CHAPTER ONE

Mukunda Goswami: Oftentimes you speak of yourself as a plainclothes devotee, a closet yogi or “closet Kṛṣṇa,” 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 Kṛṣṇa?

George Harrison: Through my visits to India. So by the time the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement first came to England in 1969, John and I had already gotten ahold of Prabhupāda’s first album, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. We had played it a lot and liked it. That was the first time I’d ever heard the chanting of the mahā-mantra.

Mukunda: Even though you and John Lennon played Śrīla Prabhupāda’s record a lot and had chanted quite a bit on your own, you’d never really met any of the devotees. Yet when Gurudāsa, Śyāmasundara, and I [three of the six devotees sent from America to open the first Hare Kṛṣṇa temple in London] first came to England, you co-signed the lease on our first temple in central London, bought Bhaktivedanta Manor for us, which has provided a place for literally hundreds of thousands of people to learn about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and financed the first printing of the book Kṛṣṇa. 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 Kṛṣṇa. 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: You were a member of the Beatles, undoubtedly the greatest single pop group in music history – one that influenced not only music but whole generations of young people. 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: 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 mantra contains within its vibrations a certain power.” But of all mantras, you stated that “the mahā-mantra” [the Hare Kṛṣṇa 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: Prabhupāda 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 mantra enough, 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 Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa book some years ago, “If there’s a God, I want to see Him. It’s pointless to believe in something without proof, and Kṛṣṇa 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.

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 realize that there’s 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 “I see God,” I don’t necessarily mean to say that when I chant I’m seeing Kṛṣṇa 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 us 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 Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, 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 Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, 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 Kṛṣṇa saved him from a plane crash once.

George: Before meeting Prabhupāda and all of you I had bought that album Prabhupāda did in New York, 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 Kṛṣṇa. 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 Kṛṣṇa on that song. That was in May of ’69, and just three months later, Śrīla Prabhupāda was John and Yoko’s houseguest for one month at their estate outside London.

George: That’s right.

Mukunda: At that point John was a spiritual seeker, and Prabhupāda explained the true path to peace and liberation. He talked about karma, reincarnation, and the eternality of the soul, which are all elaborately dealt with in the Vedic literatures. Although John never made Hare Kṛṣṇa a big part of his life, he echoed the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in a hit song he wrote just about a year after that conversation, “Instant Karma.”

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.

George: That’s right. Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa 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, Gurudāsa, and Śyāmasundara, and just seeing all the old devotees made me think of Kṛṣṇa. 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 Śrīla Prabhupāda about a particular verse he quoted from the Vedas, in which it’s said that when one chants the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa, they wouldn’t be able to keep their minds on what they were doing. In other words, some people ask that if everyone started chanting, wouldn’t the whole world 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 Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa 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.

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 Kṛṣṇa 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 to 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 prasāda [vegetarian food that has been spiritualized by being offered to Lord Kṛṣṇa]. 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 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 kīrtana is always going on whether we’re hearing it or not.

Mukunda: You know, Śrīla Prabhupāda often said that after a large number of temples were established most people would simply begin to take up the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa in 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.

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 Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa.

Mukunda: What effect do you think that tune, “Hare Krishna Mantra,” having reached millions and millions of people, has had on the world’s cosmic consciousness?

George: I’d like to think it had some effect. After all, the sound is God.

Mukunda: When Apple called a press conference to promote the record, the media seemed 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 anymore.

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 Kṛṣṇa 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.

Mukunda: In the lyrics to the song “Awaiting On You All” from All Things Must Pass, 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.

Mukunda: What about the other Beatles? What did they think about your taking up Kṛṣṇa consciousness? What was their reaction? You’d all been to India by then and were pretty much searching for something spiritual. Śyāmasundara said that once, when he had 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 Kṛṣṇas – 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 Śyāmasundara I liked him. He was my pal. On the back of Prabhupāda’s record I’d read about Prabhupāda coming from India to Boston, and I knew that Śyāmasundara 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 dhotīs – your robes – and the saffron color and shaved heads in India. Kṛṣṇa 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 lifestyle. 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 Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

George: Oh, it’s great. And it also relates to making the Hare Kṛṣṇa 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.

