Eat, Pray, Love

never again have any emotions attached to the memory of him. It’s just that this ritual on the rooftop had finally given me a pl ...

61 Richard from Texas left today. Flew back to Austin. I took the drive with him to the airport, and we were both sad. We stood ...

And then Richard spoke again, snapping my thoughts back quickly to the world’s more ba- sic realities: “After all, baby, remembe ...

62 On my ride back to the Ashram, after seeing Richard off at the airport, I decide that I’ve been talking too much. To be hones ...

On the drive back to the Ashram, I really let myself dip into a fantasy about just how silent I am going to become now. I will b ...

63 The next morning I was down on my knees in the temple, scrubbing the marble floor again, emanating (I imagined) a holy radian ...

64 This was so obviously another one of Swamiji’s jokes. You wanted to be The Quiet Girl in the Back of the Temple? Well, guess ...

that I will never be that character. I’ve always been so fascinated by these wraith-like, delicate souls. Always wanted to be th ...

65 What I will be hosting, to be exact, is a series of retreats to be held at the Ashram this spring. During each retreat, about ...

I can help them. I am so equipped to help. All the antennas I’ve ever sprouted throughout my lifetime that have taught me how to ...

ous mountain ranges, canyons, rivers, ocean depths, ice fields and volcanoes. He said that so many of them were missing bits of ...

66 The topic of the retreat, and its goal, is the turiya state—the elusive fourth level of human consciousness. During the typic ...

people have tried to hold on to that state of blissful perfection through all sorts of external means—through drugs and sex and ...

midst of my Key Hostess duties, wearing my name-tag and everything—I am suddenly trans- ported through the portal of the univers ...

67 As a reader and seeker, I always get frustrated at this moment in somebody else’s spiritual memoirs—that moment in which the ...

ing at an optical illusion for a long time, straining your eyes to decode the trick, and suddenly your cognizance shifts and the ...

er—there’s the face, there are the lines around the mouth, there are the eyebrows—yes, now it is finished: there is a picture of ...

68 The retreat ended two days later, and everyone came out of silence. I got so many hugs from people, thanking me for having he ...

surreal and physical experiences of shakti—all spine-twisting, blood-boiling wildness. I try to give in to it with as little res ...

I kissed it with such passion. I mean, I kissed that tree with all my heart, not even thinking at the time that this is the wors ...