Eat, Pray, Love

I am reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I am adoring this book. So much so, that I don't want it to end. I don't usually find myself dog-earing pages or underlining much when I read, but I have in this book. A lot. I read something in the book this morning that I had to make note of.

"Hindus see the universe in terms of karma, a process of constant circulation, which is to say that you don't really "end up" anywhere at the end of you life -- not in heave or hell -- but just get recycled back to the earth again in another from, in order to resolve whatever relationships or mistakes you left uncomplted last time. When you finally achieve perfection, you graduate out of the cycle entirely and melt into The Void. The notion of karma implied that heaven and hell are only to be found here on earth, where we have the capacity to create them, manufacturing either goodness or evil depending on our destinies and our characters."

And a bit later --

"This is the supreme lesson of karma -- take care of the problems now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you screw everything up the next time. And the repetition of suffering -- that's hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understanding -- there's where you'll find heaven"


This struck such a huge chord in me, I am can't even explain it. It just makes so much sense I can bearly comprehend. I have never been much of a religious person and I doubt I ever will be, but this, I understand.