Fab Mystic India Four

It’s twenty-one years to the day since former Beatle George Harrison left this world. The unassuming lead guitarist of the West’s most innovative rock band was markedly receptive to age-old Eastern spiritual teachings. So what better place to gather and remember George on the anniversary of his death (29^th November) than Bhaktivedanta Manor, the extensive Hertfordshire property he donated to the Hare Krishna movement in 1973, a couple of years after the Beatles split.

Mystic George

This is an annual commemorative event that has become something of an institution and, having been treated to a generous helping of delicious prasadam (sanctified food), the assembled crowd’s expectation levels are set high. The evening opens smoothly with sacred mantras delivered in silken melody form by a group of seasoned kirtaneers (devotional singers and players).

And, tonight, George Harrison’s best Beatles and solo compositions are safe as ever in the hands of well-honed tribute band The Inner Light, whose accomplished delivery of classics such as Here comes the Sun, Something and My Sweet Lord will soon reverberate robustly enough to satisfyingly fill the estate’s vast new ‘modern architectural’ Haveli building and reliably bring the (already replete) audience to their feet.

Mock-Tudor Manor meets Modern Architectural Haveli

Senior Krishna devotee Sakshi Gopal das deftly takes up the MC reins to oversee a night of musical and anecdotal homage to one of Liverpool’s most celebrated sons.

The Host with The Most – Sakshi Gopal das

In the late 60s, a time when Merseysiders didn’t (normally) stray as far as the Himalayan foothills, the Fab Four did just that. They were instrumental (and harmoniously vocal!) in blurring boundaries that, as yet, divided creeds of East and West.

Fab Mystic Four in Rishikesh

But it was George who went on to become firm friends with Hare Krishna movement founder AC Bhaktivedanta Swami and his disciples when they, in turn, brought their brand of Krishna wisdom to the UK.

AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Pattie Boyd, George Harrison, and Dhananjaya dasa in England

“The Beatles were more than the sum of their total parts” says Sakshi. He firmly believes that the group’s unique structure provided the perfect setting for George’s spirituality to flourish in. While Lennon and McCartney blazed a gloriously unprecedented trail of self-penned staple love songs, Harrison took the conventional romantic refrain and raised it to the next level, adding an ethereal other-dimensionality to the standard boy-meets-girl (-leading to inevitable heartbreak!) ditty.

To illustrate this point, Sakshi Gopal das and his stage companion seat themselves to perform a sensitive version of Within You Without You (from the 1967 Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club album) on box tambura.

Within You Without You

“This was the first non-Beatle Beatle record” Sakshi explains. The song did indeed mark a significant departure from the Beatles’ previous work. Not only did it reflect Harrison’s absorption in Eastern philosophy while introducing Indian classical music to a new audience in the West, it also delivered an alluring sermon about materialism and communal responsibility.

We were talking, about the love we could all share,
When we find it, to try our best to hold it there,
With our love,
With our love, we could save the world.

Even George’s own composition Something, considered one of the greatest love songs ever written, was, Sakshi Gopal reminds us, (according to first-hand accounts from devotees closest to the pop-star), originally written with Krishna in mind.

You get the impression that Sakshi Gopal das could talk effortlessly for hours about George Harrison. “He provided the clues and the signposts for my spiritual journey” the long-term aficionado tells us. “He lit the way for me, and I got here and was able to meet all the other devotees”.  Without George, he continues, there wouldn’t be this estate, nor any manor housing a beautiful temple, there would be no haveli holding this very stage, no Goshala (farm protecting sacred cows), and certainly no annual Janmashtami festival (Krishna’s birthday) attracting 60,000 people. Not a bad legacy for a Liverpool bus-driver’s son….

But George was no saint, as Sakshi points out, after all, he was a rock star, with all the excesses which that entails. “But he was a saint among rock stars” he laughs, adding “although saints would have considered him merely a rock star.” George Harrison always maintained that the greatest advantage of having had fame and money so soon in life was that it made him realise that neither could make him entirely happy, and that he needed to look deeper for answers.  

Few rock stars delve into mysticism at such a youthful age to remain fully immersed right until they draw their final breath. Interestingly, 2022 has seen both of George’s former wives launch memoir books. But what part did each play in his spiritual life?

Olivia Harrison – 2022 Book Launch – Pattie Boyd

While first spouse Pattie Boyd was at the social and cultural epicentre of Swinging London in the heady ground-breaking days that witnessed George’s first forays into enlightening Eastern philosophies, second wife Olivia was at her husband’s side during his darkest moments in later years. It was she who broke the news to him about the senseless assassination of John Lennon in December 1980. When, in late 1999, a psychotic intruder tried to murder the couple in their own home, George and Olivia fought hard enough to save each other’s lives. The Mexican-blooded Californian beauty was with George throughout his protracted battle with terminal cancer. All along, Olivia Harrison observed her other half apply to difficult life situations those golden guiding principles that his enduring commitment to spiritual practice had taught him.

