Shyamasundar Das

John Lennon: Who’s that little old man? Oh, is he one of the Hare Krishnas or something?

Paul McCartney: Clean though

John Lennon: It’s a bit daft him up there, isn’t it?

Paul McCartney: Yeah.

John Lennon: For a rehearsal.

From Peter Jackson’s film “The Beatles: Get Back“, 2021

From Who was that Hare Krishna at the start of “Get Back”?:

[…] To most viewers, the presence of this person would probably appear incredibly random. After all, he clearly is not part of the cast, crew, or family related to the Let it Be project in any way. And though the docuseries makes it known by caption that he is Shyamsunder Das (Friend of George Harrison) — after John Lennon asked his bandmates “who’s that little old man, one of the Hare Krishna’s or something?” — no real explanation is given as to what that man is actually doing there.

But I knew.

Besides being an enormous Beatles fan, I also grew up as part of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a religious movement that teaches the Hindu tradition of bhakti yoga (the yoga of devotion). I thus knew that this man wasn’t just any “Hare Krishna,” he was a very important pioneer of the movement.

Shyamasundar (not Shyamsunder as spelled in the docuseries) was one of six people (three married couples) who went to England in 1968 with the hopes of establishing an ISKCON center in London, as desired and encouraged by their guru and the movement’s founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Other than North America, where the burgeoning movement had barely begun to take shape, bhakti yoga was a foreign concept to the rest of the Western world. Shyamasundar, therefore, had a grand idea to expose the tradition to as many people as possible in the most appealing way: by meeting the Beatles. If the most popular and influential band in the world became interested in bhakti yoga, then surely the rest of the world would as well.

Though such a plan could be described as delusionally ambitious, Shyamasundar was determined to try. Thus after convincing his wife Malati, they and two other couples — with barely enough money to pay for the flights — flew to England towards the beginning of September of 1968, uncertain of what to expect.

Knowing that the best way to relate to the Beatles would be through music, the cohort immediately formed a kirtan band upon arrival. When they weren’t looking for an appropriate and affordable building to turn into a temple, attempting to make connections with anyone who might be able to help their cause, or simply scraping enough money to get by, they were rehearsing for hours every day.

Calling themselves “The Radha Krishna Temple,” the group eventually started performing gigs throughout the city. Hearing that the Beatles’ were searching for new talent to record under their newly founded label Apple Records, the Radha Krishna group recorded and submitted a demo tape. A couple of weeks later, however, they received a boilerplate rejection letter from Peter Asher, the label’s A&R manager.

But they weren’t discouraged. For them, sending the demo was merely a first step. Even when faced with a seemingly dead end, they believed in their cause, and sincerely wanted to please their guru, who went to extraordinary lengths to please his own guru by bringing bhakti yoga (as practiced in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition) to America, where it was now catching on like wildfire.

The group thus persevered, certain that if they pushed forward and also went to extraordinary lengths, then they too would see extraordinary results, even if it took a little bit of time. […]

Recording sessions Shyamasundar Das participated in