- Chapter 4 Part 2 -
Swami Prabhupada's visit to London
On a rain-shrouded, windy 11th September 1969, the Lusthansa swan flight # 707 from Hamburg arrived at London's Heathrow airport and unloaded a very special passenger. Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the wise old master and guru of the Krishna movement, now delivered on his promise and finally pleased his students with his personal presence, and in particular also came to visit his very special, new, so-famous student, the Beatle George Harrison, to whom the devotees indebted so much ..... and who truly has been their guide through the night, and actually allowed this meeting with all his helpful activities during the past few months.
(Prabhupada-Interview with John Lennon, Yoko Ono und George Harrison on 1969.09.11 as live audio, part 1/4 at YouTube)
Yogeswar prabhu recalls in his book ""Here Comes The Sun - The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison"Here Comes the Sun":
Renovations at Bury Place had not yet been completed when Srila Prabhupada arrived on 11 September 1969, anxious to rejoin his disciples and encourage their work in england .... he emerged from the airplane looking as they remembered him from San Francisco, .... his head held high, his bronze skin glowing, his saffron robes neatly pressed, his cleanly shaved head, a garland of flowers around his neck, and two streaks of white clay rising from his nose to his forehead. For a few minutes Srila Prabhupada answered questions from reporters who had gathered around. "Swami, why have you come to England?" "I have come here to teach you what you have forgotten .... love of god ....... as we are sitting here face to face, you can see god face to face if you are sincere and if you are serious. " Then, with a wave to his students, he slipped into a sedan that George Harrison has sent from Apple and set out for the Lennon's estate. John and Yoko Lennon's estate, Teahurst Manor, was the creation of a wealthy horticulturist who had adorned its seventy acres with nearly every tree that would grow in the british climate. The estate included a forest and fenced-in grounds lined with trails and footpaths. Soon after Srila Prabhupad's arrival, George drove through the gates in his black Porsche, past a marble fountain and a long row of trees in the last bloom of summer, and up to the front steps of the main house. John and Yoko met him at the door, and together they walked on to adjoining guesthouse where Srila Prabhupada was staying. George was exited to finally meet the guru Krishna but, hey what so distracted. His mother, Louise, had recently been diagnosed with brain cancer and admitted to a hospital in Liverpool. Moreover, George's wife Pattie had declined to come with him to meet Srila Prabhupada, and it was impossible to avoid seeing her absence as symbolic of a rift that had been opening between them. They had started out on a spiritual journey together, but George's passion for that journey had begun to consume him. His new friends devotee absorbed whatever free time he had, and they both knew there was little she could do about it. His spiritual renewal had changed the dynamic between them. It was surprising to George after that John's falling out with Maharishi, John of all people would invite Srila Prabhupada to stay in his home. But then, George knew this was a difficult time John was now struggling with heroin addiction. Perhaps John saw a spiritual presence in his home as conducive to rehabilitation ........ It was early afternoon when they entered Srila Prabhupada's room. The elderly teacher greeted them with palms joined together in salutation. He Signalled assistant to offer them to flower garlands and invited them to sit on cushions across from him. They took their places ........ Syamsundara pressed the start button on a reel-to-reel tape recorder ...... and out came the interview "search for liberation."
(Prabhupada Interview with John Lennon, Yoko Ono und George Harrison part 2/4 on 1969.09.11 as live audio at YouTube)
In search for liberation
After a brief press conference that was sponsored by Apple and Lufthansa, it went on for the master, now in John Lennon's white Rolls Royce to the estate of Teahurst park where he should stay in the beautiful conservatory during his visit. There, in the second floor, the devotees had prepared a small apartment for their spiritual master to make his stay pleasant. George Harrison also insisted to quickly welcome Srila Prabhupad at the airport personally, and now the master drove alone in a white Rolls Royce through the English countryside up to Askot, into the Lennon's estate. After a little welcome dinner and a short break to relax, Srila Prabhupad had gladly agreed to receive George Harrison, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to speak to them about Krishna consciousness. When the two Beatles came in, the old masters warmly greeted all and asked them to take their place, then he took his red-white flower garland from his neck and asked Syamasundara to clothe Sriman George Harrison with it, as a sign of his great appreciation for the Beatle.
