Eat, Pray, Love

change during my stay at the Ashram. I’d hoped that putting it in an Indian context would
cause me to learn how to love the thing. In fact, the opposite has happened. Over the few
weeks that I’ve been here, my feelings about the Gurugita have shifted from simple dislike to
solid dread. I’ve started skipping it and doing other things with my morning that I think are
much better for my spiritual growth, like writing in my journal, or taking a shower, or calling my
sister back in Pennsylvania and seeing how her kids are doing.
Richard from Texas always busts me for skipping out. “I noticed you were absent from
The Geet this morning,” he’ll say, and I’ll say, “I am communicating with God in other ways,”
and he’ll say, “By sleeping in, you mean?”
But when I try to go to the chant, all it does is agitate me. I mean, physically. I don’t feel
like I’m singing it so much as being dragged behind it. It makes me sweat. This is very odd
because I tend to be one of life’s chronically cold people, and it’s cold in this part of India in
January before the sun comes up. Everyone else sits in the chant huddled in wool blankets
and hats to stay warm, and I’m peeling layers off myself as the hymn drones on, foaming like
an overworked farm horse. I come out of the temple after the Gurugita and the sweat rises off
my skin in the cold morning air like fog—like horrible, green, stinky fog. The physical reaction
is mild compared to the hot waves of emotion that rock me as I try to sing the thing. And I
can’t even sing it. I can only croak it. Resentfully.
Did I mention that it has 182 verses?
So a few days ago, after a particularly yucky session of chanting, I decided to seek advice
from my favorite teacher around here—a monk with a wonderfully long Sanskrit name which
translates as “He Who Dwells in the Heart of the Lord Who Dwells Within His Own Heart.”
This monk is American, in his sixties, smart and educated. He used to be a classical theater
professor at NYU, and he still carries himself with a rather venerable dignity. He took his mon-
astic vows almost thirty years ago. I like him because he’s no-nonsense and funny. In a dark
moment of confusion about David, I’d once confided my heartache to this monk. He listened
respectfully, offered up the most compassionate advice he could find, and then said, “And
now I’m kissing my robes.” He lifted a corner of his saffron robes and gave a loud smack.
Thinking this was probably some super-arcane religious custom, I asked what he was doing.
He said, “Same thing I always do whenever anyone comes to me for relationship advice. I’m
just thanking God I’m a monk and I don’t have to deal with this stuff anymore.”
So I knew I could trust him to let me speak frankly about my problems with the Gurugita.
We went for a walk in the gardens together one night after dinner, and I told him how much I
disliked the thing and asked if he could please excuse me from having to sing it anymore. He
immediately started laughing. He said, “You don’t have to sing it if you don’t want to. Nobody
around here is ever going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”