Book Club: Eat, Pray, Love: 28-31

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 28

I find Gilbert’s struggle to let go of her old, not working relationship familiar. It’s so difficult to break ties with relationships even when they are causing us pain, and it takes some courage to face the world without that feeling of backup in a significant other.

I recognize also the way Gilbert thought she understood her mother but discovered there was a truth she had never known. It’s hard for us to know our parents or our children as peers and sometimes their truths can really surprise us!

Bead 29

I love seeing how different sisters can be. It gives new insight into Gilbert to see her next to her sister.

A family in my sister’s neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. When Catherine told me about this, I could only say, shocked, “Dera God, that family needs grace.” She replied firmly, “That family needs casseroles.”

Bead 30

Gilbert is beginning to realize that she doesn’t want children and that even now at the age when people say you’re supposed to crave them, she doesn’t really feel it.

“I also know that I won’t go forth and have children just in case I might regret missing it later in life; I don’t think this is a strong enough motivation to bring more babies onto the earth.”

I respect that a lot. This is one way that I don’t relate to Gilbert at all. My desire to have children is very fierce and it eats away at me every day. I think it’s really responsible of Gilbert not to have kids “just in case” and to respect that if you’re a person who really wants kids…well, you’d know it!

(Not that changing your mind doesn’t happen. It really can. But if you’re in your mid thirties and not really that interested in having kids, you’re probably not going to be hit with the biological urge. Trust your instincts!)

Gilbert references the Gita, saying that “it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”

And wasn’t that exactly Drona’s error?

Bead 31

A delightful image of Gilbert waking herself up from her own laughter! Clearly she is where she is supposed to be. The weight is lifting away from her shoulders.