A Tribute to George Harrison

The death of a legend has the same impact on a souls as lsoing another aspect of who we are, a close friend, or re;ative. It is someone we loved, perhaps listened to for comfort.

As the person become famous we associated their work with a part of our time here. They become a part of our soul experience. We experienced vicariously.

George Harrison created music - and he did it well. He understood the tones, sounds, harmonics, from a spiritual level. He, as with theother Beatles, knew what the public needed to hear.

Friends who know him tell me he was an extremely spiritual man.

George was born in Liverpool, England on Feb. 25, 1943 just one week after I was born. I always feel there is a connection between souls that ride in on the same time lines.

We were from the old Rock N' Roll days when Ellie would spend her free time in High School hanging out with with the black guys in the stairwells or empty classrooms singing and having fun! There were only a handful of black students in Lincoln High School in those days. Good old Lincoln High which gave us such music greats as Neil Sedaka and Neil Diamond who lived a few doors down from me and who also shared some great times singing and creating music.

Those were great days for me . . . the late 50's into the early 60's - the country was not at war - everyone spoke of college and career and the energies were about success - you could do anything! Just a few miles away in Erasmus High was another woman just 9 months older than I - yet in the same grade who was also destined for fame. Her named was Barbra Streisand!

This was an amazing time and an amazing pusle of energy.

Then along came a group called the Beatles! They were so hot!!!!

I remember waiting in a long line with my girlfriends in to see The Beatles. We traveled from where we lived in Brooklyn - Manhattan Beach - by subway (in England - the tubes) - and waited on a long line - but in the end it was worth it!

I remember seeing the Beatles in Black and white on TV on the Ed Sullivan show!

My friends and I would go to Beatles movies and sit in the balcony and dance in the aisles together!

Talk about Magic - as we have been the past week! The Beatles were amazing! They had the tones - the words - the harmonics - to create the energy of that time line, which still continues to this very day.

George Harrison died yesterday of cancer at the age of 58. It was his time. He had contributed the soul growth of this planetary exerperience. He will be fondly remembered and will be missed.

I will channel him if he comes to me.

As we all move donw 'Long and Winidng Roads' towards the same place . . . I am certain Geogre will be there as a shining light to guide us once again. 'All You Need Is Love'.

There is little piece in most of us that is lost with George's passing. As you sang, 'All Things Must Pass'.

He will be missed!

Well George . . We have seen you through years of spiritual enlightenment!

'Here Comes The Sun' (the Sacred Light of Creation). I can see you embracing the Light with open arms, as I type . . .

Ex-Beatle George Harrison Dies at 58

From Reuters News - November 30, 2001 - LA

George Harrison, the Beatles' quiet lead guitarist and spiritual explorer who added both rock 'n' roll flash and a touch of the mystic to the band's timeless magic, has died. He was 58.

Harrison died at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a friend's Los Angeles home following a battle with cancer, longtime friend Gavin De Becker told The Associated Press late Thursday. Harrison's wife, Olivia Harrison, and son Dhani, 24, were with him.

``He left this world as he lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace, surrounded by family and friends,'' the Harrison family said in a statement. ``He often said, `Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another.'''

With Harrison's death, there remain two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. John Lennon was shot to death by a deranged fan in 1980.

``I am devastated and very, very sad,'' McCartney told reporters outside his London home Friday. ``He was a lovely guy and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He is really just my baby brother.''

It wasn't immediately known if there would be a public funeral for Harrison. A private ceremony had already taken place, De Becker said.

In 1998, Harrison disclosed that he had been treated for throat cancer. ``It reminds you that anything can happen,'' he said at the time. The following year, Harrison survived an attack by an intruder who stabbed him several times. In July 2001, he released a statement asking fans not to worry about reports that he was still battling cancer.

The Beatles were four distinct personalities joined as a singular force in the rebellious 1960s, influencing everything from hair styles to music. Whether dropping acid, proclaiming ``All You Need is Love'' or sending up the squares in the film ``A Hard Day's Night'' the Beatles inspired millions.

Harrison's guitar work, modeled on Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins among others, was essential.

He often blended with the band's joyous sound, but also rocked out wildly on ``Long Tall Sally'' and turned slow and dreamy on ``Something.'' His jangly 12-string Rickenbacker, featured in ``A Hard Day's Night,'' was a major influence on the American band the Byrds.

Although his songwriting was overshadowed by the great Lennon-McCartney team, Harrison did contribute such classics as ``Here Comes the Sun'' and ``Something,'' which Frank Sinatra covered. Harrison also taught the young Lennon how to play the guitar.

``As he said himself, how do you compare with the genius of John and Paul? But he did, very well,'' rock star and activist Bob Geldof told BBC radio.