Thank you, George Harrison said, visibly overwhelmed by the presence of his spiritual mentor, he faced personally for the first time, almost shyly he said Hare Krishna. Srila Prabhupada replied, may you be blessed by Lord Krishna for all your good deeds to help my students. George Harrison nodded in silent agreement. This touching moment effected a humble attitude in the introverted superstar towards Srila Prabhupada in an unique way . Fortunately, someone in the room had the presence of mind to record the following conversation. The subsequent long conversation between Srila Prabhupada and the two then-Beatles with Yoko in 1969 has been wonderfully documented in the book published 1982 "Chant and Be Happy", by Mukunda Prabhu, who maintained a lifelong friendship with George Harrison, and subsequently realised and recorded other interviews with George, some of which are also described there. In German, this was published in the essay "In search of liberation."
Yogeswar recalls in his book "George Harrison, his spiritual and musical path":
"Nearly two hours each of the attendants presented his mind. The guests began to wriggle about on their deep cushions. "Let's play a kirtan", Srila Prabhupada suggested. Shyamsundar gave George a couple of cymbals, called Kartal's, made of brass, and asked him to take over the lead vocal. George closed his eyes, struck softly and began to sing: "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare ...." The group followed him, fell into the singing and clapped hands. A few minutes later, George stopped singing, because he had to think about his sick mother in Liverpool again. He apologized and explained why he had to go. Srila Prabhupada promised to pray for their health, and thanked his guests for coming; the group went out to the door. As they walked down the stairs, Yoko turned to John, "Look how simple he lives," she said with a nod over her shoulder in the direction of Srila Prabhupada's room, who lived there with his meager possessions and followed a strict daily routine. "Could you live like that?" George heard these words, and may have wondered if he could live so. If he was so serious about his search for God, then should't he live in a place where God lived? Should he move into a temple?
The journey to Liverpool gave George the opportunity to think again about his conversation with Srila Prabhupada. The old teacher had endorsed George's and John's music and expressed an interest in their thoughts on peace. He respected George's wish that there should exist peace between the many religions of the world. He never asked for anything, even when it seemed as if he would encourage George and John to record more spiritual music.
George was happy that Srila Prabhupada hadn't suggested that he should move into a temple. That would have spoiled everything. A decision like this had to come from George himself. The teacher hadn't given him the feeling of being an outsider. What George admired most was Srila Prabhupada's humility and modesty. "Many people say: 'I am it. I am the incarnation of God. I am here, so follow me..,'" George explained to his friend Mukunda. "Srila Prabhupada, however, was never so ,...... I always liked his modesty and simplicity. 'The servant of the servant', that's the point. None of us is God. We are only his servants."
(Prabhupada Interview with John Lennon, Yoko Ono und George Harrison part 3/4 of 1969.09.11 as live audio at YouTube)
Her love was unconditional!
"In hospital in Liverpool the doctors taught George that the tumor in his mother's brain had become too large to be removed. George had spent the past four years trying to explore the immortality of the soul, but now it came to his mother who was dying, and for the first time he felt somewhat helpless and overwhelmed with the new situation.
George about his mothers hospital stay
"She'd got a tumor on the brain, but the doctor was an idiot and was saying, " There's nothing wrong with her, she's having some psychological trouble."
When I went up to see her, she didn't even know who I was. I had to punch the doctor out, because in England the family doctor has to be the one to get the specialist.. So he got the guy to look at her and she ended up in the neurological hospital. The specialist said, "She could end up being a vegetable, but if it was my wife or mother, I'd do the operation " - witch was a horrendous thing where they had to drill a hole in her skull. She recovered a little bit for about seven months. And during that period, my father, who'd taken care of her, had suddenly exploded with ulcers and was in the same hospital.
I was pretending to them that the other one was okay. Then running back and forth to do this record "All Things Must Pass". I wrote the song (Deep Blue) ....at home one exhausted morning with those major and minor chords. It's all filled with the frustration and gloom of going to these hospitals, and the feeling of disease that permeated the atmosphere. Not being able to do anything but chanting and praying for suffering family or loved ones is an awful experience.!"
