Elizabeth Gilbert
- Today, on the Oprah show, her
guest will be the author of the best- selling book, Eat, Pray,
Love. Elizabeth Gilbert's book is the story of how she left her husband and
her life behind and found what she came to call "the only true
religion": the silence. Her journey took her around the world, where she
learned to meditate in an India ashram.
Oprah, who openly resonates with the New Age and meditation techniques, said
she is very excited to have Ms. Gilbert on her show. Calling it a
"phenomenon" and "a life-changer," Oprah expresses her
excitement for the book and the author.
Gilbert explains that the first step in her journey was to go on an eating
binge in Italy. "I would not have been able to physically do the yoga, the
meditation, the hard rigor of spiritual work. So I went to Italy first and I
ate my guts out for four months."
From Italy, Gilbert traveled to India where she learned to meditate:
"There was something about that yoga path that really appealed to me--and
you do that through silence and the discipline of meditation -- and I really
wanted to go pursue that full out." "None of this works without
stillness," Liz says. "One of the great teachings that I learned in
India is that silence is the only true religion."
During her time at the ashram, Gilbert had a meditative experience where she
says "the scales fell from my eyes and the openings of the universe were
shown to me."
Oprah's promotion of Gilbert and her book will very likely cause millions of
women (and many men too) to go out and buy the book. And once again Oprah, who
has become a prophet and an evangelist for the New Age message,
will help lead so many over the cliff of spiritual lostness through meditation (i.e., the silence).
Is it any wonder why ministries like Lighthouse Trails show such concern when
Christian leaders tell followers, can't really know God
without the silence.
Different than finding a quiet place away from noise and distractions, the
silence is referring to a stillness of the mind.
Ray Yungen, author of A Time of Departing, says it
is like putting the mind in neutral. Contemplatives say it is like tuning into
another frequency. New Agers call it different things like a thin place, sacred
space, ecstasy; whatever it is called, both New Agers and Christian leaders are
telling us we must practice silence and stillness if we really want to know
God.
"The basic method promoted in The
Cloud [of Unknowing] is to move beyond thinking into a
place of utter stillness with the Lord ... the believer must first achieve a
state of silence and contemplation, and then God works in the believer's
heart." - Tony Jones, The Sacred Way,
pp. 71-72
"Progress in intimacy with God means progress toward silence.... It is
this recreating silence to which we are called in Contemplative Prayer. - Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True
Home, p. 155
"It is through silence that you find your inner being." - Vijay Eswaran, In
the Sphere of Silence
"This book [In the Sphere of Silence] is a wonderful
guide on how to enter the realm of silence and draw closer to God." - New
Age sympathizer, Ken Blanchard, from In the
Sphere of Silence website - see above
"[G]o into the silence for guidance" - New Ager, Wayne Dyer, A
Time of Departing, p. 18
"While we are all equally precious in the eyes of God, we are not all
equally ready to listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle,
loving, all embracing silence."- Richard Foster, Prayer:
Finding the Heart's True Home, p. 156
"When one enters the deeper layers of contemplative prayer one sooner or
later experiences the void, the emptiness, the nothingness ... the profound
mystical silence ... an absence of thought." - Thomas Merton, cited in biographer, William
Johnston's book, Letters to Contemplatives, p. 13
"In the silence is a dynamic presence. And that's God, and we become
attuned to that." - Interspiritualist, Wayne Teasdale, ATOD, p. 55, from a KQED
(San Francisco) radio program with Teasdale, 2000
"I do not believe anyone can ever become a deep person [intimate with God]
without stillness and silence. - Charles Swindoll, So You Want to Be Like Christ:
Eight Essential Disciplines to Get You There, p. 12
"The most important human activity in the life of any believer is spending
time with God in meditation," referring to his 3 part series, Meditation:
The Power of Silence. - Charles Stanley, 4/11/06 radio
broadcast, supporter (see credits at end of DVD)
"But how do you get these "enlightened eyes"? They develop as a
natural result of your time with the Lord --through your solitude, silence, and
surrender." from Charles
Stanley's website AND "You have to have
silence and solitude to be renewed and refreshed." (also from Stanley's
site)
"One of the great things silence does, it gives us a new concept of
God." - Calvin Miller, Be Still DVD participant
"[I]f we are not still before Him [God], we will never truly know to the
depths of the marrow of our bones that He is God. There's got to be a stillness." - Beth Moore,
from the Be Still DVD (see "Beth
Moore Gives Thumbs Up to Contemplative Spirituality")
For
related information:
"Oprah Winfrey's Spirituality" by Ray Yungen
"Should we wait in silence?" by Larry DeBruyn
"In the Sphere of Silence" and Ken Blanchard
"The Silence of Spiritual
Formation"