Opinion: The Beatles seem to be enlightened

[JuliusCaesar]

Probably by doing LSD, Paul McCartney appears to be aware of high-level truths about reality. And while yes you could hypothesize that Paul isn't consciously aware of the veracity of some of the lyrics in his songs to any real extent. The fact that he wrote the songs he did the way he did is proof that he was at least aware of these things at one point in his life. As otherwise, it would be very unlikely that he would drop such gold nuggets of wisdom in his songs. So I'm creating a top three list of the Beatles' most enlightened songs.

 

Number Three: Let It Be

 

This pick may surprise you, I feel that it encapsulates the essence of a simple truth that I've found makes all spiritual practice dramatically easier. And that is the less you try, the easier it is. I find it unlikely that any normal person would realize such a thing due to it's paradoxical nature. So Let it be fits comfortably into the number three slot.

 

Number Two: All You Need Is Love

 

Increases in love result in increases in consciousness and even in mental/spiritual power. Not to mention the fact that existence only is due to love in the first place.

 

Number One: Nowhere Man

 

This one blows me away, it includes concepts that should seem absolutely nonsensical and impossible to any regular human. And these notions represent high levels truths about how reality works. I'll in fact respond to specific parts of the song because I find it so profound that some British Hippy produced such a thing. What I admire most about this is that a regular person hearing it has absolutely no understanding of what is truly meant. So in much the same way that if I tell someone they're "Everything and Nothing" and they misinterpret my words to mean something abstract like they're an individual between extremes as opposed to me meaning that they're Omnipresent, so it is that people listening to this misconstrue it have something to do with some delusional loser or something.

 

"He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me?"

 

A human is neither their body nor their mind as these are things you accumulate from the Earth and past experiences/thoughts and feelings. Your true form is no form at all, so these words literally describe us as we are perfectly.

 

"Nowhere man, the world is at your command"

 

Because we have no form or substance of which we're made. We effectively have absolute freedom because we can become anything as we're an infinite self and the self is whatever it permits itself to become. If I didn't know that Paul is me, it would astonish me that Paul's mind could conjure up such a revelation.

 

"He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see"

 

This is the very definition of reality as it actually is. To see the world as it truly is you must have no perspective at all, because that it turns out is equivalent to all possible perspectives.  And only being viewed from all possible perspectives can reality be objectively known and comprehended.

 

"Nowhere man don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all 'til somebody else
Lends you a hand"

 

Time is eternal, and unless our creation realizes that we are it. Our works will always be unconscious in the lives of whatever sentient beings are in question. So in this way, we can't act in someone's life unless they realize we are them, and they vehemently desire us to intervene in their dream. The only alternative is that they die, but this is a slow gradual process that results in expanded dreaming altering the nature of the deceased divinizing them. 

 

 

[VictorB02]

@JuliusCaesar Wow, thats awesome. I had seen some interviews but had no idea of these lyrics. Thanks for sharing!

Edited February 1, 2022 by VictorB02
typo

[Matt23]

6 hours ago, JuliusCaesar said:

The fact that he wrote the songs he did the way he did is proof that he was at least aware of these things at one point in his life.

I'd be critical here since I think people, including many celebrities, can use spiritual language and descriptions but be totally unaware of their true meaning.   Take Jim Carrey for instance.  He had the whole sort of "meltdown" or "melt-up" where he acted all awakened n' stuff, saying things in interviews like "There is no Jim Carrey".  I see this as just him playing with ideas rather than actually experiencing enlightenment.  Though, again, sure, maybe he's had glimpses.  But I doubt it's anything majorly significant.  

With the Beatles, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a few enlightenment experiences or two.  But I doubt any of them are like perma-enlightened.   

Edited February 1, 2022 by Matt23

[Museful]

Not to nit-pick, but "All You Need is Love" and 'Nowhere Man" were written by John Lennon, not Paul McCartney.  Got to admit though, that watching Paul create "Let it Be" almost out of thin air on the recent "Get Back" documentary was magical, and as a musician and poet, truly inspiring.  These guys were/are the music of my youth.

FWIW, George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" is pretty up there on my list.

You never know where, or through whom, creation/inspiration will strike next ...

Edited February 1, 2022 by Museful

[PurpleTree]

14 hours ago, Matt23 said:

Take Jim Carrey for instance.  He had the whole sort of "meltdown" or "melt-up" where he acted all awakened n' stuff, saying things in interviews like "There is no Jim Carrey".  I see this as just him playing with ideas rather than actually experiencing enlightenment.  Though, again, sure, maybe he's had glimpses.  But I doubt it's anything majorly significant.     

why do you doubt it?

[Pateedm]

7 hours ago, Cykaaaa said:

Across the Universe, maybe?

"Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns

It calls me on and on across the universe..."

Great thread, btw  I wish to find more songs (especially rock) that remind me of the Source

+1 to Across the Universe. What a beautiful song. 

Mind Games- John Lennon

The Inner light- The Beatles

My Sweet Lord- George Harrison

 

 

[Raze]

You aren’t enlightened just because you take lsd, they still had a sense of self.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Raze

[Ulax]

Thing is these sorts sayings could be attributed to stage blue, green or turquoise on spiral dynamics.