Like all mothers and sons and they had argued occasionally. Because of fan mail for example. Why she insisted to always answer letters from fan, was always on his mind. It was just naive. She thought, a stranger sending a letter from the other end of the world deserves a personal response and maybe even a snippet from the lining of one of the old coats of her son. It never seemed to cross her mind that the sender maybe could have identified her home address and could have been able to penetrate into her private life.
On the other hand, she was the woman who even took additional work through the Christmas season, when George was a boy, so he and his siblings were given gifts they could play with during the holidays. It was Louise who had bought him his first guitar and persuaded his father to let him go to Germany, despite all the worries about the safety of the son. He wanted to be a musician, and that reason was sufficient for her. Her love was unconditional.
Not even George's devotion to Hinduism had been able to deter her. When he told her that the divine rested within each of us, for Louise that made sense, because for her the faith in Krishna was a perfectly acceptable form of spirituality. "As long as nobody gets hurt", that was her scale. Had this whole spirituality a meaning, if he now failed to be here with her, now that she needed him? Didn't the mercy of the great teachers of India root in their love for all God's children? Didn't Parents were children at the same time?
George's brothers also came a little later in a hospital. Her mother was conscious on that day, and they talked about old times, silly stuff from their childhood, and laughed a lot together, until she was tired. When everyone else had gone, George sat down beside her, read to her and sang to her with his prayer beads in his hand, until she was asleep. "
This beautiful anecdote, which shows us Louise in all her unconditional love for her son, is the human evidence of a deep, wide, wonderful love between two people, the mother loves her creature as God himself, her child, and is in complete harmony in the here and now. Especially the fan mail is proof that the mother is proud of her son and wants to share her love with all those who write in her little world. It won't have costed her great effort, she would have felt joy and happiness because complete strangers loved her her son so much for his music, for her that was the real miracle, and this she wanted to share and acted as the servant of the servant , and thus basically totally God-conscious!
To have a student from a good family who is intent on righteousness, obediently surrendered to the teacher, full of self-respect and capable to retain what is heard, such a student one attains thanks to the (own) meritorious good deeds. (Brahma-purana 121.11)
Syamasundara prabhu recalls in his essay "my sweet george .... you minstrel of love to the world" ........
"Ah, i said to George the other day, you must meet my master Bhaktivedanta Swami..... he's so wise and beautiful........ and now he is here......... Yes, come in, come in..... I said to my new friend George Harrison.....who approaches Srila Prabhupada now, bows down with his long hair flopping ...........and with a grin as big as the master's was.....saying Hare Krishna .! With wonder and a pleasure so deep my shoulders tingle...... as i watch you two, ancient souls playing question and answer, posing his way and that way..... Srila Prabhupada popping his eyes with delight... the master of charm himself..... and George.... how you laughed and hooted at absurd reality stripped of mirrors and its neon shell, drinking in like a thirsty soldier everything he said........
Ooops...... most go now,....... my chariot awaits,........ lunch with the queen,....... poems to polish..... got a lot of work to do, try to get a message through.! and off you dashed to save the world...... attacking ignorance with your sword of satire......... rescuing fallen souls from material dungeons, ......and singing your love songs to Krishna.........
What a brave young platoon we were then...... Captain George...... and a handful of devotees...... not to forget the chart-busting Radha-Krishna-temple album...... and last not least with Srila Prabhupada, our commander-in-chief.! "
Two days later, John Lennon was back on stage in Toronto, Canada, with his new Plastic Ono Band and gave a celebrated concert, where he plays for the first time, "Give Peace a Chance" live before a large audience. This song was strongly promoted and motivated by the conversation with Srila Prabhupad, too.
