The Gospel according to the Beatles

 

Some biography can be a slow slog. This book was brilliant, I just devoured it. It was interesting how these guys came at just the right time and really influenced generation. Not only musically but also spiritually.

Summary of the four and my impressions::

Ringo:: Happy go lucky until he had to go to rehab for Alcohol. Used Alcohol anonymous and got back in contact with the 'Higher Power'.

George:: Took spirituality very seriously. Ended up with versions of Hinduism in his life. Of which he was commited.

Paul:: After he they took the journey to India he hasn't really sought out anything in a religious or spiritual sence.

John:: This guy was all over the place. Looked into about every sort of Spiritual movement. Never committed to anything. Interesting he made a Christian commitment at one stage briefly in the '70s. I could identify with his constant questioning, and to a degree his searching. A complex character, which is why to me he is so interesting.

The Beatles and World View

In "The Gospel according to the Beatles", written by Steve Turner; there is a time that George Harrison escaped the Western Culture and went to Kashmir. He found a completely different world view.

India, which had gained it independence from Britain only in 1948, had the added allure of not being par of the modernist world that the counterculture was rebelling against. It wasn't involved in Vietnam, ecological destruction, or economic oppression. Its religion wasn't grim and puritanical. To young Western eyes, the gurus in their simple clothing and long hair, with garlands of flowers around their necks, were far happier than the average Protestant evangelist in his polyester suit. As James W. Sire observed in his 1976 book The Universe Next Door, "The sing to Eastern thought is...primarily a retreat from Western thought. The West ends in a maze of contradictions, acts of intellectual suicide and spectra of nihilism that hunts the dark edges of all our thoughts. Is there not another way?"
George deduced from his reading and experience of Hinduism that God is present within each person. God is not "out there" waiting to be contacted, God is "in here" waiting to be discovered.

I had conversation with a colleague who also came from India. I find it amazing that they have a marriage which was arranged for starters. But on the spiritual side I also find it amazing. They spoke about how much of Indian culture is made up of superstitions. For example not doing the washing on a Thursday because it will bring about 'Bad Luck'. At first in Australia they kept up these superstitions but latter gave them up because they were 'ridiculous' and doesn't know why they followed them in the first place!

With this as a background I recently heard of a person who is in India at the moment and is experiencing many 'Signs and Wonders', the lame walk, blind see, etc etc. It would seem obvious to me that without western empiricism the spiritual is a place for answers, and therefore more frequent in developing and third world countries.

It reinforces for the western 'missionary's' world view, of "signs and wonders".

For me I've come to the conclusion that most 'Signs and Wonders'  happens through the power of suggestion. The following the crowd, and don't ask impolite questions.

Yet God is, a big God. For me he is Sovereign. I believe He works mostly through the laws and mechanics of nature, the 'Kingdom here and Now'. Occasionally though he jumps out and contrary to Nick Cave, intervenes.