George Harrison

Martin Scorsese's documentary "Living in the Material World" is a fascinating look at facets of a life lived with such intensity, peace, love and anger. The spiritual aspects of Harrisons's life is somewhat revealed through the words of his friends and relatives, and show that spirituality doesn't have to be a dirty word in this material world of ours.

One of the first questions put in the documentary is what was one question that people would ask George if they saw him again, and his son Dhani's reply was that he'd ask "where have you been?" and he actually dreamt of his father and asked him that very question, with the answer being, "Here the whole time"

Later in the documentary Harrison talks of how his spiritual journey began through a musical connection, which is hardly surprising:

"Ravi and the sitar was kind of like an excuse, trying to find this spiritual connection. I read stuff by various holy men, swamis and mystics, and I went around and looked for them. Ravi and his brother gave me a lot of books by some wise men. One of the books which was by Swami Vivekenanda who said if there is a god you must see him, and if there's a soul we must perceive it. Otherwise it's better not to believe. It's better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. And after all my life...well they tried to bring me up a catholic. They had told you just to believe what they were telling you...and not to have the direct experience, and this for me, going to India and hearing somebody saying 'you know, no you can't believe anything until you have direct perception of it' and I thought wow fantastic, at last I found somebody at last who makes some sense, and I wanted to go deeper and deeper into that..."

It was wonderful to hear him speak of the "lightbulb moment" that set him off on an a deeper journey, that eventually led him away from drugs and into meditation and letting go of the material world. Also of value to me was the succinct way he summed up the way to spiritual growth, not through being told, but by questioning and directly experiencing what lies beyond the physical realm.

A poignant moment at the end was his wife Olivia talking about how the room he was in just "lit up" when he finally left his physical body...

Thanks for that Wes

Quick quote from Dhani Harrison:

"It's only in the letting go that we attain everything"