(Prabhupada Interview with John Lennon, Yoko Ono und George Harrison part 4/4 from 1969.09.11 as live audio at YouTube)
We see from this example .... not only the music of George Harrison was influenced by Srila Prabhupada ........... yes George even directly wrote song that seemed as tailored to the old Swami, called "The Lord oves the one .... that loves the Lord." George later would say about the Swami: "He is my friend,.... he is my master who i have great respect for ........... it's like, if you want to learn to ski, you go to somebody who'll teach you how to ski ....... I accept Srila Prabhupada as really qualified to teach people about Krishna. "
In the book "Dark Horse" by Geoffrey Giuliano, there is another aspect of this beautiful little story:
Despite the auspicious beginning, however, within about seven weeks Srila Prabhupada began to feel the devotees had overstayed their welcome in teahurst. Although John was allways exceedingly kind and interested, Yoko, it was thought, felt somehow threatened by their presence. After a word one day from John concerning the Lennons "great need for privacy" Srila Prabhupada's men immediatly began searching for an apartment for their guru. One can only assume that this latest wrinkle in the on-going personality clash between the new Mrs. Lennon and the rest of the world proved deeply embarrassing to George.
Srila Prabhupada soon relocated to a comfortable furnished apartment on Baker Street to await completion of the Bury Place temple. In 1959, the scholarly spiritual master had begun the mammoth task of translating the tenth canto of the great scripture, the Srimad Bhagavatam, into English. The result, a lengthy, lavishly illustrated volume entitled "Krishna: The Supreme Personality of Godhead", was now ready to publish after ten years of painstaking work. There was a problem however. Srila Prabhupada was short of funds for the first printing. Although Syamasundara was extremely hesitant to ask George for the money, his guru insisted. Harrison only reluctantly agreed, and arrangements were made through apple to pick up the Swami's $19,ooo printing tab.
In addition, George was also asked if he would be kind enough to pen a brief introduction to the text. "I didn't really think I was qualified", says Harrison, " but because I am known the devotees thought it would help. "From another point of view, though, not everyone wants to listen to what I say. I mean, if I picked up a book on Krishna, and the foreword was written by Frank Zappa ore somebody like that, I would think, God, maybe I don't want to know about it."
With so much Krishna consciousness on the air, the devotees records steadily rocketed up the international charts with an intensity that surprised even the most jaded critics. The "Hare Krishna Mantra" single reached number one in West Germany and Czechoslovakia while making the Top Ten in Japan and most of Europe. A great deal of the temple's success, of course, had to with the passion with which George Harrison promoted his mantra-made proteges. "George plugged the record to viritually anyone who would listen," commented Mukunda in a interview. "He was always very well known for his savvy of media promotion tactics."
George's new love for Krishna was also having its effect at home. Unlike most transplanted Indian philosophies, the tenets of Krishna consciousness made no allowances for the flickering, undisciplined Western mind. The rules and regulations were the same for everyone. No meat, fish or eggs. No alcohol. No gambling. And no illicit sex. That is, no sex other than for reasons of procreation. In addition, aspirants were not allowed to take coffee, tea, chokolate, garlic or onions---all of which were thought to arouse unwanted sexual passion.
There isn't much doubt that the Harrisons' admittedly jet-set lifestile was both a blessing and a curse to their yoga practise. On the one hand, their social mobility gave them access to viritually anyone they wanted to meet; on the other, it threw a lot of fuel on the fire of passions they were both struggling to control. For George and Pattie Harrison, Krishna consciousness was a double-edged sword. The transcendental power of the mantra was both liberating and inspirational, but the rigid dictates of Srila Prabhupada's no-nonsense philosophy tended to expose faint cracks in their already shaky marriage."
Most important, however, was the regulated chanting of Hare Krishna on wooden prayer beads, called japa mala, similar to the catholic rosary. Devotees are required to repeat the holy name 1,728 times daily, a feat that generally takes about two solid hours. "In the beginning, when I was heavy into chanting and I had my hand in my bead bag all the time, " George says, " I got so tired of people asking, "Did you hurt your hand, break it or something?" In the end I just used to say, "Yeah. I had an accident," because it was easier than explaining everything. Using the beads also helps me to release a lot of nervous energy !"
(George Harrison "Don't Come Easy" at YouTube)
Another aspect of this extraordinary history was described by Yogesvara Prabhu in his book published in German, "George Harrison - His spiritual and musical path" most beautifully: So dive in with me, dear reader, and enjoy with me one aspect of the Beatles' history that is little known, but its depth should characterize the entire history of music in the following years.!
