Eat Pray Love

It took me a while, and I diverted onto reading The State of Me part way through, but I finished Eat Pray Love earlier this year. I marked many pages, for the humour and insights - and here for posterity are my favourite gems from the book. The cynic in me suggests that we'd all have such transformative experiences if our publisher funded a year-long trip of indulgence, rest, peace and spiritual study. But kudos to this Elizabeth Gilbert for being so rawly honest and making it happen for all of us.

ITALY
In relation to taking anti-depressants in the aftermath of her divorce and pondering whether she would’ve survived on her own, without the medication, she writes: “That’s the thing about a human life – there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.”

“I fall asleep holding my notebook against my chest, open to this most recent assurance. In the morning when I wake up, I can still smell a faint trace of Depression’s lingering smoke, but he himself is nowhere to be seen. Somewhere during the night, he got up and left. And his buddy Loneliness beat it, too.”

Regarding a vow of celibacy she took whilst in Italy (and ultimately broke in Indonesia) – ah to be brought to orgasm surrounded by peaceful fields of rice paddies… how could one not attain happiness this way?! She says: “When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” Lets hear that again. Never use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

Drawing a comparision between the tragedies in her life and the centuries of unhappy times in Sicily, she says:“The same thing which has helped generations of Sicilians hold their dignity has helped me begin to recover mine – namely, the idea that the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one’s humanity.”

“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”

INDIA
She writes on the inability to meditate, even in an ashram. Of the constant chatter in the mind and the feeling of frustration of not being able to turn it off – when you have a genuine desire to do so. I know this feeling. Lately my lack of concentration has upset me, or perturbed me. The perceived failure at meditation really upset her: “I was full of a hot, powerful sadness and would have loved to burst into the comfort of tears, but tried hard not to, remembering something my Guru once said – that you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead.”

This is interesting. When I think back to times of great depression (in my brain, not the 1930s financial crash), for instance the week around my 27th birthday, one thing I recall is the continuous uncontrollable crying. The crying seemed to birth more crying. My crying unravelled everything. Crying can be a good thing and I think it's a crucial human function (yesterday morning I had a little cry for no clear reason), but without blocking emotion, I realise now it is more important to practice staying strong. To amplify and repeat regularly whatever makes you feel strong and minimise any yielding to the dark side. Easier said than done, I know.

And now for something totally ridiculous, a superb paragraph on meeting a friend in the ashram. Elizabeth was eating dinner on her own. “I haven’t seen this guy around here yet. He must be a new arrival. The stranger’s got a cool, ain’t-no-big-hurry kind of walk, and he moves with the authority of a border town sheriff, or maybe a lifelong high-rolling poker player. He looks like he’s in his fifties, but walks like he’s lived a few centuries longer than that. He’s got white hair and a white beard and a plaid flannel shirt. Wide shoulders and giant hands that look like they could do some damage, but a totally relaxed face. He sits down across from me and drawls, 'Man, they got mosquitoes ‘round this place big enough to rape a chicken'.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Richard from Texas has arrived. “

The struggle to meditate peacefully and with minimal distraction is a fairly long one. At one point Elizabeth tries a simple mantra. "It's simple, just two syllables: Ham-sa. In Sanskrit it means "I am That." The Yogis say that Ham-sa is the most natural mantra, the one we are all given by God before birth. It is the sound of our own breath. 'Ham' on the inhale, 'sa' on the exhale. ('Ham', by the way is pronounced softly, openly, like hahhhm, not like the meat you put on a sandwich. And 'sa' rhymes with 'Ahhhh...'). As long as we live, every time we breathe in or out, we are repeating this mantra. I am That."
Ham-sa.
I am That.

Richard from Texas gives Elizabeth various generous and frank advice at the ashram. He also affectionately nicknames her 'Groceries'. In response to her longing for and heartbreak at her demised relationship back home, Richard says: "Send him some love and light every time you think about him, and then drop it. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, an open spot - a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with that doorway? It will rush in - God will rush in - and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go."

Advice a young lady dreaming of a Boy Genius could heed, me thinks. Interestingly, the conversation (and prose) leads to Elizabeth's control issues. It was only recently that I read one of the daily 'reflections' in Emotions Anonymous' Today book. It declared thinking about someone (to the point of ruminating perhaps), a form of control. Controlling is not living in the flow of the universe. As wanky as that sounds, I think it's probably true, and at the very least, makes for easier living (and less ruminating). So I'm mish-mashing Texan Richard's philosophy with Emotions Anonymous. I'm sending smiles out to the BG when I think of him, then just letting it be. Truly I am. I'm not obsessed, just hopeful. I also happen to write shitloads about him in this blog; sorry guys. Click here to unsubscribe.

Mid-meditation one day Elizabeth finds herself pondering where she may live upon return to the real world, she considers how cool it would be to have a spare room for meditation. Finally aware of what path her brain had gone down, she was aghast. She thought: Here you are in India, in an Ashram in one of the holiest pilgrimage sites on earth. And instead of communing with the divine, you're trying to plan where you'll be meditating a year from now in a home that doesn't yet exist in a city yet to be determined. How about this, you spastic fool - how about you try to meditate right here, right now, right where you actually are? She pulls her attention back with the silent mantra. She retracts insulting herself. Then thinks Still, a gold meditation room would be nice.

So she tries Vipassana meditation, what she describes as the 'Extreme Sports version of transcendence'. Basically you just sit. Moving and adjusting your position to achieve, maintain or find some level of comfort is NOT ALLOWED! If you're feeling pain you're supposed to meditate upon that. I actually want to give this a go, this and the Ham-Sa meditation. They seem nice and simple. But given I seem to be miles away from doing even the simplest, briefest yoga exercise in the morning, maybe this is just fantasy. Believe it or not, I'm trying to release more of my intentions from out under the flannelette doona. I'm getting there.

Righto, I'm going to conclude here. That's only extracts from 2/3 of the book but I really should retire for the night and I think maybe it might be easier for readers to digest in two halves.

I declined an invitation to a gig tonight. This house mouse wanted to be happily alone. I haven't blogged this week because I've left my computer at work at nights to engender more domestic, personal and non-computer based activities. It's worked. I'm back in the habit of washing up every night. Teeth brushing has made a comeback too. Is there enough space in my life to be fully improved like sourdough bread? If I manage to do yoga, eat well, work well, think well, domesticate well, etc... will I simply implode, evaporate or get hit by a bus? No harm in trying the experiment I guess. I've got a flat tummy on my mind. Ham-Sa.