“Beautiful. Everything beautiful is there. Every person beautiful is there. Everything beautiful to eat is there. Everything is love there. Heaven is love” (261).
“‘You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell - the destinations - are the same thing anyway?’
‘Same in end, so better to be happy on journey’” (263).
Ketut’s views on heaven are very interesting ideas. It seems as though he is trying to say that heaven isn’t actually a place but an idea. His idea of heaven is interesting to me although difficult to comprehend. What’s most interesting about heaven being an idea is that it may be possible for people to come in contact with it during their lives as Ketut describes. I think his idea also takes God out of the equation, requiring people to rely on their own actions and their spirituality to get them to the “best” place.
The most difficult piece of this for me to understand is the idea that heaven and hell are the same place. I have always learned that “bad people” go to hell, and the good people go to heaven. To me, it is incomprehensible to think that all of these people could end up in the same place, but then, I start to think that maybe Ketut did not mean to be taken as literally as I am taking him. When he speaks of the destination being the same, he is talking about death. We will all end up dead at some point, but the way we choose to live our lives is what we leave behind us. Maybe the “destination” he is talking about is a grave, and nothing more. When I started to think this way, I went into a further examination of his ideas of heaven and hell. From this perspective, Ketut is saying that heaven and hell are places on earth. A person who commits horrible acts and runs a hurtful life will be miserable. This person will be in hell for their entire life because they will be filled with guilt, hatred, resentment, greed, and anger. A person who is selfless and kind to others will have a happy life. This person will be in heaven for their entire life because they will be filled with happiness, contentment, and joy. Even people who believe in God, heaven, and hell would do well to live by this idea and find their own heaven on earth by running a wholesome life.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Same-Same
"I think about religion, most of it is same-same...I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want" (241).
Upon coming across this idea of Ketut's, I thought about what spirituality really is and how it CAN be the same for different people, even of different religions. So with this thought, I went in search of a definition for spirituality, and what I found was that it is a "sense of interconnectedness with all living creatures" and a "way to find meaning, hope, comfort, and inner peace." The characteristics of a spiritual person include compassion, selflessness, altruism, and experience of inner peace. The most interesting idea to me was that spirituality can occur outside of religion.
When I look at it from this perspective, I think Ketut was right in describing all religion as "same-same." People have religions because they want answers, and they want to have those spiritual experiences. Others don't experience religion, but they still have beliefs. They still have the ability to be spiritual and reap the benefits of spirituality. People come across religion to explain the unexplainable. They want to have a connection with the universe and they want to feel some sort of enlightenment.
Most of Ketut's ideas make perfect sense to me, and I completely agree with his philosophy. As he continues to talk to Liz, he tells her that she should always just listen when someone wants to talk or argue about God, and maybe they are even trying to "prove" they are right. He tells her not to argue with them, which I think is excellent. Neither one of these people has the ability to prove that what they believe is true. As mentioned earlier, faith is belief in something irrational and unknown. There is no point to arguing about God or religion because nothing positive can come out of it. All that it can produce is unhappy, angry people. It could even destroy friendships. There is also a definite benefit to listening to the ideas of someone else with open ears. One can learn much about the world from the beliefs of one person. I think we all differ slightly in our beliefs, even if we are part of the same religious sect. Because of this, my interest never wanes when listening to how others think about the universe and God. Disagreement is natural and reasonable, but it should be left within your own person, and not argued upon. Religion and belief is something to be shared, not argued and proved.
Next, Ketut tells Liz to tell this other person that she agrees with him. I do not think that this is a positive thing to do because it may not be the truth. It would be better to tell that person that you are interested in learning about their beliefs without saying you agree or disagree with them. It is important to understand religions other than our own to understand the world we live in and the people around us. What I thought was most important about Ketut's idea, though, was that he told Liz to go home and "pray what [she wants]." I think this is an extremely important aspect of his belief because he did not say to pray her own religion, but to pray what she wants. When a person hears new ideas about religion from someone else, she can choose to discount them or to think about them and add them into her own life. If someone says something profound about their own religion that you would like to have in yours, add it. Prayer belongs to the person doing the praying, and that person only. That person can pray whatever he or she wants, and it is not required to go along with any certain "defined" religion.
Upon coming across this idea of Ketut's, I thought about what spirituality really is and how it CAN be the same for different people, even of different religions. So with this thought, I went in search of a definition for spirituality, and what I found was that it is a "sense of interconnectedness with all living creatures" and a "way to find meaning, hope, comfort, and inner peace." The characteristics of a spiritual person include compassion, selflessness, altruism, and experience of inner peace. The most interesting idea to me was that spirituality can occur outside of religion.
