Kamis, 12 November 2009

Eat, Pray, Love

Reading a Book
Book Title Eat, Pray, Love
By Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher Bloomsburry, London
Printed in 2006
349 pages

Known that several weeks ago Julia Roberts (you know who) has visited Bali for a film shooting titled Eat, Pray, Love, based on a book with same title, reminded me that I was given the same book by a good friend about last year.

I remember she shared her experience reading the book, the Italy part, namely when Elizabeth Gilbert (Liz), the writer of this book, went to a city name Naples, her Italian friend suggested her to eat pizzeria in Naples because it sold the best pizza. Given that the best pizza in Italy is from Naples and the best pizza in the world is from Italy, so she ate…the best pizza in the world. What a superstitious! (Remember this part, Amy? Haha..)

Then I started to read this little with tiny font letters book. And I like this it so much. Very simple and lovely. And feminine too. I love the introductory Liz made. She wrote an unpretentious yet personal background why she decided to make a travel to three countries, which is Italy, India, Indonesia, after her misery divorce –and she didn’t understand why she decided that because she was still love her husband-, and also why she put 36 stories aside for each one. It might reflect her originality, in western way.

So this is my notes.

Italy part

Italy is all about food. Liz went to this country because she loved all things about it and she really wanted to learn the language. For that purpose, she by accident met Italian twin brothers whom one of them became her Italian teacher. I admire the way Liz tells stories in funny way, such as when she had absorbed her meal, and she sat happily in a patch of sunbeam on a wooden floor, reading her daily newspaper in Italian, then all at a sudden, a thought came to her, her husband saying: “So this is what you gave up everything for? This is why you gutted our entire life together? For a few stalks of asparagus and an Italian newspaper?” And her answer to that question was: “Yes!”

When accompanied her friend and his friends watching their favorite soccer team, she told a story on how people in Italy is very fanatic with their soccer team to an expression: “We can change our wives, we can change our jobs, our nationalities, and even our religion, but we can never change our team”. She wrote in interesting way why she likes Italian word attraversiamo (let’s cross over); explaining her Italian teacher’s experiencing English term ‘I have been there’. Or playing words such as sex is word for Rome, power for Vatican, achieve for New York, and for Liz herself, always changing, like seek for last week, pleasure for yesterday, devotion for the whole week. Something like that.

India part: Turiya state

Liz proceed to India and most of the time here she lived in an Ashram somewhere. In this part she wrote lots of beautiful spiritual experiences regarding of her deep longing for seeking God. She really has an open-minded heart, worshiped her Guru unconditionally, and gave a good ear to every things suggested.

In the ashram she was given a regular job, scrubbing the marble floor every day, where she met with Tulsi, a poor Indian girl who was adapted and taken care by the ashram, and she got amazed to what the girl’s dream after been living in this quiet place, that she doesn’t want to marry to anyone and that she really wanted to go to Hawaii. She revealed her truly desperate on chanting the 182 verses of Gurugita chant, which is written in impenetrable Sanskrit, but experienced a spiritual hit after tried to keep doing it many times, that she incredibly found a way to chant the complete verses, all at once, and amazed on how she could have benefit from doing it.

My favorite part is when she wrote about the core of meditation into simple thoughts and shared her personal experiences doing it. The most brilliant one for me is when she was assigned to be a Key Hostess, person in charge to take care hundreds of people coming from all the world to have a retreat in that ashram. She explained about the goal of the retreat, that is turiya state, the fourth level of human consciousness, a state of constant bliss, which is not affected by the swinging moods of the mind, nor fearful of time, or harmed by loss. What a state!

Indonesia part: Wayan and Ketut: reflections of Bali

Going to Bali is her second time. She came back here because of her obsession to a statement said by a Balinese healer who gave her a ten-minute of palm-reading, saying that she will come to Bali again and live with his family. To her surprise, after meeting him for the second time he was hardly recognize her. But she made herself happy all the time.

She made a refresh friendship with a young Javanese who was pitiably deported from the USA after the black September even though he has married to an American woman. And in her four months living in Ubud gave her such an understanding to what is really going on with the country. She saw there was no other way than to agree on bribing in immigration office so that she could obtain her four-month visa. And from her friendship with Wayan, a medicine woman, she could see a reflection of Balinese women who have to work hard to make a living for the whole family and have no security guarantee and bargaining power when she could not give a child to her husband. From Ketut Liyer, that familiar Balinese healer, she got another revelation. He kept telling Liz to let her friends in the US come visiting him for a palm-reading because now he is very empty in his bank since the bomb.

Yet in Ubud she found her love.

Ita Siregar, November 2009

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