|
Gurbasant Singh and his team had left
no stone unturned in their vigorous marketing of these
events. In fact, he was sprinting right to the finish
line. On the Tuesday before the concert weekend, I received
a message from him letting us know that there were still
about 50 tickets left for the Saturday night concert
in Frankfurt and he had an idea for filling the auditorium.
He had just discovered that a local yoga center was
putting on a street festival in downtown Frankfurt that
same Saturday afternoon. He had spoken to the directors
and they were enthusiastic about our dropping in to
play a tune in the late afternoon. He was hoping that
we would agree to do this to help sell the remaining
tickets. He was determined to deliver three sold out
concerts!
Initially we were a bit hesitant. We
admired his determination and
creativity, but at the same time we knew how grueling
that day’s schedule was already looking. There
was a late concert the night before, a five hour drive
from Hamburg to Frankfurt during the day, followed by
a pre-concert sound check that usually takes 1-2 hours.
How could we possibly add an appearance at this festival
to our already exhausting schedule and still deliver
a quality concert that night?? We debated the situation
at length and finally concluded that it wasn’t
a good idea. The only problem was that we didn’t
have the heart to pick up the phone, call Gurbasant
and say ‘no’. How could we say no to a guy
who was working day and night to make our concerts a
booming success? After a bit of soul searching and tuning
into the limitless energy of the divine, we decided
that I would go to the festival with my guitar while
everyone else went to prepare for the evening’s
concert.
We arrived in Frankfurt at 4 pm that
afternoon, after a longer than expected drive from Hamburg
due to major road construction. Gurbasant’s wonderful
wife, Avtar Kaur, immediately loaded me and my guitar
into her car and we set out for the street festival
while the others went inside to help set up the stage
and prepare for the sound check. As predicted, I was
feeling physically exhausted from the prior 24 hours,
so I started chanting to Guru Ram Das in my mind the
entire drive there, praying for the energy and love
to gracefully serve at the festival. 15 minutes later,
I’m on stage outdoors in downtown Frankfurt with
a microphone on my guitar, a microphone on my voice
and a big smile on my face filled with love and energy
for the 50 or so beautiful souls that I was meeting
for the first time. One miracle after another started
happening, the first of which was that they laughed
at my jokes!! The second was that I received the inspiration
to lead the chant, ”Hari Om, Dear Lord, Sat Nam,
Holy Name, When I Call On The Light Within, I Go Home”.
I hadn’t played that chant in many months. Very
soon after I started the chant, I looked to the side
of the stage and was pleased to see that the two festival
organizers looked absolutely ecstatic and were enthusiastically
chanting and clapping with the music. This was contagious
and soon everyone else joined in. Before I knew it,
the crowd had doubled in size to about 100 and it was
starting to sound like an outdoor version of the Omega
Ecstatic Chant Weekend!!! What I didn’t know was
that I had been inspired to play the perfect chant for
the occasion. You see, the festival organizers’
yoga center just happened to be named ‘The Hari
Om Yoga Center’!!! Chanting ‘Hari Om’
had them blissed out! I had no idea!!! One could call
it a stroke of good luck but I call it God’s Grace!!
One last thing to share….at the
end of the chant, I made the comment, “The important
thing in life is how much light and love you have, not
how much money you have.” As I got off the stage,
a group of 5 young people came up to me expressing the
desire to come to the concert. One of the young ladies
looked at me with a smile and said, “We have lots
of light and love, but not much money, and we’d
love to go to your concert!!” I offered to leave
a note at the box office that all five of them could
come for the price of 3 tickets. They were delighted
and immediately said it was a deal. The concert that
night was a huge success. I have no idea how many people
from the festival actually showed up but the place was
so full that people were sitting on the floor right
in front of us. In fact, the best part for me was that
those same 5 young folks came and sat down on the floor,
front and center. The whole evening they chanted with
so much light and love that they brought me to tears
several times just looking at them. After the concert,
they wanted to know all about us, and by the time they
left they were determined to become practitioners of
Kundalini Yoga! What a blessing it all was!!
Peace and Blessings!!!
|
