African Women: From Old Magic To New Power

NAKED woman, black woman, clothed with your color which is life, with your form which is beauty . . ./ Your solemn contralto voice is the spiritual song of the beloved." So wrote Senegal's Poet-President Leopold Senghor. A beautiful Ghanaian playwright and teacher, Effua Sutherland, recently tried to describe another aspect of the African woman's traditional role. "She is a goddess because she founds society. Her breasts are more of a motherly symbol than a sexual one. She is the power behind man." Mrs. Sutherland carefully recited the words of English Explorer Mary Kingsley, who once wrote: "The old woman you may see crouching behind the chief, or whom you may not see at all but who is with him all the same, is saying, 'Do not listen to the white men, it is bad for you.' " Added Mrs. Sutherland: "That is our secret. We are divine."

Against the mythical concept of the African woman as a spiritual force is the harsh truth that millions of women in Black Africa still endure purely tribal lives of childbearing, drudgery and subjugation. From Dakar to Dar es Salaam, they can be seen, like beasts of burden, carrying enormous loads of food and firewood on their shoulders and heads. But it is also true that in the decade of social upheaval that has come with political independence, African women have begun to leave the villages and the townships to step quite suddenly, with hardly a flicker of their ebon eyes, into the modern world.

Kenya's Eliza. In a massive rejection of traditional roles and values that might be called the African counterpart of the Women's Liberation movement, hundreds of thousands of African girls have left their villages to go to school, and have never returned. In the Ivory Coast, seven times as many women as men are moving to the cities. Some join the growing student population; 40% of Kenya's secondary school pupils and 10% of its students overseas today are women. Others manage to find jobs as shopgirls, typists and clerks. In Monrovia, Liberia, women drive cabs. In the Congo they serve as paratroopers, and in Nigeria as police officers.

At the time of independence, crash courses were held in many African capitals to teach the wives of government officials the niceties of Western manners. The handsome Ngina Kenyatta, fourth wife of Kenya's President Jomo Kenyatta, 79, is an African answer to Eliza Doolittle. She is said to have spent a year being coached by British instructors in deportment, table manners, fashion, ballroom dancing and public speaking before emerging as "Mama

Ngina," the poised and gracious First Lady.

African women on the move have many other examples of female success at which to point. Angie Brooks of Liberia has served for the past year as president of the United Nations General Assembly. Annie Jiagge was Ghana's first woman lawyer, judge and finally Supreme Court justice. She headed an investigation into the corruption of the Nkrumah era that has been hailed a landmark in African political reform and justice. Sophie Lihau-Kanza is one of the four chief ministers in President Joseph Mobutu's Congolese government; and Mrs. Olyn Williams, Sierra Leone's first female Permanent Secretary, is a champion of the cause of women in politics. "Men in government spend most of their time stealing," she snaps. "That's why nothing gets done."
Letitia Obeng, a biologist, is director of Ghana's Marine Science Institute. Jacqueline Ki-Zerbo of Upper Volta is the head of a teacher-training school in a traditional Moslem society, where women are supposed to know their place. "Some accept me," she says, "and some do not. But I laugh at them. Men should help women develop."
Pink Bath Salts. While the new African woman is out to change her society, other women have risen to prominence in the traditional power structure. One of the best known of these is Honoria Bailer Caulker of Sierra Leone, who in 1961 was elected paramount chief of the Shenge district (pop. 25,000). A Junoesque woman who stands 6 ft. 1 in., Madame Honoria enjoys such baubles as a white Mercedes, an open palanquin in which she is carried by her subjects, a golden mace presented to her chieftaincy by Queen Victoria, and an elaborate bathroom in which everything from bidet to bath salts is pink. She is accompanied on her official rounds by an official elephant-horn player, who blows great blasts to announce her arrival and departure. She conducts her tribal court with dispatch and dignity. At a recent session, she quickly settled the case of a man who was accused of beating his wife because the woman did not want him to marry her sister. As both husband and wife wailed, Madame Honoria briskly dismissed the man with a warning and told the woman to accept the sister as her husband's second wife. "At least," said Honoria, "it's someone you know."
For sheer power and wealth, few African males can match the market mammy, that gigantic woman of commerce who controls much of the transport and the trade in textiles, food and hardware in both Nigeria and Ghana. In Lagos, bankers tell of one hefty woman who cannot write her own name, but can get a $560,000 letter of credit whenever she needs one. In Accra, the mammies have been wooed and feared by politicians since independence, and no government has managed to tax them effectively. "They can't read or write," says one Ghanaian journalist, "but they can damn well count."

