[Thoughts on] Eat, Pray and Love

So I am reading Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and besides how much I enjoy her writing style and the content of what she writes, I find it is also a wonderful spiritual primer. The one thing with spirituality is that it is such a personal endeavor for most of us that it is hard to compare notes with others. There are things that I was sure were personal issues or shortcomings that I needed to deal with and this little book has given me a lot of perspective on that. Most of these 'issues' are faced by everyone, in varying degrees, and I (really) didn't realize it.

One (of many) great passage in the book (page 138 in the paperback edition I'm reading), Gilbert says, "I don't think I'm good at meditation... I can't seem to keep my mind still." The monk she is complaining to answers, "It's a pity that you're the only person in the history of the world who ever had this problem."

While that seems quite silly and evident, it is true that I don't think I'm good at meditation either... and I can't seem to keep my mind still too. And that has been an excuse for me for not really trying. While it makes me smile to read her adventures in this domain, it also inspires me and gives me a necessary kick in the butt. I have read alot, I keep reading alot, but do I try to stop and apply some of the things I have read? Nooooooo...

Another great part of this book, which really spoke to me was a section in which she decides that she is going to become silent. She tells of a spiritual fantasy in which she becomes a silent mystical saint that people admire for her silence. Without going into the book's details, she is then reassigned a job at her Ashram in which she will have to speak all day. She goes on to recount a favorite statement of her guru's guru: God dwells in you, as you.

She explains this as 'God dwells within you as yourself, exactly the way you are.' Spirituality is not acting like the image you have of a spiritual person. No 'massive, dramatic, change of character' is necessary, there is no need to 'renounce our individuality.' The guru's guru then adds, "To know God you only need to renounce one thing -- your sense of division from God. Otherwise, just stay as you were made, within your natural character."

Once again, not a life-shattering insight, but to me, for me, this is a very important insight/reminder. I have various and varying images of what a spiritual person might look and act like (chief among them is my image of St. Francis), but that is (sigh) not who I am. And that is ok. I guess I need to learn to accept that it is ok to 'work within my own personality' as Gilbert coins it. She, drives the home point with a quote from Sextus, a Greek philosopher, "The wise man is always similar to himself."

Sometimes you find spirituality in the most unexpected places -- even in an Oprah-recommended, NY Times bestseller -- and this book is as enjoyable as it is thought-provoking or, rather, life-provoking. Gilbert's inquiries and adventures make me want to say yes to life more wholly (holy) and find the spirituality which is me and the me which is spiritual...

Hopefully the feeling will last beyond the last page.