt like she could never get a word in edgewise, so she took a thick black marker and scrawled insults against her husband in Italian all over one wall. The wall is still there! Her husband’s response is not what I would have expected. He thinks his wife is still holding back and “repressed” because she wrote in her second language and not her native language.

“He said if Maria had truly allowed herself to be overcome by anger–which she never does, because she’s a good Anglo-Protestant–then she would have written all over that wall in her native English. He says all Americans are like this: repressed. Which makes them dangerous and potentially deadly when they do blow up. ‘A savage people,’ he diagnoses.”

At least one of her friends in Italy can’t imagine how or why she’s heading to India next. Seeing her zest for food, he’s wondering what she’ll even eat. He has seen only this one side of her and not her austere side. It’s interesting that people see different angles of us and it’s difficult to get a close to complete picture of a person, I think.