"1969 was the year in which the dreams of a peaceful age of Aquarius died a terrible death. It was a year of boundless protests and deadly violence. Revolutionaries like Che Guevara in Cuba and the "red Dani" in France called for a revolution. George felt their way of revolution as superficial, as a futile attempt "to change the external physical structure, which automatically changes anyway if the internal structure is in order." Didn't his generation learn anything from history?
What the world needed was not a political, but a spiritual revolution. It wasn't the governments, which should be fought with, but our own greed, our anger and our illusions.! Didn't say Christ "Set your own house in order," George Harrison said in that year to the International Times. "If everyone simply looked who's talking first, instead of improving everywhere else like the Lone Ranger, then there won't be any more problems."
Didn't Mahatma Gandhi say: ".... I know that the essential difference between man and beast is that man is able to follow the call of the Spirit in himself and to rise above the passions that he shares with the animal, and thus to rise above his selfishness and violence, which belong to his animal nature and are not part of his immortal Spirit. This is the fundamental conception of Hinduism, which was led to the discovery of these truth by penance and deprivation . So we had saints which mortified their bodies and gave their lives in order to fathom the mysteries of the soul, but we have no one, as in the West, who gave his life to explore the remotest corners of the earth or its highest peaks. Our socialism or communism therefore should be based on non-violence and harmonious cooperation between labor and capital, between landowners and tenants.! (MK Gandhi, Collected Works 58, p. 248)
Bring to the house of the Beatles in order, however, exceeded what George wanted to take on. Meanwhile, the band simply refused any cooperation, a condition which was reflected in a promotional film about George song "Something". It was an unusual short film, Neil Aspinall, former tour manager and now head of Apple, had produced. Each member of the Beatles was filmed with his wife during a walk through a lush rural scenery, which created a poetic visual background for George's love song. Those who knew how the film was developed, knew his ironic undertone. None of the couples appeared together with another during the shoot. The praise of love was put together in an editing room on material from four men who could not stand each other anymore.
George still enjoyed the company of Krishna followers very much, and together with them he liked to dug out stories from his Beatles years. He once told Gurudas of his visit to Haight-Ashbury two years earlier. He imitated the hippies which surrounded him there, and shook his head casually-nervously. "Hey, man, want a joint, man?", he made fun of. "Come on, just take this stuff, man. I've got a cool record, man. This is my girlfriend, man."
George yet told more anecdotes from the Beatles era, this time about a gig in Texas. "We landed in Houston, and somehow the tens of thousands of fans broke through the safety barriers and spread all over the runway. I remember when I looked out the window of the plane - there was a face upside down, and stared at me. They had climbed onto the roof of this huge aircraft, and one held the other firmly on his feet, only to catch a glimpse of the Beatles. They could have killed thenselves."
Among the reports of the Krishna followers who lived on John and Yoko's country estate, only a few such friendly meetings with their hosts can be found. For John, his flowing robes lodgers seemed to be completely irrelevant, though the vegetarian food and the daily singing group had its effect on him. One morning John came into the kitchen, where one of the devotees worked, sat down at a piano and entertained his guest with various versions of "Hare Krishna Mantra": bluegrass, classical, rock and roll, a style after another. The music got louder and louder, and John always sang more and more fervently, until Yoko, who just went through a difficult pregnancy, appeared in the doorway and complained of headache.
In December 1969, Srila Prabhupada moved from the Lennon's estate into the building near Oxford Street, which was to become London's Radha-Krishna Temple. George's signature on the lease as a guarantor had enabled his six American friends to move in now and begin the renovation - an act of generosity, which Srila Prabhupada led o call him from now on "Haris son."
Hari was another name for Krishna. "It doesn't matter if he is not initiated officially" said Srila Prabhupada to Shyamsundar. "This is just a little bit difficult for him." Initiation would have required that George followed the principles of religious life. One wasn't allowed to eat meat, which posed no problem, because George already was a vegetarian. Gambling was also banned, what George had never been interested in anyway. No sex except for procreation, and no stimulants, also including coffee, tea and cigarettes. For this degree of abstinence George was not made, and he even didn't struggle to hide his habits from those who were closest to him. "I told him he hasn't to change his name and also doesn't need to shave his head," said Srila Prabhupada. "He will simply continue to serve Krishna. This is the perfection of existence."
