Her name is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and she is the head of the Siddha Yoga Meditation Lineage.
She hasn't has a public satsang (gathering) since January 1, 2004. Every year, on New Year's day, she would broadcast her annual message via audio and video around the world to her devotees. The last one was on January 1, 2004.
She is NOT in hiding; she is accessible at her ashrams, it's just that she's not traveling and teaching publicly. It is believed that this is due in part to the fact that she feels that she has given all the teachings and talks that are necessary. This decision was made two years BEFORE "Eat Pray Love" was released and year or more after Liz visited her Ashram in India.
If you are interested in Gurumayi, a great place to start is her book Sadhana of the Heart: A Collection of Talks on Spiritual Life which is a compilation of these New Year's messages. This book has enough "messages" for a lifetime.
Another illuminating Oprah appearance. Some of our favorite quotes from Elizabeth's appearance --
"Eat Pray Love" as a Ladder
"I wrote this book to kind of create a word ladder to pull myself out of a very deep hole," she says. "I don't need that ladder anymore, so it's just sitting there in book form. To think that other people are now using it to tip it up against their dreams and kind of climb on up there is just incredibly touching."
Have a "Stillness & Question" Practice
"I really feel the one non-negotiable thing you need is to find a tiny little corner of your life, of your day, of stillness where you can begin to ask yourself those burning essential questions of your life," she says. " Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What am I here for?"
Liz's Biggest Piece of Advice Is...
Learn to say no. "Be realistic about what you can and cannot do in one day and one life".
Liz's Definition of God
"The perfection that absorbs. It is the perfectness of the universe which can bring you into that state where you are absorbed in that perfection, then you will know it. … I was absorbed in that perfection for a brief, glorious moment, and I knew something in that."
Photo: Elizabeth Gilbert with her husband Felipe on their wedding day."Next comes a nonfiction book about marriage, actually. It's a long story, which, yes, does involve Felipe, whom I’m married. I set aside the novel [I was working on] because this is the story I want and need to explore right now, and the great benefit of being a writer is that you can use your vocation as a tool through which to understand questions that are vexing or fascinating you.
I’ve only ever written the book that I absolutely needed to write at that time, whatever it might be. For these last few years, that seems to be memoir, but I don’t think that will always necessarily be the case, once I’ve found the answers I need in my own life, in order to move on to other things."
Interview in "Nashville Scene" - April 2007
Elizabeth met Richard at the Ashram in India. His real name is Richard Vogt and we all got to met him when he appeared with Elizabeth on Oprah.
About meeting Elizabeth he told Oprah "Well, she seemed like a combination of Henny Penny and Chatty Cathy.
"She had these issues of a lifetime swirling around her head like flies. And she was just kind of going around as if they weren't even there but yet trying to swat them away at the same time...
"It was the perfect thing to be happening to her. It was the perfect time for it to be happening, the perfect place."
About being featured in "Eat Pray Love" Richard from Texas he added:
"I knew she was writing this book, but I didn't realize what that meant. I didn't realize talking to a writer who is writing a book is like talking to a reporter. And things are being written down that I forgot I've said or situations that I forgot about. Suddenly I read it in a book and I go, 'Oh, my god. She was writing a book.'"
