Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love

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.

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.

Publishers Weekly

It was supposed to be a light, human interest assignment for Wall Street Journal reporter Nomani: Write about the fad of "Tantra sex." Initially, Nomani's memoir about researching the Tantra tradition reads like a hilarious expose. Instead of meeting enlightened swamis, Nomani encountered a slew of smarmies-exploitative male teachers offering private sexual healing lessons and advanced tutorials in finding her G-Spot. Beneath this expos on the Tantra sex racket in California and India, Nomani tells the deeper story of confronting her own ethnic and spiritual roots. The Indian-born Muslim Nomani was scolded by her now-American parents for researching the dark art of Tantra, an ancient and mystical tradition based in sexuality that's been woven into factions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Nonetheless, she persevered with the research, traveling to caves of Thailand, the doorstep of the Dalai Lama and Tantra boot camps of India. Along the way she discovered her own hidden Hindu ancestry as well as a deep fascination with the true spiritual teachings of Tantra. In the memoir, Nomani learns to live compassionately and fearlessly in the face of severe challenges, including the kidnapping and slaying of her close friend and Wall Street Journal colleague Daniel Pearl by Pakistani extremists. While Nomani is a talented writer and has strong material to work with, her memoir frequently loses focus. It staggers between a search for identity and a search for Tantra teachings and ultimately doesn't satisfy either theme. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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.