Shyamsundar mentioned that he wanted to meet with George the next day. George and his friend, the acclaimed British sculptor David Wynne, had offered to choose a block of marble for the altar. Srila Prabhupada nodded and looked wistfully at a pile of papers on his desk, his translation of the tenth part of the "Srimad Bhagavatam" (the ripe fruit on the tree of Vedic knowledge), the most intimate section of all the religious Sanskrit texts. Srila Prabhupada considered this writing as a key to understand God as a person.
He cited the work the book Krishna, where he used the transliterated spelling of the name Krishna. Srila Prabhupada took the stack and handed it across the table. Shyamsundar flipped through the tremendous work and turned pale, when he sensed what Srila Prabhupada would say next.
"Be so kind as to ask George to publish this book," said the master. "It costs nineteen thousand dollars in an edition of five thousand pieces, each with fifty-four color pages." Shyamsundar dropped his shoulders and stared at the pile in his hands. Nineteen thousand dollars might be not very much money for someone who was so wealthy as George, but this was still a higher principle.
"Swamiji, we must be very careful with George. We never ask him for something. We try to give him only, not to take from him. If he gives something, then it is always something that he offers of his own accord."
Srila Prabhupada nodded approvingly. "I understand." From the beginning of his mission in the western world, he had followed the same pattern, had brought singing and instructions for the people, and never asked for payment. Nor did he demand some form of payment from George now. This was rather a unique opportunity to make a key scripture accessible to Western readers, and he wanted to give George the opportunity to be part of it.
"You can let George know that it is my personal wish. You'll see. Krishna will help you to say it."
The following evening a heavy rain drummed on the roof of David Wynne's house at Wimbledon, while George, Shyamsundar and the Wynn family just finished a vegetarian dinner. The well-known sculptor, his wife and two teenage children were bombing their American guest with questions. Shyamsundar smiled and was polite, but George sensed some discomfort at his friend which didn't suit him.
Thunder shook the sky. Wynn entertained his guests with anecdotes about how he had carved the busts of the Queen and the Beatles in rock. All agreed that with the election of a pristine block Siena marmor earlier this day, they had done one stroke of luck. The massive golden cuboid would make a beautiful altar for the deities of Radha and Krishna ......
More thunder. They should go now soon.
"George," Shyamsundar said abruptly. "Do you remember that I once told you of this book, written by Srila Prabhupada, the book KRSNA? He thought that everyone hears the name of Krishna now, but nobody knows anything about how Krishna distributes the time or how he looks. That is what the book KRSNA relates to."
George bowed his head. He feared that his friend could prove as one of the many who only wanted something from him.
The Wynnes, who felt how the mood changed, looked at each other in astonishment. "Srila Prabhupada asked me to ask you something," said Shyamsundar. He took a deep breath and said it. "He wants you to publish the book KRSNA, nineteen thousand dollars for five thousand copies, with many color illustrations and ........"
At that moment the house lights glowed brightly, then the lights flickered once more glaring as a stroboscope.
The house shook. A lightning bolt had hit the roof. Everything went black ......
"My God," exclaimed the Wynne's .... "Wow," said her two teenagers.
A few long moments, it was still dark. Then just as suddenly the power was back.
George leaned back in his chair with eyes wide open and grinned from ear to ear.
"Well," he heard himself say to the American. "There's no doubt about that, right?" Shyamsundar wiped his lips. "Srila Prabhupada said that Krishna would help me, but that was a bit much," he said, chuckling in disbelief. The Wynne and her guests talked and talked, quite excited by this magical show.
George and Shyamsundar finally said good night and went home, confused, happy and with the knowledge that help from above sometimes can take surprising forms.
(George Harrison "Get Back" YouTube
In next year's sping, the mail brought a copy of the book Krsna by the Dai Nippon printers in Japan to George's home. It was huge: a foot high, a kilogram heavy and almost four hundred pages thick. A brilliant oil painting on the cover represented Radha and Krishna in an intimate embrace. The book was mysterious and beautiful.