In the years since independence, African women have discovered that although they have gained the right to vote and to seek positions of leadership, the rigid customs and dictates of their tribal societies have not kept pace with the times. The nomadic Turkana women of East Africa still perfume their bodies over fires of scented wood. The Hausa wives of northern Nigeria still amass huge fortunes in the form of thousands upon thousands of Japanese-made enamel bowls, which they cram into their huts, causing at least one Hausa husband to complain bitterly: "I don't even have enough room to pray."
"The main stumbling block for women in Africa," says a Ghanaian professor, "is the adaptation of customary law to modern society. The tension is over how and why old customs should be obeyed." Many tribes still practice clitoridotomy, or female circumcision, as part of the initiation into adulthood. A few tribes stitch together the labia of girls at puberty and unstitch them only after marriage. Tribal inheritance systems can leave a wife with little or nothing when her husband dies. A bride price ranging from about $40 to as much as $4,000 is still exacted from a prospective bridegroom by the bride's father, but the custom is slowly declining. Tanzania's new marriage code will permit a young man to pay the bride price after the wedding on the installment plan. The Christian
Council in Ghana has tried to set the fee at a modest and uniform $35, but many parents feel this is much too low for their family's pride and their daughter's honor.
Black Europeans. Most controversial of all is the widespread practice of polygamy, which most of the young women of the cities vehemently oppose. "If my husband took another wife, I would hound him to death," says one Nairobi university graduate. "But anyway, he wouldn't." A surprising number of educated women seem to disagree. Reasons Grace Onyango, Kenya's first African woman to be elected to Parliament: "If a man can handle 15 wives at one time, he can probably lead a nation." In any case, few African males favor abolishing the practice. As a Kenyan chauffeur puts it: "A man with one wife is like a man with one eye."
The emergence of African women has caused little discernible reaction among African men, although the males often discuss the relative merits of traditional girls and modern girls as wives. Joseph Oduho, a Southern Sudanese rebel-organization official, recently married an educated woman after his tribal wife died. He says: "My former wife couldn't read or write. She spent her time in the kitchen with the children. She would choose a new wife for me, and she knew how to cure me if I was sick. I could lie to her, and it didn't matter. She was simple, but she understood me. My new wife is a college graduate. She won't let me have another wife. I can't lie to her because she knows when I'm lying, and she is not afraid to tell me so. Part of her life is her own. My old wife devoted her entire life to me."

In the years since independence, African women have discovered that although they have gained the right to vote and to seek positions of leadership, the rigid customs and dictates of their tribal societies have not kept pace with the times. The nomadic Turkana women of East Africa still perfume their bodies over fires of scented wood. The Hausa wives of northern Nigeria still amass huge fortunes in the form of thousands upon thousands of Japanese-made enamel bowls, which they cram into their huts, causing at least one Hausa husband to complain bitterly: "I don't even have enough room to pray."
"The main stumbling block for women in Africa," says a Ghanaian professor, "is the adaptation of customary law to modern society. The tension is over how and why old customs should be obeyed." Many tribes still practice clitoridotomy, or female circumcision, as part of the initiation into adulthood. A few tribes stitch together the labia of girls at puberty and unstitch them only after marriage. Tribal inheritance systems can leave a wife with little or nothing when her husband dies. A bride price ranging from about $40 to as much as $4,000 is still exacted from a prospective bridegroom by the bride's father, but the custom is slowly declining. Tanzania's new marriage code will permit a young man to pay the bride price after the wedding on the installment plan. The Christian
Council in Ghana has tried to set the fee at a modest and uniform $35, but many parents feel this is much too low for their family's pride and their daughter's honor.
Black Europeans. Most controversial of all is the widespread practice of polygamy, which most of the young women of the cities vehemently oppose. "If my husband took another wife, I would hound him to death," says one Nairobi university graduate. "But anyway, he wouldn't." A surprising number of educated women seem to disagree. Reasons Grace Onyango, Kenya's first African woman to be elected to Parliament: "If a man can handle 15 wives at one time, he can probably lead a nation." In any case, few African males favor abolishing the practice. As a Kenyan chauffeur puts it: "A man with one wife is like a man with one eye."
The emergence of African women has caused little discernible reaction among African men, although the males often discuss the relative merits of traditional girls and modern girls as wives. Joseph Oduho, a Southern Sudanese rebel-organization official, recently married an educated woman after his tribal wife died. He says: "My former wife couldn't read or write. She spent her time in the kitchen with the children. She would choose a new wife for me, and she knew how to cure me if I was sick. I could lie to her, and it didn't matter. She was simple, but she understood me. My new wife is a college graduate. She won't let me have another wife. I can't lie to her because she knows when I'm lying, and she is not afraid to tell me so. Part of her life is her own. My old wife devoted her entire life to me."

