"Seek God," offers my guru, " seek God like the one whose hand is on fire and seek water." (Elizabeth Gilbert, " Eat, Pray, Love")
The Yogi bookcase houses countless age-old books as new and abundant in knowledge and insights, techniques, and interpretation. But such a book, which seems to have been written with a clear mind and an open heart, has not yet been stored in it. "To eat, to pray, to love" the book of journalist and writer Elizabeth Gilbert that she also practices yoga and pious meditation is a miracle work - since it is oil in the bones of readers who are at the beginning or in the midst of spiritual work and even able to penetrate into such hearts that they do not have at all,
And for evidence, this book sold five million copies in its English version and a few weeks after the printing of the Hebrew translation (published by Kinneret Zamora Pavilion), which went straight to the tables of the bestsellers. The rights of the book's filmography, so the writer's site is removed www.elizabethgilbert.com they've already been sold to a Hollywood company that intends to produce a film starring Julia Roberts.
And yet it is necessary to remove from it the emerging suspicion of everything that seems to be another of those new-age American treatises that tend to flatten, dilute and sweeten the complex and deep message, in which the Western author tries to weave in his lifestyle Oriental mystical doubtful ornaments. The commercial success of" Eat, Pray, Love " does not in any way detract from its quality and greatness.
This is a personal travel diary that is beautifully written and imprisoned together in literary genres. He is also a travel book and a record of memories, he combines new journalistic writing with motifs of romantic comedy, his tone is taken straight from the genre of Navy catchy (girls literature) but it can also be found in articles published in the American Journal Yoga Journal.
To say this simply, Gilbert is a true yogic writer, as she manages to combine separate worlds and internal conflicts and bring them into Unity. The plot of the book is interpreted over a year during which Natasha connects her life in America and went in search of herself after the crash of her marriage. Equipped with the advance received from the publisher in exchange for the book to be written, she divided her journey into three countries in each which she spent four months – Italy, India and Indonesia. In each of the cultures in which she lived, she learned what this culture has to offer: the delight of the senses, the seclusion, and the spiritual deepening and the talent to balance them.
Gilbert's voice is unique. This is the voice of a woman who has lost and found herself. Honestly and honestly, she describes how her life fell into a depression culminating in an ugly and obsessive divorce struggle that resulted in unhappiness which led to clinical depression and drug treatment. The process of rehabilitation to which she set out is the realization of a desire to fulfill her most simple and exciting aspirations. To live in Rome, for example, to learn and speak Italian, not because this language is necessary for her, but solely because the Italian fills her with the joy of life.
Gilbert is a heroine who simultaneously evokes identification and inspiration. Throughout the entire length of the book, she looks with a piercing and amused look at her experiences, thoughts, and feelings in an attempt to descend to the meaning of the suffering she experienced. Her starting point is well known: she allegedly has everything, but in fact, she has nothing. And this thing, which she is looking for, is the ability to listen to herself. And not only to listen to, too but also to hear, clearly and clearly what her heart is trying to tell her in her joys and sorrows.
The practice of Yogi training is present in all its glory in Gilbert's writing as it is visibly striving to find the way to make her mundane life meaningful and to remove from her consciousness the distractions, in order to find the point of launch between who she would like to be and who she really is. Thus, during the period of accession to Ashram in India, the master whose name she does not disclose, who advocates meditation training based on memorizing mantras, comes to a small and warning insight that helps her in the process of freeing herself.
During this episode, readers who practice yoga persistently will find it particularly fascinating and instructive, Gilbert tells about her great fantasy - to become a woman capable of barricading for days on end in her silence. To most frustration, it is a fantasy whose realization is not within its reach, since the author is, for her testimony, a chatty, sociable, pleasure-loving girl, preoccupied with doubts and other obsessive and restless thoughts that struggles with self-indulgence during meditations and the singing of mantras.
Months of torment pass until Gilbert comes to the heartfelt recognition that if God wanted to create it in the form of a floating and heavenly nun who does not spread her mouth, he probably would not have created it as it is.
The dialogue of the heroine "Eat, Pray, Love" With God is the thread on which the beads from which the book is made are threaded. This is not just a metaphor. The book reads excerpts, 109 in number, as the number of beads threaded on the "Mala Jaffa" necklace of beads of Hindu prayer. In each such string, there are 108 beads and one more bead that is located outside the circle. The collection of these stories also connects a small and complete cycle of life that teaches the heroine to pray for what she calls the God that is within her, we were the same inner voice that emanates from the heart and has the power to direct us to choose what is really good for us.
In order to absorb the frequency at which this sound is transmitted, the worshiper needs to remove the disruptions of absorption from the path. For this purpose, it is required on the one hand to find out what stickiness is and on the other to study the principles of activation of forgiveness, patience, and avoidance of judgment. The discovery and breadth of her heart manifested in the willingness to truly share her journey impressions with others, yielding at least an enlightening text for those who advocate as the writer in the desire to lead a life that fleshly and spiritual coexist in them.
In the end, Gilbert's story is the story of the journey that can always be started but he himself never ends. What she has to offer to both sides – those who look from the outside on self-search campaigns and those who look from the inside-is the intimate, bold, and yet modest study she conducted with herself. A study that brings up wise, entertaining, and most beneficial findings for both frequent travelers and casual tourists.
