It may sound like a lofty
thing to say, but basically you know, what are we doing on this planet?
I think through the "Beatles-Experience", that we had, we've grown so many years within a
short period of time. I had experienced so many things, I met so many people, but I realized,
there was nothing actually, that was giving me a "buzz" any more! I wanted something better.
I remember thinking: I'd love to meet somebody, who will really impress me! I don't mean,
because somebody like, you know, Burt Lancaster, cuz he was in a movie... I mean, I met Burt
Lancaster, and he impressed me on that level. But I meant somebody, who could REALLY impress
me! And that's when I met Ravi (Shankar), which was funny, because he's this little fella with
an obscure instrument, from our point of view. And yet, it led me into such depths, and I think
that's the most important thing. It still is for me. You know, I get confused when I look around
at the world and I see everybody's running around. And, you know, as Bob Dylan said: "He not
busy being born, is busy dying"! And yet, nobody's trying to figure out, what's the cause
of death. And what happens when you die? I mean, that to me is the only thing really, that's of any
importance! The rest is all secondary. J.F.: "Do you think, part of the musicians are afraid to
deal with subjects that are so big, or it just doesn't occur to them? Or do people think: Oh,
it's not commercial enough, who wants to talk about life itself?" I don't know what anybody else
thinks. And, you know, as the years had gone by, I seem to have found myself more and more out on
a limb, as far as that kind of thing goes. I mean, even close friends of mine, they maybe don't want
to talk about it, because they don't understand it. But I believed in the thing, that I read years
ago, which I think was in the Bible, it said: "Knock, and the door will be opened". And it's
true! If you want to know anything in this life, you just have to knock on the door. Whether that
be some physically on somebody else's door and ask them a question, or - which I was lucky to find
- it's the meditation. It's all within! Because, if you think about it, there isn't anything...
I mean, in creation, the whole of creation, is perfect! You know, there is nothing, that goes
wrong with nature. Only what man does,... then it goes wrong! But we are made of that thing. The
very essence of our being, of every atom in our body, is made from this perfect knowledge, this
perfect consciousness! But superimposed on that is - if I can use the word? - "the tidal wave
of bulls**t" that goes through the world. Yeah, we were being barraged by bulls**t. But not only
that. The way the world is structured, or the way creation is structured, we have duality which
says: yes/no, good/bad, loss/gain, birth/death. And it's a circle, that you get trapped
in. It's like the Memphis Blues again... and that's the hardest thing to understand: What
is causing both of these things? What's causing day and night, good and bad? It's all the
cause and this is the effect. So, I mean, we're getting really transcendental here... -
But to say, that our physical being is really on a very, very subtle level, it's just like
the sap in a tree. It is the sap, and it runs throughout all the parts of the tree. Now,
it's like that our bodies are manifesting into physical bodies, but the cause - the sap - is pure
consciousness, pure awareness and that is perfect and perfect knowledge! But we have to tap into
that, to understand it. And that's really why for me this record (from Ravi Shankar)
is important, because it's another little key to open up the within for each individual.
To be able to see it and turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. J.F.: "And why do you
think that it drove you to search for something deeper, as opposed to someone like Elvis, who
had a hard time handling it?" Actually Elvis, I think, looked for something deeper too. Because
I know that he was at different times involved with different organizations and... I mean,
what is sad about Elvis compared to the Beatles: Elvis - I always saw it -, the problem
for him was, that he was the ONLY one, who had that experience! We were like
"hippies", you know, so it takes more people to share that experience. I mean, the four
of us all experienced the thing and in a way we gained strength and supported each other in the
turmoil. I think fame is a good thing in terms of giving you a heightened experience,
or at least more experience! But then it's what you do with that or what that
uncovers? I think for me, as I say, I realized, I want, I just want more! This isn't it, this
isn't it. Fame is not the goal,... money, you know., although money is nice to have, it can buy
you a bit of freedom, you can go to the Bahamas, when you want. But it's not the answer, and the
answer is: How to get peace of mind and how to be happy! That's really, what we're supposed to
be here for and the difficult thing is, that we all go through our lives and through our days,
and we don't experience bliss! And it's a very subtle thing to experience that and to be able to
know, how to do that, is something you don't just stumble across, you've got to search for it!