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, theologians – have come around, and today they have a great deal of respect for the ancient Vaiṣṇava tradition [the spiritual culture centered on loving devotional service to Lord Viṣṇu, or Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead], where the modern-day Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa consciousness always seemed to transcend that barrier anyway. The fact that the media was letting people know about Kṛṣṇa was good in itself.

Mukunda: Śrīla Prabhupāda 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, Prabhupāda was the only one with the purity and devotion to establish India’s ancient Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa!” 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 Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā showing Kṛṣṇa and His friend and disciple Arjuna. Why?

George: Oh, yeah. It said on the album, “From the cover of Bhagavad-gītā 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 Kṛṣṇa, to know about Him. I mean that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?

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 prasāda is a very important thing. Kṛṣṇa is God, so He’s absolute: His name, His form, prasāda – 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 prasāda. It’s a blessing from Kṛṣṇa, and it’s spiritually important.

Mukunda: The Vedic literatures reveal that prasāda 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 prasāda much more when I’ve been at the temple, or when I’ve actually been sitting with Prabhupāda, than when somebody’s brought it to me. Sometimes you can sit there with prasāda and find that three or four hours have gone by and you didn’t even know it. Prasāda really helped me a lot, because you start to realize, “Now I’m tasting Kṛṣṇa.” You’re conscious suddenly of another aspect of God, understanding that He’s this little samosā. It’s all just a matter of tuning into the spiritual, and prasāda’s a very real part of it all.

Mukunda: You know, a lot of the rock groups like the Grateful Dead and Police get prasāda backstage before their concerts. They love it. It’s a long-standing tradition with us. I remember one time sending prasāda to one of the Beatles’ recording sessions. And your sister was telling me today that while you were doing the Bangladesh concert, Śyāmasundara used to bring you all prasāda at the rehearsals.

George: Yes, he’s even got a credit on the album sleeve.

Mukunda: What are your favorite kinds of prasāda, George?

George: I really like those deep-fried cauliflower things – pakorās?

Mukunda: Yes.

George: And one thing I always liked was ras malai. And there’re a lot of good drinks as well – fruit juices and lassi.

Mukunda: Do you remember the time we called the press in London for a big feast when we were promoting the “Hare Krishna Mantra” record? They were pretty surprised, for no one really knew us then for our food. Now, pretty much when people think about us, they still think, “They’re the ones chanting and dancing in the streets,” but they’re connecting us more and more now with prasāda: “They’re the ones with those free vegetarian dinners.”

George: The press was probably thinking, “Oh, we’ve got to go and do this now.” And then suddenly they find that they’re all sitting around and eating a much better Indian take-away than they would ever have at any one of the local spots. They were pretty impressed.

Mukunda: We’ve served about 150 million plates of prasāda so far at the free feasts around the world, what to speak of our restaurants.

George: You ought to have it up outside on billboards like those hamburger places do. You know, like “150 million served.” I think it’s great. It’s a pity you don’t have restaurants or temples on all the main streets of every little town and village like those hamburger and fried chicken places. You should put them out of business.

Mukunda: You’ve been to our London restaurant, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise?

George: Lots of times. It’s good to have these and other restaurants around, where plainclothes devotees serve the food. People slowly realize, “This is one of the best places I’ve been,” and they keep coming back. Then maybe they pick up a little bit of the literature or a pamphlet there and say, “Oh, hey, that was run by the Hare Kṛṣṇas.” I think there’s a lot of value also to that kind of more subtle approach. Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise has proper foods, good, balanced stuff, and it’s fresh. Even more important, it’s made with an attitude of devotion, which means a lot. When you know someone has begrudgingly cooked something, it doesn’t taste as nice as when someone has done it to try and please God – to offer it to Him first. Just that in itself makes all the food taste so much nicer.

