Eat, Pray, Love는 그렇게 자기를 찾아 나선 30대 중반의 여자의 이야기이다. 그녀는 이혼 과정에서 너무나 힘들었고 괴로워 도망치다시피 이탈리아로 가 이탈리아어를 배우며 이탈리아 음식을 통해 삶의 기쁨을 느끼고, 인도에서는 철저한 명상을 통해 자신의 괴로움, 슬픔과 대면해 마침내 모든걸 받아들이고 인정하게 되었고, 인도네시아에서는 마침내 더욱 성숙해진 모습으로 사랑에 빠지게 마침내 진정으로 "행복"해지고 그 행복을 지켜 나갈 수 있는 힘을 기르게 된다. 

처음엔 그녀가 자신의 감정 하나하나에 너무 지나치게 민감하다는 생각이 들기도 했지만 사실 그렇게 모든 감정에 반응하는 그녀가 솔직하다는 것은 인정해야했다. 난 얼마나 내 감정을 무시하고 지나치는지. 가끔 그렇게 내 감정을 돌보지 않고 홀대하는 것도 어쩌면 나에 대한 학대의 일종일지도 모른다는 생각이 들었다. 그런 의미에서 그녀는 스스로를 참 소중히 여기고 존중할 줄 알았던 것 같다. 자신의 감정에 솔직히 반응한다는 것은 괴로우면 괴롭다고 징징대고 기쁘면 무한정 기뻐하는 것과는 다르다. 그건 그냥 감정을 표현하는 것에 불과하다. 감정에 솔직히 반응한다는 건 - 아직 직접 체험하지 않아 잘 모르겠으나 - 온전히 표현하되 왜 기쁘고 왜 괴로운지 마음 속 깊숙히 그 이유를 잘 알고 그대로 표현하는 것인 것 같다. 사실 깊이 생각해보면 우리는 가끔 이유도 제대로 모르고 그냥 멋대로 기뻐하고 괴로워할때가 놀랄만큼 많다 - 부끄럽지만 난 그런 것 같다. 

그녀처럼 꼭 이탈리아로 인도로 또 인도네시아로 가야만 그런 수련이 되고 인생을 감사히 겸허히 받아들일 수 있게 되는 건 아닐 것이다. 나만의 방법을 찾아야 하겠지만, 나도 언젠가 그녀처럼 삶을 있는 그대로 받아들이며 슬픔도 기쁨도 괴로움도 즐거움도 있는 그대로 자신있게 대면할 수 있는 삶의 용기를 배우고 싶다. 

(밑줄)

- When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

- Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course. Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous. 

- You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

- I came to Italy pinched and thin. I did not know yet what I deserved. I still maybe don't fully know what I deserve. But I do know that I have collected myself of late - through the enjoyment of harmless pleasures - into somebody much more intact. The easiest, more fundamentally human way to say it is that I have put on weight. I exist more now than I did four months ago. I will leave Italy noticeably bigger than when I arrived here. And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person - the magnificence of one life - is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody's but my own.

- We are miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: "You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not."

- Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personally and then to hold on to that experience forever. Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek, instead, a place of eternal presence from which you may regard yourself and your surroundings with poise. Only from that point of even-mindedness will the true nature of the world (and yourself) be revealed to you. True Yogis, from their seat of equipoise, see all this world as an equal manifestation of God's creative energy - men, women, children, turnips, bedbugs, coral; it's all God in disguise. 

- But the Yogis believe a human life life is a very special opportunity, because only in a human form and only with a human mind can God-realization ever occur. The turnips, the bedbugs, the coral - they never get a chance to find out who they really are. But we do have that chance. 

- "Our whole business therefore in this life," wrote Saint Augustine, rather Yogically, "is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen."

- The word "guru" is composed of two Sanskrit syllables. The first means "darkness", the second means "light". Out of the darkness and into the light. 

- There is a theory that if you yearn sincerely enough for a Guru, you will find one. The universe will shift, destiny's molecules will get themselves organized and your path will soon intersect with the path of the master you need. 

- You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead. 

- The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go.

- There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. "How much do you love me?" And "Who's in charge?" Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering. 

- Groceries, you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. Drop everything else but that. Because if you can't learn to master your thinking, you're in deep trouble forever.

- What Richard is talking about is admitting to the existence of negative thoughts, understanding where they came from and why they arrived, and then - with great forgiveness and fortitude - dismissing them....So I've started being vigilant about watching my thoughts all day, and monitoring them. I repeat this vow about 700 times a day: "I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore." 

- Instructions for Freedom:

1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions

2. You have just climbed up and above the roof. There is nothing between you and the Infinite. Now, let go.

3. The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.

4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer. Your being here is God's response. Let go, and watch the stars come out - on the outside and on the inside. 

5. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go.

6. With all your heart, forgive him, FORGIVE YOURSELF, and let him go.

7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go.

8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cool night. Let go.

9. When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.

10. When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.

- People follow different paths, straight or crooked, according to their temperament, depending on which they consider best, or most appropriate - and all reach You, just as rivers enter the ocean.

- The best we can do in response to our incomprehensible and dangerous world, is to practice holding equilibrium internally - no matter what insanity is transpiring out there.

- Imagine that the universe is a great spinning engine. You want to stay near the core of the thing - right in the hub of the wheel - not out at the edges where all the wild whirling takes place, where you get can frayed and crazy. The hub of calmness - that's your heart. That's where God lives within you. So stop looking for answers in the world. Just keep coming back to that center and you'll always find peace. 

- He says the human body is made of nothing more or less than the five elements of all creation - water (apa), fire (tejo), wind (bayu), sky (akasa), and earth (pritiwi) - and all you have to do is concentrate on this reality during meditation and you will receive energy from all of these sources and you will stay strong. 

- The microcosm becomes the macrocosm. You - microcosm - will become same as universe - macrocosm.

- I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And 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, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. 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. 

- The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

- I never thought to ask a suitor the same challenging questions my father might have asked him, in a different age. I have given myself away in love many times, merely for the sake of love. If I am to truly become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian. Gloria Steinem once advised women that they should strive to become like the men they had always wanted to marry. What I've only recently realized is that I not only have to become my own ideal husband, but I need to be my own father, too.