Born as Irina Tamara Karpova (Ирина Тамара Ка́рпов) in Russia,[3] she spent her early life in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France and England after her family fled the Bolscheviks.
She studied in Vienna and Paris, and after World War II married her second husband, an English Navy officer surnamed Tweedie.
On 2 October 1961, through her friend Lilian Silburn (1908-1993),[4] a Sanskrit scholar and translator at the Sorbonne, she met her guru, Radha Mohan Lal (1900-1966), a Hindu Sufi[neologism?]
From a psychological viewpoint, the diary maps the process of ego dissolution, gradually unveiling the openness and love that reside beneath the surface of the personality.
[citation needed] The book was first published in its abridged form as The Chasm of Fire which has sold over 100,000 copies and has been translated into five languages.