``All the way back, he measured up,'' Geldof said. ``Maybe because of the necessary competition between the other two, his standard of songwriting was incomparably better than most other contemporaries anyway.''

He was known as the ``quiet'' Beatle and his public image was summed up in the first song he wrote for them, ``Don't Bother Me,'' which appeared on the group's second album.

But Harrison also had a wry sense of humor that helped shape the Beatles' irreverent charm, memorably fitting in alongside Lennon's cutting wit and Starr's cartoonish appeal.

At their first recording session under George Martin, the producer reportedly asked the young musicians to tell him if they didn't like anything. Harrison's response: ``Well, first of all, I don't like your tie.''

He was even funny about his own mortality. As reports of his failing health proliferated, Harrison recorded a new song - ``Horse to the Water'' - and credited it to ``RIP Ltd. 2001.''

He always preferred being a musician to being a star, and he soon soured on Beatlemania - the screaming girls, the wild chases from limos to gigs and back to limos. Like Lennon, his memories of the Beatles were often tempered by what he felt was lost in all the madness.

``There was never anything, in any of the Beatle experiences really, that good: even the best thrill soon got tiring,'' Harrison wrote in his 1979 book, ``I, Me, Mine.'' ``There was never any doubt. The Beatles were doomed. Your own space, man, it's so important. That's why we were doomed, because we didn't have any. We were like monkeys in a zoo.''

Still, in a 1992 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Harrison confided: ``We had the time of our lives: We laughed for years.''

``George has given so much to us in his lifetime and continues to do so even after his passing, with his music, his wit and his wisdom,'' Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono said Friday.

Alan Williams, The Beatles' first manager, described Harrison as the major cog in The Beatles. ``He kept them together probably because of the calming effect he had,'' Williams said.

After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Harrison had sporadic success. He organized the concert for Bangladesh in New York City, produced films that included Monty Python's ``Life of Brian,'' and teamed with old friends, including Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison, as ``The Traveling Wilburys.''

George Harrison was born Feb. 25, 1943, in Liverpool, one of four children of Harold and Louise Harrison. His father, a former ship's steward, became a bus conductor soon after his marriage.

Harrison was 13 when he bought his first guitar and befriended Paul McCartney at their school. McCartney introduced him to Lennon, who had founded a band called the Quarry Men - Harrison was allowed to play if one of the regulars didn't show up.

``When I joined, he didn't really know how to play the guitar; he had a little guitar with three strings on it that looked like a banjo,'' Harrison recalled of Lennon during testimony in a 1998 court case against the owner of a bootleg Beatles' recording.

``I put the six strings on and showed him all the chords - it was actually me who got him playing the guitar. He didn't object to that, being taught by someone who was the baby of the group. John and I had a very good relationship from very early on.''

Harrison evolved as both musician and songwriter. He became interested in the sitar while making the 1965 film ``Help!'' and introduced it to a generation of Western listeners on ``Norwegian Wood,'' a song by Lennon from the ``Rubber Soul'' album. He also began contributing more of his own material.

Among his compositions were ``I Need You'' for the soundtrack of ``Help''; ``If I Needed Someone'' on ``Rubber Soul''; ``Taxman'' and ``Love You To'' on ``Revolver''; ``Within You, Without You'' on ``Sgt. Pepper''; and ``While My Guitar Gently Weeps'' on the White Album.

In 1966, he married model Patti Boyd, who had a bit part in ``A Hard Day's Night.'' (They divorced in 1977, and she married Harrison's friend, the guitarist Eric Clapton, who wrote the anguished song ``Layla'' about her. Harrison attended the wedding.)

More than any of the Beatles, Harrison craved a little quiet. He found it in India. Late in 1966, after the Beatles had ceased touring, George and Patti went to India, where Harrison studied the sitar with Ravi Shankar. He maintained a lifelong affiliation with that part of the world.

In 1967, Harrison introduced the other Beatles to the teaching of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and all four took up transcendental meditation. Harrison was the only one who remained a follower - the others dropped out, with Lennon mocking the Maharishi in the song ``Sexy Sadie.''

By the late '60s, Harrison was clearly worn out from being a Beatle and openly bickered with McCartney, arguing with him on camera during the filming of ``Let It Be.''

As the Beatles grew apart, Harrison collaborated with Clapton on the song ``Badge,'' performed with Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and produced his most acclaimed solo work, the triple album ``All Things Must Pass.'' The sheer volume of material on that 1970 release confirmed the feelings of Harrison fans that he was being stifled in the Beatles.

But one of those songs, the hit ``My Sweet Lord,'' later drew Harrison into a lawsuit: The copyright owner of ``He's So Fine,'' written by Lonnie Mack and recorded by The Chiffons, won a claim that Harrison had stolen the music.

