Awaiting on you all - from the album
All things Must Pass:
Many Records centred around Krishna consciousness:
George Remembers - interviews with
his friend Mukunda dasa (now Goswami)
John Lennon and Hare Krishna:
Practical Meditation:
Experiencing God Through
the Senses:
The Hare Krishna Record:
Spiritual Food:
Meeting Srila Prabhupada:
Karma and Reincarnation:
Back to other articles: (Krishna Book preface, etc)
Back to Main George Harrison page
If you open up your heart
You will know what I mean
We've been polluted so long
But here's a way for you to get clean
By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see.
--"Awaiting On You All" from the album All things Must Pass
In the summer of 1969, before the dissolution
of the Beatles, the most popular music group of all time, George
Harrison produced a hit single, The Hare Krishna Mantra, performed
by George and the devotees of the London Radha-Krishna Temple. Soon after
rising to the Top 10 or Top 20 best-selling record charts throughout England,
Europe, and parts of Asia, the Hare Krishna chant became a household word--especially
in England, where the BBC had featured the Hare Krishna Chanters, as they
were then called, four times on the country's most popular television program,
Top of the Pops.
At about the same time, five thousand miles away, several shaven-headed,
saffron-robed men and sari-clad women sang along with John Lennon and Yoko
Ono as they recorded the hit song "Give Peace a Chance" in their room at
Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel:
"John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary, Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan,
Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna. All we are saying is give peace a chance."
The Hare Krishna devotees had been visiting with the Lennons for several days, discussing world peace and self-realization. Because of this and other widespread exposure, people all over the world soon began to identify the chanting Hare Krishna devotees as harbingers of a more simple, joyful, peaceful way of life.
George Harrison was the impetus for the Beatles'spiritual quest of the
sixties, and today, nearly fifteen years later,
the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra--Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.
Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare
Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare--still plays a key role in the
former Beatle's life.
In this conversation, taped at George's
home in England on September 4, 1982, George reveals some memorable experiences
he has had chanting Hare Krishna and describes in detail his deep personal
realizations about the chanting. He reveals what factors led him to produce
"The Hare Krishna Mantra" record, "My Sweet Lord," and the LPs All Things
Must Pass and Living in the Material World, which were all influenced to
a great extent by the Hare Krishna chanting and philosophy. He speaks lovingly
and openly about his association with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya (spiritual master) of the Hare Krishna
movement. In the following interview George speaks frankly about his personal
philosophy regarding the Hare Krishna movement, music, yoga, reincarnation,
karma, the soul, God, and Christianity. The conversation concludes with
his fond remembrances of a visit to the birthplace of Lord Krishna in Vrndavana,
India, home of the Hare Krishna mantra, and with George discussing some
of his celebrity friends' involvement with the mantra now heard and chanted
around the world.
Mukunda Goswami: Oftentimes you speak of yourself as a plainclothes
devotee, a closet yogi or "closet Krishna," and millions of people all
over the world have been introduced to the chanting by your songs.
But what about you? How did you first come in contact with Krishna?
George Harrison: Through my visits to India. So by the time the
Hare Krishna movement first came to England in 1969, John and I had already
gotten a hold of Prabhupada's first album, Krishna Consciousness.(SIDE
A / SIDE B)We had played it a lot and liked it. That was the first time
I'd ever heard the chanting of the maha-mantra.
Mukunda: Even though you and John Lennon played Srila Prabhupada's
record a lot and had chanted quite a bit on your own, you'd never really
met any of the devotees. Yet when Gurudasa, Syamasundara, and I [the first
Hare Krishna devotees sent from America, to open a temple in London] first
came to England, you co-signed the lease on our first temple in central
London, bought the Manoryoga-aSrama* for us, which has provided a place
for literally hundreds of thousands of people to learn about Krishna consciousness,
and financed the first printing of the book Krishna. You hadn't really
known us for a very long time at all. Wasn't this a kind of sudden change
for you?
George: Not really, for I always felt at home with Krishna. You
see it was already a part of me. I think it's something that's been with
me from my previous birth. Your coming to England and all that was just
like another piece of a jigsaw puzzle that was coming together to make
a complete picture. It had been slowly fitting together. That's why I responded
to you all the way I did when you first came to London. Let's face it.
If you're going to have to stand up and be counted, I figured, "I would
rather be with these guys than with those other guys over there." It's
like that. I mean 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. And I felt comfortable
with you all, too, kind of like we'd known each other before. It was a
pretty natural thing, really.
Mukunda: George, you were a member of the Beatles, undoubtedly
the greatest single pop group in music hisiory, one that influenced not
only music, but whole generations of young people as well. After the dissolution
of the group, you went on to emerge as a solo superstar with albums like
All Things Must Pass, the country's top selling album for seven weeks in
a row, and its hit single "My Sweet Lord," which was number one in America
for two months. That was followed by Living in the Material World, number
one on Billboard for five weeks and a million-selling LP. One song on that
album, "Give Me Love," was a smash hit for six straight weeks. The concert
for Bangladesh with Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell,
and Billy Preston was a phenomenal success and, once the LP and concert
film were released, would become the single most successful rock benefit
project ever. So, 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 spiritual journey?
George: It wasn't until the experience of the sixties 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, okay, maybe you are thinking this is all you need-to
be rich and famous--but actually it isn't."