Tantra between the covers

Mystic's Musings is well produced and occasionally shocking, unlike other predictable spiritual books

ENGAGING There is never a dull moment in Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev's book

In this age of unlimited spiritual guidance — from real to
virtual — it's often a case of quantity without quality; current strains of
"spiritual" books so much lack character that one will do just as well as
another; they look similar, sound similar, and require little more from the
seeker than acquiescence.

So a book like Mystic's Musings, beautifully produced,
intriguing, thought provoking, even occasionally shocking, is exciting.

Mystic's Musings contains ten years of conversations
with the maverick spiritual master, Jaggi Vasudev, whose ISHA Foundation (www.ishafoundation.org)
runs yoga centres world wide as well as an orphanage and several medical centres
in South India. The Isha Yoga Centre at the foothills of the Velliangiri
Mountains is the hub of ISHA Foundation's activities. From here, it runs
regional community health programmes as well as the Action for Rural
Rejuvenation programme.

Mystic's Musings is remarkably eye-catching for its perfect
square actually seduces you into picking it up, and it comes as no surprise to
read that the shape is not accidental.

In the afterword, the Sadhguru reveals that the written word
in the book was crafted to function as a yantra, " ... When you labour through
500 pages of words, we want to provide you certain keys to the Existence,
opening a certain dimension of life which is not in normal access to people. If
you are open to it, it will do things."

What these keys are, the reader will have to find out, but
this much at least is guaranteed, that the journey through the words of this
master is not dull. For one thing, there is a profusion of photographs, which
are captivating in their variety and in what they reveal about the master.

There is no straight biography in the book but these pictures
tell a story - Sadhguru on his BMW, in a robe playing with a snake, on a
football ground, climbing up a hill, in meditation, playing drums, dancing, in
meditation, playing football, climbing.

The conversations that the book records cover a period of 10
years and are those that selected and carefully prepared disciples took part in.

The editors say: "When we embarked on the mission of
compiling these monumental pages of intense interactions with Sadhguru, it was
not without an element of mischief. Over the years we had seen many people
approach Sadhguru with questions... some casual and curious; some cynical and
sceptic, some mischievous and malicious. Yet, each received fittingly... "

This is what divides the book into two sections, for the
questions fall into two separate kinds — section one is easily read, the
questions and answers touching the intellect and the practical world, while the
second section is of a more closed nature — spirit energy, ghosts, karmic
misdemeanours, the Dhyanalinga... and much more.

It is the second section that makes one pause before putting
finger to keyboard and passing judgment, for it is difficult to either endorse
what is written there or to dismiss it because one simply doesn't know. So all
the reviewer can really look for is whether the material expresses what is
intended and whether the answers form any kind of pattern for the reader.

Thus, when one reads the answers to questions about pain,
loss, death and how to live in peace, in the first section, and then, in the
second section, explanations about bad spirits, energy patterns in the spiritual
sphere, disembodied spirits, trapping spirits and about the Sadhguru's efforts
to construct the Dhyanalinga, they appear to settle into a definite pattern,
taking the questioner (and, if you are willing, the reader as well) deeper and
deeper into a spiral, which becomes more complex with each turn until it comes
to a stop with what appears to be a definite answer from the master.

