Thought provoking, spiritually enlightening, pleasure revitalising with a touch of humor throughout!
This book could well be anyone’s journey, the only thing she does is that she dwells in the split of a second moment, enjoying, contemplating, reviewing, all complemented with perfect choice of words, amazing details and thrilling style of writing!
Elizabeth Gilbert goes into a journey of self discovery after a traumatic divorce. She lands in Italy for sheer pleasure, in India for mere devotion and to Indonesia for the balance between pleasure and devotion.
In Italy, it’s pleasure, pleasure and more pleasure throughout in the form of food and language! How digestible this part is, you literally gain a few Kg’s just reading and picturing her mouth-watering description of food. She is also on a mission to learn Italian, mostly through interaction with the natives, which in itself is an interesting voyage full of ciaos and attraversiamos, Haha!
In India, she looks for spirituality and devotion in an Ashram (secluded place of worship) with rigorous spiritual routines. Although this chapter is all about what I exactly don’t believe in and even find hard to digest, she relays her story in a manner that makes you live in an Ashram yourself. I literally started looking around for every tiny little beautiful thing to cherish, so it wasn’t necessary all opposing stuff, it just opens your eyes to beautiful things that already exist in Islam.
She mentions Islam and Christianity with relation to Hinduism and spirituality, I do not think she got all facts right. One example,
“….you may use your Yoga -your disciplined practices of sacred union- to get closer to Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha or Yahweh” (p.128)
First and foremost, she got the basics wrong, because we only aim to get closer to the One and Only God and not his messenger Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). We do however strvie to follow the way the prophet lived. Secondly, I may be mistaken, but I do not think Muslims perform yoga to get closer to Allah (!) haven’t heard of any at least!
I came out from this chapter with one solid conclusion. These Ashram-Monk-Yoga-Guru beliefs confirm that if you are to connect with God you need to disconnect yourself from the outer civilized modern world. You could imagine how our lives would be if we were all monks, gurus and yogis. There would either be (a) no civilization whatsoever, we all live in caves meditating or else (b) prayers and meditation should only be carried out in certain times of the year! I appreciate my religion for having us build a good balance of both pleasure and devotion.
In Indonesia, Liz goes searching for balance in her life, there she be-friends a medicine man and a lady healer. This Indonesia journey does not seem to really fulfill the “balance” aspect and I do not really understand the reasons behind her long hours of sitting with the medicine man. The most exciting part about this last trip is that with the claimed balance she found love!
A true page turner..
One last word, this book like others is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s highly recommended for those who question their mind, soul and heart in certain matters, and also enjoy reading memoirs. Not so for people who are looking for rich literature, guide to the countries visited or humanitarian issues. Oh and it is definitely not meant to be a man’s book at all!
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