When I look at it from this perspective, I think Ketut was right in describing all religion as "same-same." People have religions because they want answers, and they want to have those spiritual experiences. Others don't experience religion, but they still have beliefs. They still have the ability to be spiritual and reap the benefits of spirituality. People come across religion to explain the unexplainable. They want to have a connection with the universe and they want to feel some sort of enlightenment.
Most of Ketut's ideas make perfect sense to me, and I completely agree with his philosophy. As he continues to talk to Liz, he tells her that she should always just listen when someone wants to talk or argue about God, and maybe they are even trying to "prove" they are right. He tells her not to argue with them, which I think is excellent. Neither one of these people has the ability to prove that what they believe is true. As mentioned earlier, faith is belief in something irrational and unknown. There is no point to arguing about God or religion because nothing positive can come out of it. All that it can produce is unhappy, angry people. It could even destroy friendships. There is also a definite benefit to listening to the ideas of someone else with open ears. One can learn much about the world from the beliefs of one person. I think we all differ slightly in our beliefs, even if we are part of the same religious sect. Because of this, my interest never wanes when listening to how others think about the universe and God. Disagreement is natural and reasonable, but it should be left within your own person, and not argued upon. Religion and belief is something to be shared, not argued and proved.
Next, Ketut tells Liz to tell this other person that she agrees with him. I do not think that this is a positive thing to do because it may not be the truth. It would be better to tell that person that you are interested in learning about their beliefs without saying you agree or disagree with them. It is important to understand religions other than our own to understand the world we live in and the people around us. What I thought was most important about Ketut's idea, though, was that he told Liz to go home and "pray what [she wants]." I think this is an extremely important aspect of his belief because he did not say to pray her own religion, but to pray what she wants. When a person hears new ideas about religion from someone else, she can choose to discount them or to think about them and add them into her own life. If someone says something profound about their own religion that you would like to have in yours, add it. Prayer belongs to the person doing the praying, and that person only. That person can pray whatever he or she wants, and it is not required to go along with any certain "defined" religion.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Unity
“Yoga is to find union - between mind and body, between the individual and her God, between the thoughts and the source of our thoughts, between teacher and student...” (121).
While Liz is in the ashram, she reflects back on her yoga training from home, producing her own definition for the importance of yoga. This idea can be looked at a few ways, which seem to differ vastly, but on second glance, maybe they are the same. First is the idea that one can find peace with herself upon retreating into herself. In this place, she may find union between herself and all of the outside sources Liz mentions. This is again, a link to transcendentalism, relying on ourselves to make peace and be happy. If someone can discover that everything she needs to be happy already exists within her, she has the ability to achieve ultimate peace and happiness with herself and the world.
This can also be looked at as the idea that God exists within all of us. Some believe that the holy spirit is a part of all of us, which would produce a sort of union between human beings and God. When looking at the pairs Liz provided, it seems that they all fit together. They seem to evolve into bigger ideas as one reads farther into the sentence, but I think it is possible that Gilbert was referring to the same thing when she made all of the pairs. She starts off with the union of mind and body, which is a union that is often discussed, a union that many people seek. The next step is between the individual and her God. What I liked most about this pair was the use of the phrase “her God.” This emphasizes the fact that not everyone believes or should believe in the same God. When compared to the first pair, we can think of this pair as a match, where the individual is the mind, in control of your will, and God is the body, residing in a piece of everyone, guiding them on their journey. The next two pairs also seemed extremely alike and they seem to go along with the first idea. Not many people ever really consider where the source of their thoughts is, but this is an important union to examine. The union between teacher and student is also interesting because it goes hand in hand with our thoughts. Some would argue that a teacher is the source of our thoughts. We all have the ability to think whatever we choose to think, but isn’t it a teacher that sparks our thinking first? Wouldn’t also be correct to assume then that a student sparks a teacher’s thinking as they uncover or bring up something the teacher overlooked? Looking back on the God and individual pair, it is unclear which person in the pair would be the teacher and which would be the student, but maybe each can be both, as in tangible life. Focusing on just our own thoughts, I think we can say that many of the more profound thoughts to come from God, or a religious figure. Others come from our peers, which if we follow this idea, have a piece of God within them. So then according to this, don’t all of our thoughts have a source with God?
Finally, as we look back on the literal idea of union between these pairs, it may all be the same thing. When one finds peace with herself, maybe that is because she has found peace with God. This is definitely an idea that makes one wonder and question everything that has always seemed so certain in life.
While Liz is in the ashram, she reflects back on her yoga training from home, producing her own definition for the importance of yoga. This idea can be looked at a few ways, which seem to differ vastly, but on second glance, maybe they are the same. First is the idea that one can find peace with herself upon retreating into herself. In this place, she may find union between herself and all of the outside sources Liz mentions. This is again, a link to transcendentalism, relying on ourselves to make peace and be happy. If someone can discover that everything she needs to be happy already exists within her, she has the ability to achieve ultimate peace and happiness with herself and the world.
This can also be looked at as the idea that God exists within all of us. Some believe that the holy spirit is a part of all of us, which would produce a sort of union between human beings and God. When looking at the pairs Liz provided, it seems that they all fit together. They seem to evolve into bigger ideas as one reads farther into the sentence, but I think it is possible that Gilbert was referring to the same thing when she made all of the pairs. She starts off with the union of mind and body, which is a union that is often discussed, a union that many people seek. The next step is between the individual and her God. What I liked most about this pair was the use of the phrase “her God.” This emphasizes the fact that not everyone believes or should believe in the same God. When compared to the first pair, we can think of this pair as a match, where the individual is the mind, in control of your will, and God is the body, residing in a piece of everyone, guiding them on their journey. The next two pairs also seemed extremely alike and they seem to go along with the first idea. Not many people ever really consider where the source of their thoughts is, but this is an important union to examine. The union between teacher and student is also interesting because it goes hand in hand with our thoughts. Some would argue that a teacher is the source of our thoughts. We all have the ability to think whatever we choose to think, but isn’t it a teacher that sparks our thinking first? Wouldn’t also be correct to assume then that a student sparks a teacher’s thinking as they uncover or bring up something the teacher overlooked? Looking back on the God and individual pair, it is unclear which person in the pair would be the teacher and which would be the student, but maybe each can be both, as in tangible life. Focusing on just our own thoughts, I think we can say that many of the more profound thoughts to come from God, or a religious figure. Others come from our peers, which if we follow this idea, have a piece of God within them. So then according to this, don’t all of our thoughts have a source with God?
Finally, as we look back on the literal idea of union between these pairs, it may all be the same thing. When one finds peace with herself, maybe that is because she has found peace with God. This is definitely an idea that makes one wonder and question everything that has always seemed so certain in life.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Faith
“...because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don’t care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn’t...Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch” (175).
Faith is something people turn to in order to explain the unknown. The whole basis for it is that there isn’t anything to back it up. Having some kind of faith or religion helps people to cope with the changes that are going on all around them. It makes them feel secure because they know where they are going to end up in the end. Whether that is in heaven, hell, or in some reincarnated form, again, no one can be certain. Despite this, we still believe. We still hold on to our faith and try to teach others that what we believe is right. What makes people so steadfast in a belief that they cannot be shaken from it?
The most interesting part of this quote for me is when Gilbert highlights the fact that there is no way to prove that any religion is rational. We all have our beliefs for particular reasons and sometimes maybe because that religion was there when we needed something to believe in. Faith, itself, is a “belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch.” So why do some people think they are more correct in their faith than others? There is no way to prove who is right and who is wrong, but yet there are still self-righteous people in this world.
Even farther into my train of thought, I began to question why there are so many different religions. People want religion to explain the unknown and give them something to look forward to and believe in. All religions originated for the same purpose, but there are still so many different forms of faith and religion. I think this further supports my idea of the webbed religions because they did all start out the same and to fulfill the same purpose. I think if one looks deep enough, similarities can be found in all religions. They are wildly different now in general, but they came about for the same purposes.
Faith is something people turn to in order to explain the unknown. The whole basis for it is that there isn’t anything to back it up. Having some kind of faith or religion helps people to cope with the changes that are going on all around them. It makes them feel secure because they know where they are going to end up in the end. Whether that is in heaven, hell, or in some reincarnated form, again, no one can be certain. Despite this, we still believe. We still hold on to our faith and try to teach others that what we believe is right. What makes people so steadfast in a belief that they cannot be shaken from it?
The most interesting part of this quote for me is when Gilbert highlights the fact that there is no way to prove that any religion is rational. We all have our beliefs for particular reasons and sometimes maybe because that religion was there when we needed something to believe in. Faith, itself, is a “belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch.” So why do some people think they are more correct in their faith than others? There is no way to prove who is right and who is wrong, but yet there are still self-righteous people in this world.
Even farther into my train of thought, I began to question why there are so many different religions. People want religion to explain the unknown and give them something to look forward to and believe in. All religions originated for the same purpose, but there are still so many different forms of faith and religion. I think this further supports my idea of the webbed religions because they did all start out the same and to fulfill the same purpose. I think if one looks deep enough, similarities can be found in all religions. They are wildly different now in general, but they came about for the same purposes.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Self-Reliance
In Eat Pray Love, Gilbert quotes a section of the Bhagavad Gita as she tries to understand herself and how to liver her life, "...it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with imperfection" (95).
