‘Eat Pray Love’, Spirituality and Enlightenment. Is it just for girls?

I’ve read a few books about spiritual journeys and gurus. The only thing I’ve become convinced about from reading their books is it seems to be a long hard journey with no guarantees of a definite outcome and no real knowledge of what the outcome is or ‘should be’. I recently read ‘Eat Pray Love’ by Liz Gilbert – it sparked some thoughts about my journey and my beliefs.

I share these with you in the knowledge that: beliefs are easy to change (that’s a belief), are transient and are largely responsible for creating your reality. My words are written with little first hand knowledge of what often gets described as spiritual practice, and with plenty of observation of those who do practice (and write about it). Through my own journey, I have learned how to find relative peace and let go of the negative ‘chatterbox’ or ‘monkey mind’.

Now I don’t claim to be a very spiritual person, or to want to be – I’d rather just be authentic. My partner, Diane, has said the opposite, that I am very spiritual… Who knows, who cares? It’s just a label. I’ve known many people who actively seek spirituality as some kind of sanctuary from their other ‘real’ world. If you buy into living in the moment, the power of now, then your sanctuary is real while you are there, and its absence, or the absence of very spiritual feelings is also real when you are not there. Unfortunately, not being there for so many people is a frustrating and painful place to ‘be’.

If you feel the need to escape, then this is what we call an ‘away from’. We often need powerful, almost debilitating ‘away froms’ in order to have sufficient motivation to make change. However, to see change through to a much better alternative, there needs to be an equally powerful ‘towards’ motivation and vision for your future. When you can step into that future, it can become your new reality in the moment.

To me, detachment and enlightenment are polar opposites. Surely an ideal and enlightened life could be easy, not hard, or necessarily devoted? Requiring discipline yes, involving the sacrifice of vices that hold you back, but not abstinence on a grand scale. Gilbert describes devotion as “diligence without assurance” – a kind of blind faith. I fear all too often it is the blind leading the blind… You can choose to have faith in yourself and in ‘the process of life’. To me this is not very far removed from being rational, may be slightly instinctual and intuitive. It is a long way removed from the kind of irrational ‘blind’ faith of many doctrines. Sure, use rituals if they help, but only if they help you embrace life as opposed to hide from it.

It seems to me that enlightenment “should” be something that you carry easily with you at all times, rather than some place, a nirvana that you go to as some kind of escape from that other world that you occupy. Just look at the word ‘avoid’ – a void – are you simply escaping to nothing. Sure it can represent a respite. Is it really a valid, authentic long term solution? Or simply a different kind of jail.

I keep seeing teachers claiming that you can step into enlightenment in a moment and that your level of enlightenment is measured by the number of moments that you spend in enlightenment. They tell me that it is possible to move from a place of pain and suffering to a place of enlightenment. Personally, I think this is a bit of a con. Are you conning yourself?

Here’s how I see it. Your pain and suffering is largely self-inflicted. It is actually a choice, however, the choice only becomes clear and real when you understand and accept that there is a credible alternative. Now for me, the credible alternative is not avoidance, escapism, meditation, satsangs etc. At best these are just possible tools that you can use to help find your true, higher self (but not the answer, not your higher self), at worst they are pure escapism, a surreal distraction. The pain and suffering are lessons, which once you accept them as such, lead to genuine growth of you as a person, they are part of the experience of human being. It does seem as though ’the universe’ continues to gives us these lessons until we ‘get it’. I do not believe that human ‘being’ is that permanently meditative ‘escape’ state.

Real human ‘being’ is being an expression of your true self, one that requires you to let go of fear and limiting beliefs; to let go of the need for escapism, be it though worldly addictions or more meta-physical ‘trips’ satsangs etc. Being your true self is about taking action, it is about being authentic, it is about acting (actually its about not acting, but keeping it real) from a place of love and trust, not fear of judgement or fear of not being good enough. It is about acting out your values as an expression of your true self. I admit that for most of us, choosing to express our true values will feel like an act to start with, as it is such unfamiliar territory.

So, the choice that I mentioned, for me is a choice to ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®’ as we teach on our workshops, stepping through your inauthentic and egoic ‘lower self’ to take massive action as an expression of your higher self, your true values, your dreams, the best of you…

I look upon life’s journey and the journey of self-development or spiritual development as one of increasing awareness and acceptance. It is a kind of ascention, stepping up through increasingly higher calibrations of emotional and energetic states, rather like rungs of a ladder. What I all too frequently seek is (rather too) desperate seekers of some kind of spiritual salvation, trying to take short cuts, jumping the whole ladder, only to slither down a long snake, back to the place they are running away from.  Their fears sabotage the temporary nirvana and ‘monopolise’ their heads – go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200… to continue the analogy.

As you move your calibration steadily up the ladder, you are moving your average point of emotional and energetic calibration. By doing so, as your natural range or variation in emotions shifts, you are also moving up the base level, your lowest point of calibration. As a coaching client said to me only yesterday, “It’s like a ratchet, each time I slip, I go to a higher base/place than before”.

Here’s two different perspectives – you can diminish, downside and disempower your ego, or as Debbie Ford would say, embrace it and merge it with your higher self. Do what ever works for you, just don’t be a slave to it.

So if you are bored with board games, there is this alternative. For me, it could well be that the ultimate destination of this ascention is the same, I am just drawn to what for me is a more authentic path, one full of growth, humility and humanity.

Back to the book… I loved the honesty of ‘Eat Pray Love’ and the credibility of the some of the advice from Elizabeth Gilbert’s gurus. The way that she writes is refreshingly honest, her feelings laid bare, and also very funny and expressive. It’s definitely not just a book for girls!

Elizabeth embarks on a year’s journey into her soul, through three very different experiences in Italy, India and Bali. She learns how to make choices rather than being a slave to her emotions.  Finally, she learns how to stop “brooding over the past” or “worrying about the future”. One of the gifts she receives is being present in her life. Liz learns how to ask God, the Universe, her higher self (whatever, however you wish to see it) for answers and to trust that they would come when she truly needed them. Finally, she learns how not to rely on anti-depressants, which she knows can only be a temporary answer to life’s challenges and not the solution with the learning/life lessons. Some interesting questions are asked about the nature of SEEKing enlightenment and DEVOTION to supposedly enlightening rituals.

This and other books that I have read beg the question ‘Do we need a guru?’. I certainly feel that we generally need guidance out and away from our lower selves. This does present us with the opportunity to connect with our inner guru, the higher self, at which point for me, over reliance on any external guru is likely to become counter productive and dependent or co-dependent.

There are many brilliant passages in ‘Eat Pray Love’. Here’s a link to just a few of my favourites. Do go and read the book.

Note: ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®’ is a registered trademark of Susan Jeffers, PhD, used with express permission, under licence.