Wednesday, July 7, 2010

EPL: To know this world and God

I am reading Elizabeth Gilbert's wonderful book, "Eat, Pray, Love." Every day, I feel inspired to write after reading some of her book. But the problem is, I am stuck in the middle of my workday and lunch is over and there ain't no way I can be blogging in this job! So I will spend a few posts giving you the highlights of her words which affect me. Today, I'd like to share this word image:

(excerpt from ch. 8, in which she asks a ninth-generation Balinese medicine man in Indonesia for the desires of her heart)

"...'what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.'

Ketut said he could answer my question with a picture. He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flowers. There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart.

'To find the balance you want,' Ketut spoke through his translator, 'this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.'"


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