John Lennon vs Srila Prabhupada
Like George Harrison, John Lennon was initially very supportive of ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada. In his video for Give Peace a Chance we can see the Panca Tattva in the background, devotees are seen dancing in the video. In the song, John and Yoko lead the chanting of the Maha Mantra. The video was filmed at the famous New York Bed In protest against the Vietnam War. Timothy Leary and Allan Ginsburg were present.
John Lennon was very charitable to Prabhupada. He opened his 80 acre Tittenhurst Park Estate to him, where Prabhupada and his disciples lived for some time and where Prabhupada gave lectures.
It is obvious Prabhupada wanted to convert John Lennon into his disciple. He also wanted Lennon to donate lavishly to the movement. Prabhupada claimed he had a dream that revealed to him John Lennon was a wealthy musician from Calcutta in a past life:
"You have asked me to disclose my dream about John, so I beg to state the incident as follows. I dreamt that John took me in a place at Calcutta and he was showing me a house, a big palatial building, which formerly belonged to a very rich man, and he was a famous musician also.
"I think therefore that John was previously that man to whom that house belonged, and now he has taken birth in England. It is quite possible that he has inherited his past musical talent, and because that man was very liberal and charitable, so he has acquired some wealth also, and now in this life if he properly utilizes his talent and wealth for Krishna, then surely he will achieve the highest perfection of his life." (Srila Prabhupada letter, April 24, 1970)
Basically give me a bunch of money and you will achieve love of God.
John Lennon had a bad experience with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India and didn't trust gurus. In his conversations with Prabhupada he objected to the concept of divine authority that cannot be questioned.
Prabhupada claimed to be a trustworthy authority with a special authorized mantra but, according to John, the Maharishi said the exact same thing.
Lennon concluded:
I found that the best thing for myself is to take a little bit from here and a little bit from there and a little bit from there.
Lennon decided to accept himself as the authority of his own life, to determine what he wants to believe and disbelieve. "I will judge for myself thank you". He didn't need to accept a God man's opinion whole cloth and renounce his independence.
Yoko Ono also starts questioning Prabhupada's claim to absolute authority. "How do we know which version of the English translated Bhagavad Gita best represents what Krishna meant?" Prabhupada claims "Krishna is the ultimate authority". Yoko Ono responds "yeah but Krishna is not translating the Gita into English". Which is funny.
Then Prabhupada says the correct interpretation comes through Sampradaya. Lennon rejects this and mentions how Maharishi said the exact same thing.
Prabhupada finally defaults to "Well then you have to learn Sanskrit".
John Lennon makes a great point:
I mean, we can only judge on a material level by looking at your disciples and looking at other peoples' disciples and looking at ourselves, you know. And, of course, if there's thirty disciples, seven of them look fairly spiritual, another ten look okay, and the others just look as though they're having trouble... You know. So there's no...
LOL The proof is in the pudding. If ISKCON is all Prabhupada says it is, the true representation of Krishna's teachings, the devotees would be in a much better condition. According to Lennon roughly half of them looked like they were in trouble.
I remember listening to this as a devotee and being angry. After all the core issue is they refuse to accept Prabhupada as an absolute authority and surrender to him. That is offensive
I don't know the details but it seems John's relationship with Prabhupada became increasingly strained as he refused to submit to him and become his disciple, or to support the movement any way further. It appears John did not see this demand for submission to be a positive thing, nor the movement to be truly producing happy people. He was skeptical. I suspect John Lennon would have been extremely critical of ISKCON if he knew how cultish it was and what was happening behind the scenes.
As time went on Lennon was dismissive to the presence of devotees at the recording studio.
I had heard that after a particularly confrontational exchange Prabhupada said Lennon was a "demon" and would have a violent death. So much for Lennon being a saintly musician from Calcutta.
Devotees would share this is proof of Prabhupada's powers of clairvoyance. It was also assumed Lennon died violently because he had offended Prabhupada. I can't find any details of Prabhupada saying this and it appears any reference has been scrubbed from the internet.
If you Google Prabhupada John Lennon today, thanks to ISKCON curating search results, you get the impression that John Lennon supported the movement.
Anyone have any more details of this?