The first set of questions creates a simple flow taking the
reader inward and also outwards, into self and back into the world, while the
other set of questions and answers might make you uncomfortable, the Sadhguru
made it clear that people need answers to such questions too.

Mystic's Musings is certainly more interesting than
several dozen other spiritual books that I can think of off hand. The bonus is
that the book is also physically attractive and that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is
intriguing, and there is rarely a dull moment in the book. What one gets from a
book like this, as the Sadhguru himself points out, depends on what one is
looking for

The future is crystal clear

Preeti Raghunath

Give ‘em your watch and they’ll tell about your health, wealth and happiness. Unusual ‘readers’ get together at the Mystic Fair this week.

Want to know about how life’s treating you? Just give psychometrist Kashmira Shah your watch or ring and she’ll tell you more.

Though palm reading is still one of the most popular methods of prediction, there’s an assortment of forms you can choose from. Colour, object, angels, shells, runes, foot, your handwriting, your pet, past life — you name it. Coming up on March 11 and 12 is a Mystic Fair that you and your pet can head to.

The oracle? “Unlike what people think, we don’t tell the future but help you understand yourself. The ‘reader’ doesn’t decide anything and only takes you on a journey of self-discovery,” says Geoffrey Rodger who gazes at the crystal ball and even more interesting, a large crystal rock.

Rohini Gupta, who teaches everything from tarot to psychometry, says the awareness of tarot and the like have definitely grown. Five years back, she set up Yantra, an organisation that does different types of reading and also holds workshops. Manju Mohinani is the angel expert — she can tell more than a thing or two about what your angels are suggesting. “What the reader says isn’t what will always happen, since our future is not set in concrete,” she says.

No-Nos: There are things they never tell their clients like the sex of an unborn child or about deaths and accidents. But yes, they’re bombarded with bizarre questions most of the time. “It’s Mumbai, so one perennial question is ‘when will I get a new maid?’ and of course the funniest is ‘when will my father-in-law change?’” smiles Gupta, adding that there are many pluses to being a reader. “When we’re facing a problem or hassle, we just sit together and ask the other what they think should be done,” she says.

They now organise the ‘Mystic Fair’ twice a year. “At the fair, we do almost 300 readings a day and people can get their pets too since Archana Tanna (pet reader) can tell you more about them too!” says Shah.

Mystical treatise Yantra

TIRUMULAR IS one of the 63 Saiva saints portrayed in the Periyapuranam, a Saiva hagiology. This saint is also considered as one of the 18 Siddhars of the Tamil tradition besides being called as a Yogi, Siddhantin, Muktha and Bhaktha.

His biography states that a celestial being transmigrated into a cowherd's body known as Mulan and through him exemplified the truths of the Agamas in chaste Tamil with rhythmic composition.

Hence the Saivites revere this work as the outcome of divine grace. It is a philosophical treatise as well. It deals with variegated themes such as ethics, religion, metaphysics, tantric cult, mysticism and occultism, but the main focus lies in elucidating the basic tenets of Saiva religion and philosophy.

This book contains the Tirumandhiram text and the paraphrase rendered by G. Manickavachakan. The commentator has given a simple and lucid explanation of the original texts and also has provided word meanings wherever required, especially the significant features of mystic letters, the implicit meaning of Mantra, Tantra and Yantra are well explained.

He should have concentrated on some research-findings with unique interpretation and commentary. However, this lacuna does not deter his earnest endeavour of giving a simplified meaning of the complicated and subtle texts. The Saivites and the Tamil knowing aspirants can acquire clarity by reading this work.

Tantra medieval, mantra modern

Parkinson’s disease, recently in the news with the isolation of a gene related to the disease, was originally known as St Vitus dance.

KALPISH RATNA


Have you noticed how often a chance word makes the connection? It's uncanny, almost as if the brain prioritises what it sees.

Last night I was reading a 1523 bestseller, Courtship, which isn't very different from the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. The author Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), the European humanist, made a pile off racy tracts like Courtship by making them into textbooks, on the pretext of teaching Latin.

This morning, the first word that hits my eye is the name Erasmus. It eyeballs me from a slurry of fine print. There it is: Erasmus. But the page has to do with neurology. What's he doing here?