Mukunda: George, 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. You explained that a mantra is "mystical energy
encased in a sound structure," and that "each mantracontains within its
vibrations a certain power." But of all mantras,you stated that "the maha-mantra
[the Hare Krishna mantra] has been prescribed as the easiest and surest
way for attaining God Realization in this present age." As a practitioner
of japa-yoga, what realizations have you experienced from chanting?
George: Prabhupada, acarya (spiritual master) of the Hare Krishna
movement, told me once that we should just keep chanting all the time,
or as much as possible. Once you do that, you realize the benefit. The
response that comes from chanting is in the form of bliss, or spiritual
happiness, which is a much higher taste than any happiness found here in
the material world. That's why I say that the more you do it, the more
you don't want to stop, because it feels so nice and peaceful.
Mukunda: What is it about the mantra that brings about this
feeling of peace and happiness?
George: The word Hare
is the word that calls upon the energy that's around the Lord. If you
say the mantraenough, you build up an identification with God. God's all
happiness, all bliss, and by chanting His names we connect with Him. So
it's really a process of actually having a realization of God, which all
becomes clear with the expanded state of consciousness that develops when
you chant. Like I said in the introduction I wrote for Prabhupada's Krsna
book some years ago, "If there's a God, I want to see Him. It's pointless
to believe in something without proof, and Krishna consciousness and meditation
are methods where you can actually obtain God perception."
Mukunda: Is it an instantaneous process, or gradual?
George: You don't get it in five minutes. It's something that
takes time, but it works because it's a direct process of attaining God
and will help us to have pure consciousness and good perception that is
above the normal, everyday state of consciousness.
Mukunda: How do you feel after chanting for a long time?
George: In the life I lead, 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 twenty-three 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.
Mukunda: The Vedas inform us that because God is absolute, there
is no difference between God the person and His holy name; the name is
God. When you first started chanting, could you perceive that?
George: It takes a certain amount of time and faith to accept
or to realize that there is no difference between Him and His name, to
get to the point where you're no longer mystified by where He is. You know,
like, "Is He around here?" You realize after some time, "Here He is--right
here!" It's a matter of practice. So when I say that "l see God," I don't
necessarily mean to say that when I chant I'm seeing Krishna in His original
form when He came five thousand years ago, dancing across the water, playing
His flute. Of course, that would also be nice, and it's quite possible
too. When you become real pure by chanting, you can actually see God like
that, I mean personally. But no doubt you can feel His presence and know
that He's there when you're chanting.
Mukunda: Can you think of any incident where you felt God's
presence very strongly through chanting?
George: Once I was on an airplane 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 organize 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.
Mukunda: Did any of the other Beatles chant?
George: Before meeting Prabhupada and all of you, I had bought
that album Prabhupada did in New York .(SIDE A / SIDE B), 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.
Mukunda: You know, I saw a video the other day sent to us from
Canada, showing John and Yoko Ono recording their hit song "Give Peace
a Chance," and about five or six of the devotees were there in John's room
at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, singing along and playing cymbals
and drums. You know, John and Yoko chanted Hare Krishna on that song. That
was in May of '69, and just three months later, Srila Prabhupada was John
and Yoko's house guest for one month at their estate outside London. While
Prabhupada was there, you, John, and Yoko came to his room one afternoon
for a few hours. I think that was the first time you all met him.
George: That's right.
Mukunda: At that point John was a spiritual seeker, and Prabhupada
explained the true path to peace and liberation. He talked about the eternality
of the soul, karma, and reincarnation, which are all elaborately dealt
with in the Vedic literatures.Vedas, predating the Bible and covering all
aspects of spiritual knowledge from the nature of the self, or individual
soul, to the Supreme Soul (Sri Krishna) and His kingdom in the spiritual
world. Although John never made Hare Krishna a big part of his life, he
echoed the philosophy of Krishna consciousness in a hit song he wrote just
about a year after that conversation, "Instant Karma." Now what's the difference
between chanting Hare Krishna and meditation?
George: It's really the same sort of thing as meditation, but
I think it has a quicker effect. I mean, even if you put your beads down,
you can still say the mantra or sing it without actually keeping track
on your beads. One of the main differences between silent meditation and
chanting is that silent meditation is rather dependent on concentration,
but when you chant, it's more of a direct connection with God.
Mukunda: The maha-mantra was prescribed for modern times because
of the fast-paced nature of things today. Even when people do get into
a little quiet place, it's very difficult to calm the mind for very long.
George: That's right. Chanting Hare Krishna is a type of meditation
that can be practiced even if the mind is in turbulence. You can even be
doing it and other things at the same time. That's what's so nice. In my
life there's been many times the mantra brought things around. It keeps
me in tune with reality, and the more you sit in one place and chant, the
more incense you offer to Krishna in the same room, the more you purify
the vibration, the more you can achieve what you're trying to do, which
is just trying to remember God, God, God, God, God, as often as possible.
And if you're talking to Him with the mantra, it certainly helps.
Mukunda: What else helps you to fix your mind on God?
George: Well, just having as many things around me that will
remind me of Him, like incense and pictures. Just the other day I was looking
at a small picture on the wall of my studio of you, Gurudasa, and Syamasundara,
and just seeing all the old devotees made me think of Krishna. I guess
that's the business of devotees--to make you think of God.
Mukunda: How often do you chant?
George: Whenever I get a chance.
Mukunda: Once you asked Srila Prabhupada about a particular
verse he quoted from the Vedas, in which it's said that when one chants
the holy name of Krishna, Krishna dances on the tongue and one wishes one
had thousands of ears and thousands of mouths with which to better appreciate
the holy names of God.
