Throughout my reading of this best-selling spiritual memoir
I could not decide whether I hated it or I liked it. The first 40 pages are
quite difficult. Like a stereotypical teenage girl, she talks about her feelings
for a cute Italian guy. Does she really want to break the promise she made to
herself to remain celibate? She decides not to break her promise. She is happy
the next morning that she didn’t give in.
After describing this horribly difficult decision to keep it
in her pants, she complains about the last year or so of her marriage. Apparently
she had decided that at the age of 30, she would *gasp* decide to be a mother. As
30 loomed near, she changed her mind and came to the conclusion she couldn’t
give up her traveling and career for a child. She further more decided she
could no longer be married. To her credit, she does not disclose any of the
specific problems she and her spouse had, but she does seem to dwell on how
much it hurt her.
Maybe I’m being too self-righteous, maybe I should go to
confession after writing this blog, but I:
1) Don’t approve of having sex with a cute Italian guy to whom you are not
married.
2) I don’t appreciate the dichotomy she sets up between being a mother and
having a career. It’s not an either/or situation. Nor is giving up a career for
children an ignoble thing to do.
3) Her lack of details about the reasoning behind the divorce makes it
sound as if it’s another one of those cases where they “fell out of love.” That
is a poor reason for a divorce and I hope my impression is inaccurate.
Now to the confessional:
All of that said, after her divorce and a whirlwind affair
that ends terribly, she decides she needs to travel to Italy (to experience pleasure and learn the
language), India (to find
spirituality with her guru) and Indonesia
(to fulfill the prophecy of a medicine man).
Over all, the rest of the book is much better than those
first 40 pages. She does from time to time dwell on those shallow, stereotypical
female problems, namely her weight and men. At those times a reader such as
myself will get the urge to throw the book across the room. There is more to
life, and there is definitely more to the female psyche, than worrying about
our looks or men.
The non-shallow part of the book that interested me most was
her time in the ashram in India.
Now for a bit of personal interjection: I practiced Buddhism
for about 3 years before converting to Neo-paganism before converting to
Catholicism. In my undergraduate studies, I more or less specialized in both
Christian studies and Eastern Religions. Now, back to your regular reading.
There are many people at the ashram from many different
nationalities and walks of life. Their typical day includes getting up at 3:30
AM to chant, hours of independent and group meditation, and a few hours of
labor for discipline and to keep the place going. The ashram is a hub in the
town where it is located, it provides much of the town’s jobs and income. People
from the town go there to meditate and show respect.
This section about her life in the ashram includes a very
good exploration of distraction and forcing in meditation. She feels like a
failure because she can’t come to some kind of enlightenment even though she
had been meditating and practicing yoga for years. A straight talking Texan
gives her some good advice: quit fighting the mind, distract it. Also,
a monk tells her that the mind just needs some rest. She comes close to her
goal when she decides to no longer fight the mind, but to ignore it.
This is also good advice for anyone of any religious
persuasion engaging in prayer or meditation. Do not fight distraction because
that will only breed more distraction and stress. For example, when something
pops into your mind when praying the rosary: Don’t fight against it or beat
yourself up for being a bad Catholic. I believe that when something pops into
my mind, it’s God’s way of telling me I need to pray about it. So I pray about
it and let it go. The rosary is the perfect prayer for the Texan’s advice
because you have many aspects of it to distract your “monkey mind” with (the
beads, the prayers, the meditations…).
By the way, she does give an accurate, and interesting
explination for “kundalini shakti” in chapter 46.
She continues to battle with distractions and boy troubles,
with increasing maturity and wisdom. The gems of good advice continue: the
Texan teaches her to be patient with herself, a monk challenges her to
participate in a chant that she does not like, she fights and wins against her
negative self-talk through positive thinking and prayer, she learns to see
things through the lenses of eternity, and she tries and fails to fight against her
outgoing nature. It is when she embraces her unique personality is when she
finally has the elusive experience of bliss, “turiya.”
The entire section about her time in India is makes
reading the whole book worth the effort. It is the deepest part of the book.
There is something worthwhile for everyone, regardless of where you are in your
spiritual journey.
At the end of her story, it’s a man (who worships the ground
she walks on) who carries her off into the sunset. This is a very disappointing
ending to the book. She becomes mature and wise through her journey in India. Instead
of finding her ultimate fulfillment in God, however, she finds it in a man who
idolizes her. A man with whom she can talk to and have sex with for days on
end. A relationship that tramples all of her other responsibilities in Bali.
Sounds like the perfect romance in our culture which values physical pleasure
and “all about me.” And so this book starts with every bad stereotype involving
women, gets better toward the middle, and then ends with “every woman’s dream.”
What do you think? Am I being self-righteous? Am I being too
picky? What are your experiences with meditation and prayer?
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