Why being a Beatle was not enough

[Guest guest]

Why being a Beatle was not enough

Perhaps George Harrison's greatest influence on popular culture was

in the field of spirituality - in particular his promotion of the

Hare Krishna sect. Richard Williams introduces an extraordinary

conversation between the late musician and one of the movement's

leaders, Mukunda Goswami

 

Richard Williams

Guardian

 

Friday December 7, 2001

 

 

George Harrison left the world, in his family's words, "as he had

lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace".

Thirty-five years of devotion to Krishna consciousness had prepared

him for what he viewed as the translation to the next stage of his

journey between the material and the spiritual worlds.

 

It was George who turned the Beatles and their worldwide army of

followers on to the idea of the quest for enlightenment. In the

process he created the material for a series of glorious parodies,

from Private Eye's long-running saga of Spiggy Topes and the Turds

through Eric Idle's Rutles (in which Harrison participated) to This

Is Spinal Tap. In most of them, the joke was based on the

shallowness and short attention span that, reasonably enough,

characterised the average rock star.

 

Harrison, however, was in it for the long haul, which in his case

meant a journey that would continue beyond this life. His sincerity

was confirmed by his occasional shows of impatience and

irritability - signs that he remained a sentient human being and not

someone whose faculties had been narcoticised by the embrace of a

cult. In this remarkable interview with Mukunda Goswami, recorded in

1982, he described his involvement with the Hare Krishna movement.

 

Mukunda Goswami: George, you were a member of the Beatles, you had

material success. You'd been everywhere, done everything, yet at the

same time you were on a spiritual quest. What was it that really got

you started on your journey?

 

George Harrison: It wasn't until the experience of the 60s really

hit. You know, having been successful and meeting everybody we

thought worth meeting and finding out they weren't worth meeting,

and having had more hit records than everybody else and having done

it bigger than everybody else. It was like reaching the top of a

wall and then looking over and seeing that there's so much more on

the other side. So I felt it was part of my duty to say, "Oh, OK,

maybe you are thinking this is all you need - to be rich and famous -

but actually it isn't."

 

MG: In your recently published autobiography, I, Me, Mine, you said

your song Awaiting on You All is about japa-yoga, or chanting

mantras on beads. How do you feel after chanting for a long time?

 

GH: I find that I sometimes have opportunities when I can really get

going at it, and the more I do it, I find the harder it is to stop,

and I don't want to lose the feeling it gives me. For example, once

I chanted the Hare Krishna mantra all the way from France to

Portugal, nonstop. I drove for about 23 hours and chanted all the

way. It gets you feeling a bit invincible. The funny thing was that

I didn't even know where I was going. I mean I had bought a map, and

I knew basically which way I was aiming, but I couldn't speak

French, Spanish, or Portuguese. But none of that seemed to matter.

You know, once you get chanting, then things start to happen

transcendentally.

 

MG: Can you think of any incident where you felt God's presence very

strongly through chanting?

 

Harrison: Once I was on an aeroplane that was in an electric storm.

It was hit by lightning three times, and a Boeing 707 went over the

top of us, missing by inches.

 

I thought the back end of the plane had blown off. I was on my way

from Los Angeles to New York to organise the Bangladesh concert. As

soon as the plane began bouncing around, I started chanting Hare

Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare

Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. The whole thing went on for about an

hour and a half or two hours, the plane dropping hundreds of feet

and bouncing all over in the storm, all the lights out and all these

explosions, and everybody terrified.

 

I ended up with my feet pressed against the seat in front, my seat

belt as tight as it could be, gripping on the thing, and yelling

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare at the top of

my voice. I know for me, the difference between making it and not

making it was actually chanting the mantra. Peter Sellers also swore

that chanting Hare Krishna saved him from a plane crash once.

 

MG: Did any of the other Beatles chant?

 

Harrison: Before meeting Prabhupada [the founder of the Kare Krishna

movement] and all of you, I had bought that album Prabhupada did in

New York, and John and I listened to it. I remember we sang it for

days, John and I, with ukulele banjos, sailing through the Greek

islands chanting Hare Krishna. Like six hours we sang, because we

couldn't stop once we got going. As soon as we stopped, it was like

the lights went out. It went on to the point where our jaws were

aching, singing the mantra over and over and over and over and over.

We felt exalted; it was a very happy time for us.

 

MG: In 1969 you produced a single called The Hare Krishna Mantra,

which eventually became a hit in many countries. That tune later

became a cut on the Radha-Krishna Temple album, which you also

produced. A lot of people were surprised by this, your producing

songs for and singing with the Hare Krishnas. Why did you do it?

 

Harrison: Well, it's just all a part of service, isn't it? Spiritual

service, in order to try to spread the mantra all over the world.

Also, to try and give the devotees a wider base and a bigger

foothold.

 

MG: How did the success of this record of Hare Krishna devotees

chanting compare with some of the rock musicians you were producing

at the time, like Jackie Lomax, Splinter, and Billy Preston?

 

Harrison: There was less commercial potential in it, but it was much

more satisfying to do, knowing the possibilities that it was going

to create, just by doing a three-and-a-half-minute mantra. That was

more fun really than trying to make a pop hit record.

 

MG: What effect do you think that tune, The Hare Krishna Mantra,

having reached millions of people, has had on the cosmic

consciousness of the world?

 

Harrison: I'd like to think it had some effect. After all, the sound

is God.

 

MG: When Apple called a press conference to promote the record, the

media seemed to be shocked to hear you speak about the soul and God

being so important.

