Denise Nuttallknew that she really should be learning from this master that she saw
and heard in her dream. In her travels, she came to realize that it was
Zakirji who had been present in the dream. Many friends and family
discouraged her from seeking him out, suggesting that such a prom-
inent sought-after master would have no time for her. Leen pressed
on and eventually made her way to Mumbai. She contacted Zakirji
at Simla House by phone. He told her to come over at a certain time
to talk. When she finally contacted Zakirji and they eventually met
face-to-face, he smiled and said, “What took you so long?”
As we talked further, I mentioned to Leen that I thought Zakirji was
an extremely affecting person. “Yeah,” she said, “He is a master; he
is a spiritual master, too.” “Does he guide you in your life?” I asked.
“He’s an example, yes. When I saw him for the first time, I laughed.
I said, wow, here’s my brother, the elder brother I always wanted.”
Leen continued:
I felt that he was the same, in a way, the same as me. The energy!
You can feel how he thinks and feels, how he plays the music. He
transmits something and that is the thing that I want to do as well
in my own way. Music is a channel to transmit something else,
higher values in life, beauty, and love. And I just see him in a stage
much further on than me. In terms of practical decisions, I’m in
full control of my own life. It’s my decision to do one thing or
another. However, part of him attracts me.
He opens up barriers that I don’t see. It’s like he can just push but-
tons. It’s all in the plane of energy. He does things to you—that
is a fact. It’s like he holds this big mirror in front of you and you
just have to look. So of course you grow, you learn, things change.
Everything changes, and of course learning from him changes you.
He’s a powerful teacher. He becomes part of you, and this he has
been from the very beginning.Leen’s description of her first encounter with Zakirji in a dream fasci-
nated me. Later, after we had become closer friends, she told me that
she dreams of him and of tabla all the time. I had first heard about
tabla dreams years earlier from Satwantji. He told me that when he