Beatle John Lennon With Montreal Devotees

As devotees of Lord Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we are not supporters of the cult of Beatle worship. So when John Lennon and his wife Yoko and their small daughter Kyoto came to Montreal, we were in the position of being able to relate to him with all the real respects due another human being rather than a demigod. It was a very auspicious occasion for me, because it confirmed that the living entity can never be satisfied by material wealth, fame and power. If he is sufficiently intelligent he will always be searching for something more. I rejoiced to think that the object of our attention is Krishna the All-famous, and not some other human being exhibiting some partial qualities of fame, wealth and power.

It is one of the manifestations of this upside down, twisted state of affairs in Kali Yuga, the Age of Quarrel, that corporate beings are made into gods by the unscrupulous priests of the mass media. Few people, if offered a ticket on the roller-coaster ride to fame, riches and power are able to refuse. Neither could John Lennon, at first. But so temporary are the satisfactions obtained by material pleasures that the living entity quickly becomes disillusioned-if he is intelligent. The happiness to be obtained by "making it" and finding all worldly success has been seen by John Lennon for exactly what it is, transitory and unreal. By Krishna's mercy he has been showered profusely with all the bitter fruits of karmic action, and thus has come quickly to realize this. For most people it takes a little longer.

This is how he talked about it last week from his hotel room in Montreal, in conversation with the writer and her husband Ishan: "…and I found out what being famous was like. It's a drag responsibility. So then I spent a long time looking; meditation in India and all that. It was all okay, you know, but it wasn't the answer. And then I met Yoko, and we worked our sort of thing out between us, fell in love and that. And then we asked, 'What do we want out of life?' And we want Krishna Consciousness. We want peace. The same peace formula that your spiritual master tells about, and the other kind too, that the housewives understand."

I wished that all the millions of struggling karmis, working so hard to clutch success, could be with us at that moment to hear how it feels to be a demigod: "We're very narrow, very shy and very straight and ordinary, but we're in an abnormal situation and we use it to the best of our ability."

John was very interested in New Vrindaban, especially the school system planned for it. He asked us when such a community would be set up in England. "I mean I don't want to leave any of me kids or me friends' kids in the hands of the devil. I'm not sure about sending them away at the age of five, but if I do send them away I want it to be to a place where they'll be turned on. We have a nice cottage at the back of our property that would be perfect for a school if you'd like to use it."

The hotel room filled up with crude vibrations as the reporters and guests circled the large bed on which John and his wife were reclining. As cigarette smoke and liquor fumes became thicker, sometimes feelings became dark. But John and Yoko did not seem to mind the surroundings. Perhaps they viewed it as a kind of austerity necessary to get full coverage from the news media, which they are attempting to exploit for their goal of spreading peace.

The devotees, however, found the atmosphere less tolerable and chanted constantly when not having Kirtan. On the last day of our visit the hotel threatened to have John Lennon thrown out if the mridungas (our drums) did not stop playing.

Hamsadūta spoke to John Lennon on several occasions, praising the sublime Lord Chaitanya, telling of Prabhupad, always stressing the purity of the Vedic injunctions and the necessity of adhering to the instructions of a spiritual master in the line of disciplic succession. But John was not always able to accept everything, and arguments broke out over small things-like shaved heads. Nevertheless, I feel certain that John Lennon truly respects the basic principles of ISKCON. Here is a part of my conversation with him:

All glories to Sri Krishna, the All-Famous!