Gora Devi - Fire of Transformation

The book

Fire of Transformation - a story of love between a woman and the Divine, between soul and spirit, between earth and sky, unique and precious. this is a deeply moving and personal account of challenge and revelation, of joy, struggle and surrender, of the outer and inner journeying towards self-discovery.

Valeria Bonnazola (Gora Devi) was a young student in Milan when an inner prompting called her to India in a search for love, the love for God. There she encountered the legendary Hairakhan Babaji -- referred to by Yogananda in his book, Autobiography of a Yogi -- the revolutionary teacher and acclaimed Mahavatar who transformed her life completely.

The author

Gora Devi was born in 10th April 1946. She obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University Statale in Milan with a thesis on Utopia and the New World . Travelling to India in 1972 she spent 12 years with Babaji, the renowned Yogi of the Himalayas. she was one of the first Western people to meet Babaji and his first Italian disciple. The life journey on which she embarked is both mystical and entrancing, simple and yet extraordinary; a story of courage and endurance, of human frailty and the absolute wonder of human potential. She continues to live primarily in India.

Gora Devi

Fire of Transformation

My life with Babaji

Table of Contents

Cover

The book / The author The book Fire of Transformation - a story of love between a woman and the Divine, between soul and spirit, between earth and sky, unique and precious. this is a deeply moving and personal account of challenge and revelation, of joy, struggle and surrender, of the outer and inner journeying towards self-discovery. Valeria Bonnazola (Gora Devi) was a young student in Milan when an inner prompting called her to India in a search for love, the love for God. There she encountered the legendary Hairakhan Babaji -- referred to by Yogananda in his book, Autobiography of a Yogi -- the revolutionary teacher and acclaimed Mahavatar who transformed her life completely. The author Gora Devi was born in 10th April 1946. She obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University Statale in Milan with a thesis on Utopia and the New World . Travelling to India in 1972 she spent 12 years with Babaji, the renowned Yogi of the Himalayas. she was one of the first Western people to meet Babaji and his first Italian disciple. The life journey on which she embarked is both mystical and entrancing, simple and yet extraordinary; a story of courage and endurance, of human frailty and the absolute wonder of human potential. She continues to live primarily in India.

Title Gora Devi Fire of Transformation My life with Babaji

Table of Contents

Foreword

Editor's note

Preface by the author

Community Life

Trip to India

Mother India

Meeting the Great Master, Babaji

Vrindavan

New Encounters

Tibetan Initiation - Lama Sakya Trinzin

Love Story

Return to Babaji

Trip to Nepal

Lama Tubten Yeshe

Returning to India

Training at Hairakhan

Experiences in Dina Pani

A Winter at Hairakhan

Okhaldunga, Madhuvan, Almora

Benares - Assam

Return to Hairakhan

Return to Italy

At Hairakhan Again

The West has come to Hairakhan

Mahasamadhi

Babaji Invisible

New Beginnings

Glossary

Imprint

by Peter Dawkins

In this book Gora Devi writes of her personal experiences as a disciple of Shri Hairakhan Wale Baba, the Mahavatar Babaji who appeared publicly in India at the end of the last century and millennium. It is a beautiful account - beautiful in its honesty - and is based upon the diary that Gora Devi kept during her time with Babaji. As she says herself in her own preface, this diary is intended to be a personal witness to a divine encounter. I always find it very touching, very moving, to hear or read about someone's personal encounter with Babaji, and even more so with Gora Devi, who was one of the few people in the 1970's to become a disciple of Babaji rather than just a devotee, and to be by Babaji's side during the last crucial years of his public appearance as Hairakhan Baba. This diary concerns Gora Devi's life and experiences with Babaji as a disciple during the years 1972-1984, and gives a unique insight not only into Babaji and his way of teaching (or one of his ways, as he himself is beyond limitation), but also into the transformational process undertaken by his beloved disciple.

Hairakhan Baba is known as a Mahavatar - a Great Avatar. Avatar means 'incarnation or manifestation of God', Maha means 'great'. In the Hindu Saivite tradition, Babaji is the Mahavatar of Samba-Sada-Shiva, the Supreme Being who is described as 'He who gives happiness at all times'. When he appeared in 1970 in the Indian foothills of the Himalayas, at Hairakhan, Babaji was recognised as such by many great yogis and saints, who were called to him and who had been preparing for his reappearance. Babaji has many names to describe him, amongst them being the Mahayogi (i.e. the Great Yogi or Yogi of all yogis) and Visva-Guru (i.e. the Guru of all gurus), who gave the world the yogic teachings and who has been with this world from its beginning, manifesting himself whenever appropriate throughout the ages. It is said that such manifestations rarely occur and that when they do it is when a major crisis confronts humanity and the planet, and the world needs greater help than can be given by an ordinary Avatar. Such a time is now, as we move from one Great Age (i.e. a 26,000-year cycle of twelve zodiacal Ages) into a new Great Age, and out of the Kali Yuga or Dark Age that ends each Great Age with a death and purifying, transformational process.

In the Hindu tradition Shiva is the god-name usually associated with that aspect of Deity which brings about death of the old form and transformation (or transmutation) into a new form of expression. However, because this process brings about the birth of each new creation, Shiva is known as the Creator as well as the Destroyer/Transformer. He is also the Maintainer or Preserver of what He creates. In other words, Shiva is the divine Trinity of Creator (Brahma), Preserver (Vishnu) and Destroyer (Rudra). He is often referred to as Samba-Sada-Shiva ('the Ever Holy Shiva'), or as Mahesvara ('the Great Lord'), names that correspond to Jehovah, the Lord God of Hebrew and Christian tradition.

Shiva is that divine Spirit or essence of life, light and consciousness that is everywhere and out of which all things are made. Sometimes it is called the great ocean of life, sometimes the holy breath of life, sometimes the Word or 'Om'. We all share this same essence, and in varying degrees we manifest it consciously and beautifully in our human forms of expression. To the degree that we can understand and truly manifest this divinity we become devotees, disciples, initiates, saints, Adepts, Masters and Great Masters - or, in Hindu terminology, sadhus, jnanis, yogis, Rishis, Sidhas and Avatars. The greatest of these in our world is Babaji ('Beloved or Holy Father'), the Mahavatar and Teacher of all teachers. It is very likely that he is the same great soul as the one known in Western tradition as Idris or Enoch, who is described in Rabbinical literature as the first human being in this world to achieve full enlightenment and rise to the highest level of evolution, to become the supreme Messiah or Christ and the Teacher of all other teachers, Master of all other masters. I believe that this is so; but even this is too limited a viewpoint, as realisation of the Divine is simply the moment in time when we as human souls consciously apprehend and are able to manifest to others our own divinity, which has always existed from the beginning of time.