George: Yes. I think he was talking about the realization that
there is no difference between Him standing before you and His being present
in His name. That's the real beauty of chanting--you directly connect with
God. I have no doubt that by saying Krishna over and over again, He can
come and dance on the tongue. The main thing, though, is to keep in touch
with God.
Mukunda: So your habit is generally to use the beads when you
chant?
George: Oh, yeah. I have my beads. I remember when I first got
them, they were just big knobby globs of wood, but now I'm very glad to
say that they're smooth from chanting a lot.
Mukunda: Do you generally keep them in the bag when you chant?
George: Yes. I find it's very good to be touching them. It keeps
another one of the senses fixed on God. Beads really help in that respect.
You know, the frustrating thing about it was in the beginning there was
a period when I was heavy into chanting and I had my hand in my bead bag
all the time. And I got so tired of people asking me, "Did you hurt your
hand, break it or something?" In the end I used to say, "Yeah. 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.
Mukunda: Some people say that if everyone on the planet chanted
Hare Krishna, they wouldn't be able to keep their minds on what they were
doing. In other words, if everyone started chanting, some people ask if
the whole world wouldn't just grind to a halt. They wonder if people would
stop working in factories, for example.
George: No. Chanting doesn't stop you from being creative or
productive. It actually helps you concentrate. I think this would make
a great sketch for television: imagine all the workers on the Ford assembly
line in Detroit, all of them chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna while bolting
on the wheels. Now that would be wonderful. It might help out the auto
industry, and probably there would be more decent cars too.
Experiencing God Through the Senses
Mukunda: We've talked a lot about japa, or personalized chanting,
which most chanters engage in. But there's another type, called kirtana,
when one chants congregationally, in a temple or on the streets with a
group of devotees. Kirtana generally gives a more supercharged effect,
like recharging one's spiritual batteries, and it gives others a chance
to hear the holy names and become purified.
Actually, I was with Srila Prabhupada when he first began the group
chanting in Tompkins Square Park on New York's Lower East Side in 1966.
The poet Allen Ginsberg would come and chant with us a lot and would play
on his harmonium. A lot of people would come to hear the chanting, then
Prabhupada would give lectures on Bhagavad-gita back at the temple.
George: Yes, going to a temple or chanting with a group of other
people--the vibration is that much stronger. Of course, for some people
it's easy just to start chanting on their beads in the middle of a crowd,
while other people are more comfortable chanting in the temple. But part
of Krishna consciousness is trying to tune in all the senses of all the
people: to experience God through all the senses, not just by experiencing
Him on Sunday, through your knees by kneeling on some hard wooden kneeler
in the church. But if you visit a temple, you can see pictures of God,
you can see the Deity form of the Lord, and you can just hear Him by listening
to yourself and others say the mantra. It's just a way of realizing that
all the senses can be applied toward perceiving God, and it makes it that
much more appealing, seeing the pictures, hearing the mantra, smelling
the incense, flowers, and so on. That's the nice thing about your movement.
It incorporates everything--chanting, dancing, philosophy, and prasadam.
The music and dancing is a serious part of the process too. It's not just
something to burn off excess energy.
Mukunda: We've always seen that when we chant in the streets,
people are eager to crowd around and listen. A lot of them tap their feet
or dance along.
George: It's great, the sound of the karatalas [cymbals]. When
I hear them from a few blocks away, it's like some magical thing that awakens
something in me. Without their really being aware of what's happening,
people are being awakened spiritually. Of course, in another sense, in
a higher sense, the kirtana is always going on, whether we're hearing it
or not.
Now, all over the place in Western cities, the sankirtana party has
become a common sight. I love to see these sankirtanaparties, because I
love the whole idea of the devotees mixing it up with everybody, giving
everybody a chance to remember. I wrote in the Krsna book introduction,
"Everybody is looking for Krishna. Some don't realize that they are, but
they are. Krishna is God ... and by chanting His Holy Names, the devotee
quickly develops God-consciousness."
Mukunda: You know, Srila Prabhupada often said that after a
large number of temples were established, most people would simply begin
to take up the chanting of Hare Krishna within their own homes, and we're
seeing more and more that this is what's happening. Our worldwide congregation
is very large--in the millions. The chanting on the streets, the books,
and the temples are there to give people a start, to introduce them to
the process.
George: I think it's better that it is spreading into the homes
now. There are a lot of "closet Krishnas," you know. There's a lot of people
out there who are just waiting, and if it's not today, it will be tomorrow
or next week or next year.
Back in the sixties, whatever we were all getting into, we tended to
broadcast it as loud as we could. I had had certain realizations and went
through a period where I was so thrilled about my discoveries and realizations
that I wanted to shout and tell it to everybody. But there's a time to
shout it out and a time not to shout it out. A lot of people went underground
with their spiritual life in the seventies, but they're out there in little
nooks and crannies and in the countryside, people who look and dress straight,
insurance salesmen types, but they're really meditators and chanters, closet
devotees.
Prabhupada's movement is doing pretty well.
It's growing like wildfire really. How long it will take until we get
to a Golden Age where everybody's perfectly in tune with God's will, I
don't know; but because of Prabhupada, Krishna consciousness has certainly
spread more in the last sixteen years than it has since the sixteenth century,
since the time of Lord Caitanya. The mantra has spread more quickly and
the movement's gotten bigger and bigger. It would be great if everyone
chanted. Everybody would benefit by doing it. No matter how much money
you've got, it doesn't necessarily make you happy. You have to find your
happiness with the problems you have, not worry too much about them, and
chant Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.