Blue: You can be moralistic about spirituality, i.e. all you need is love = you should be loving all the time.

Green: You can be accepting of people and feel peace and love in a stage green sense

Turquoise: Enlightenment sense of all you need is love. 

To my mind, a lot of spirituality that is espoused is more stage blue than green.

Stage blue espousals of this sort of things are like when someone says, 'You shouldn't judge!'. With the irony being that they are of course judging in that very sentence.

[Jonty]

Here's some lyrics from Echoes by Pink Floyd

Strangers passing in the street
By chance, two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me

Not sure that they were on the "path" so to speak, but who knows. Interesting nonetheless. ?

 

 

[Jonty]

I'm a huge fan of The Beatles like most people, so hate to throw a spanner in the works, but I heard John Lennon speaking on the documentary called "Imagine". He was speaking to a guy who was living at the bottom of his garden and following him everywhere because he thought he was some sort of spiritual guru.

The guy believed that John was writing spiritual lyrics, to which he replied that he just made the words up and whatever words sounded good together ended up in the song. He told the guy that you could read whatever you want into them, but the reality was that it was all nonsense. 

I suppose you could see that statement as a way to get rid of the stalker, but as he said, you could read whatever you want into them... which is what we're all doing anyway, whatever way you look at it! ?

Its a brilliant documentary if you haven't seen it. All about the making of the album in his home studio.

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Jonty

[SgtPepper]

I love the Beatles, but they were just intelligent and great writers.

Anyone who pays attention to life will be enlightened in some way I think... Even my dad says wise stuff.

A lot of people have spiritual verses like that; for example, if you read Walt Whitman or William Blake too. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by SgtPepper

[Mason Riggle]

@SgtPepper even Ferris Bueller- "I could be the Walrus, I'd still have to bum rides off people" sounds strangely like, 'before Enlightenment, carry water, chop wood. After enlightenment, carry water, chop wood."

or Eminem- 'Lose yourself in the moment'.

or even Ace Ventura, Pet Detective- "One must forego the self to obtain total spiritual creaminess, and avoid the chewy chunks of degradation."

[JuliusCaesar]

1 hour ago, Jonty said:

I'm a huge fan of The Beatles like most people, so hate to throw a spanner in the works, but I heard John Lennon speaking on the documentary called "Imagine". He was speaking to a guy who was living at the bottom of his garden and following him everywhere because he thought he was some sort of spiritual guru.

The guy believed that John was writing spiritual lyrics, to which he replied that he just made the words up and whatever words sounded good together ended up in the song. He told the guy that you could read whatever you want into them, but the reality was that it was all nonsense. 

I suppose you could see that statement as a way to get rid of the stalker, but as he said, you could read whatever you want into them... which is what we're all doing anyway, whatever way you look at it! ?

Its a brilliant documentary if you haven't seen it. All about the making of the album in his home studio.

 

Of course, ignoring the fact that John may fear the interviewer would think him crazy if he were to say otherwise. This strongly demonstrates that the revelations present could be originated purely in the subconscious of the band. However, to rebut this and potentially the validity of the possibility that this was conscious. Consider the fact about Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, that Lennon claims that the song was inspired by a painting that his three-year-old son had made of Lucy O'Donnell, his classmate at Heath House nursery school. When the lyrics are blatantly describing the LSD experience. I mean, where else do you encounter girls with kaleidoscope eyes?

 

Now mind you, I'm not accusing the band of outright lying. I'm only suggesting that they may have used some minor prevarication to protect their image. Lennon could easily be telling the truth about the song for instance, but maybe he was under Lucy's(LSD's) influence when conceiving of the lyrics. Likewise, if he knew himself to be God, do you think he would tell people that? No, in our society if you say that you're assumed to be mentally unstable, and risk institutionalization.  Assuredly the Beatles have the wisdom and foresight to avoid such an unfortunate occurrence.

 

11 hours ago, Raze said:

You aren’t enlightened just because you take lsd, they still had a sense of self.

As a generality this is true, but LSD does cause ego death(especially in high doses). Therefore this allows for the possibility that the Beatles had some enlightenment experiences.

 

 

 

 

[Matthew85]

@JuliusCaesar Interesting topic! Yes, many artists tap into higher levels of consciousness during their creative process. I heard Paul McCartney say that Let it Be came to him in a dream. 

[Bazooka Jesus]

As always, it all completely depends on your own personal notion of what exactly makes a person 'enlightened' or 'not enlightened'.

There are countless examples of artists who produce(d) 'enlightened art' while showing none of the traits that are usually attributed to so-called enlightened/self realized beings. My favorite go-to example of this is Richard Wagner who, by all accounts, was one of the most egotistical and bigoted pieces of human excrement that have ever walked the earth, and yet this asshole composed some of the most breathtakingly transcendent music that has ever been written by anyone. (Try listening to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde or Parsifal while tripping on acid and then come tell me that the dude who wrote this wasn't at least half enlightened, lol. I mean, it's absolutely mind-boggling how a guy like that could ever create such divine art... which of course only ads to the sheer sense of wonder and fascination that I always get whenever I listen to this stuff.)

Edited February 3, 2022 by Bazooka Jesus