The Life History of George Harrison- one of the Beatles

This multimedia show is dedicated as a service to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He is pictured here at Bhaktivedanta Manor near London, which was donated to his movement in 1973 by George Harrison. It was Srila Prabhupada who, as the special representative of Lord Krishna, gave Krishna consciousness to the whole world, including George Harrison.

This show is also dedicated to another special person, Lord Gopal, that form of the Supreme Lord Krishna, who George was appealing to as, My Sweet Lord. In this presentation, we'll try to show George's sincerity in Krishna consciousness, the background to how he became a devotee, and some of the special services he performed. There are nine chapters in this multimedia show, starting with the Beatle years, and concluding with his final television interview. First, the Beatle years.

George is famous as the lead guitarist of the Beatles, arguably the most successful musical group of all time. He got his first guitar for his sixth birthday, and after that never looked back. When he was 14, he joined his friends John Lennon and Paul McCartney to form the Beatles. Finally, in 1963, after playing for some years in relative obscurity, they were catapulted into unparalleled success.

Their aggressive style of rock and roll music caught the attention of the Western world's entire youth population and caused an epidemic of hysteria known as Beatlemania. everywhere they went they were mobbed as their music stirred the minds and hearts of the world's youth here we see a brief excerpt from one of their small concerts On the outside, they seemed like a dream come true. Good looking, amazingly innovative, often hilariously funny. During their career together, they sold more than one billion records. However, as time went on, their relationship suffered, and they found it more and more difficult to work together.

They expressed this in their music. Here we see Paul McCartney singing, that we can work it out, but as he sings, John Lennon makes sarcastic, negative gestures. By 1966, they were plainly calling out for help. In the later 60s, they drifted further and further apart, getting involved in their own separate interests.

Particularly George developed an interest in Indian mysticism. Finally, in early 1970, the Beatles broke up, never to play together again. In 1965, when Beatlemania was at its peak, Srila Prabhupada brought Krishna consciousness to the West. In 1967, he established a temple in San Francisco, then the capital of the hippie movement.

During that time, George Harrison came to San Francisco and saw the devotees chanting Hare Krishna in the streets. He also bought a record of Srila Prabhupada and his disciples chanting Hare Krishna and sometimes would listen to it for hours on end. At this time, the seed of devotional service was planted in his heart. Being aware of George's interest in Indian spiritualism, Srila Prabhupada asked his disciples to try to meet him.

The opportunity came when, in 1968, three young household couples went to London to establish a center. One of them was Shamsundadas in the center at the back of this photo. He had been one of the leaders of the American hippie movement and was close friends with many of the leading hippie musicians like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. When the Grateful Dead came to London in early 1969 and paid a visit on the Beatles, Shamsunda tagged along with them.

When George saw him in his devotee dress, he immediately sat down by Shamsunda and asked, Where have you been? I've been waiting so long to meet you people. George and Shamsunda quickly developed a close friendship, and through this, George became a member of the devotee community. He regularly accompanied the devotees on public harinams, and openly showed his acceptance of Krishna consciousness, and his happiness in being in devotee association.

George said, There was, I felt, a real need for Krishna consciousness. 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. It's too risky commercially.

But I thought, just do it, nobody else is, and I'm sick of seeing all these young people just wasting their lives. George was already feeling a great sense of frustration at how he and the other Beatles had led so many young people into a life of degradation, and he wanted to do something to contribute to their positive upliftment. He saw this as a possibility with Krishna consciousness. Here he expresses his feelings of disappointment in the song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

It's special, not just for you, but for us. And tonight, I think everybody on this stage, it's a special night because to play with these next two people is like a dream come true. Because by Jove, without them, there wouldn't be us. So, will you please give a wonderful reception, raise the roof, Mr.

George Harrison, Mr. Ringo Scott. For some time, George had been undergoing great strain due to the ongoing breakup of the Beatles. But now that Krishna was coming into his life, he felt like some dark clouds were lifting from him.

He expressed this in his music. Here we see him singing, Here Comes the Sun, a song he recorded just before the Beatles' Parted Waves. Ladies and gentlemen, my friend George Harrison. In July 1969, George suggested that the devotees make a record of the Hare Krishna Mantra.

He took them into the EMI studios and worked with them all the way through this famous recording. On this record, George plays harmonium, guitar and bass guitar. All the instruments that we hear except the merdanga and cartels And his voice is also there in the chorus He arranged the public launch of the record And appeared with the devotees on the BBC Top of the Pops show The devotees were overwhelmed with invitations to play at nightclubs all over Europe And the record became a major number one hit George introduced Shamsunda to the other Beatles, and when the devotees were temporarily without a temple premises, John Lennon invited them to stay at his estate, Tittenhurst Park. There they and George preached to John, who quickly developed a liking for prasadam.