Mukunda: 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
on the Apple label and was distributed in America by Capitol Records. A
lot of people in the recording business were surprised by this, your producing
songs for and singing with the Hare Krishnas. Why did you do it?
George: 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 in England
and everywhere else.
Mukunda: 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?
George: It was a different thing. Nothing to do with that really.
There was much more reason to do it. There was less commercial potential
in it, but it was much more satisfying to do, knowing the possibilities
that it was going to create, the connotations it would have just by doing
a three-and-a-half-minute mantra.That was more fun really than trying to
make a pop hit record. It was the feeling of trying to utilize your skills
or job to make it into some spiritual service to Krishna.
Mukunda: What effect do you think that tune, "The Hare Krishna
Mantra," having reached millions and millions of people, has had on the
cosmic consciousness of the world?
George: I'd like to think it had some effect. After all, the
sound is God.
Mukunda: When Apple, the recording company, 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.
George: I felt it was important to try and be precise, to tell
them and let them know. You know, to come out of the closet and really
tell them. Because once you realize something, then you can't pretend you
don't know it any more.
I figured this is the space age, with airplanes and everything. If
everyone can go around the world on their holidays, there's no reason why
a mantra can't go a few miles as well.
So the idea was to try to spiritually infiltrate society, so to speak.
After I got Apple Records committed to you and the record released, and
after our big promotion, we saw it was going to become a hit. And one of
the greatest things, one of the greatest thrills of my life, actually,
was seeing you all on BBC's Top of the Pops. I couldn't believe it. It's
pretty hard to get on thatprogram, because they only put you on if you
come into the Top 20. It was just like a breath of fresh air. 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. I did the harmonium and guitar track
for that record at Abbey Road studios before one of the Beatles' sessions
and then overdubbed a bass part. I remember Paul McCartney and his wife,
Linda, arrived at the studio and enjoyed the mantra.
Mukunda: Paul's quite favorable now, you know.
George: That's good. It still sounds like quite a good recording,
even after all these years. It was the greatest fun of all, really, to
see Krishna on Top of the Pops.
Mukunda: 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.
George: 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 in order to enjoy it. I felt very good
when I first heard it was doing well.
Mukunda: How did you feel about the record technically, the
voices?
George: Yamuna, the lead singer, has a naturally good voice.
I liked the way she sang with conviction, and she sang like she'd been
singing it a lot before. It didn't sound like the first tune she'd ever
sung.
You know, I used to sing the mantra long before I met any of the devotees
or long before I met Prabhupada, because I had his first record then for
at least two years. When you're open to something it's like being a beacon,
and you attract it. From the first time I heard the chanting, it was like
a door opened somewhere in my subconscious, maybe from some previous life.
Mukunda: In the Iyrics to that song "Awaiting on You All," from
the All Things Must Pass album, you come right out front and tell people
that they can be free from living in the material world by chanting the
names of God. What made you do it? What kind of feedback did you get?
George: At that time, nobody was committed to that type of music
in the pop world. There was, I felt, a real need for that, so rather than
sitting and waiting for somebody else, I decided to do it myself. A lot
of times we think, "Well, I agree with you, but I'm not going to actually
stand up and be counted. Too risky." Everybody is always trying to keep
themselves covered, stay commercial, so I thought, just do it. Nobody else
is, and I'm sick of all these young people just boogeying around, wasting
their lives, you know. Also, I felt that there were a lot of people out
there who would be reached. I still get letters from people saying, "I
have been in the Krishna temple for three years, and I would have never
known about Krishna unless you recorded the All Things Must Pass album."
So I know, by the Lord's grace, I am a small part in the cosmic play.
Mukunda: 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.
Syamasundara said that once, when he ate lunch with you and the other Beatles,
they were all quite respectful.
George: Oh, yeah, well, if the Fab Four didn't get it, that
is, if they couldn't deal with shaven-headed Hare Krishnas, then there
would have been no hope! [Laughter.] 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 George."
Mukunda: From the very start, you always felt comfortable around
the devotees?
George: The first time I met Syamasundara, I liked him. He was
my pal. I'd read about Prabhupada coming from India to Boston on the back
of his record, and I knew that Syamasundara and all of you were in my age
group, and that the only difference, really, was that you'd already joined
and I hadn't. I was in a rock band, but I didn't have any fear, because
I had seen dhotis,your robes, and the saffron color and shaved heads in
India. Krishna consciousness was especially good for me because I didn't
get the feeling that I'd have to shave my head, move into a temple, and
do it full time. So it was a spiritual thing that just fit in with my life-style.
I could still be a musician, but I just changed my consciousness, that's
all.
Mukunda: You know, the Tudor mansion and estate that you gave
us outside London has become one of our largest international centers.
How do you feel about the Bhaktivedanta Manor's success in spreading Krishna
consciousness?
George: Oh, it's great. And it also relates to making the Hare
Krishna record or whatever my involvements were. Actually, 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. And now I know that people are much more respectful
and accepting when it comes to seeing the devotees in the streets and all
that. It's no longer like something that's coming from left field. And
I've given a lot of Prabhupada's books to many people, and whether I ever
hear from them again or not, it's good to know that they've gotten them,
and if they read them, their lives may be changed.
Mukunda: When you come across people who are spiritually inclined
but don't have much knowledge, what kind of advice do you give them?