It turns out he's lent his name to the University of Rotterdam, no more, but his shrewd eye for news hasn't dimmed one whit. Researchers from his university have just isolated one more gene implicated in Parkinson's Disease (PD), taking the count up to 3. PD's protean profile continues to bewilder and misinform both patient and clinician.

New gene
This newest gene, discovered by Vincenzio Bonifat and his colleagues, named DJ-1, mutates in a familial form of early onset PD. Like the earlier genes implicated, parkin and Eo-synuclein, mutations in DJ-1 too might explain rare familial forms of the disease. Even more likely, these genes are just a few more pixels in the larger picture, one more step towards the truth that prompts all discovery, small or great: we simply don't know.

That maxim ought to apply also to the old name for PD, St. Vitus' Dance. More often, it is applied to another illness with abnormal movements, Sydenham's Chorea, but neither label is historically correct. The tag dates back to the time of Erasmus, and was probably prevalent in his neighbourhood of Gouda where St Vitus had rock star status.

St Vitus' feast was a 16th century Woodstock, and the frenzied dancing of the celebrants provoked the cruel comparison with the uncontrolled jerks and tremors of neurological disease.

Paracelsus
The man who made that comparison was the Great Panjandrum of medieval hocus pocus, now gaining rapid fame as a poster boy for alternative medicine. Auroleus Phillipus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1491-1541) is better remembered by his arrogant nom de plume, Paracelsus.

Chorea sancti viti was the term he used in opprobrium, seeing a prurient element in the dance. But he wasn't just describing a ritual feast. The 16th century dance commemorated an epidemic that swept Europe in the 14th and 15th century.

Whole cities succumbed to the "dancing malady"--people holding hands and dancing till they dropped. Reading the description today, one wonders what triggered off that mass hysteria. When the disease hit Strasbourg in 1418, St Vitus was called on to help.

A hundred years later, Paracelsus, observing the feast, commented shrewdly on the disease it commemorated. He described three sorts of chorea. Chorea imaginativa, an imaginary malady, the hypochondria of a later age; sexually induced chorea — that Freud would have recognised immediately; and chorea naturalis the result of an "internal prurience" in the brain.

The British physician, Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), in Schedula Monitoria de Novae Febris Ingressa (1686) pinched the credit. He used the term St Vitus' Dance in his poetic and dramatic description of a disease with twitchy and uncontrolled convulsive movements.

The label, in fact, enjoyed a brief notoriety as a catchall for all "shaking palsies." It was unfortunate, to say the least, that Sydenham should have given the name chorea to an affection which had nothing whatever to do with the Chorea Sancti Viti, but custom has now sanctioned the use; another instance in medicine in which we know a disease by a name the original significance of which has long been lost.

Cloning recipe
Paracelsus will probably share the stage with Severino Antinori and Ian Wilmut when the first human clone is announced. He was the first one to describe how to do it. And — are you listening, empowered sisterhood? — entirely without female contribution.

With our insatiable greed for newer reproductive technologies at the devastating cost of maternal morbidity and child mortality, Paracelsus' recipe for a homunculus ought to be a sensational hit. For those seriously considering it as a cottage industry, here's the procedure: Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed chamber with the heat of venter equinus (a 'horse's womb') for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen.

After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of venter equinus, it becomes thenceforth a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller...

$$THE SRI YANTRA POWER$$

The Sri Yantra, or Yantra of Creation, originated in our pre-history. It has been known in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions and since the Vedic times as the most powerful and mystically beautiful of all yantras (geometric mandalas known as power diagrams). It represents the timeless creative principle of the universe, the continuous unfoldment of all realms of creation from the central source, and with that mindfulness, it is used as an object of meditation. The central point, called bindu, represents transcendental unity and the source of creation. The opposing sets of triangles represent the male and female principles which form creation, themselves being recognized as expressions of the polarity inherent in the creative force of the bindu. The surrounding geometries represent the realms of creation, entirely supported by the creative process, and which would have no reality whatsoever without the omnipresence of the transcendental source. We meditate upon that Divine Sun, the true Light of the Shining Ones. May it illuminate our minds.

