Hare Krishna To Honor Spiritual Beatle

July 6, 2003

By Karen Matusic

LONDON (Reuters) - The Hare Krishna religious movement said Friday it would honor "Quiet Beatle" George Harrison in a memorial service to pay homage to its most famous devotee.

For the gentle guitarist, whose death was announced Friday, Hare Krishna was far from a passing fancy. This was a decades-long commitment that imbued his music and his life.

I'd rather be one of the devotees of God than one of the straight, so-called sane or normal people who just don't understand that man is a spiritual being, that he has a soul...

Harrison first embraced the Eastern religion in the 1960s, along with fellow Beatle John Lennon, after meeting Krishna founder AC Bhaktivedanta Swami. He remained a follower until his death to cancer Thursday.

''The community are deeply shocked and very saddened to hear about the passing away of George Harrison who had a long-standing relationship with the movement,'' said Varsana Devi-Dasi, a spokesman for the movement.

Harrison featured the movement's mantra, based on the repeated chant ''Hare Krishna, Hare Rama'' in his Top 10 ode to Hare Krishna, peace and love ''My Sweet Lord'' and repeatedly chanted it during a terrifying knife attack in his English home in 1999 to try to distract his attacker.

Devi-Dasi told Reuters the movement would honor their celebrity son Wednesday at Bhaktivedanta Manor, the movement's British headquarters.

The Hertfordshire manor, near London, was a gift from Harrison in 1973: testimony to his devotion to the movement that does not believe in sex outside marriage or drug-taking.

''He had been in our prayers because he had been ill for some time but his death still comes as a shock,'' she said.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the Hare Krishnas, is a Hindu-based movement founded in America in 1966.

The movement's shaved-headed, saffron-robed disciples are still seen in the world's cities and airports, chanting and preaching peace, love, vegetarianism and self-denial.

In a 1982 interview with the Prabhupada Hare Krishna News Network, Harrison said he always ''felt at home with Krishna'' and found calm in yoga and chanting.

''You see it was already a part of me. I think that it's something that's been with me from my previous birth,'' he said, sticking close to the Hare Krishna belief in reincarnation.

Harrison told the news network that he once chanted the mantra as he drove non-stop 23 hours from France to Portugal.

He re-recorded My Sweet Lord in 2000 to remind himself of the life that exists outside the material world.