George: I try to tell them my little bit, what my experience
is, and give them a choice of things to read and a choice of places to
go--like you know, "Go to the temple, try chanting."
Mukunda: 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 three thousand years. Gradually, though, more people, scholars, philosophers,
and theologians, have come around, and today they have a great deal of
respect for the ancient Vaisnava tradition, where the modern-day Krishna
consciousness movement has its roots
George: 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.
Mukunda: Srila Prabhupada always trained us to stick to our
principles. He said that the worst thing we could ever do would be to make
some sort of compromise or to dilute the philosophy for the sake of cheap
popularity. Although many swamis and yogis had come from India to the West,
Prabhupada was the only one with the purity and devotion to establish India's
ancient Krishna conscious philosophy around the world on its own terms-not
watered down, but as it is.
George: That's right. He was a perfect example of what he preached.
Mukunda: How did you feel about financing the first printing
of the Krsna book and
writing the introduction?
George: I just felt like it was part of my job, you know. Wherever
I go in the world, when I see devotees, I always say "Hare Krishna!" to
them, and they're always pleased to see me. It's a nice relationship. Whether
they really know me personally or not, they feel they know me. And they
do, really.
Mukunda: When you did the Material World album, you used a photo
insert taken from the cover of Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita showing Krishna
and His friend and disciple, Arjuna. Why?
George: Oh, yeah. It said on the album, "From the cover of Bhagavad-gita
As It Is by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami." It was a promo for you, of course.
I wanted to give them all a chance to see Krishna, to know about Him. I
mean that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Mukunda: At lunch today we spoke a little about prasadam, vegetarian
foods that have been spiritualized by being offered to Krishna. A lot of
people have come to Krishna consciousness through prasadam.I mean, this
process is the only kind of yoga that you can actually practice by eating.
George: Well, we should try to see God in everything, so it
helps so much having the food to taste. Let's face it, if God is in everything,
why shouldn't you taste Him when you eat? I think that prasadam is a very
important thing. Krishna is God, so He's absolute: His name, His form,
prasadam,it's all Him. They say the way to a man's heart is through his
stomach, so if you can get to a man's spirit soul by eating, and it works,
why not do it?
There's nothing better than having been chanting and dancing, or just
sitting and talking philosophy, and then suddenly the devotees bring out
the prasadam.It's a blessing from Krishna, and it's spiritually important.
The idea is that prasadam is the sacrament the Christians talk about, only
instead of being just a wafer, it's a whole feast, really, and the taste
is so nice--it's out of this world. And prasadam's a good little hook in
this age of commercialism. When people want something extra, or they need
to have something special, prasadam will hook them in there. It's undoubtedly
done a great deal toward getting a lot more people involved in spiritual
life. It breaks down preju dices, too. Because they think, "Oh, well, yes,
I wouldn't mind a drink of whatever or a bite of that." Then they ask,
"What's this?" and "Oh, well, it's prasadam." And they get to learn another
aspect of Krishna consciousness. Then they say, "It actually tastes quite
nice. Have you got another plateful?" I've seen that happen with lots of
people, especially older people I've seen at your temples. Maybe they were
a little prejudiced, but the next thing you know, they're in love with
prasadam, and eventually they walk out of the temple thinking, "They're
not so bad after all."
Mukunda: The Vedic literatures reveal that prasadam conveys
spiritual realization, just as chanting does, but in a less obvious or
conspicuous way. You make spiritual advancement just by eating it.
George: I'd say from my experience that it definitely works.
I've always enjoyed prasadam much more when I've been at the temple, or
when I've actually been sitting with Prabhupada, than when somebody's brought
it to me. Sometimes you can sit there with prasadam and find that three
or four hours have gone by and you didn't even know it. Prasadam really
helped me a lot, because you start to realize "Now I'm tasting Krishna."
You're conscious suddenly of another aspect of God, understanding that
He's this little samosa.* It's all just a matter of tuning into the spiritual,
and prasadam's a very real part of it all.
Mukunda: You know, a lot of rock groups like Grateful Dead and
Police get prasadam backstage before their concerts. They love it. It's
a long-standing tradition with us. I remember one time sending prasadam
to one of the Beatles' recording sessions. And your sister was telling
me today that while you were doing the Bangladesh concert, Syamasundara
used to bring you all prasadam at the rehearsals.
George: Yes, he's even got a credit on the album sleeve.
Mukunda: What are your favorite kinds of prasadam, George?
George: I really like those deep-fried cauliflower things--pakoras?*
Mukunda: Yes.
George: And one thing I always liked was rasamalai [a milk sweet].
And there's a lot of good drinks as well, fruit juices and lassi, the yogurt
drinks mixed with fruit, and sometimes with rose water.
Mukunda: You've been a vegetarian for years, George. Have you
had any difficulties maintaining it?
George: No. Actually, I wised up and made sure I had dal bean
soup or something every day. Actually, lentils are one of the cheapest
things, but they give you A-l protein. People are simply screwing up when
they go out and buy beef steak, which is killing them with cancer and heart
troubles. The stuff costs a fortune too. You could feed a thousand people
with lentil soup for the cost of half a dozen filets. Does that make sense?
Mukunda: One of the things that really has a profound effect
on people when they visit the temples or read our books is the paintings
and sculptures done by our devotee artists of scenes from Krishna's pastimes
when He appeared on earth five thousand years ago. Prabhupada once said
that these paintings were "windows to the spiritual world," and he organized
an art academy, training his disciples in the techniques for creating transcendental
art. Now, tens of thousands of people have these paintings hanging in their
homes, either the originals, lithographs, canvas prints, or posters. You've
been to our multimedia Bhagavad-gita museum in Los Angeles. What kind of
an effect did it have on you?
