#harrison spirituality

George Harrison in Rishikesh, India, 1968; photo by Mal Evans.

“Firstly, I think too many people here have the wrong idea about India. Everyone immediately associates India with poverty, suffering and starvation but there’s much, much more than that. There’s the spirit of the people, the beauty and goodness. The people there have tremendous spiritual strength which I don’t think is found elsewhere. That’s what I’ve been trying to learn about.” - George Harrison, NME, 27 May 1967 (x)

George Harrison with Mukunda Goswami in Vrindavan, India, 1996. Photo by Prithu Prabhu (?).

“[George] also wrote [songs] to remind himself. People sometimes accused him of preaching (laughs). But you know, he was really preaching to himself. He wasn’t trying to say, ‘You be like this because I’m already like this.’ No, he was always trying to remind himself. And that’s the reason he liked India so much, because he said that, ‘Everywhere you went, there was a reminder.’” - Olivia Harrison, KSHE 95, 26 December 2014 (x)

George Harrison promoting the 1987 television documentary It Was 20 Years Ago Today. Photo © Granada.

“A lot of things to do with The Beatles is as if it was a previous life. It’s as if it happened in this dream. I don’t go around thinking I’m a Beatle or feeling like anything; I tend to live now, here, this day.” - George Harrison, CREEM, December 1987/January 1988 (x)

Photos by Carinthia West, Terry O’Neill, Tom Pilson/REX/Shutterstock, Susan Flood, Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Universal Music Group, David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images.

Happy birthday to Olivia Harrison!

Q: “What’s the secret to endurance in a relationship?”
Olivia Harrison: “I think in life, first of all, you have to have — respect is really important, but also I think you have to know where you’re going in your own soul and in your own life, and in your own — who you are; who do you want to be in life? And you need a partner to help you be that best person you can be. And sometimes you’re not that best person, but I think that’s the goal. I think when you have a goal like that? You know, George always wanted to be… a light-hearted person, and he was a very intense person, and I think you need a higher goal to stay together. I think that’s the real reason. Because then your own problems don’t seem like such big deals.” […]
Q: “So how are we supposed to find which is our path?”
OH: “Oh, that’s a good question. Especially now in this day and age, when everything is a big diversion. I think nature — I think the answer is in nature, I think the answer is in silence, and not being afraid of nothingness, not being afraid of the abyss, the void, the silence. I think that’s where man can be saved from where we are now. I really do. I think you need to go sit somewhere in silence and be overwhelmed by nature. That seems to be a way to reset our lives.” - Cultura Pop, 19 October 2017 (x)

George Harrison and Ravi Shankar appearing on VH1 for an interview conducted by John Fugelsang, 1997. Photo by Marc Bryan-Brown/Corbis Outline.

“If you want to know anything in this life, you just have to knock on that door — whether it be physically on somebody else’s door or, which I was lucky to find, is through meditation. It’s all within. Because if you think about it, there isn’t anything — I mean, in creation, the whole of creation that is perfect. You know, there is nothing that goes wrong with nature — only what man does, then it goes wrong.
But we are made of that thing, the very essence of our being, of every atom in our body, is made from this perfect knowledge, this perfect consciousness. It superimposed on that is through, if I can use that word, the tidal wave of bullshit that goes through the world. So we’re being barraged by bullshit. But not only that, the way the world is structured or the way creation is structured, we have duality which says: yes/no, good/bad, loss/gain, birth/death, and it’s this circle that you get trapped in. It’s like the Memphis blues again. And that’s the hardest thing to understand: what is causing both of these things? What is causing day and night, good and bad? It’s all the cause and this is the effect. I mean, we’re getting really transcendental here, but… our physical being is really, only a very, very subtle level it’s just like the sap in a tree is the sap and it runs throughout all parts of the tree. It’s like that. Our bodies are manifested into physical bodies but the cause, the sap, is pure consciousness, pure awareness. And that is perfect knowledge, but we have to tap into that to understand it. And that’s really why for me this record [‘Chants of India’] is important because it’s another little key to open up the within, for each individual to be able to see it, and turn off… ‘turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.’” - George Harrison, VH1, 1997 (x)

George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, 1974. Photo: Picture-Alliance/Photoshot/dpa.