Mukunda: Paul and Linda McCartney have prasāda frequently from Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise. Not long ago Paul met a devotee near his London studio and wrote a song about it. In an interview with James Johnson in a London paper he said, “One song, ‘One of These Days,’ is about when I met someone on the way to the studio who was a Hare Kṛṣṇa and we got talking about lifestyles and so forth. I’m not a Hare Kṛṣṇa myself, but I’m very sympathetic.”

George: No. Actually, I wised up and made sure I had dāl bean soup or something every day. Actually, lentils are one of the cheapest things, but they give you A1 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 fillets. 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 Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes when He appeared on earth five thousand years ago. Prabhupāda 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 as originals, lithographs, canvas prints, or posters. You’ve been to our multimedia Bhagavad-gītā 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 feeling 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 Kṛṣṇa on the chariot that I put in the Material World album, and I have the sculpted Śiva fountain ² the devotees made for me in my garden. Pictures are helpful when I’m chanting. You know that painting in the Bhagavad-gītā 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 Kṛṣṇa 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.

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 Prabhupāda was never like that. I liked Prabhupāda’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-three 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, Prabhupāda said that your sincere service was better than some people who had delved more deeply into Kṛṣṇa consciousness but could not maintain that level of commitment. How did you feel about that?

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 – Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee – can help a tremendous amount.

Mukunda: Every temple has a recording of it, and we play it each morning when the devotees assemble before the altar, before kīrtana. It’s an ISKCON institution, you might say.

George: And if I didn’t get feedback from Prabhupāda on my songs about Kṛṣṇa 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. My song “Living in the Material World,” as I wrote in I, Me, Mine, was influenced by Śrīla Prabhupāda. He’s the one who explained to me how we’re not these physical bodies. We just happen to be in them.

Mukunda: How would you describe Śrīla Prabhupāda’s achievements?

George: I think Prabhupāda’s accomplishments are very significant; they’re huge. Even compared to someone like William Shakespeare, the amount of literature Prabhupāda 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 up at seventy-nine years of age.

Mukunda: Did you know that complete sets of Prabhupāda’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 Prabhupāda 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, Kṛṣṇa, more into focus. A lot of scholars and writers know the Gītā, but only on an intellectual level. Even when they write “Kṛṣṇa said ...,” they don’t do it with the bhakti or love required. That’s the secret, you know – Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa, so they can’t understand Him and give Him to us. But Prabhupāda 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, Prabhupāda’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 lyrics say, “Got to get out of this place by the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa’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 Prabhupāda:

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 māyā [illusory energy], 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 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 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 Kṛṣṇa?

George: I like the idea of seeing Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa as a baby and feel protective of Him, or as your friend, or as the guru or master-type figure.

George: Well, first of all Hallelujah is a joyous expression the Christians have, but Hare Kṛṣṇa 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.

Mukunda: What would you say is the difference between the Christian view of God and Kṛṣṇa as represented in the Bhagavad-gītā?

George: When I first came to this house it was occupied by nuns. I brought in this poster of Viṣṇu. You just see His head and shoulders and His four arms holding a conch shell and various other symbols, and it has a big om 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 into the 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 Viṣṇu.”

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 is 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 Kṛṣṇa can make a person a better Christian, too.

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 had 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 Kṛṣṇa. 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 Vṛndāvana, India, where Lord Kṛṣṇa appeared, and you saw thousands of people chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, did it strengthen your faith in the idea of chanting to see a whole city living Hare Kṛṣṇa?

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. Vṛndāvana is one of the holiest cities in India. Everyone, everywhere, chants Hare Kṛṣṇa. It was my most fantastic experience.

Mukunda: You write 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 māyā. 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 Kṛṣṇa!