George: I thought it was great--better than Disneyland, really.
I mean, it's as valuable as that or the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.
The sculpted dioramas look great, and the music is nice. It gives people
a real feel for what the kingdom of God must be like, and much more basic
than that, it shows in a way that's easy for even a child to understand
exactly how the body is different from the soul, and how the soul's the
important thing. I always have pictures around like the one of Krishna
on the chariot that I put in the Material World album, and I have the sculpted
Siva fountainBhagavad-gita museum, George asked if the artists and sculptors
who had produced the museum could sculpt a life-sized fountain of Lord
Siva, one of the principal Hindu demigods and a great devotee of Lord Krishna.
Lord Siva, in a meditative pose, complete with a stream of water spouting
from his head, now resides in the gardens of George's estate, heralded
as among the most beautiful in all of England. the devotees made for me
in my garden. Pictures are helpful when I'm chanting. You know that painting
in the Bhagavad-gita of the Supersoul in the heart of the dog, the cow,
the elephant, the poor man, and the priest? That's very good to help you
realize that Krishna is dwelling in the hearts of everybody. It doesn't
matter what kind of body you've got, the Lord's there with you. We're all
the same really.
Mukunda: George, you and John Lennon met Srila Prabhupada together
when he stayed at John's home, in September of 1969.
George: Yes, but when I met him at first, I underestimated him.
I didn't realize it then, but I see now that because of him, the mantra
has spread so far in the last sixteen years, more than it had in the last
five centuries. Now that's pretty amazing, because he was getting older
and older, yet he was writing his books all the time. I realized later
on that he was much more incredible than what you could see on the surface.
Mukunda: What about him stands out the most in your mind?
George: The thing that always stays is his saying, "I am the
servant of the servant of the servant." I like that. A lot of people say,
"I'm it. I'm the divine incarnation. I'm here and let me hip you." You
know what I mean? But Prabhupada was never like that. I liked Prabhupada's
humbleness. I always liked his humility and his simplicity The servant
of the servant of the servant is really what it is, you know. None of us
are God--just His servants. He just made me feel so comfortable. I always
felt very relaxed with him, and I felt more like a friend. I felt that
he was a good friend. Even though he was at the time seventy-nine years
old, working practically all through the night, day after day, with very
little sleep, he still didn't come through to me as though he was a very
highly educated intellectual being, because he had a sort of childlike
simplicity. Which is great, fantastic. Even though he was the greatest
Sanskrit scholar and a saint, I appreciated the fact that he never made
me feel uncomfortable. In fact, he always went out of his way to make me
feel comfortable. I always thought of him as sort of a lovely friend, really,
and now he's still a lovely friend.
Mukunda: In one of his books, Prabhupada said that your sincere
service was better than some people who had delved more deeply into Krishna
consciousness but could not maintain that level of commitment. How did
you feel about this?
George: Very wonderful, really. I mean it really gave me hope,
because as they say, even one moment in the company of a divine person,
Krishna's pure devotee, can help a tremendous amount.
And I think Prabhupada was really pleased at the idea that somebody
from outside of the temple was helping to get the album made. Just the
fact that he was pleased was encouraging to me. I knew he liked "The Hare
Krishna Mantra" record, and he asked the devotees to play that song "Govinda."
They still play it, don't they?
Mukunda: Every temple has a recording of it, and we play it
each morning when the devotees assemble before the altar, before kirtana.
It's an ISKCON institution, you might say.
George: And if I didn't get feedback from Prabhupada on my songs
about Krishna or the philosophy, I'd get it from the devotees. That's all
the encouragement I needed really. It just seemed that anything spiritual
I did, either through songs, or helping with publishing the books, or whatever,
really pleased him. The song I wrote, "Living in the Material World," as
I wrote in I, Me, Mine, was influenced by Srila Prabhupada. He's the one
who explained to me how we're not these physical bodies. We just happen
to be in them.
Like I said in the song, this place's not really what's happening.
We don't belong here, but in the spiritual sky:
As l'm fated for the material world
Get frustrated in the material world
Senses never gratified
Only swelling like a tide
That could drown me in the material world
The whole point to being here, really, is to figure a way to get out.
That was the thing about Prabhupada, you see. He didn't just talk about
loving Krishna and getting out of this place, but he was the perfect example.
He talked about always chanting, and he was always chanting. I think that
that in itself was perhaps the most encouraging thing for me. It was enough
to make me try harder, to be just a little bit better. He was a perfect
example of everything he preached.
Mukunda: How would you describe Srila Prabhupada's achievements?
George: I think Prabhupada's accomplishments are very significant;
they're huge. Even compared to someone like William Shakespeare, the amount
of literature Prabhupada produced is truly amazing. It boggles the mind.
He sometimes went for days with only a few hours sleep. I mean even a youthful,
athletic young person couldn't keep the pace he kept himself at seventy-nine
years of age. Srila Prabhupada has already had an amazing effect on the
world. There's no way of measuring it. One day I just realized, "God, this
man is amazing!" He would sit up all night translating Sanskrit into English,
putting in glossaries to make sure everyone understands it, and yet he
never came off as someone above you. He always had that childlike simplicity,
and what's most amazing is the fact that he did all this translating in
such a relatively short time--just a few years. And without having anything
more than his own Krishna consciousness, he rounded up all these thousands
of devotees, set the whole movement in motion, which becamesomething so
strong that it went on even after he left. And it's still escalating even
now at an incredible rate. It will go on and on from the knowledge he gave.
