The Mantra 'Keeps Me in Tune with Reality'

Oftentimes you speak of yourself as a plainclothes devotee, a closet yogi or "closet Krishna," and millions of people all over the world have been introduced to the chanting by your songs. But what about you? How did you first come in contact with Krishna?

Through my visits to India. So by the time the Hare Krishna movement first came to England in 1969, John and I had already gotten ahold of Prabhupada's first album, "Krishna Consciousness." We had played it a lot and liked it. That was the first time I'd ever heard the chanting of the maha-mantra.

Even though you and John Lennon played Srila Prabhupada's record a lot and had chanted quite a bit on your own, you'd never really met any of the devotees. Yet when Gurudasa, Syamasundara, and I [the first Hare Krishna devotees sent from America, to open a temple in London] first came to England, you co-signed the lease on our first temple in central London, bought the Manoryoga-aSrama for us, which has provided a place for literally hundreds of thousands of people to learn about Krishna consciousness, and financed the first printing of the book Krishna. You hadn't really known us for a very long time at all. Wasn't this a kind of sudden change for you?

Continued on page 2: »