Esraj Story part 12

Finally, the time came to return from Australia back to Germany. It was the end of January 2003. You won't believe what we did back home. While building the esraj we had been in such a delightful spirit. We could no longer imagine how to live without it. So why not just build a second one?

Our mind also had a few reasons. It still found some imperfections in the first esraj. So no part of our being said anything against building a second improved esraj. Sri Chinmoy himself had never asked us to make another one.

So we started again. We bought the wood and met every weekend to work on the new instrument. Now we were already "experienced" esraj builders and everything went much faster. Our idea was to make an exact copy of the first one with just a few improved details. So you may think we just entered into some routine work. But no, on the next corner there was already a new experience waiting for us.

When we had built the first esraj, we had no plan and no predefined measurements. All this we decided while working along. Now we used the same measurements, but nothing was really fitting together. Even at the very end, when we mounted the strings there was a problem. The esraj could not be played, because the strings where banging against the frets.

At that moment we finally realized how much inner guidance was there while building the first esraj. It was like a miracle. The time was so limited that we could not think out a complete plan. Also we could not try different possibilities. So after a while our minds kept silent. Someone else took over and we were allowed to enter into that treasured delightful spirit.