Limitless Undying Love: The Beatles and the Perennial Philosophy (c) Dean Carter 2020 1 Contents. Page Introduction 3 Early Pointers There’s A Place 8 In My Life 13 Help! 22 Yesterday 27 Nowhere Man 30 Psychedelic Sermons And Numinous Encounters The Word 36 The Void (Tomorrow Never Knows) 46 Rain 57 Strawberry Fields Forever 66 Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds 77 Getting Better 86 Within You Without You 89 A Day In The Life 98 It’s All Too Much 105 All You Need Is Love 112 I Am The Walrus 119 Fool On The Hill 130 Limitless Undying Love Across The Universe 137 The Inner Light 151 Late Flowerings Revolution 153 Child Of Nature 163 Dear Prudence 168 While My Guitar Gently Weeps 173 Blackbird 176 Julia 178 Revolution Number 9 181 The End Of The Beginning? Let It Be/Abbey Road albums 184 I Me Mine 187 Coda 190 2 Introduction This book is a critical study of the Beatles’ lyrics, from the perspective of their spiritual content and message, but before you are put off by such terms as ‘critical’ and ‘study’, let me assure you, dear reader, that there’s nothing in this book that you don’t already know. If you’ve picked this book up, you know, on a gut level, that the band whose main message was encapsulated by the John Lennon song ‘All You Need Is Love’ weren’t just spouting some passing sixties fad. They were ahead of their time, and, indeed, when they were writing from a truly inspired place, writing in line with the time-less wisdom of what has come to be called the ‘Perennial Philosophy’ on their side. As Lennon put it in an interview: On any trips—whether they’re chemical or anything—things that you discover are self-awareness, all the things that you’ve already known. Nobody’s telling you anything new. A scientist doesn’t discover anything new, he just tells you what’s already there. Nobody can tell you nothing. Even somebody like a Dylan or a Sartre or somebody like that. They tell you something that is like a revelation—but it always is something that you know inside that they’ve just affirmed for you.1 All that this little study is going to do for you is put flesh on the bones of the knowledge you already have. So, before we begin, what are we talking about when we refer to ‘the Perennial Philosophy’? The phrase comes from Aldous Huxley2, and is the title of his book of the same name, published first in 1946—a superb treasury of spiritual wisdom, (and this is perhaps the crucial point) compiled from all the major faiths in the world. At the core level, as Lennon states in another interview: All the religions are the same, it’s just a matter of people opening their minds up.3 In the book Natural Grace, 4 theologian Matthew Fox uses the analogy of the five major faiths in the world, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, being like five fingers on one hand: beneath all the apparent differences and geographically and culturally specific ideas and attitudes, astonishingly perhaps, the true mystical tradition of each religion is saying exactly the same thing. And what, exactly, is it that the Perennial Philosophy is saying? Luckily, this can be summarised quite readily, and has been done so in 1 Quoted in The Beatles Anthology, Cassel 2000. 2 He took the phrase from the Latin philosophia perennis of the philosopher Leibnitz. 3 Op. cit. 4 Bloomsbury, 1997. 3 recent years by Ken Wilber, in his excellent and moving book Grace And Grit5, where he breaks it down into seven points: One, Spirit exists, and Two, Spirit is found within. Three, most of us don’t realise this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin, separation and duality...a fallen or illusory state. Four, there is a way out...there is a Path to our liberation. Five, if we follow this Path to its conclusion, the result is a rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience of Spirit within...which, Six—marks the end of sin and suffering, and which—Seven—issues in social action of mercy and compassion on the behalf of all sentient beings. Here’s John Lennon again: I think a lot of bad things have happened in the name of the church and in the name of Christ...I think people who need to go to church should go. And the others who know the church is in your own head should visit that temple because that’s where the source is. We’re all God. Christ said ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within you’. And the Indians say that and the Zen people say that. We’re all God. I’m not a god or the God, but we’re all God and we’re all potentially divine—and potentially evil. We all have everything within us and the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if you look hard enough, you’ll see it. 6 This aspect of liberation, God, the Divine, call it what you will, being within (cue George’s ‘Within You Without You’) is a cornerstone of the Perennial Philosophy, and Christ’s statement to this effect in the Gospels needs looking at therefore in detail. Here is the King James Bible, Luke, 17, verses 20-21: And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo, here! Or, lo there!, for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. Christ sounds positively sarcastic here about those looking for a ‘Kingdom of God’ in external terms. Nevertheless, ignoring this, most adherents of mainstream Christianity throughout the centuries have been looking for salvation in terms of a second coming, an external event in time. This can happen because, as Huxley points out in another excellent book, The Human Situation7: 5 Shambala, 1991. 6 From the Anthology again. 7 Chatto & Windus 1978. 4 There are two main kinds of religion. There is the religion of immediate experience...the religion of direct acquaintance with the divine in the world. And then there is the religion of symbols...the religion of knowledge about the divine, rather than direct acquaintance with it. This parallels Wilber’s formulation, again from his Grace And Grit, where he defines the two types of religion as ‘exoteric’ and ‘esoteric’: Exoteric or ‘outer’ religion is mythic religion, religion that is terribly concrete and literal...If you believe all the myths, you are saved;...[this] type of religion...has nothing to do with mystical religion or esoteric religion...esoteric or mystical religion...is a matter of direct experience or personal awareness. Esoteric religion asks you to believe nothing on faith or obediently swallow any dogma. Rather, esoteric religion is a set of personal experiments that you conduct scientifically in the laboratory of your own awareness...The experiment is meditation. So, the Perennial Philosophy pertains to the inner, and to ‘direct experience’. I personally wouldn’t even use the word ‘religion’ when talking of the Perennial Philosophy, and prefer to use the term ‘spirituality’. All this is very important to our study, as both Lennon and Harrison are interested only in direct experience spirituality, as we shall see. Lennon is often very anti the established churches and creeds. He, after all, denounces religion as mere ‘opium for the masses’ in the song ‘Working Class Hero’: Keep you doped with religion and sex and T.V. ‘Imagine’ continues the attack on exoteric religions and their dogmas: Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try, No Hell below us, Above us only sky... Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too. People often take it that with his attacks on established religion, Lennon was positing a purely humanist solution to all the world’s problems. That this is not so should be evident from the earlier interview quotes, and from what we will be unearthing in the course of this study. It is, in fact, perfectly consistent with the Perennial Philosophy to be against the 5 exoteric churches and religions. Was it not Christ himself who railed against the Pharisees, ‘whited sepulchres’ of the empty religions of his time? Does not St. Paul warn against the letter that killeth?8 Another misconception is that only George was the ‘spiritual’ Beatle. He was certainly spiritual, but it was John who led the way—and Paul also has his moments, as we shall see. Inevitably we are dealing with the songwriters within the band in this study, so Ringo, who contributed hugely to all the recordings and live performances, of course, won’t be getting much of a look-in. In the process of writing this book, the effect of ‘rubbing shoulders’, as it were, with promulgators of the Perennial Philosophy old and new, has broadened and deepened my own spiritual outlook, experience and knowledge. It is my sincerest wish that the process of reading this book may grant a similar level of illumination for all who read these words, and send you off to listen to the songs with a new perspective, and an inner ear opened. All You Need Is Love Give Peace A Chance We All Shine On Dean Carter 2003 8 2 Corinthians, 3:6. 6 Early Pointers 7 There’s A Place.