“Something is wrong here…… I have to check this out.”
In 1987 when a 18 year old Dinesh walked into a well known Concert hall in Munich(Circus Krone) to listen to a Sri Chinmoy Peace concert for the first time he was mystified. It was a place he had already seen many rock and jazz concerts. There was nothing about what he was about to see though that would in any way compare with anything else he had ever experienced before.
“It was very unforgettable. Usually you have a huge stack of amplifiers onstage. But there on the left and the right you had just a small stick and on the top you had a ridiculous small p.a.. I came in and said, what is this? (laughs) It was just too small for this hall.”
“I was not interested…. or I did not know about meditation and yoga, but from the musical point I was interested.”
When Sri Chinmoy walked on stage and meditated before a hushed audience of nearly 2000, any doubts Dinesh may have had vanished. He immediately recognized what he calls Sri Chinmoy’s authenticity. Dinesh says that the more authentic a musician is than the more he is liked. “That is what people are searching for. Something that is authentic, something real. In Guru’s case he was completely real. There was not a single percentage of ‘show’.”
“I had no idea what to expect.” As the concert proceeded and Sri Chinmoy moved from instrument to instrument Dinesh realized that Sri Chinmoy was not performing for applause and appreciation but for a completely different reason. “He had a program that he wanted to do and he did it. That is what impressed me most. There was no in between. Either you liked it or you didn’t like it. I was like wowwww!!!”
Click to Play part of rehearsal: