Eat Pray and Love

Today, I finished reading Eat Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
I love this book. Its emotional, funny, dramatic (somewhat), and has a piece of everything, romance, history, growth of an individual, knowledge ( yoga, mantra, etc.). It basically covers it all, well, almost all.
This book is about a mid-age (early 30's) woman who is a writer. She takes off the typical American Dream life to visit Italy, India and Indonesia for a spiritual journey and growth.
She writes 36 tales about each location and her personal experiences- past and present.
I really like this book. I could relate to it in every way. I learned a lot from it and recieved enlightment from someone else's enlightment journey.
"Its ok, I love you, I accept you" is my favorite quote from the movie when at the end, Liz (main character) is sitting and acknowledging existence of all feelings and experiences one by one. She is accepting each one and giving them a reaffirmation that "everything is going to be ok, you are part of me, come sit, I will take care of you, I love, It's over, come in my heart." She does this with causes of sorrow, anger, shame and worst things that can happen. "When all this was finished, I was empty. Nothing was fighting in my mind anymore. I looked into my heart, at my own goodness, and I saw it's capacity. I saw that my heart was not ever nearly full, not after having taken in and tended to all those calamitous urchins or sorrow and anger and shame; my heart could easily have received and forgiven ever more. It's love was infinite." (327-328).


Quotes and exerts from the Book:
"But I'm still having trouble figuring out how to talk. Giovanni smiles and says encouragingly,
"Parla come magni." He knows this is one of my favorite expressions in Roman dialect. It means,
"Speak the way you eat it, or, "Say it like you eat it." It's a reminder- when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words- to keep language as simple and direct a Roman food. Don't make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table. (87)

"Giuilio said, "Maybe you and Rome just have different words."
"What do you mean?"
He said, "Don't you know the secret of understanding a city and it's people is to learn- what is the words of the street?"
Then he went and explained in mixture of English, Italian, and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever the majority thought might be- that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there.
"What's Rome's word?
"SEX" he announced.
"But isnt that a stereotype about Rome?"
"No."
"But surely there are some people in Rome thinking about other things than Sex."
Giulio insisted, "No. All of them, all day, all they are thinking about is SEX."
"Even over at the Vatican?"
"That's different. The Vatican isn't part of Rome. They have a different word over there. Their word is POWER"
"You'd think it would be FAITH"
"It's POWER," he repeated, "Trust me. But the word in Rome- it's SEX."
Now if you are to believe Guilio, the little word- SEX- cobbles the streets beneath your feet in Rome, runs through the fountain here, fills the air like traffic noise. Thinking about it, dressing for it, seeking it, considering it, refusing it, making a sport and game out of it- that's all anybody is doing.................. "Whats the word in New York City?"... I think its ACHIEVE....
Which is subtly but different from word in Los Angeles, I believe is also a verb: SUCCESS....
.... the word on the streets of Stockholm in CONFORM.....
"What's the word in Naples?".... "FIGHT," he decided....
"What's your word?...... "I know some words that it definitely isn't. Its not MARRIAGE, thats evident. It's not FAMILY.... It's not DEPRESSION, anymore, thank heavens.....I'm not concerned that I share Stolckholm's word of CONFORM. But I don't feel I am entirely inhabiting New York City's word ACHIEVE anymore, either, though that had indeed been my word all throughout twenties My word might be SEEK (Then again, let's be honest- its might just easily be HIDE.) Over the last months in Italy, my word has largely been PLEASURE, but that word doesn't match every single part of me, or I wouldn't be eager to get myself to India. My word might be DEVOTION, though this makes me sound like goody goody than I am.......
(103-105)

"Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine. The interesting thing about theses mystics is that, when they describe their experiences, they all end up describing exactly the same occurrences. Generally, the union of God occurs in meditative state, and is delivered through an energy source that fills thee entire body with euphoric, electric light. The Japanese call this energy ki, the Chinese Buddhist calls it chi, the Balinese call it taksu, The Christians call it the The Holy Spirit, the Kalahari Bushmen call it n/um (their holy men describe it as a snakelike power that ascends the spine and blows a hole in the head through with the gods then enter). The Islamic Sufi poets call it God-Energy "The Beloved," and wrote devotional poem to it. The Australian aborigines describe a serpent in the sky that descends into the medicine man and gives him intense, other worldly powers. In the Jewish tradition a Kabbalah is this union with the divine is said to occur through stages of spiritual ascension, with energy that runs up the spine along a series of invisible meridians.... In Indian Yogic tradition, this divine secret is called kundalini shakti and is depicted as a snake who lies coiled at the base of the spine until it is released by master's touch or a miracle, which then ascends up through seven chakras, or wheels (which you might also call the seven mansions of the soul) and finally through the head, exploding into union with God. These chakras do not exist in the gross body, say the Yogis, so don't look for there there; they exist only in the subtle body, in the body that the Buddhist teachers are referring to when they encourage their students to pull forth a new self from the physical body the way you pull a sword from its sheath. ........ He said, just as their exists in writing literal truth and poetic truth, there also exists in human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you see, and one you cannot. One is made up of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are equally true. (144)

"...I seriously believed that David was my soul mate. "He probably was. Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with soul mate forever? Nah! too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank god for it, Your problem is that you just can't let this one go. It's over, Groceries. David's purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit show you obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you do desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. This was his job, and he did great, but now it's over. Problem is, you can't accept that this relationship had a real short shelf life. You're like a dog at the dump, baby- you're just lickin' at an empty can, trying, to get more nutrition out of it. And if you're not careful, that can's gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable, so drop it." (149-150)

"I've noticed that his estimation of his changes by the day, based on how he feels. When he' really tired, he'll sign and say, "Maybe eighty-five today" but when he's feeling more upbeat, he'll say, "I think I'm sixty today." Perhaps this is a good way to estimating age as any- how old do you feel?" (239)

"Purpose of Meditation is only happiness and peace- very easy.... It's called Four Brother's Meditation. Kenut went on to explain that the Balinese believe we are each accompanied by 4 invisible brothers, who come into the world with us and protect us throughout our lives. When the child is in the womb, her four siblings are there with her- they are represented by the placenta, the amniotic fluid, the umbilical code, and yellow waxy substance that protects unborn baby's skin..... The brothers inhabit the four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and poetry. There four brothers are called upon in any critical situation for rescue and assistance. When you die, your four spirit brothers collect your soul and bring you to heaven." (251)

"She opened her eyes, grinned and said, "I can tell by your knees that you don't have much sex lately"
I said, "Why? Because they are so close together"
She laughed. "No- it's the cartilage. Very dry. Hormones from sex lubricates the joints..." (259)

"I keep remembering my Guru's teaching abut happiness. She says people universally tend to think that happiness is a stoke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's now how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into the happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments" (260)