My thoughts on Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
This was a doozy of a book. I began reading it out of curiosity, then decided I could not relate to the author about half-way into the first section, and then became thoroughly absorbed in the book in the second section and felt almost winded by the time I finished the book. I think this book will either be loved by readers, or it will leave others having trouble getting all the way through it.

This book is about one person exploring her 3 deepest passions: hedonism (eating), spirituality, (austerity), and contentment (finding a balance between the two). I wish I had thought of this idea for a book. I share her passions, although my specifics are different, and I share her value for balancing the passions of "this world" and the passions of the spirit. Some people don't feel this tension, but I do, and I saw myself in many of her internal struggles.

I have been reading some other reviews of this book and I am struck by some people's negative reactions to the spiritual details in the book. Some reviews say that "the book lags in the middle". I could not possibly disagree more. Her spiritual issues were at the core of this book, and she described her spiritual struggles beautifully. I can't imagine the book being written without her describing her spiritual struggles in her frank and honest way. She describes her love of food using almost religious language, and she compares her meditation experiences to food she ate in Sicily. Her passions intertwine with each other like a vine.

What really appealed to me about the author is the fact that she is obviously educated but she interacts with spiritual topics directly from her heart, and not her mind. One reviewer complained that she finds overly-simple contentment in deep questions that have baffled greater minds than hers. But this is exactly what I like about her. You can read hundreds of deep, complex books about prayer or pasta, for example, but this is very distinct from the practice of prayer itself, or of eating pasta itself. I can read abstract details about these topics in other books, but I am more interested in how people directly experience these things. How do you experience meditation viscerally? How do you personally experience the pleasure of eating, or of meditation, or of a passionate love-affair? I can read about the details and doctrine elsewhere, but if peace-of-mind is the goal then personal experience is more valuable than books written by the smartest minds.

But, despite my admiration for her direct approach to these things, I was bothered by her conclusions to her spiritual struggles. Near the end of her stay in India she thinks of all the different religions in the world and she says that "all religions are like countless rivers emptying into the same ocean of God". I couldn't help but compare this to her time in Italy and imagine her saying that "all food is the same, emptying into the same stomach". All foods are not the same. Coca Cola and wine are not the same. And a tradition that says there is a God, and a tradition that says there is no God, are not the same either. Denying real differences is psychologically soothing, but I don't think it is real.

Meditation can be very powerful. I have experienced some of what she describes, in limited ways. Quieting the mind and focusing inward can produce a very real physical and emotional reaction, but I don't know how to distinguish sensation from what lies behind the sensation. How do I know I am not just stimulating my own mind?

I sometimes compare this to how people experience Art.

When I walk into an art museum, I experience what I see with a certain personal sense of mystery. I am attracted to one painting and I don't like another painting. I can take these personal experiences and conclude that there is no "correct way" to experience Art. All art is the same, there is no real difference between a painting by Michelangelo and graffiti painted on a subway wall, right? What matters is how I experience Art. There should be no "doctrine" to Art, no over-arching narrative to be imposed upon the viewer.

But Art has a narrative surrounding it. Art has its own "doctrine", an official path along which it is expected to be followed, and this path is not blind. My initial reaction to Picasso is incomplete. I need to "look behind" his paintings to learn what his ideas were, what he wrote about, what the world was like when he lived. What were his intentions when he painted a picture, and how have these intentions been re-interpreted over time by his followers?

When I learn these things I realize that there is a very real difference between one kind of art and another. Subway graffiti is not the same as Impressionism. And this is not just a question of personal taste. The differences are real and are more objective than just personal reaction, and I blind myself to these real differences if I instead sit in the museum and stare at paintings all day long, simply absorbing them with no understanding of them.

The author says that "Prayer is the act of talking to God, and Meditation is the act of listening". So very true, but should we pay attention to the answer, or let ourselves be hypnotized by the voice we hear? Meditation runs the risk of self-hypnosis, and this is what I wonder about when I read her conclusion to her spiritual issues.

I got the feeling that this is how she resolved her spiritual issues. She enjoyed the experience and she absorbed it, but she didn't "look behind" it. I can't criticize this approach too much, since I understand it, but I feel that anyone who wants to understand either Art or Religion should not stop at just the subjective experience. They need to pay attention to the Narrative that surrounds each topic, and recognize the reality of the different answers. Experience needs to be balanced by understanding, equally.

This is my one big disagreement with all Eastern religions: All is not One. All is Two. There is a real difference between good and evil, between light and dark, between Mother Theresa and the Taliban. Pretending that all of this is "One" is simply an inaccurate view of reality. It is not a question of personal taste. All spiritual traditions have their own beauty, just as Medieval paintings and subway graffiti are both beautiful in their own way, but they are not the same.

So, I disagree with the author's conclusions, but I can very much relate to her approach to spiritual struggles. She describes her Protestant upbringing, and I couldn't help but visualize the typical spiritual "discipline" of the average American Protestant. For many Midwestern Baptists, their spiritual peak is a Sunday afternoon potluck, eating with the community. But for the person practicing Yoga to balance her inner turmoil, her spiritual peak is sitting in a cave and meditating for several hours until she feels a wave of peace envelop her body and heart. The 2 outlooks on religion could not possibly be more different, and I very much related to her approach than to her upbringing.

The conclusion to the book was almost like an epilogue to the middle of the book. She finds love in Bali, and she experiences the rush of emotional rapture and sexual passion as almost a metaphor for the balance she has been seeking. It was an almost storybook ending to her saga, and I was happy for her. What could be more balanced than sex and spiritual peace experienced together?

I see now that she has written a second book, on the history of marriage. At the end of Eat, Pray, Love she says she never wants to marry again, but apparently she was forced to make this choice as a result of immigration problems with her lover. So she researched the history of marriage, and spoke with many people about their personal feelings and experiences on this institution, and collected it all into a book, and then she married again. I want to read this second book.

Anyway, I really liked this first book. Part of my interest is gender-based. She writes with a very self-aware female perspective. Some of her expressions and comparisons would never be written by a male author, and I liked seeing things from her female perspective. Parts of it reminded me of when I saw the performance of "The Vagina Monologues" with Michelle. Listening to women confidently talk about personal issues is a very interesting learning experience, which every male can learn from...!

I give the book 3.5 stars out of 4.