J.F.: "Did you experience bliss on stage or in the studio? In a way, did performing put you in
touch with that bliss?" Well, we had happiness at times, but not the kind of bliss I mean,
where like every atom of your body is just buzzing, you know. Because it's - again
-, it's beyond the mind! It's like, it's when there's no thought involved. I mean,
it's a pretty tricky thing, to try to get to that state. Because it means controlling the mind
and being able to transcend the relative states of consciousness. Waking-sleeping-dreaming, which
is all we really know! But there is another state, that goes beyond all that, and it's in that
state, that's where the bliss and the knowledge that's available is. J.F.: "You know the one benefit
concert, that you've done in England in the past, 20 years or so ago, was for the
"Natural Law Party"(NLP) back in 1992. What brought that about? Well it was...
One of the things, that made it easier, was: I'd just done a tour in Japan with Eric
Clapton's band. So I was kind of up to speed with the songs, that I was doing, and the band
was there, that knew all the material. But that was, I think, there was a general
election going on. And as far as I'm concerned, whichever... You know, Neil Innes from "The
Rutles" wrote a song once, and he said: "No matter who you vote for, the government always
gets in." You know in England, you always get, as far as I was concerned, the left, the centre
and the right. They're all really the same! They're all different shades of the same grayness.
And although it's a long shot, you know Maharishi tried to get these people formed
together into a party, which would be called the "Natural Law Party"...
J.F.: "The same Maharishi Mahesh Yogi" ...and the idea behind it really is, to have
consciousness as the basic thing. Because, we get in government, or we get in any situation
in life. we get the reflection of our own consciousness. We can't really complain about what
we have, because that is US! It's a reflection of our own being. Now, if we could have people, who
are actually conscious, in a spiritual sense, then all the underlying problems to society... I
mean it wouldn't be able to change just overnight, but over a generation or two generations you could
have things,... for instance, say in England and i'm sure it's the same here, you get disease.
So you've got a lot of expenditure on hospitals and on fixing up people, who have disease. Now the
problem is, the most doctors, they study disease, they don't know about health! So you
need to reprogram stuff,, so that you teach people about, how to be healthy. That
way, you don't spend so much money on disease. You'd have,... people would be healthier! You
wouldn't have such a requirement with all the various things, that take up all the money. You'd
be able to use that money for something else. So the "Natural Law" that operates on this
planet, or in the universe... As I said earlier, everything works in a perfect order and
there's a scheme to things, which has a certain intelligence, that drives it and makes
everything work. Now, if we, as individuals, could go to that level of consciousness,
where we can bring it into our being, and as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once said: "For a
forest to be green, each tree must be green." So it's not as just one or two people being like
this. You'd have to make the whole of society, that they had that understanding. And that's
what I think, really you'd have to school people! Right from being children. Teach people
about their health, about their bodies, about consciousness. Because it's
all to do with consciousness! Raise the level of consciousness. And then
everything automatically becomes better! J.F.: "Do you think, it can happen? Or do you think,
people are totally on "autopilot" too much?" It can happen, but it's something, which will take
a long, long time, generations of people. I mean, if you look now - just through say from the
60s or the 50s -, there's a lot more people, thanks to say Indian music, thanks to rock and
roll music, who have got much more understanding! You go out there on the street now, you can
find Indian spice shops, Indian restaurants and places to go for yoga, for meditation.
There's a much higher awareness generally on those kinds of things. And so it is seeping
through. I mean, where did all the really good hippies go when they all dropped out? (".....")
Well, I don't think all of them are! I think, a lot of them brought up... there's probably two
generations of kids now, who are much more open to that type of consciousness, and they've been
brought up by being vegetarian or whatever, that helps the society become a much more balanced...
It's all have to do with the BALANCE! We've got too much of extreme going on! J.F.: "You're
optimistic?" You have to be optimistic, you know. J.F.: "Me too,... It's so funny, because when you
talk to people it's down the middle: Those who think, it's getting better, those who think, it's
getting worse. And those are things reflected in the music in all cases." It is getting better and
worse, because that's the nature of relativity, You know: good and bad, good and bad. But
the individual, if the individual gets that consciousness, then it doesn't matter, because,
in a way, you can retain the balance between the good and the bad. Because really: Good and bad are
the same! They are. It's the same sort of thing, so it's like in the middle is the safe path. Ravi Shankar: "It is strange, to see pop
musicians with sitars. I was confused at first. It had so little to do with
our classical music. When George Harrison came to me,
I didn't know what to think. But I found, he really wanted to learn! I never thought, our meeting
would cause such an explosion! That Indian music would suddenly
appear on the pop scene. It's peculiar."
