Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/147095
"Basically I'm depressed, that's who I've been most of my life," he acknowledged. "Life doesn't go away when you start to do practice. I'm still dealing with a lot of stuf, and there's a longing to be living in that love all the time, which I can't do. But I'm working on it, so for the most part I'm content with the way things are." Some of his struggle undoubtedly stems from his Long Island childhood, shared with a sister. His mother was often angry and his father was oten gone, and it later turned out mom was an alcoholic (who did clean up for her last 20 years). "But she was not a happy person and she was pretty hard on me," said KD. "And my father let me at the mercy of this hurricane, which would blow at any time." hat background was a stark contrast to the love of his guru. "I still haven't felt anything close to what I felt with Maharaj-ji," said KD. "It's a unique relationship. So, uh, yeah." What of his love for his daughter Janaki? "She's great. It's very intense, but it's not unconditional. So that's the difference." (In fact, she noted in One Track Heart that he was gone a lot during her childhood, but in his version, "I didn't miss that much." (Such disparity of perception is not unusual between parents and kids.) Photo: Matt homas LOVE IS WHO WE ARE "I'm not putting down worldly love relationships," KD clariied. "Once I was very much in love with a woman. I was 32 wholelifetimesmagazine.com telling my Indian father, Mr. Tewari, about it and he was listening very patiently. When I inished he said, 'My boy, relationships are business. Do your business. Enjoy your business. But love is what lasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Real love is who we are; it's not between people. It's not afection, it's not caring, not attachment. It's actually who we are. It's our true nature.' "And someone like Maharaj-ji, a real saint, has become that. So around those people you have the possibility of feeling something that encompasses human emotion. It's as if… how many colors are there, seven? It's as if you open your eyes one day and you see an eighth color you'd never seen before. It doesn't make the other colors any diferent but it encompasses all those colors. Love is not between people, love is who we are. his is the real thing we're all looking for. We're looking for the right thing but we've got bad aim." Objectively speaking, KD's aim seems pretty right on. He's kind and compassionate—he was on an errand of mercy while talking to WLT—and a loyal friend still close to his BFFs from the '60s. He's immersed in beautiful music and has a strong spiritual practice, yet he's down-to-earth and open with a ready laugh. Plus at 66 he's still easy on the eyes. His tall, trim frame seems to glide into place on stage, and his eyes are warm and smiling despite any lingering sadness. Even with his busy touring schedule he makes time for a girlfriend. "She lives in Brazil and we see each other a few times a year for long visits. Not a monogamous committed relationship but it's a good relationship, and I've had other girlfriends over the years. I'm a human being you know—a person, a guy—that's what we do." He said he'd learned a lot from relationships, but claimed he's diicult. "Relationships are hard and they force you to deal with the stuf hidden in your own heart, so I ind it's very useful for me, and sometimes it's even enjoyable. I think anybody who's over 20 can't really imagine they're going to ind eternal happiness through another person; it's just not possible, that's not how human beings are wired. We have to ind a way to feed ourselves from within." MUSIC BY ANY OTHER NAME He may not call the chants music, but KD has always played instruments. As a boy he studied piano, cornet and euphonium, and was in a marching band. He enjoys blues, rock 'n' roll (his rock-infused 2010 album, Heart as Wide as the