It can only grow and grow. The more people wake up spiritually, the more
they'll begin to realize the depth of what Prabhupada was saying--how much
he gave.
Mukunda: Did you know that complete sets of Prabhupada's books
are in all the major colleges and universities in the world, including
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne?
George: They should be! One of the greatest things I noticed
about Prabhupada was the way he would be talking to you in English, and
then all of a sudden he would say it to you in Sanskrit and then translate
it back into English. It was clear that he really knew it well. His contribution
has obviously been enormous from the literary point of view, because he's
brought the Supreme Person, Krishna, more into focus. A lot of scholars
and writers know the Gita, but only on an intellectual level. Even when
they write "Krishna said...," they don't do it with the bhakti or love
required. That's the secret, you know--Krishna is actually a person who
is the Lord and who will also appear there in that book when there is that
love, that bhakti.You can't understand the first thing about God unless
you love Him. These big so-called Vedic scholars--they don't necessarily
love Krishna, so they can't understand Him and give Him to us. But Prabhupada
was different.
Mukunda: The Vedic literatures predicted that after the advent
of Lord Caitanya five hundred years ago, there would be a Golden Age of
ten thousand years, when the chanting of the holy names of God would completely
nullify all the degradations of the modern age, and real spiritual peace
would come to this planet.
George: Well, Prabhupada's definitely affected the world in
an absolute way. What he was giving us was the highest literature, the
highest knowledge. I mean there just isn't anything higher.
Mukunda: 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
Iyrics 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?
George: 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
--"The Lord Loves the One that Loves the Lord"
from Living in the Material World Apple LP Have you heard that song
"That Which I Have Lost" from my new album, Somewhere in England?
It's right out of the Bhagavad-gita. In it I talk about fighting the
forces of darkness, limitations, falsehood, and mortality. God Is a Person...
Mukunda: Yes, I like it. If people can understand the Lord's
message in Bhagavad-gita, they can become truly happy. A lot of people,
when they just get started in spiritual life, worship God as impersonal.
What's the difference between worshiping Krishna, or God, in His personal
form and worshiping His impersonal nature as energy or light?
George: It's like the difference between hanging out with a
computer or hanging out with a person. Like I said earlier, "If there is
a God, I want to see Him," not only His energy or His light, but Him.
Mukunda: What do you think is the goal of human life?
George: Each individual has to burn out his own karma and escape
from the chains of maya (illusion), reincarnation, and all that. The best
thing anyone can give to humanity is God consciousness. Then you can really
give them something. But first you have to concentrate on your own spiritual
advancement; so in a sense we have to become selfish to become selfless.
Mukunda: What about trying to solve the problems of life without
employing the spiritual process?
George: Life is like a piece of string with a lot of knots tied
in it. The knots are the karma you're born with from all your past lives,
and the object of human life is to try and undo all those knots. That's
what chanting and meditation in God consciousness can do. Otherwise you
simply tie another ten knots each time you try to undo one knot. That's
how karma works. I mean, we're now the results of our past actions, and
in the future we'll be the results of the actions we're performing now.
A little understanding of "As you sow, so shall you reap" is important,
because then you can't blame the condition you're in on anyone else. You
know that it's by your own actions you're able to get more in a mess or
out of one. It's your own actions that relieve or bind you.
Mukunda: In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the crest jewel of all the
Vedic literatures, it's described how those pure souls who live in the
spiritual world with God have different types of rasas, or relationships,
with Him. Is there any special way you like to think of Krishna?
George: I like the idea of seeing Krishna as a baby, the way
He's often depicted in India. And also Govinda, the cowherd boy. I like
the idea that you can have Krishna as a baby and feel protective to Him,
or as your friend, or as the guru or master--type figure. "My Sweet Lord"
Mukunda: I don't think it's possible to calculate just how many
people were turned on to Krishna consciousness by your song "My Sweet Lord."
But you went through quite a personal thing before you decided to do that
song. In your book you said, "I thought a lot about whether to do 'My Sweet
Lord' or not because I would be committing myself publicly ... Many people
fear the words Lord and God ... I was sticking my neck out on the chopping
block ... but at the same time I thought 'Nobody's saying it ... why should
I be untrue to myself?' I came to believe in the importance that if you
feel something strong enough, then you should say it.
"I wanted to show that Hallelujah and Hare Krishna are quite the same
thing. I did the voices singing 'Hallelujah' and then the change to 'Hare
Krishna' so that people would be chanting the maha-mantra-before they knew
what was going on! I had been chanting Hare Krishna for a long time, and
this song was a simple idea of how to do a Western pop equivalent of a
mantra which repeats over and over again the holy names. I don't feel guilty
or bad about it; in fact it saved many a heroin addict's life."
Why did you feel you wanted to put Hare Krishna on the album at all?
Wouldn't "Hallelujah" alone have been good enough?
George: Well, first of all "Hallelujah" is a joyous expression
the Christians have, but "Hare Krishna" has a mystical side to it. It's
more than just glorifying God; it's asking to become His servant. And because
of the way the mantra is put together, with the mystic spiritual energy
contained in those syllables, it's much closer to God than the way Christianity
currently seems to be representing Him. Although Christ in my mind is an
absolute yogi, I think many Christian teachers today are misrepresenting
Christ. They're supposed to be representing Jesus, but they're not doing
it very well. They're letting him down very badly, and that's a big turn
off.
