I've been submerged in another book, this one so good that many times in the reading of it I have wanted to share some of my favorite passages with you even before finishing it. But a moment ago I regretfully put it down, having read the last page and wishing there were more.The full title is "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert, an author who has all the best qualities of the best women writers I've ever read...wry humor, freewheeling joy and deepest sorrow all transcribed in vivid metaphors. She travels the way I'd like to do, spending weeks and months in her favorite places until they and the people who inhabit them become part of her. Leaving behind the frenetic life of a New Yorker, she devotes a year of her life to exploration of the outer world and her inner self, beginning with a pleasure-seeking tour of Italy to learn Italian before going on to an ashram in India to learn meditation and yoga and later to Bali for an extended visit with an Indonesian medicine man.
On learning Italian: "He didn't realize I spoke Italian. Neither did I, actually, but we talk for about twenty minutes and I realize for the first time that I do. Some line has been crossed and I'm actually speaking Italian now." Ah, that lightbulb moment when communication becomes natural. That moment I'm still hoping for.
On her struggle to learn meditation in the ashram: "I can't seem to get my mind to hold still. I mentioned this once to an Indian monk, and he said, 'It's a pity you're the only person in the history of the world who ever had this problem.'" And when she succeeds: "Thoughts come, but I don't pay much attention to them, other than to say to them in an almost motherly manner, 'Oh, I know you jokers... go outside and play now... Mommy's listening to God.'"
On happiness: "...once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever... It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments...
This is a practice I've come to call 'Diligent Joy.'... All the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people... The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world."