Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm the kind of person who would love to play whenever I felt like, with a band, and it might as well be the Holiday Inn in Nebraska - somewhere where no one knows you, and you're in a band situation just playing music.
If you open up your heart You will know what I mean We've been polluted so long But here's a way for you to get clean By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see.
We have the same qualities as God, just like a drop of the ocean has the same qualities as the whole ocean. Everybody's looking for something and we are it. We don't have to look anywhere--it's right there within ourselves.
Basically, I feel fortunate to have realized what the goal is in life. There's no point in dying having gone through your life without knowing who you are, what you are, or what the purpose of life is. And that's all it is.
I wouldn't like to say that I'm absolutely God conscious. It's like everybody else. We're battling with the forces that are pulling us upwards and downwards at the same time. But basically we all want love, that's what I feel.
Food is less important to me because I've learned to control my appetite to a great extent, simply by having my mind elsewhere. I find when I'm busy meditating on other aspects of my life I go without eating and I don't miss it.
Throughout much of our lives, our association with the temporary has risen. This transitory body, a sack of bones and flesh, is considered erroneously as our true body and we have accepted this temporary condition as conclusive.
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.
And so my music, it doesn't matter if I did it 20 years ago or if I did it tomorrow. It doesn't go with trends. My trousers don't get wider and tighter every six months. My music just stays what it is, and that's the way I like it.
No matter how much money you've got, it doesn't necessarily make you happy. You have to find your happiness with the problems you have, not worry too much about them, and chant Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.
George: [On the 'Two Virgins' cover] 'What I thought of the sleeve then was the same as I think now: it's just two not-very-nice-looking bodies, two flabby bodies naked. It's harmless, really - different strokes for different folks.
I remember thinking I just want more. This isn't it. Fame is not the goal. Money is not the goal. To be able to know how to get peace of mind, how to be happy, is something you don't just stumble across. You've got to search for it.
Chanting Hare Krishna is 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.
I'd rather stay home and watch the tube than go out and make myself into a spectacle. I'm not uncomfortable with a social life, but it doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't seem to accomplish anything - it just leaves one wanting for more.
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.
We laughed a lot. That's one thing we forgot about for a few years - laughing. When we went through all the lawsuits, it looked as if everything was bleak, but when I think back to before that, I remember we used to laugh all the time.
To put your full belief in your Guru, because it's for your own good, because you've decided that... It's just having a lot of respect for the person and it's like that with music as well...You should love your instrument and respect it.
People are simply screwing up when they go out and buy beefsteak, 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 filets.
Definitely, I think it's much more acceptable, the idea of meditation or yoga. The idea of God trying to contact the soul within ourselves. Back in the 60s it was a bit like, you know , the hippies or the philosophers were the only people.
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.
The art school party in Liverpool, in a flat in the students' accomdation, was the first all night party I ever went to...I puked up next morning. Cynthia was there, and I remember saying drunkenly to her 'I wish I had a nice girl like you'
Part of Krishna 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.
Wherever I go in the world, when I see devotees, I always say "Hare Krishna!" 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.
They used us as an excuse to go mad and then blamed it on us. Gandhi says create and preserve the image of your choice. The image of my choice is not Beatle George - those who want that can go and see Wings. Why live in the past? Be here now.
Indian music is brilliant and for me, anyway, (this is only personal) it's got everything in it. I still like electronics and all sorts of music if it's good but Indian music is just... an untouchable you can't say what it is, because it just is.
I've always played around in my own mind with what a Wilburys tour could be. Would each person do a solo set and then do Wilburys at the end, or would we all go on right from beginning to end and make everything Wilburys? It's an intriguing thought.
Here are some funny songs, there are some songs that we didn't even remember. I heard this song that Ringo is singing, I still don't know the title of it, but it is got the most amazing lyrics and it's a quite a good production. And quite a good tun
If I feel love, I just want to feel more love. And if I feel a bit of peace, I want to feel more peace. But I don't really have any great ambitions. I feel very happy. I've got a lot of good friends. I just want it to be better and more of it, really.
"In the beginning was the word" and that's the thing about Krishna, saying Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, so it's not the word that you're saying, it's the sound: Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna and it's just sounds and it's great.
I don't mind anybody dropping out of anything, but it's the imposition on somebody else I don't like. The moment you start dropping out and then begging off somebody else to help you, then it's no good. It doesn't matter what you are as long as you work.
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.
I'm not really hip to too much of the Zen or the Buddhist point of view, but you see I don't have to be because I just know that they're all the same, it's all the same, it's just whichever one you want to take and it happens that I'm taking the Hindu one.
I like the idea of seeing Krishna 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 Krishna as a baby and feel protective to Him, or as your friend, or as the guru or master - type figure.
Some people, of course, can be happier with the cars, the fancy threads, the hilltop mansion, and the other status symbols of 'having made it', but I found that several of my most prized possessions were slipping away, despite all the fortune I had amassed.
We can go up or we can do down. I think generally the world is going on an upward swing. We're in a part of a cycle where people are discovering more. The communications are better. We're getting more into the subtle electricities that control the universe.
Friends are all souls that we've known in other lives. We're drawn to each other. Even if I have only known them a day, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to wait till I have known them for two years, because anyway, we must have met somewhere before, you know.
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 filets. Does that make sense?
I had no ambition when I was a kid other than to play guitar and get in a rock 'n' roll band. I don't really like to be the guy in the white suit at the front. Like in the Beatles, I was the one who kept quiet at the back and let the other egos be at the front.
The Guru and Disciple relationship is where the person has a 100% belief in the Guru and that way you put your trust in the Guru, that he's going to get you out of this mess. If you are a Christian, then Christ is your Guru, and they're all disciples of Christ.
Sometimes, you release an album and the record company just about ignores it, and so many people don't even know it's out. And I'm not about to jump up and down shouting, "Hey folks, look at me! I'm cool and groovy!" That's not what George Harrison is all about.
Prasadam's a good little hook in this age of commercialism. When people want something extra, or they need to have something special, prasadam will hook them in there. It's undoubtedly done a great deal toward getting a lot more people involved in spiritual life.
So it's the unwinding of your nervous system. The corresponding experience to what winds you up comes out in your dreams. To write a song then, even one like Don't Bother Me, helps to get rid of some subconscious burden. Writing a song is like going to confession.
I think people who truly can live a life in music are telling the world, ‘You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don’t need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it’s the very best, and it’s the part I give most willingly
People are all ignorant, they fear new things, they fear knowledge somehow, I don't know why. Everything that I ever learned was always so great. I never thought so at the time, it was just that little bit more in your mind an expansion of consciousness or awareness.
It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.
A lot of people went underground with their spiritual life in the seventies, but they're out there in little nooks and crannies and in the countryside, people who look and dress straight, insurance salesmen types, but they're really meditators and chanters, closet devotees.
I was naive and thought we could express our feelings to each other- not suppress them and keep holding them back. Well, it was what I felt, and why should I be untrue to myself? I came to believe the importance that if you feel something strong enough then you should say it.
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.
I think it was John who really urged me to play sitar on 'Norwegian Wood,' which was the first time we used it. Now, Paul has just asked me recently whether I'd written any more of those 'Indian type of tunes.' He suddenly likes them now. But at the time, he wouldn't play on them.
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.