Decanting their Time – George and Olivia

“He had karma to work out” she revealed in Living in the Material World (a 2011 documentary examining George’s life journey directed by renowned filmmaker Martin Scorsese). “He wasn’t going to come back and be bad, he was going to be good and bad and loving and angry and everything all at once. If someone said you can have everything spread over five lifetimes, or have a really intense one, and then you can go and be liberated, he would have said, give me the one, I’m not coming back here…”

It was English Rose Pattie Boyd, however, who had first switched the Beatles on to the Indian concept of transcendental meditation back in 1967. This was not only a welcome diversion from mundane material matters (and the pressures of fame) but also a notion intriguing enough to set the Fab Four firmly on that road to Rishikesh in early 1968.

Off to India – George and Pattie

Characteristically, George’s own interest in mysticism had already begun (in a more low-key way) some time before he pitched up in Rishikesh as part of the planet’s most eminent pop-group under the probing spotlight of global press. The quietly contemplative Beatle had already discovered the writings of Indian scholar and sage Vivekananda and had been diligently exploring the spiritual aspects of his own existence for some time.

“We met the most wonderful sitarist called Ravi Shankar” Pattie told enraptured listeners at October 2022’s Henley Literary Festival, happily recalling the colourful days of 1965. The leading 1960s international model and present-day photographer was in the house to present My Life In Pictures, a sumptuous archive of photographs and mementos spanning fabulous decades with prolific friends.

“George was absolutely thrilled to meet Ravi. He invited us to India so that we could learn about the culture, the music, see wonderful sights and learn a bit about spirituality, yoga, meditation and everything that India has to offer.”

In September 1966, the married pair landed in Bombay, and lo, a famous Northern English guitarist was all set to take first lessons with a fabled Indian sitar maestro. This visit included an outing to the holy city of Banares. It was, arguably, there that the Liverpool lad’s mystical journey really began.

Blurring the Boundaries – Ravi and George

After the Beatles parted ways it was Pattie who found Friar Park, a Victorian neo-Gothic mansion and estate at Henley that she and George moved into in the early 70s along with a group of pioneering UK Hare Krishna devotees – who stayed long enough to get renovations well underway and a home-temple set up and running!

As Shyamasundar das, of that original troupe, relayed in his autobiographical account Chasing Rhinos with the Swami

“I think that having us around…helped nurture George’s fledgling convictions – he couldn’t help but hear the chanting day and night – and reinforced his great determination to make his spiritual voice heard after the Beatles split. In the privacy of his own home, George became one of the Krishna gang.”

Evoking Memories – George with Shyamasundar

I spoke with Pattie Boyd at Henley 2022 Literary Festival and was pleased to learn that she is still in touch with Shyamasundar das. We both agreed that we are really looking forward to the new audio-book version of his story!

Late June 2022 I was fortunate enough to come face-to-face with Olivia Harrison, in the front row of an exclusive reading/Q&A event at bookshop Waterstones Piccadilly of London, to mark the publication of Came The Lightening, her book of twenty autobiographical poems and mementos dedicated to George.

A last boat ride through the sapphire cave
A folly where Edwardians played
Immersed in subterranean hues
The underworld in Krishna blue

Friar Park – The Harrison Home

When Dhani Harrison, a visual incarnation of his father, came in (concealed discretely under a pulled-down cap) to quietly take up a seat in the back row, he was, understandingly, reluctant to steal his mother’s thunder. Nonetheless adoring mum couldn’t resist giving him a shout-out. Asked whether she had considered putting her poetry to music, Olivia responded that no, she hadn’t, but the idea might appeal to her and George’s son.

Quietly in the Back Row – Dhani Harrison

“Dhani’s here today. He was always a great joy to his father and to me” she announced proudly.

Back in December 2001 the Harrison’s only child (then 23) accompanied his mother and two Hare Krishna devotees to India to scatter his father’s mortal remains at the Triveni Sangam in Allahabad, a confluence of Hinduism’s three most sacred rivers: Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati.  George’s residual ashes were distributed at nearby Banares. His body had been cremated in England at a simple Hare Krishna service, accompanied by a reading from the Bhagavad Gita.

Olivia Harrison has since elegantly curated George’s musical (and mystical) legacy. In November 2011 she dedicated the George Harrison memorial garden at Bhaktivedanta Manor to mark 10 years since his passing. This incredibly peaceful space was opened to the public in 2013 to coincide with the manor’s 40th anniversary as a Krishna temple.

George Harrison Memorial Garden

George Harrison bade a personal farewell to India in the form of a trip back to Banaras. He bathed in the Ganges, visited the holy Krishna temple and pledged a last donation to ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness).

ISKCON will never forget him.

Denise O’Dwyer of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire enthused:

“I loved this tribute evening at Bhaktivedanta Manor. It was really fulfilling and uplifting to hear the stories about George Harrison, his connection with Srila Prabhupada and the history of the Hare Krishna movement.  And it was great fun when all the ladies got up to dance to The Inner Light. “

Tribute Band – The Inner Light