George also introduced the devotees to other rock stars. Here we see them with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. When Srila Prabhupada heard of the successes his disciples were having preaching in London, he soon desired to join them. Shamsundar explains, By this time Prabhupada was really anxious to come to England, so he came there and he stayed out at Tittenhurst Park. we picked him up at the airport in the Apple limousine the big white rolls and brought him out there and the first thing John Yoko and George came to see him and Prabhupada was so charming and so alluring and so friendly he just captivated everyone Srila Prabhupada came to England at the end of 1969 here we see him with George at Tittenhurst Park While there, he preached to the Beatles about Krishna consciousness in conversations which are recorded in the book, Chant and Be Happy.

Whereas John was skeptical, George absorbed everything that Srila Prabhupada said to him and immediately reflected it in his music. His first song after meeting Srila Prabhupada was the famous My Sweet Lord. Here we see him singing it in New York in 1971 and if we look closely at his face we can see the intense emotions he is feeling in this song. He performed a number of special services to Srila Prabhupada's movement.

In 1970 he donated $20,000 to sponsor the first printing of the Krishna books. He also wrote a special introduction to them. In 1973, George purchased a country estate outside London for 250,000 pounds and donated it to ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada installed the beautiful deities Radha, Gokula, Nanda and spent many happy days there.

George became inspired with the preaching mood and started appealing to his audiences to chant Hare Krishna. Here he is, calling out to them, Everyone on the right, chant Hare Krishna. The next song, Awaiting on You All, shows his sincere concern that everyone chant the holy names. From time to time, George would visit ISKCON temples.

Here he is at Bhaktivedanta Manor near London in 1995, leading kirtan in the company of some of Srila Prabhupada's senior disciples. He visited Mayapur during the construction of Srila Prabhupada's Pushpa Samadhi and was given a tour of our ISKCON campus there. Then, in 1997, George made his final visit to one of the holy dams. He spent several days in Vrindavan, chanting japa in Srila Prabhupada's samadhi, chanting in the temple room of the Krishna Balaram Mandir, visiting Śrīla Prabhupāda's rooms in the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple, and visiting a number of other holy places.

He expresses some of his Kṛṣṇa conscious realizations in this, one of his final television interviews. The title is a... well that's it's not my motto it's what exists that is all things must pass just shows the nature of the physical world everything is changing all the time we get born and we die but we are in this body and we go through from birth to death we stay the same the soul is the same but the body is changing and like that you know it's the nature of it's called duality and it just keeps changing but everything passes except the essence of that which is our soul you know I don't believe I have great musical ability or great lyrical ability and I have a bigger problem than that is because of my influence from Indian music and that whole spiritual thing is that i don't see the point to writing most songs like most people will write i could write hundreds of songs you know hey baby what you gonna do you know that i could churn them out but i don't want to if i'm gonna say something i'd like it to have some kind of importance some value so that you know in 20 years time it's still it's not just some dumb song that made you know some royalties i mean the royalties are nice but it would be good to be able to have something a little deeper and and so you know it's very difficult how that's why the chants of india is much better because it's all there in sanskrit you just say the sanskrit and they're all mantras and they're all prayers and they all have a spiritual connection.

It's much easier than trying to write in English some incredible philosophy or something that has a value. Sure, you know, it's like Swami Bhakta Vedanta, who started the Hare Krishna movement. He once said that he was the servant of the servant of the servant of God. So, I mean, what does that make me?

I'm the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant. You know, I'm unhappy about the world being concreted over and all the forests chopped down and the air polluted and the fact that the planet is in the control of mad people. You know, people who are crazy, people who are greedy, all these people who are selling the rainforest and, you know, any forest, just selling it because they make some money without, you know, i'm very unhappy about that but i have a long term view which is all things must pass i mean before it used to be maybe they're going to blow us up with h-bombs but even that i thought it don't really matter they can't destroy what's within ourselves krishna said there's no time when we didn't exist and there'll be no time when we cease to exist the only thing that changes is the body so even if they blew us up with H-bombs our soul will stay in our other astral body and the only thing that won't be here is physical so you know I'm sad about the world but I look at it from within and without at the end of 2001 George Harrison passed away in the company of devotees chanting Hare Krishna We thank him for his selfless service to Srila Prabhupada and pray to Lord Krishna for his eternal well-being.