 

Harrison: I felt it was important...to come out of the closet and

really tell them. Because once you realise something, then you can't

pretend you don't know it any more. So the idea was to try to

spiritually infiltrate society, so to speak. One of the greatest

thrills of my life, actually, was seeing you all on BBC's Top of the

Pops [with the Hare Krishna single]. I couldn't believe it. My

strategy was to keep it to a three-and-a-half-minute version of the

mantra so they'd play it on the radio, and it worked.

 

MG: Shortly after its release, John Lennon told me that they played

it at the intermission right before Bob Dylan did the Isle of Wight

concert with Jimi Hendrix, the Moody Blues, and Joe Cocker in the

summer of '69.

 

Harrison: They played it while they were getting the stage set up

for Bob. It was great. Besides, it was a catchy tune, and the people

didn't have to know what it meant to enjoy it.

 

MG: What about the other Beatles? What did they think about your

taking up Krishna consciousness? What was their reaction? You'd all

been to India by then and were pretty much searching for something

spiritual.

 

Harrison: Oh, yeah, well, if the Fab Four couldn't deal with shaven-

headed Hare Krishnas, then there would have been no hope! And the

devotees just came to be associated with me, so people stopped

thinking, "Hey, what's this?" you know, if somebody in orange, with

a shaved head, would appear. They'd say, "Oh, yeah, they're with

Harrison."

 

MG: You know, the Tudor mansion and estate that you gave us outside

London has become one of our largest international centres. How do

you feel about the Bhaktivedanta Manor's success in spreading

Krishna consciousness?

 

Harrison: Oh, it's great. And it also relates to making the Hare

Krishna record. It gives me pleasure, the idea that I was fortunate

enough to be able to help at that time. All those songs with

spiritual themes were like little plugs - My Sweet Lord and the

others.

 

MG: In The Ballad of John and Yoko, John and Yoko rapped the media

for the way it can foster a false image of you and perpetuate it.

It's taken a lot of time and effort to get them to understand that

we are a genuine religion, with scriptures that predate the New

Testament by 3,000 years. Gradually, though, more people have come

around, and today they have a great deal of respect.

 

Harrison: The media is to blame for everything, for all the

misconceptions about the movement, but in a sense it didn't really

matter if they said something good or bad, because Krishna

consciousness always seemed to transcend that barrier anyway. The

fact that the media was letting people know about Krishna was good

in itself.

 

MG: You write in your autobiography that "No matter how good you

are, you still need grace to get out of the material world. You can

be a yogi or a monk or a nun, but without God's grace you still

can't make it." And at the end of the song Living in the Material

World, the lyrics say, "Got to get out of this place by the Lord Sri

Krishna's grace, my salvation from the material world." If we're

dependent on the grace of God, what does the expression "God helps

those who help themselves" mean?

 

Harrison : It's flexible, I think. In one way, I'm never going to

get out of here unless it's by His grace but then again, His grace

is relative to the amount of desire I can manifest in myself. The

amount of grace I would expect from God should be equal to the

amount of grace I can gather or earn. I get out what I put in. Like

in the song I wrote about Prabhupada:

 

The Lord loves the one that loves the Lord

 

And the law says if you don't give,

 

then you don't get loving

 

Now the Lord helps those that help themselves

 

And the law says whatever you do

 

It comes right back on you

 

MG: Did any of the other Beatles believe in reincarnation?

 

Harrison: I'm sure John does! And I wouldn't want to underestimate

Paul and Ringo. I wouldn't be surprised if they're hoping it's true,

you know what I mean? For all I know, Ringo might be a yogi

disguised as a drummer!

 

MG: Where do you think John's soul is now?

 

Harrison: I should hope that he's in a good place. He had the

understanding, though, that each soul reincarnates until it becomes

completely pure, and that each soul finds its own level, designated

by reactions to its actions in this and previous lives.

 

MG: Dylan did a lot of chanting at one time. He used to come to the

Los Angeles temple and came to the Denver and Chicago temples as

well. In fact he drove across the US with two devotees once and

wrote several songs about Krishna. They spent a lot of time

chanting.

 

Harrison: That's right. He said he enjoyed the chanting and being

with them. Also Stevie Wonder had you on one of his records, you

know.

 

MG: You wrote in your book, "Most of the world is fooling about,

especially the people who think they control the world and the

community. The presidents, the politicians, the military, etc, are

all jerking about, acting as if they are Lord over their own

domains. That's basically Problem One on the planet."

 

Harrison: That's right. Unless you're doing some kind of God

conscious thing and you know that He's the one who's really in

charge, you're just building up a lot of karma and not really

helping yourself or anybody else. There's a point in me where it's

beyond sad, seeing the state of the world today. It's so screwed up.

It's terrible, and it will be getting worse and worse. In one sense,

I'm pessimistic about the future of the planet. These big guys don't

realise for everything they do, there's a reaction. You have to pay.

That's karma.

 

MG: Do you think there's any hope?

 

Harrison: Yes. One by one, everybody's got to escape maya [the

illusion of the material world]. Stop thinking that if Britain or

America or Russia or the west or whatever becomes superior, then

we'll beat them, and then we'll all have a rest and live happily

ever after. That doesn't work. Manifest your own divinity first. The

truth is there. It's right within us all.

 

Extracted from Chant and Be Happy, available from the bookshop at

Bhaktivedanta Manor, Hillfield Lane, Aldenham, Watford WD25 8EZ.