Tantrika (Google eBook)

Asra Nomani

HarperCollins, Oct 13, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 304 pages

A Foreign Correspondent's Search for Her Cultural and Spiritual Identity

What began as an assignment from her editor at the Wall Street Journal to investigate "America's hottest new fad," the secrets of sexual ecstasy in Tantra, became a story that would lead reporter Asra Nomani halfway around the world and change forever her life, faith, and self-identity. From a New Age Tantric seminar in Santa Cruz to sitting at the feet of the Dalai Lama in India, from meditation caves in Thailand to crossing the Khyber Pass with Muslim militants and staring down the barrel of an Afghan soldier's AK-47, Nomani's trek unexpectedly climaxes in Pakistan, where she risks great danger in joining the hunt for kidnapped fellow reporter Danny Pearl. She travels the globe in search of this elusive "divine love," but ultimately hers is a journey of self-discovery in which the divine within herself and within all women -- all "tantrikas" -- is revealed.

What people are saying

Review: Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love

User Review  - Mariam - Goodreads

Started reading it several times but couldn't really continue.

Review: Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love

User Review  - Lisa - Goodreads

I am glad ot learn that I'm not the only one who struggled with this book. For the better part of it, it is quite rambling. Nomani introduces concepts and imagery backwards, explaining them after the ...

Contents

• Learning American Tantra i: 1
• Leaving My Old Life: 15
• The Man I Married: 31
• From the West to the East: 45
• Worshiping the Lingam: 57
• A Cremation Ground: 65
• My Devoted Muslim Family: 72
• Implosion: 84
• Finding Freedom Again: 95
• Pilgrimage to the Himalayas: 104
• From the Bay of Bengal to a Train Berth: 119
• The Village: 132
• 3 The Sick Man: 144
• 4 Finding New Shakti: 147
• 5 Durga on Her Tiger: 159
• 7 Morgantown: 164
• Thirty Days in a Spiritual: 190
• Riding into the Village 797: 197
• Wannabe Goddesses Cry: 207
• Out of Morgantown: 219
• Parrots over a Safe House: 235
• Child of Truth: 256
• Epilogue: 267
• Acknowledgments: 283

About the author

Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent, has also written for the Washington Post, New York Times, and Time magazine on Islam, and has covered the war in Afghanistan for Salon.com. She has spoken about women’s rights in Islam on CNN, PBS, NPR, and the BBC. A Muslim born in India, Nomani was raised in the foothills of West Virginia, and currently lives in Morgantown with her son, Shibli.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Tantrika
• Author: Asra Nomani
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009
• ISBN: 006186028X, 9780061860287
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Religion / Eastern; Social Science / Women's Studies