Immediately after the title page of the book there was a big green apple - the logo of Apple Corporation. Under the apple, a preface authored by George was reprinted. Out of gratitude that George had provided the necessary funds, Srila Prabhupada had invited him to write the introductory words of the book. It was an appropriate gesture, but also a challenge for George, to give an expression of faith, who had just begun to consolidate itself in him. He was still trying to find his way into this ancient universe of mythical creatures and deities, and so he was careful to avoid sectarian undertones in his text.
George wrote the foreword during a difficult time in his professional career. Dispute over legal or financial issues had brought the Beatles even further apart. In personal, business and creative affairs pitted George and Ringo ...... against John and Paul on the other side. In anticipation of the album Abbey Road, much of the public wasn't aware of how broadly the partnership of the Beatles had already failed. John had even refused to participate in the recording of Georges song "I Me Mine".
What should George write in such a time? What words could convey his feelings and his faith? How should he express the love that he felt for his band mates, his friends in the temple, indeed for all living things, which he regarded as divine, as eternal beings, as part of a single universal mind? Whatever came to mind was this: (Preface of KRSNA Book)
Everybody is looking for Krsna.Insofar the remarks of Yogeswara Prabhu, who in 1969 was allowed to experience himeslf how things went in 1969 because he had the good fortune to participate in one of the studio sessions with George Harrison on the Radha-Krishna-album, in order to observe this wonderful event at close range, and many anecdotes from him first hand had been reported to him by the devotees .... his book "Here Comes The Sun - The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison" is wholeheartedly recommended here.!
Some don't realize that they are, but they are.
KRSNA is GOD, the source of all that exists, the Cause of all that is, was, or ever will be.
As GOD is unlimited, HE has many Names.
Allah-Buddha-Jehova-Rama: ALL are KRSNA, all are ONE.
God is not abstract; He has both the impersonal and the personal aspects to His personality, which is SUPREME, ETERNAL, BLISSFUL, and full of KNOWLEDGE. As a single drop of water has the same qualities as an ocean of water, so has our consciousness the qualities of GOD'S consciousness ... but through our identification and attachment with material energy (physical body, sense pleasures, material possessions, ego, etc.) our true TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS has been polluted, and like a dirty mirror it is unable to reflect a pure image.
With many lives our association with the TEMPORARY has grown. This impermanent body, a bag of bones and flesh, is mistaken for our true self, and we have accepted this temporay condition to be final.
Through all ages, great SAINTS have remained as living proof that this non-temporary, permanent state of GOD CONSCIOUSNESS can be revived in all living Souls. Each soul is potentially divine.
Krsna says in Bhagavad Gita: "Steady in the Self, being freed from all material contamination, the yogi achieves the highest perfectional stage of happiness in touch with the Supreme Consciousness." (VI, 28)
YOGA (a scientific method for GOD (SELF) realization) is the process by which we purify our consciousness, stop further pollution, and arrive at the state of Perfection, full KNOWLEDGE, full BLISS.
If there's a God, I want to see Him. It's pointless to believe in something without proof, and Krsna Consciousness and meditation are methods where you can actually obtain GOD perception. You can actually see God, and hear Him, play with Him. It might sound crazy, but He is actually there, actually with you.
There are many yogic Paths-Raja, Jnana, Hatha, Kriya, Karma, Bhakti-which are all acclaimed by the MASTERS of each method.
SWAMI BHAKTIVEDANTA is as his title says, a BHAKTI Yogi following the path of DEVOTION. By serving GOD through each thought, word and DEED, and by chanting HIS Holy Names, the devotee quickly develops God-consciousness. By chanting
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama
Rama Rama, Hare Hare
one inevitable arrives at KRSNA Consciousness. (The proof of the pudding is in the eating!)
I request that you take advantage of this book KRSNA, and enter into its understanding. I also request that you make an appointment to meet your God now, through the self liberating process of YOGA (UNION) and GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.
All you need is Love (Krishna)
Hari Bol.
George Harrison
(Beatles "Free as a bird" at YouTube)