My Guru sows the music-seed in me

As a family, we didn't have much money. We could never afford to go on the Christmas trips. But I had saved up some money for a bicycle. Alo allowed people to come to the trip for just one week in Madrid, a very short trip. So I put all the money that I had saved up for the bicycle to go to Madrid to be part of the Christmas trip.

My birthday is on December 27th. Guru asked me for my birthday to play on the stage. In the function room there was an upright piano. He said, "On your birthday you will play three songs."

This was a very big thing for me. I had very simple arrangements. Guru was sitting in his chair on the stage. I came up on stage and I started to play.

I didn't realise that while I was playing, Guru got up from his chair. He came and stood behind me and meditated while I was playing. Before I finished, Guru sat down, so I didn't realise Guru had done this. It was only when I had finished, and after Guru had given me some birthday presents, that somebody in the audience told me: “Do you know what happened? Guru got up and stood behind you while you were playing!”

I'm so grateful for this photograph because I didn't see Guru behind me. This is for me a very, very sacred and special photograph.

One of the gifts that Guru gave me was this little piano that you wind up and it plays music. It's very, very sweet. I have this on my piano that I use to practise and arrange music. I sit there and it reminds me of that moment in Madrid. This is where I feel that Guru started something in me. He sowed some seeds that I now see—now that I'm 50 years old—I see that Guru inspired me from a young age to do something with his music.

O divine Musician Supreme,
Do tune my heart-strings every morning
Before I begin to play on the world-stage.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 247, Agni Press, 1998