tabla and discipleship

I had the honor of meeting Ravi Shankar at his concert in Charlotte last Monday night. It was an amazing honor and a greatly inspiring experience. After the concert, I had a conversation with an Indian man about tabla players and the cultural process of becoming a student of the tabla in India. It is so unlike anything we understand in America or the way we go about teaching music to our children or others.
Basically as a child you are given over to a guru, with whom you go to live with and serve, doing household chores and the like. In return, (if you are accepted as a student) the guru disciples you in tabla playing. You don't just learn to play an instrument, you carry on a tradition. It is a serious lifelong pursuit with thousands of years of history behind it and a great responsibility to uphold for future generations.
I thought about this both for the way we approach our own musical heritages and also in our following the Lord. We don't have a cultural understanding of what it means to be a disciple. But for tabla players, it means a devotion so deep you give your entire life to pursue it. I hope to learn from this both in my own spiritual, musical pursuits as well as how I approach my own students.