Reason #327: Eat, Pray, Love AND Read the Book!

Posted at June 14, 2010

I found myself a little embarrassed at first reading Liz Gilbert’s wonderful book entitled Eat, Pray, Love. I was thinking to myself as I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, isn’t this a book for chics?” Well I believe it was about the tenth page that Gilbert hooked me in and had me right there with her, living those incredible experiences of emotional and spiritual renewal in the “three I’s,” Italy, India and Indonesia. If you haven’t heard about the book, you will soon enough, as it is about to become a movie starring Julia Roberts as Gilbert (click here for movie trailer). I am sure it will be a super hit. This book made me laugh and cry and, most importantly, it made me think. The book is profoundly spiritual in a profoundly irreverent and non-spiritual kind of way…at least if your idea of “spiritual” is defined by a narrow path that only the “chosen few” are allowed access to. What comes through in Gilbert’s odyssey of pleasure, spirituality and love is that the pathway to God is a uniquely personal and intimate venture that you and only you get to experience…it is your personal journey and everyone gets to enjoy one. I really liked the description of heaven and hell that Gilbert’s “Balinese medicine-man” gave to her. Why would he know? Well, because, as he related to Gilbert, he had made the journey to both locations many times…the only thing is they are really only one place…it is the journey to that place that can either take on divine or hellish qualities. Wow! What a circular, but startlingly logical idea. While we westerners are so preoccupied with choosing the right dogma that will magically secure our location in one as opposed to the other, we tend to miss that it is the journey that really matters. And it is within that journey that we can create our own personal versions of heaven or hell. The latter usually by adopting narrow minded and me-oriented versions of “reality” that God in his infinite wisdom allows us to engage in while revealing subtle elements of the truth in the midst of, well, our own personal self-made hells. Just ask Gilbert about all that. Well, anyway, the book is charming and thought-provoking and hilarious and Elizabeth Gilbert, if I weren’t married! What a courageous and beautiful person…we can all learn a lot from her, guys and gals included.