Mantra, tantra and yantra in Hinduism

The Secrets of Hindu worship: the Role of Mantra, Tantra and Yantra

by Jayaram V

Be it a complicated form of vedic ritual such a yajna or some simple form of worship performed ordinarily in millions of Hindu households everyday, the process of worship in Hinduism invariably involves the use of three basic techniques, namely the mantra, the tantra and the yantra.
Symbolically, they represent the three basic spiritual paths of Hinduism, made hugely popular by the teachings of Sri Vasudeva Krishna in the famous Bhagavad gita. The mantra symbolically represents the use of Jnanamarg, the path of knowledge, the tantra of Bhaktimarg, the path of devotion, and the yantra of Karmasanyasmarg or the path of detached action. Unless these three are present in some form or combination, the worship is incomplete.
The Use of Mantra
A mantra is an invocation, containing a sacred syllable or set of syllables. When a mantra is uttered with specific rhythm, with sincerity of devotion and purity of thought and action, and with phonetic and grammatical accuracy, in a manner prescribed by the scriptural injunctions of the Vedas or some authoritative scripture, it is believed to invoke a particular deity and compel the deity to assist the invoker to achieve a desired end. It is interesting to note that according to Hindu beliefs, if a mantra is pronounced correctly the deity to whom it is addressed has no choice but to respond to the invoker automatically and help him.
When a complicated ritual such as a soma sacrifice or some other yajna is performed, not one but many deities are invoked simultaneously by groups of priests chanting various mantras. Their chanting creates the necessary vibrations in the atmosphere to awaken the deities and facilitates their descent to the place of worship.
The sound that is generated by the chanting of the mantras is very important, but is is not the only requirement for the yajna to be successful. The remaining requirements are the appropriate use of tantra and yantra, which will be explained later.
It is believed that hidden in each mantra is the energy of a particular deity which remains normally latent, but becomes active the moment the mantra is pronounced accurately in the manner prescribed by the shastras. The divinity awakens only if the vibrations generated by the chanting matches with its basic frequency. Besides this, as we have already noted, the appropriate use of tantra and yantra must fit in the overall purpose of the worship and remain in harmony with the expectations of the divinity to whom they are directed.
The Use of Tantra
Tantra is the systematic use of the body and the mind as the physical instruments of divine realization. The body and the mind constitute the lower self and together they aim to indulge in the desire oriented actions of the lower self to perpetuate the interplay of the triple gunas, namely, sattva, rajas and tamas.
Primarily, they are the chief instruments of the divine Prakriti, otherwise called Maya, and they play their dutiful roles quite efficiently and effectively and succeed mostly in keeping the soul chained to the earth and go through the ordeal of births and deaths by the inexorable law of karma.
Tantra aims to liberate and transform these two so as to make them the true instruments of the hidden self. It aims to bring them in tune with the aspirations of the hidden self and make them Its partners in progress. Hindu scriptures declare unequivocally that transformation of the body and the mind is the most difficult part of ones spiritual journey and that most of our difficulties on the path come because of our inability to deal with this problem successfully. Tantra is therefore a very important and integral part of Hindu spiritualism and equally maintains its place in the ritual part of the religion.
Tantra is not for Tantrics only
There is a misconception among many that tantra is used by Tantrics only through the medium of sex and other objectionable means. This is not true. Tantra is used in every aspect of Hindu worship. What we see in Tantricism is an extreme form of tantra where the body and the mind are allowed to express themselves freely under the supervision of an enlightened master to come to terms with them and achieve complete mastery over them. But tantra in its milder and normal forms can be seen in action in everyday life. For example the Yoga of Patanjali, is a kind of tantra only, where we aim to achieve bodily control through certain physical postures and mind control techniques.
The simple use of tantra in an ordinary householder's regular worship include the use of certain bodily postures like prostrating before the deity, the lotus position, the folding of hands in front of the deity, purification of the body through fasting and bathing, concentration of the mind on the image, breathing practices, thought control through inner detachment, detachment of the body and the mind through devotion and so on. In pure devotional forms of worship, the body and the mind are offered to God as an act of supreme sacrifice and inner detachment, thereby allowing the divine forces to descend and do their work of inner purification and transformation.
In a complicated vedic ritual also we can see the use of tantra more or less in a similar manner. A vedic ritual bears no fruit if the body and mind of the performer are not geared to participate in the ritual with the required degree of purity and sincerity. All the chanting of the mantras comes to naught and the divinity or the divinities would remain inactive if these two are not in harmony with the objective of the entire ritual. A Hotr priest or an Adhvaryu priest have to maintain utmost purity and observe certain discipline before performing the rituals.
The Use of Yantra
Yantra is the use of certain external objects, symbols or some mechanical means to worship the divine. The act of folding of hands in front of the deity is but a kind of yantra only. The manner in which a fireplace is built for the performance of some vedic sacrifice, the method in which the place is prepared and the materials (sambhra) are assembled, the manner in which the oblations are poured into the fire, the way the priests sit around the altar, and in fact the very act of chanting of the mantras with mechanical precision form part of yantric worship only.
The very design of the temple as an outer symbol of the existence of the Divine on the material plane, the act of visiting the temple, circling around the temple, entering the temple, the lighting of the lamps in front of the divine, the decorations and the ornamentation so characteristic of hindu temples and places of worship, the manner in which the images are built and installed, the lighting of the lamps, the offerings, the method of worship, the partaking of prasad, and in short any practice that is mechanical, symbolic and ritualistic to a degree, form part of this approach only.
Hindu Worship, a Means to Evolution
Thus we can see that the Hindu way of worship is not a mere superstitious ritual, but a complicated form of divine worship in which higher universal forces are invoked to assist man in his spiritual and material progress. A science as well as an art, it aims not just to achieve some specific end but through the process of integration of the body, the mind and the spirit, the very evolution of man into a higher being.