“‘Mangalam’ came to me while I was walking in Friar Park, George’s place, where we were recording. I was looking at the trees and the sky, and feeling very elated all of a sudden, wishing everything should be good for everyone, and it just came to me.” - Ravi Shankar, Rolling Stone, 15 May 1997

“Steve Murphy, the president of Angel Records, had heard some songs that were similar to material on ‘In Celebration,’ a Ravi retrospective that I had helped assemble last year. He suggested we go in to the studio to record more. This music, which is based on ancient Vedic chanting, I very much enjoy. And, of course, it gave me an opportunity to work with Ravi, so it made perfect sense. […]
In a way it represents the accumulation of our ideas and experiences throughout our 30-year relationship. But to put it into a slightly more commercial aspect, the record label asked us to do this and that would never have happened 15 years ago. Because of the fact of multiculturalism has become more accepted, and more people are interested in what this music offers, this project has become more commercially viable. And this music is very close to me, this is something I very much wanted to do. I actively read the Vedic scriptures and I’m happy to spread the word about what this project is all about. People also need an alternative to all the clatter in their lives, and this music provides that. Whether it’s Benedictine Monks chanting or ancient Vedic chants, people are searching for something to cut through all the clatter and ease stress.” - George Harrison, HITS, 1997 (x)

Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, India, 1974; photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.

Q: “So the relationship has had a powerful impact upon both your lives?”

George Harrison: “In one way, it’s kind of given me a life. Because if you don’t know who you are and where you’ve come from and where you’re going, really, what is life? You can have all the money in the world and all the glory. But if you don’t know what is the point, then your life is empty. So, in that respect, Ravi — not just Ravi, but he was the main ingredient — patched me into the Vedic tradition. And from that I’ve learned all these things about yoga, about meditation, about what it is, about what are we doing here, about what is the goal. I’ve come to understand incredible stuff, just through pursuing that. Without it, I’d just be a boring old fart.”

Ravi Shankar: “To me, George is, I don’t know how to describe it, a son, a friend, someone very dear, and I love him very much. He has given me so much love and respect that my heart is full of it.” - Los Angeles Times, 10 May 1997 (x)

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)

George Harrison, 1992; photo by Nigel Parry.

“I hadn’t written a tune in a while, and ‘Blow Away’ [released on George’s 1979 self-titled album]… I was just sitting in the garden with the pouring rain, it was freezing cold, so I wrote that song. Like any given day will have the morning, and then you’ll have the day, and then the nighttime, and in the Indian philosophy they call this triguna, it means the three basic elements: creation, preservation, and destruction. But they’re all part and parcel of each other. You know, you have the nighttime which is like this negative kind of dark… but it’s — you need that in order to have the freshness again of the new morning. So the song was like that. It started out where everything was… the house was leaking, and the pouring rain, it’s miserable and I’m just about the lose it when I just remember, ‘No, wait a minute, all I’ve got to do is cheer up a little.’ In the second verse, the sun comes out, by the last verse everything’s cool again.” - George Harrison, In The Studio With Redbeard, 1992 (x)

The Beatles on location in Obertauern, Austria, during the filming of Help!, 1965; photo by Chris Kindahl.

George Harrison: “You see, a big change happened in 1966, particularly to John and myself, because a dentist we were having dinner with put this LSD in our coffee. Now, people who’ve taken that will know what I’m talking about, and anybody who hasn’t taken it won’t have a clue because — it transforms you. After that, I didn’t need it ever again. That’s the thing about LSD: you don’t need it twice.”
Selina Scott: “You’ve only taken it once?”
GH: “Oh, no, I took it lots of times. [laughs] But I only needed it once.” - West 57th Street, 1987

Q: “Finally, any recent acid flashbacks you care to share?”
George Harrison: “[laughs] No, no, that doesn’t happen to me anymore. I’ve got my own cosmic lighting conductor now. Nature supports me.” - Guitar World, interview conducted in 1992, published in January 2001 (x)