#autobiography of a yogi

Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, 1997; photo by Carolyn Jones, © 1997 Angel Records.

Q: “This new recording is the latest product of a relationship that stretches back more than 30 years. Do you remember what it was like in the beginning?”

George Harrison: “It’s almost as though it was scripted, and all I did was follow the script. When I first got a recording of Ravi’s, a World Pacific recording, I put it on, I played it, and inside of me I had an instinctive feeling that I was going to meet him, which I did. And all the other things have been a byproduct of that relationship. I went to India to learn some music with Ravi, but my main quest was that I wanted to know about the yogis. But Ravi was like my input into it. Through him I was able to hear the best music, buy the best incense, read the best swamis, meet the best people. I was very, very fortunate to become friends with him. And consequently all the goodness that I feel has come to me in my life is a direct effect of being plugged into that Indian-ness or Indian tradition or whatever that I gained through Ravi.”

Ravi Shankar: “In the beginning, when we met back in 1966, I found him very immature, naturally, because he was very young then. But still he had tremendous passion in wanting to know about India, Indian yogis, Indian music, Indian philosophy, Indian food and all that. And through the years, I thought, you know, this too shall pass. But I introduced him to this book, ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahansa Yogananda, and that put him on a serious approach. Then he tried himself with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Krishna people, but he always came back to me through music. In fact, it is mainly through music that I pushed him further and further, and today I find him to be so much into it, more than ever before — not in a superficial manner, but deeply into it.” - Los Angeles, 10 May 1997 (x)