July 25, 2005
George Harrison Is My Arch Angel
BY KRISHNA MOHAN DAS
EDITORIAL, Jul 25 (VNN) — His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupa felt such a strong connection to George Harrison that he designated him his "Arch Angel" and gave him the name Sri Hari Georgeson. Such was His Divine Grace's deep affection for this extremely important and wonderful soul,George Harrison. It is also known amongst inner circles that before Srila Prabhupada passed away he took off his hand made blue sapphire ring and told the Sanyasis there to "give this to George Harrison". This was some time after Srila Prabhupada had recieved little or no contact from Sri Hari Georgeson, yet His Divine Grace still retained a powerful recongition of him and humble gratefulness for his transcendental service as his Arch Angel.
Certainly no other Sanyasi or other devotee has recieved this designation or extraordinarily special gift from Srila Prabhupada.
Indeed it may be considered by ALL devotees that perhaps, just perhaps, we may have never even heard about Krishna or seen the movement spread to reach our town or village if it had not been for George Harrison's incredible sacrafice. Maybe certain Sanyasis, so proud of their knowledge of the sastras, may have never had such an opportunity or interest to persue spiritial life if George Harrison had not made this sacrafice. This is something very important to consider.
Certainly the proper end result of studying any religious scripture would be the presence of extreme gratefulness to those who were the pioneers and brave soldiers who fought to propagate our religious conception within the mundane plane.
Considering especially the huge scale that George Harrison propagated the Lords name and which continues to this day anytime someone mentions George's name we must recognize Krishna's special mercy and kindness in this manfestation. In the public eye you cannot separate the name George Harrison from Krishna or Hare Krishna. This is his profound legacy and sacrafice that he left.
George Harrison had a lot to sacrafice in dedicating his image, name and ideas in his songs towards Krishna. Not only his extreme fame as an ex-beatle was sacraficed, but even more importantly than that, his entire future career as a solo artist was risked by associating his name very profoundly with the name of Krishna or Hare Krishna. He risked millions and millions of dollars of personal wealth to associate himself with Krishna in numerous records, interviews, live concerts etc.
He constantly promoted the causes of self realization, yoga, Bhagavad Gita, Indian culture, political harmony and gave millions in chartity.
I personally sat in the front row of one of his concerts in Los Angeles at the Forum in the mid 1970's. At the conclusion of the concert he did "My Sweet Lord" and got the audience of over 25,000 people chanting an amazing form of Japa saying, "Krishna, Krishna, Krishna" all together. He encouraged everyone saying " If we all chant together we can blow the roof of this place". Such was the great enthusiasm and power of this Arch Angel of Srila Prabhupada. After the concert he was recieving prasadam from the hands of His Holiness Mukunda Goswami and outside thousands of devotional literatures were being distributed which he announced during the concert that everyone should read.
Fairly recently at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awards George Harrison was inauguated permanently. Tom Petty was the master of ceremony for that inaguration and in talking out into the audience as if he were talking to George personally he said, "So with a big Hare Krishna we now inaguate you George, into the Rock and Roll hall of fame". There was a loud response from the audience who repeated "Hare Krishna" after Tom Petty's lead.
In the fairly recent concert in London honoring George Harrison' passing away, Ravi Shankar composed a hauntingly beautiful Raga about George Harrison which translated meant..."He who loved Lord Hari" while an audience packed with famous and well known people held back the tears . This tribue concert is available at most music stores.
As devotees of Lord Krishna and specifically anyone associated with Srila Prabhupada by his books, vani, personal association or through a Sanyasi connected with Srila Prabhupada we need to remember to be very careful in mentioning the name of this great, great soul. To refer to George Harrison as a "dabbler" in anything he did in life is a very tacky and offensive thing to say.
To write or say anything about Sri Hari Georgeson other than with total gratefulness, honor, respect and deep devotion is a sign that the writer, inspite of their scriptual knowledge, may need to review the fact that they might not even be thinking about Krishna today if it wasn't for this great Arch Angel of Srila Prabhupada.
Krishna Mohan Das 30 year practitioner of Krishna Bhakti
http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET0507/ET25-8815.html