http://hinduweb,site.com

GRANTS POLITICAL ASYLUM TO PHRA AJAHN YANTRA (or PHRA WINAI LA-ONGSUWAN)

On June 19, 1997, Judge Rico J. Bartolomei, of the United States issued a decision in which he stated that Phra Ajahn Yantra, who the Thai Government has called one of the "most wanted men in Thailand," faces "persecution" in Thailand, not "prosecution" for criminal offences.

The Judge, who read his final decision for five hours before a courtroom packed with Phra Ajahn Yantra's supporters in San Diego, California, stated that he found Phra Ajahn Yantra to be a credible witness who had testified in a genuine, candid and unassuming fashion. He further stated that Phra Ajahn Yantra had been consistent during intense cross-examination. After hearing evidence presented by Phra AjahnYantra's legal representative, United States human rights lawyer Peter Schey, as well as evidence provided by the Thai Government and presented by lawyer for the United States Government, Thomas Haine, the Judge decided that the Government of Thailand had violated well-established international law when, in 1995, it charged Phra Ajahn Yantra with "defaming unnamed Government officials A delighted Phra Ajahn Yantra and his attorney, Peter Schey following the successful outcome of the trial. and the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand" in a speech Phra Ajahn Yantra gave in a temple in Bangkok on March 15, 1995. The Judge concluded that the speech did not insult anyone, and even if it had, bringing a criminal charge based on the speech violated Phra Ajahn Yantra's right to freedom of expression, a right recognized in both the Thai Constitution and in international law.The Judge observed that the Thai Government was attempting to silence Phra Ajahn Yantra and strip him of his monkhood because of his wide popularity in Thailand and his message against corruption, bribery, and the drug and sex trades.The Judge took note that even after Phra Ajahn Yantra fled Thailand in fear for his life in July 1995, the Thai Government tried to work in collaboration with the United States Government to hunt Phra Ajahn Yantra down and forcibly return him to Thailand. The United States Government told the Thai Government to keep this effort "secret" so that "human rights organizations do not become involved" which could make matters more difficult for the Thai Government. In secret communications to the United States Government, copies of which Phra Ajahn Yantra's lawyer was able to obtain through the United States courts, the Thai Government made very clear that it intended to imprison Phra Ajahn Yantra without bail if he was returned to Thailand. The Thai Government offered to send police to the United States to take custody of Phra Ajahn Yantra and escort him back to Thailand. The United States Government wrote in one document that the Thai Government was "insisting" that Phra Ajahn Yantra be returned to Thailand where he would be jailed, even without consideration of legal procedures set out in the U.S.-Thai extradition treaty. The Judge also quoted from United States documents which report that in 1996 prisoners in Thai jails were beaten, tortured to obtain confessions, and some were killed. The Judge also pointed out that the credible reports exist that some officials of the Government of Thailand are themselves involved in the illicit activities that Phra Ajahn Yantra criticized in his Dhamma talks, and that these officials made it their business to repeatedly and falsely defame Phra Ajahn Yantra in the Thai media during 1995. The Judge pointed out that the weight of the evidence established that the allegations that Phra Ajahn Yantra had broken his vow of celibacy were without foundation, and that these charges may have been cooked up because certain officials in the Thai Government wanted to destroy Phra Ajahn Yantra. He was found not guilty at a religious hearing of the sex-related charges. The Judge commented that the hearing appeared to have followed basic due process. The Judge also commented that a report by the Department of State gave credence to the belief that the Thai media was controlled by the Thai government. The Thai media had publicised the sex-related charges intensely for more than one year. After being forced to disrobe, Phra Yantra temporarily wore a green robe

