I picked this up at an airport intending it as throwaway holiday reading, and to some extent it obliged nicely - it was an absorbing but undemandng read, and didn't contain much to challenge or surprise. I did enjoy it more than I'd expected to though, and found a few memorable passages - I liked her attitude to antidepressants (try them if desperate but for the minimum time possible and only in conjunction with lots of other efforts to rescue yourself), and some of her quirky ideas (communicating with the divine via a notebook, or when things are at their worst, trying to change one thing to regain some control, even if it's just to stand on one leg while sobbing hysterically). I also laughed at the observation of one of her friends that while some people look like their pets, she had a tendency to become so absorbed in relationships that she grew to look like her men...
My favourite section was the time she spent in an Ashram in India, which is where the most substantial content of the book appears (and amusingly, if the promotional photos are anything to go by, this is the part that the film glosses over...). I liked the improvised ritual of forgiveness / freedom that a friend prescribed for her to get over her messy divorce (as she says, "we do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma ... we all need such places of ritual safekeeping ... and I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you're craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising.".) Most of all I appreciated the way she eventually found a glimpse of what she was looking for - first by persevering with the one practice she found extremely difficult, and then, having decided to embrace silence, she was asked to take on the much more in-character role of 'hostess' for a retreat. In accepting this (noting the yogic saying "God dwells within you, as you", i.e. as your true self rather than "some performance of personality" that fits your notion of a spiritual person) she found herself able to meditate fully while lurking at the back of the temple to be on hand for the retreat participants.
Two other ideas resonated with me: one was the possibility of finding a middle ground between getting ripped off or losing a friend when trying to play the benefactor (by playing a game back to call the person's bluff, while understanding their perfectly reasonable need to get the most out of the situation). The other actually came from the teaser for the sequel at the end of the book, and is the simple tactic of asking "What would you do now, if you were in our situation?" when faced with "a dispassionate customer service operator or an apathetic bureaucrat". The ending - finding love after regaining her independence and spiritual balance - does ring true, but by wrapping up the book neatly as a happy ending, it risks sending the message that finding the right man was the ultimate purpose of her quest, rather than a positive consequence of the real goal of finding peace.
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