So when I saw "Eat, Pray, Love" on the free movie section of my flight, I decided I should watch it so at least I have a witty and informed response to people when they bring it up. Though I agree with the movie reviews that it was at best mediocre and the main character flat, I found there were moments where I deeply related to aspects of the movie. Ultimately, its about someone deciding they were unhappy with their life and doing something to change it. It could be anything someone is unhappy about and it could be anything they do. I think the movie is about taking a leap of faith. This trip for me is a leap of faith. I have had to ask myself numerous times why am I doing this? The answer is different each time.
There is a part in the movie where the main chracter is in India at an ashram and someone asks her what she is looking for and she answers "peace". It rang for me with a tone that was deep and pure like a church bell or a singing bowl. It rang with the clarity of simple truth. Ultimately this quest is a quest for peace. I may call it enlightenment but that's a broad term often misused. I'm not looking to see G-d as I've been meditating for twenty years and I've experience the divine many times. I'm not looking to find my passion as I've already found it. I'm not looking to embrace the dark parts of myself as I've sat in silence and accepted the totality of my being. I'm not looking to re-discover my sense of wonder as I've never lost it. I am, after all, a California girl. What I am lookng for is peace. I'm not sure I've ever experience it.
In the movie, the main character doesn't know what the word of her life is and her quest is to find that word. If I had to choose a single word to express my life it would be "Passion". I've always been the girl consumed and enlivened by challenges. I've had so many amazing experiences in my life and yet contentment and peace elude me. I jump from challenge to challenge always questing for that which pushes me further. When I succeed, instead of savoring my success, I simply move to the next "Big Thing". I love that feeling of stretching myself in every capacity and I don't want to lose that but I don't want to "need" it to be happy. I am as active as I am in part because rest and relaxtion tends to make me uncomfortable.
It's fitting that I would choose such a crazy jam-packed adventure in which to find "Peace" and soe of my friends have asked me whether the course I've set for myself is a fitting one. I think perhaps there may be a different understanding of what I am looking for. I don't want to change the nature of my narrative. I love a life of challenge, passion, and creation. I've always loved a good fight and it's part of my life path to be a word warrior. I don't want to simply go to one ashram and spend six months learning to be peaceful only to re-enter the world and discover the skills don't translate. I want to find peace within the wild chaos of life. I want to shift the way I interact with the world and I realize doing this will shift things but I want to keep much of the content in my life intact.
I love my life. I love my friends and family. I love my book club, my writing club, my philosophy club, my art collective. I love my home and my housemate (bless his soul for letting me run off on this crazy adventure). I love the San Francisco Bay Area. I love my artistic and spiritual practices. I love doing humanitarian work. I'm not leaving my life behind because it makes me unhappy. I'm leaving things behind because I sense there is something wrong with my relationship to the fruits of my labors and I hope somehow by detaching myself from the world I can find that thing and that it will bring me the sense of peace I seek.
I want to look at the happiness I have found and create daily in my life and feel content. Will this trip bring me to such an illuminated state? Will visiting some of the most holy places of the world teach me how to better appreciate exactly what I have in the moment without wanting more? Enlightenment is like an onion. You keep peeling back layer after layers but the onion barely decreases in size. I got a tarot reading before I left and it said..this is just another step in the path. I thought to myself, yes, you are right. If I am lucky enough to find "peace", I will return with a different and beautiful quest that will be my next step in law school and I can't predict that quest yet because I'm here, crossing the footbridge of peace (both within and without).
Where are you? Are you in the jungle? a desert? a footbridge? a gate? What is the nature of your quest currently?
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