At the request of the Thai Government, the United States Government one year ago also charged Phra Ajahn Yantra with serious criminal offences. The Thai Government claimed that when Phra Ajahn Yantra self-reported to a police station in Bangkok on March 24, 1995, in response to the complaint that he had defamed unnamed Government officials, he was actually "arrested." On a form he filled out for the United States immigration authorities after he fled to the United States, Phra Ajahn Yantra stated that he was not arrested in Thailand, but only self-reported. On June 17, 1997, two days before the Judge announced his decision to grant Phra Ajahn Yantra political asylum, the United States Government dropped all charges that Phra Ajahn Yantra lied on the immigration forms. Phra Ajahn Yantra agreed to plead guilty to a technical offence that he possessed an altered Cambodian passport which he was given to escape Thailand in July 1995, but never used (he was able to leave Thailand using his Thai passport). The United States Government agreed before the Court that this was only a technical violation of the law, and Phra Ajahn Yantra's only "punishment" will be that he teaches Buddhism for 300 hours, something he is happy to do. After the Judge made his decision to grant Phra Ajahn Yantra political asylum in the United States, Phra Ajahn Yantra told his supporters and gathered journalists: "I am very happy with the decision of the courts of the United States. I hope soon to begin travelling throughout the world to teach Buddhism and meditation. I miss my followers in Thailand very much, and I think of them all of the time. I forgive those who wish to persecute me in Thailand. They are misguided and maybe one day will find the strength to face the truth that I am a monk who only wants to teach the way of Buddha, to promote peace, to promote harmony, and to have my country be free of corruption and other illicit and harmful activities. I love all Thai people and I love my country. When the time is right, and my persecutors no longer hold influence, I will return to Thailand, which is where my heart remains even as I speak these words so far away in the United States of America." Phra Ajahn Yantra's legal representative, United States human rights attorney Peter Schey, said after the Court issued its decision: "Phra Ajahn Yantra has won a major victory in the courts of the United States, which are fair and impartial. Those officials in the Thai Government who have tried to destroy Phra Ajahn Yantra should be held accountable for their misconduct before the Courts of Thailand. Their conduct has been a disgrace to Thailand. They have made Thailand look bad in the eyes of the United States and people throughout the world who know of their misdeeds. Phra Ajahn Yantra is a man of peace and loving kindness. He should be commended for having the courage to speak against corruption, not persecuted for this. Phra Ajahn Yantra is now free to teach Buddhism, which is something he loves doing, and he does so well. However, his fundamental human rights will be violated until he is allowed to return to Thailand, without fear that he will be put in jail on cooked-up charges that he insulted "unnamed Government officials," or the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, who has never once said he was insulted by anything Phra Ajahn Yantra said publicly. It is time now for healing, not further persecution which violates international human rights law and Phra Ajahn Yantra's freedom of expression." For further information you may contact: Peter A. Schey, Attorney at Law, (213) 931-2221. Krerkpong Charnpratheep or Phra Mana Viriyarampo at Sunnataram California Meditation Monastery, Tel. (760) 723-7232.