Narada Michael Walden remembers Sri Chinmoy on his 91st Birthday

Question: What is the secret of your success?

Narada: It is called divine love. When you love the person you are with and you make them feel loved they can be their best. And these are secrets Guru taught me and taught all of us. All disciples know the secret that if we have love and we have the feeling of happiness in our heart, then those who are around us, and those we are trying to inspire. If we are inspired we can inspire them and this feeling is very contagious. And that feeling is the God feeling. It opens everything up. People get happy and want to get into that zone and before you know it you are making hit records or running marathons or doing whatever Guru wanted you to do at that time.

Sri Chinmoy with Narada Michael Walden 1984. Photo: Bhashwar.

Becoming a disciple

Narada: I shaved my beard, put on a little white dashiki my mom had made for me and we had a black limousine and my manager was Greg Bell. And Greg Bell drove me down in the black limousine to the meditation. And when I got there, it was only one chair left on the girl's side. I sat on the girl's side and they were all so beautiful in their beautiful coloured saris. Yeah. And the boys were wearing white on their side. Guru was singing and playing the harmonium. And when he was playing the harmonium, he was really in a trance. He kind of looked at me because he could see me sitting on the girl's side, he looked at me as he was singing, and kept on singing.

And then about 5 minutes later, this lady named Akuti. She read from a book called The Dance of Life, part two. As she read the poems, it was so beautiful, and it was just tearing at my heart because the poems were like, How many more tears can I cry for you, Lord? How many more days was I go longing for you? I mean, they went on and on like that.

Then it hit me. - Michael, are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? You think you want it, but are you ready for it? because it's so intense. And then we went upstairs to the library. I had just enough money to buy a book to buy that book, The Dance of Life when I'm coming back downstairs, and Guru was standing there and he just stands before me. He begins to meditate. He puts his eyes up like this.

And he kind of very quietly concentrates. And after a long time, he said,

“You are Mahavishnu's friend?”

I said, Yes, I am.

He said: ”You would like to become my disciple.”

Yes, Guru, I think. I think I'm ready.

He said “I accept you with all my heart.”

And as he walked away, I felt like an explosion in my heart. Wow. I felt like an explosion in my heart of gratitude that this great man accepted me. Wow. And that's how it began.

And I'm telling you, it was like being on a rocket ship from that point forward. I moved down to be closer to the meditations every week and joining a band called Jatra, and spending time with disciples to learn their ways.