This stuck out to me immediately, making me think of the thoughts and ideas of Emerson. What most stuck in my mind was the idea of his that "imitation is suicide." This idea from the Bhagavad Gita seemed very similar to me, and I started to wonder how similar religions and philosophies can be. Both of these philosophies or faiths, whatever it is they can be classified as, express the idea that to imitate someone else is to lose a piece of yourself. Upon making this discovery, I started to think that many religions have some of the same basic ideas, and maybe they're not all as different as we view them. There are thin strands connecting different people's beliefs together, and it seems that they all may be part of one huge web. The middle is the spot where all of the basic ideas are the same, and as it branches out in different directions, the ideas get farther and farther apart. Maybe religions are all different because of the people that designed them, but the basis and the reason we came upon them are all the same.
I then began to analyze some of Liz's journey from the transcendentalist point of view. I viewed her as very self-reliant, setting out into the world on her own to make discoveries about herself and her faith. I found extreme strength in her to be able to leave her life behind and focus solely on herself. She plans to do exactly what she loves for one year. Her plan is to first travel to Italy where she will learn a language that is beautiful but that she has no practical use for. She vows to eat everything appealing to her, and not to worry about her appearance or weight gain. She wants to learn to enjoy life for herself without thinking about how other people view her. Next, she will travel to India to stay in an Ashram and discover her faith. She will spend time praying with herself and with God. Whether she is really having a conversation with God is unknown; she may be getting all of her discoveries purely from within herself. Finally, she will travel to Bali, where her plan is to learn spirituality from a medicine man named Ketut. She will explore new ideas and learn more about herself than she ever thought possible.
Just now, I was also reminded of The Awakening, which I had really disliked. I thought that the main character was selfish because she was giving up on her family and her life. In the end, she committed suicide because she could not face the decision of whether to stay with her family or to pursue her art. I found this to be an extremely weak action, but I do think that it is completely different from the actions of Liz in Eat Pray Love. The similarities are obvious. These women set out to find themselves by leaving everything they know behind them. The difference is that Edna, the protagonist of The Awakening, cannot make a decision while Liz is steadfast in what she desires to do. Liz knows the consequences of her decision and the people that she is hurting, but she knows that it is more important for her to find herself before she can focus on other people. Others know her plan, and she does not string anyone along as she travels on her path to self discovery. Because of this, I connect much more with the journey of Liz than of Edna. I think that Liz's journey was a very positive journey and she made a lot of important discoveries about herself and her faith.
This stuck out to me immediately, making me think of the thoughts and ideas of Emerson. What most stuck in my mind was the idea of his that "imitation is suicide." This idea from the Bhagavad Gita seemed very similar to me, and I started to wonder how similar religions and philosophies can be. Both of these philosophies or faiths, whatever it is they can be classified as, express the idea that to imitate someone else is to lose a piece of yourself. Upon making this discovery, I started to think that many religions have some of the same basic ideas, and maybe they're not all as different as we view them. There are thin strands connecting different people's beliefs together, and it seems that they all may be part of one huge web. The middle is the spot where all of the basic ideas are the same, and as it branches out in different directions, the ideas get farther and farther apart. Maybe religions are all different because of the people that designed them, but the basis and the reason we came upon them are all the same.
I then began to analyze some of Liz's journey from the transcendentalist point of view. I viewed her as very self-reliant, setting out into the world on her own to make discoveries about herself and her faith. I found extreme strength in her to be able to leave her life behind and focus solely on herself. She plans to do exactly what she loves for one year. Her plan is to first travel to Italy where she will learn a language that is beautiful but that she has no practical use for. She vows to eat everything appealing to her, and not to worry about her appearance or weight gain. She wants to learn to enjoy life for herself without thinking about how other people view her. Next, she will travel to India to stay in an Ashram and discover her faith. She will spend time praying with herself and with God. Whether she is really having a conversation with God is unknown; she may be getting all of her discoveries purely from within herself. Finally, she will travel to Bali, where her plan is to learn spirituality from a medicine man named Ketut. She will explore new ideas and learn more about herself than she ever thought possible.
Just now, I was also reminded of The Awakening, which I had really disliked. I thought that the main character was selfish because she was giving up on her family and her life. In the end, she committed suicide because she could not face the decision of whether to stay with her family or to pursue her art. I found this to be an extremely weak action, but I do think that it is completely different from the actions of Liz in Eat Pray Love. The similarities are obvious. These women set out to find themselves by leaving everything they know behind them. The difference is that Edna, the protagonist of The Awakening, cannot make a decision while Liz is steadfast in what she desires to do. Liz knows the consequences of her decision and the people that she is hurting, but she knows that it is more important for her to find herself before she can focus on other people. Others know her plan, and she does not string anyone along as she travels on her path to self discovery. Because of this, I connect much more with the journey of Liz than of Edna. I think that Liz's journey was a very positive journey and she made a lot of important discoveries about herself and her faith.
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