Eat Pray Love (previously "The Virtues of Life") is a 2010 comedy-drama film starring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert, based on Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love. The film was co-written and directed by Ryan Murphy. It opened in the U.S. on August 13, 2010
Plot
Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having - a husband (Billy Crudup), a house, a successful career - yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.
Does she really find it?What she do ?
She eats
She prays
She loves
She never does them together.And for me that is where the search fails.Spirituality is a way of life.Happiness is a way of life .These cannot be willed into your life.Positive affirmations do have far reaching impacts on human psyche and self confidence but it needs to be a part of your life and not fitted into it.
In India we are taught that food is God.Taking no religious stances,I strongly believe that we are born and reared in a culture of spirituality.Nothing is material.Everything is spiritual.The food you eat....a baby is ushered into the process of eating for a lifetime with a prayer .The clothes you wear,the house you live in,the education you get,the money that comes from your job, the car you own everything has its own associated spirituality.You learn to respect the position that all this occupies in your life.
Elizabeth leaves behind a confused husband and gorges on food in Italy.When you look at food only for physical satisfaction you do not deal with it spiritually.Food has to satiate not just your body but your soul.You do not gorge on your food.You savour it.You enjoy the process of its preparation as much as its consumption.In south India little kolams are drawn on the cooking gas stove so that the one prays before one cooks.Food is freshly prepared daily so that it retains all its vital nutrients and passes it on to one's body and through that to one's soul.
Ready and fast foods satisfy your body not your soul.these cannot replace good home cooked food spruced up with prayer and love.
Elizabeth reaches India to pray.Does a place inspire you to pray?Prayer comes from within and not without.Those have seen the song itni shakti hamein dena daata will notice that the two characters who sing the song keep doing their work while praying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w_P5Pr6eEQ
You don't segregate prayer from yourself. You don't only pray to figure out what your life is all about.You pray along with your life to figure it out.The munis and saints who renounced the world did so when they reached a higher plain of spirituality .They were beyond the demands of the physical world.And that is not something we all aim at in our lives.We aim to lead a happy life where the mind body and soul are all happy.
She reaches Bali and falls in love and once again enters the domain of marriage.Was life proving to be a full circle and marriage her final destiny?Or was this marriage again to a prelude to her next session of unhappiness ? Marriage again for me is not an experiment.It is not meant to be just a physical union .It is the union of the minds and the souls.You need to learn to live with all the pluses and minuses of your partner remembering that you too are a store house of pluses and minuses.One is not perfect .
Marriage is when you eat pray and love together.Marriage is when you eat pray and love for each other
You do not will happiness into life.You do not lay down conditions which say 'I will be happy only if.......'.
Elizabeth embarks on her travel no doubt supported by all the money she has earned.She travels around the world knowing fully well that she is financially secure.She doesn't need to worry how her next ticket is coming.She doesn't need to worry where she will stay.She doesn't need to worry how and where her next meal is.
Financially secure,she undertakes a travel which in her mind is a search for happiness and spirituality .
She feels she has reached her destination.For me she will never reach her destination as she will never stop searching.Why?
Simply becuse : she doesn't know what she is searching for....so she finds nothing.
