Fire of Transformation. Gora Devi

am here with Giuliano and Dinni, on this tiny Spanish island where hippies from all over the world have come to find new purpose in their lives. The island is arid, sunny, homely, with wonderful little beaches and the sea turquoise-blue. The landscape is flat and many people move around on bicycles, the houses are small and white, rather like Greece and on some of the walls people have written the forbidden word: 'LSD'. The three of us spend all day by the sea only eating fruits, nourishing ourselves with the energy of the sun and in the evening eating some brown rice. We have decided to take LSD together.

       29 July 1971

      The experiment with acid has been a huge revelation for me, I have seen all my past lives, or at least I thought I could see them. I had the experience of having been a thousand beings and that now I can be at one with everybody and everything if I can just expand my consciousness. At the end of the experience I saw only light, a blazing, white light enveloping all of reality. I feel a cosmic consciousness breathing through the universe and through myself. Dinni has also undergone a similar experience and Giuliano had visions of certain Christian saints.

      We bathe naked on the beach in absolute innocence. Having sex is not so important any more, but we are thirsty for our fantastic, spiritual visions. I sensed an unknown voice talking to me from inside my body and telling me I should leave everything behind and go to India. It frightens me and yet I am also really tempted by the call. This island resembles a laboratory where people experiment with the light of the soul on a high frequency. Suddenly I perceive the magic of a new energy within myself, guiding my life.

       Milan, 25 September 1971

      On my return home I hurried to Brera once again in the evening to meet everybody and share my new discoveries. Piero and Claudio are visiting the community and have shown me some photographs of their Tibetan teachers, standing close to the snow-covered Himalayan peaks. There is something about the images that is both remote and familiar at the same time. When Piero and Claudio come to visit me in 'Via Mayr' they impress me, because I recognize something very serious and concentrated in them that is not present in other people, a special depth. Piero made love with me the other day in a soft, gentle way, detached, as if it were a strange meditation. They asked me if I would like to go to India with them, soon.

      Last week we organized a huge, underground rock concert at 'Ballabio', in the countryside. We gathered all our hopes and all our songs: old revolutionary and anarchist songs, the American ones and our new repertory, Claudio sang Magic Fly. The concert turned into a huge gathering of people and in the night fires were lit and sitting around them I saw the new tribe of earth' s people: the Indians, the Tibetans, the freaks, the students, the artists, the musicians, the politicians, the journalists, all sitting together, like ancient gypsies looking for a new land. So many friends were present and their eyes were transparent, full of light and love and I sat around the many fires, to talk, or just share the presence, communion on a common path.

       15 November 1971

      I am working in the experimental kindergarten I organized with Giuliano's help, but I'm finding out that it's not easy for me to work with the children. We want to give them maximum freedom and fantasy, instead of repressing them with an orthodox, heavy-handed authority, but it's a difficult task. The children are very restless and I don't feel mature enough for this job.

      I lead a crazy life not regulated by time, never eating or sleeping regularly, always meeting up with friends until late in the night. Gianni now lives with me and has transformed my room into an oriental shop, filling it up with clothes he is buying from Turkey and Afghanistan. Quite often there are four or five other people sharing the carpet on the floor with me to sleep on.

      We continue to experiment with LSD and Piero has taught me some Tibetan and Indian prayers, which I have begun to repeat, and I even teach them to the children in the kindergarten. I still feel uneasy about the idea of God, but I have started to have many visions, seeing beautiful mandalas with perfect colours, hearing incredible music and mysterious voices talking to me. Sometimes I am afraid of going crazy, or becoming addicted to drugs, but at other times I feel I have been initiated into a hidden reality only revealed to a few people, to those who have the courage to risk everything, even their own life. What is certain is that we are looking for knowledge and for the mystery of life and death. Our projects take us so far away from the usual pathways of this world.

      I have started to think seriously about going to India, to find the masters of the ancient wisdom, to seek an answer to all the many questions that are arising in me. I'm finding it extremely difficult to travel alone on this psychic path and at times even dangerous. Recently I read a Buddhist book about the life of Milarepa, where this Tibetan yogi explains that it's impossible to reach enlightenment without the help of a guru, without his knowledge.

      My life here is exciting in many ways, but I've begun to feel very tired and restless. Something is missing; real love is such a difficult thing to realize. I feel that we are still too deeply involved on the physical level in our search and our minds are in no way clear enough to visualize the truth.

      I would like to stop running around, to be able to be quiet for a while, even live alone so as to look deep within myself. We are continually meeting up with each other, over and over again making love, touching each other and talking endlessly, but I feel I want to stop this pattern.

      During the day I work in the kindergarten, at night I hardly sleep, I experience so many sad moments in Milan and often I feel exceptionally tired. I am sure that an inner journey has begun, an adventure that is without boundaries, capable of taking me anywhere that is required. When I sit with people, often smoking together in a circle, I exist as if in a dream, and the oriental music, sweet, languid, resounding within me, invites my soul to another dimension. We are being called to be sure, maybe by God! Even though the thought of that is still difficult for me to accept, I'm beginning to believe that it's only Him we are searching for, only Him we want to see.

      * * *

      Trip to India

       Milan, 5 March 1972

      Today I am leaving for India and I'm really frightened. I made the decision all of a sudden when I discovered that Piero and Claudio were going. Gianni wants to come as well so that he can start up some sort of business buying and selling clothes.

      A few nights ago we were sitting in the big community room in the commune with the dome of yellow brocade in the centre: Angelo, Tiziani, Serena, Gianni, Zizi and Marco, a group of friends lying on the carpet with a Joan Baez record playing. Angelo started to make sexual advances towards me again and suddenly I felt as if it was an old theatrical performance, too repetitive, leading nowhere, like one of the narrow, dark streets in Brera at night and it annoyed me.

      I felt tired, bored, exhausted as well as feeling unable to find truth or experience real love any more; trying to rediscover it through sex, again and again, is exhausting and a pathetic illusion. Also I'd become tired of smoking dope interminably, even my thoughts seemed smoky and I had no peace of mind. What I would have preferred was to have a place of my own, to be able to take a break and stay somewhere where I could be alone for a while, look within myself. I'd also realized that the work I did with the children in the kindergarten couldn't continue the way it was, I was too restless, confused, not mature enough for such responsibility. Then the other day Piero and Claudio showed me the pictures again of Nepal and the Tibetan masters. I imagined a mysterious and magical place, ancient; it felt like a déja vu experience looking at those photographs. Piero has a special light in his eyes and I wondered if I should follow him.

      So, yesterday evening I left my house to sleep with Gianni in his attic flat, in order to decide definitely what to do. As always we slept close together but like brother and sister, like children, and the next morning I went to the travel agents to buy a ticket to India; I secured the last vacant seat on the plane. Tonight we are travelling to London by train and then we will fly to India, to Bombay. I am afraid and who knows if it will work out! People think I've gone mad, because I am leaving behind