My idea in "My Sweet Lord," because it sounded like a "pop song," was
to sneak up on them a bit. The point was to have the people not offended
by "Hallelujah," and by the time it gets to "Hare Krishna," they're already
hooked, and their foot's tapping, and they're already singing along "Hallelujah,"
to kind of lull them into a sense of false security. And then suddenly
it turns into "Hare Krishna," and they will all be singing that before
they know what's happened, and they will think, "Hey, I thought I wasn't
supposed to like Hare Krishna!"
People write to me even now asking what style that was. Ten years later
they're still trying to figure out what the words mean. It was just a little
trick really. And it didn't offend. For some reason I never got any offensive
feedback from Christians who said "We like it up to a point, but what's
all this about Hare Krishna?"
Hallelujah may have originally been some mantric thing that got watered
down, but I'm not sure what it really means. The Greek word for Christ
is Kristos, which is, let's face it, Krishna, and Kristos is the same name
actually.
Mukunda: What would you say is the difference between the Christian
view of God, and Krishna as represented in the Bhagavad-gita?
George: When I first came to this house, it was occupied by
nuns. I brought in this poster of Visnu [a four-armed form of Krishna].
You just see His head and shoulders and His four arms holding a conchshell
and various other symbols, and it has a big om. This transcendental syllable,
which represents Krishna, has been chanted by many persons throughout history
for spiritual perfection.* written above it. He has a nice aura around
Him. I left it by the fireplace and went out into the garden. When we came
back in thc house, they all pounced on me, saying, "Who is that? What is
it?" as if it were some pagan god. So I said, "Well, if God is unlimited,
then He can appear in any form, whichever way He likes to appear.
That's one way. He's called Visnu." It sort of freaked them out a bit, but the point is, why should God be limited? Even if you get Him as Krishna, He is not limited to that picture of Krishna. He can be the baby form, He can be Govinda and manifest in so many other well-known forms. You can see Krishna as a little boy, which is how I like to see Krishna. It's a joyful relationship. But there's this morbid side to the way many represent Christianity today, where you don't smile, because it's too serious, and you can't expect to see God--that kind of stuff. If there is God, we must see Him, and I don't believe in the idea you find in most churches, where they say, "No, you're not going to see Him. He's way up above you. Just believe what we tell you and shut up."
I mean, the knowledge that's given in Prabhupada's books--the Vedic
stuff--that's the world's oldest scriptures. They say that man can become
purified, and with divine vision he can see God. You get pure by chanting,
then you see Him. And Sanskrit, the language they're written in, is the
world's first recorded language. Devanagari [the alphabet of the Sanskrit
language] actually means "language of the gods."
Mukunda: Anyone who is sincere about making spiritual advancement,
whatever one's religion may be, can usually see the value of chanting.
I mean if that person was really trying to be God conscious and trying
to chant sincerely.
George: That's right. It's a matter of being open. Anyone who's
open can do it. You just have to be open and not prejudiced. You just have
to try it. There's no loss, you know. But the "intellectuals" will always
have problems, because they always need to "know."
They're often the most spiritually bankrupt people, because they never
let go; they don't understand the meaning of "to transcend" the intellect.
But an ordinary person's more willing to say, "Okay. Let me try it and
see if it works." Chanting Hare Krishna can make a person a better Christian,
too.
Mukunda: In I, Me, Mine, you speak about karma and reincarnation,
and how the only way to get out of the cycle is to take up a bona fide
spiritual process. You said at one point, "Everybody is worried about dying,
but the cause of death is birth, so if you don't want to die, you don't
get born!" Did any of the other Beatles believe in reincarnation?
George: 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!
Mukunda: Paul has our latest book, Coming Back: The Science
of Reincarnation. Where do you think John's soul is now?
George: 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.
Mukunda: Bob 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 United States with two devotees once
and wrote several songs about Krishna. They spent a lot of time chanting.
George: 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.
And it was great the song he put the chanting in--"Pastimes Paradise."
Mukunda: When you were in Vrndavana, India, where Lord Krishna
appeared, and you saw thousands of people chanting Hare Krishna, did it
strengthen your faith in the idea of chanting to see a whole city living
Hare Krishna?
George: Yeah, it fortifies you. It definitely helps. It's fantastic
to be in a place where the whole town is doing it. And I also had the idea
that they were all knocked out at the idea of seeing some white person
chanting on beads. Vrndavana is one of the holiest cities in India. Everyone,
everywhere, chants Hare Krishna. It was my most fantastic experience.
Mukunda: 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."
George: 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. More concrete everywhere, more pollution, more radioactivity.
There's no wilderness left, no pure air. They're chopping the forests
down.
They're polluting all the oceans. In one sense, I'm pessimistic about
the future of the planet. These big guys don't realize for everything they
do, there's a reaction. You have to pay. That's karma.
Mukunda: Do you think there's any hope?
George: Yes. One by one, everybody's got to escape maya. Everybody
has to burn out his karma and escape reincarnation and all that. 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. The best thing you can give is God consciousness.
Manifest your own divinity first. The truth is there. It's right within
us all. Understand what you are. If people would just wake up to what's
real, there would be no misery in the world. I guess chanting's a pretty
good place to start.
Mukunda: Thanks so much, George.
George: All right. Hare Krishna!