Another Harrison project also led to legal problems. Moved by the starvation caused by the war between Bangladesh and Pakistan, Harrison in 1971 staged two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden and recruited such performers as Starr, Shankar, Clapton and Dylan.

Anticipating such later superstar benefits as Live Aid and Farm Aid, the Bangladesh concerts were also a cautionary tale about counterculture bookkeeping. Although millions were raised and the three-record concert release won a Grammy for album of the year, allegations emerged over mishandling of funds and the money long stayed in escrow.

Despite the occasional hit single, including the Lennon tribute song ``All Those Years Ago,'' Harrison's solo career did not live up to initial expectations. Reviewing a greatest hits compilation, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau likened him to a ``borderline hitter they can pitch around after the sluggers (Lennon and McCartney) are traded away.''

Harrison's family life was steadier. He married Olivia Arias in 1978, a month after Dhani was born.

The next year, Harrison founded Handmade Films to produce Monty Python's ``Life of Brian.'' He sold the company for $8.5 million in 1994.

``George wasn't head in the clouds all the time. When it came to business and all that he was feet very much on the ground,'' Michael Palin of Python's Flying Circus told BBC radio.

Fame continued to follow Harrison. In 1999, he was stabbed several times by a man who broke into his home west of London. The man, who thought the Beatles were witches and believed himself on a divine mission to kill Harrison, was acquitted by reason of insanity.

The following year, Harrison saw a compilation of Beatles No. 1 singles, ``1,'' sell millions of copies.

``The thing that pleases me the most about it is that young people like it,'' Harrison said in an interview with the AP. ``I think the popular music has gone truly weird. It's either cutesy-wutesy or it's hard, nasty stuff. It's good that this has life again with the youth.''

John Chambers, of the Liverpool Beatles Appreciation Society, said Harrison's death was the end of an era for Beatles fans.

``Until now there has always been the hope of a reunion, perhaps with Julian Lennon standing in for his Dad,'' Chambers said. ``It really is the end of a dream.''

Fans in New York began gathering before dawn Friday at Strawberry Fields, a section of Central Park created in memory of Lennon, who was shot outside his apartment nearby.

``I just decided to buy a bottle of wine and some roses at the corner and head over here,'' said restaurateur John Soler, 38.

Added Pete Degan, 42: ``It's a sad day for rock and roll.''


Allah-Buddha-Jehova-Rama: All are Kishna, all are One. God is not abstract; He has both the impersonal and the personal aspects to His personality which is Supreme, Eternal Blissful, and full of Knowledge.

As a single drop of water has the same qualities as an ocean of water, so has our consciousness the qualities of God's Consciousness... but through our identification and attachment with material energy (physical body, sense pleasures, material possessions, ego, etc.) our true Transsendental Consciousness has been polluted, and like a dirty mirror it is unable to reflet a pure image.

With many lives our association with the Temporary has grown. This impermanent body, a bag of bones and flesh, is mistaken for our true self, and we have accepted this temporary condition to be final.

Through all ages, great Saints have remained as living proof that this non-temporary, permanent state of GOD CONSCIOUSNESS can be revived in all living Souls.

Each soul is potentially divine. Krsna says in Bhagavad Gita: "Steady in the Self, being freed from all material contamination, the yogi achieves the highest perfetional stage of happiness in touch with the Supreme Consciousness." (VI,28)

Yoga (a scientific method for GOD (SELF) realization) is the process by which we puirify our consciousness, stop further pollution, and arrive at the state of Perfection, full KNOWLEDGE, full BLISS.

If there's a God, I want to see Him. It's pointless to believe in something without proof, and Krishna Consciousness and meditation are methods where you can actually obtain GOD preception. You can actually see God, and Hear Him, play with Him. It might sound crazy, but He is actually there, actually with you.

There are many yogic Paths--Raja, Jnana, Hatha, Kriya, Karma, Bhakti--which are all acclaimed by the MASTERS of each method.

SWAMI BHAKTIVEDANTA is as his title says, a BHAKTI Yogi following the path of DEVOTION. By serving GOD through each thought, word, and DEED, and by chanting HIS Holy Names, the devotee quickly develops God-consciousness.

By chanting one inevitably arrives at KRISHNA Consciousness. (The proof of the pudding is in the eating!)

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama
Rama Rama, Hare Hare

I request that you take advantage of this book KRSNA, and enter into its understanding. I also request that you make an appointment to meet your God now, through the self liberating process of YOGA (UNION) and Give Peace A Chance.

George Harrison Links

  • George Harrison - BBC Report

  • George Harrison

  • The Beatles

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