Eat, Pray, Love

I joined him the following Tuesday night. Far from being freaked out by these regu-
lar-looking people singing to God, I instead felt my soul rise diaphanous in the wake of that
chanting. I walked home that night feeling like the air could move through me, like I was clean
linen fluttering on a clothes-line, like New York itself had become a city made of rice pa-
per—and I was light enough to run across every rooftop. I started going to the chants every
Tuesday. Then I started meditating every morning on the ancient Sanskrit mantra the Guru
gives to all her students (the regal Om Namah Shivaya, meaning, “I honor the divinity that
resides within me”). Then I listened to the Guru speak in person for the first time, and her
words gave me chill bumps over my whole body, even across the skin of my face. And when I
heard she had an Ashram in India, I knew I must take myself there as quickly as possible.
Eat, Pray, Love