Balancing Eat, Pray and Love :)

The moment I read “Eat, Pray, Love “ book by Elizabeth Gilbert remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 187 weeks, I decided this is going to be my next book to-read, as I got to know they have filmed a movie  with Julia Robert as the main lead I couldn’t miss a chance to watch the movie and I finally did it yesterday.

The story is about Elizabeth Gilbert, a successful writer with a secured life in her 30’s realizes she was unhappy in her marriage; she gets divorced and embarks on a journey towards Italy, India and Bali. Her journey leads to the realization of enjoying life, spirituality and figuring out the balance of both and learns the importance of eat, pray and love.

Few beautiful lines :

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.”

The way you feed your brain is the way you are eventually forced to act. Our thoughts create us and I see how important it is to carefully feed one’s mind with selective thoughts. I frequently witness the need of selecting and nurturing my thoughts. If I think my life is miserable, I end up being miserable but if I think my life has to be fun, I start finding ways to make it happy. The better you choose your thoughts the better you perform.

“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”

This is what Bhagavad Gita says. Life with flaws is beautiful. What would you explore if it was perfect? Life with imperfection adds quality to living.

Pretending to live someone else’s life is surrendering ones uniqueness to the assumption of perfection and most of the times perfection snatches away the chance of growing. Living someone else’s life is as equivalent as leaving one’s.

 “You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”

Is my mind a master? Or a slave? This reminds me of a quote by Robin Sharma “The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.” I am sure we all have tough times taming our minds. It’s easy to surrender to the weak emotions than to fight against it. I always felt it comforting, it sure was comforting to be a slave of my mind but it feels wonderful to master thoughts and emotions and act accordingly.

 “God dwells within you, as you.”

“Does God exist?” This was the most overplayed question in my mind as a child. I never understood why we have more than billions of Gods around the world. As I grew up I started learning the system of belief. The belief which comforts you whispering “No matter what! There is someone who takes care of you.” Belief takes many forms and ways, something I believe is that there might be millions of God’s around but the God inside you is the ultimate which takes the control of you.

The movie is a well  interpreted work of  the book and Julia Robert as always adds charm to the character  but I am sure the book has lot more things to offer me. Looking forward to read it :)