It seems someone, likely Christians of the political right, (not to be confused with Christians of the political left) who are afraid of the lyrics of John Lennon’s song Imagine have labeled it an atheist anthem. I have no idea when this happened or if the atheists even agree and think it is. To anyone on a spiritual journey that is not based in organized religion, it is obviously a deeply spiritual song, and not in any way supporting atheism. I don’t know everything about John Lennon’s life, I was a kid during his career, but I do know the Beatles were in India with the Maharishi and were exposed to all kinds of spiritual practices and beliefs. Many of the general concepts expressed are kind of a Yogic point of view. I ran into this by accident seeing a story about Cee Lo Green singing the song on New Years and changing a lyric and the conservative right jumping on it saying the liberals couldn’t even agree on their own atheist song.
I thought WTF??? While I do not identify with the left right paradigm, none of the liberal friends I have are atheists. So the characterization of liberals as atheists I find offensive even though I am not a liberal (or a conservative). The idea that conservatives in a political left / right illusion are the Godly ones is just insane. Spirituality crosses all political divides. Believe it or not there may even be people who have conservative political views on most things but are excluded from the right because they are also atheists and unwilling to buy into the religious intrusion on all conservative political points of view. But the Powers that Be want the left and right to be God and anti God with the right being the Godly and the left being atheist. It is just a lie plain and simple. Morality is not left or right and requires no religion either. It is a choice we each make about how we interact on this planet with all living things. How we come to the individual choice varies, some people use religion, some law, some an internal sense of right and wrong, some obviously never think about it all and do horrible things. Then there are those who proclaim moral high ground usually based in religion and then do horrible things.
Jumping on people getting upset about changing a lyric that has deep meaning to them to promote some anti left agenda to paint the left as ungodly is pretty disgusting, but then I find political crap on both sides disgusting and think if John was writing this song today he may have had to add a verse about that too.
Something like this….
Imagine no lies of politics
No more hateful slams
No screams of congress
and false flag scams
Imagine the right and left
Uniting us in Love
ahh no it is way too American… it would have to be more universal applying to all the governments lets change a couple lines…
Imagine no lies of politics
No more hateful slams
No schemes of leaders
and false flag scams
Imagine all the parties’
Uniting us with Love
Cee Lo Green changed the lyric from
“nothing to kill or die for / and no religion too”
To “nothing to kill or die for / and all religion’s true.”
I get what he was trying to say. An all inclusive love each other, all get along kind of thing no matter what your religion is, that there was universal truth from the teachers that the religions were created around. His intent was not bad but I get why it upsets people too. Although his intent was love one another, the lyric change does change the context of the song which is not about embracing all religion it is about moving beyond all religion IMO.
The beauty of a song is it can mean different things to different people and that is one of the greatest gifts of music and all artistic expression, but I do think it is pretty clear that John did not intend this to be an atheist point of view. If I am wrong about that John can show up in my dream and say so or Yoko can email me LOL
Here is what this song means to ME
Imagine
by John Lennon
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Don’t live your life to get rewards somewhere else, be present here and now on earth, experience this place. The idea that life is about living by some arbitrary rules to get rewarded later in some other place is just a control matrix. How do you know that the rules they are telling you to live by are even truthful and real. You don’t if you are just accepting them and not going within to connect to your own spiritual center.
Don’t live in fear of what will happen to you after you die, don’t be a good person to avoid hell, be a good person because it is what is in your heart. When you follow your heart and treat others with love and respect then you could not possibly do something that is against “god” and requires punishment. If god is all loving, as all religions teach, then why does this god punish at all? Are we not told to forgive? Religion teaches that hell is the place of the devil if this were fact why would god send a soul who has broken a rule, purportedly because he has been tempted by this devil, to live with said devil for all eternity? All of these religious concepts are just fear based control. Any god worth following would most certainly not hand over a soul who made a mistake to the opposition. If we use the eternal analogy of the parent child relationship if a dark force were influencing a child, and said child made a mistake, we would not hand over the child to the dark force! We would in fact fight to our last breath to keep our child and protect them instead. Is it not fair to assume any energy worthy of a title God would have the same desire to protect not abandon souls no matter the perceived mistakes they may have made?
The whole concept of heaven and hell makes us desperate to allow someone else to tell us how to live and determine for us a moral code with no need to think for ourselves. If you imagine no heaven and hell then you know you are not only FREE but also responsible for your own moral center. To do so means you have contemplated actions and their effects on others and the world and can determine your own path in life knowing you have a right to do anything you desire that harms no other. This means not only do you have no need for religion or country, but you are free from anyone including family trying to force upon you a path that does not reflect your soul following its bliss. This is something understood by a large percentage of musicians and other artists as their parents or other authority figures in their lives told them not to take that path and to get a “real job” and to conform to society norms even though following their art not only harmed no one, but may uplift untold numbers of people for generations to come.
Let go of the polarity / duality of heaven or hell and know that this world is both, depending on what we make it by our choices every day individually and more intensely collectively. If we all chose to interact as if this were heaven, we love one another, stop damaging each other, then we will have created this to be a heaven for all.
Let go of FEAR and worry! Be conscious right now, loving in this moment, not scheming some future of power or control or whatever. What if God is a universal life force, a divine principle, not a disciplining parent molding us, what if we are the ones responsible for molding ourselves? Imagine each individual CHOOSING to be loving, honest, kind, etc from their own inner self not because a church or state tried to regulate them to do so. Imagine that world!
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
Countries are imaginary lines drawn by humans for the purpose of power and control. Look at a photo of earth from space there are no lines of countries, no borders, no citizenship.
These imaginary lines are not worth the loss of life and pain and suffering that comes from killing or dying to protect or defend them, they are an illusion. This does not mean that other things in life are not important as some have indicated a lack of passion or caring, in the line “nothing to kill or die for” of this lyric. This is about the countries and the suffering caused by these arbitrary separations of humans. Patriotism is technically brainwashing started in youth. It is in this world a very complicated issue because the powers that be have purposely made it that way. Instilling loyalty to country and fear of unity that we will lose our sense of self and lose power when in truth it is the government and religious structures of power that take our sense of self, true culture and power. It is also fear that we will, by allowing other points of view lose our morality as we are taught to tie morality to patriotism when in fact some of the most immoral acts of humans are done in the name of country or religion.
Religion is dogma based on teachings that may or may not have any truth to them or are being misconstrued to control people. This is not about any particular religion it is true of all religious systems where power and control over people become more important than the spiritual teaching that was once at the core. Spiritual people who are in touch with themselves and the inner revelations that come through meditation and prayer do not need an external religious structure to tell them what to think or to find a moral center. They already know right and wrong from within and the nature of the divine principle of all life. Morality cannot be learned from a book, no matter who you think wrote the book. If you don’t feel it and know it in your own heart then you are only complying with the societal norm and that is not true morality, it is giving over your power to an outside authority, when you do this you are no longer free.
Without fighting about who is right or wrong in relation to religion or country we have the opportunity to live in peace by simply allowing each other a place in the world by respecting one another and caring for each other
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Every person who has personally sought enlightenment by going within and raising their vibration has this same understanding and dream that one day we will all reach this level and achieve our true potential as humans. This is heartfelt Prayer that we will one day succeed at total enlightenment of the whole of human consciousness.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
This verse to me touches onto a spiritual concept that most religion does not teach and it is about the ascended human (the Dharlja). The true masters. They can manifest what they need when they need it, directly from the universal, therefore they have no need to keep possessions. If you can manifest clean clothes when you want to change why would you need to have a whole wardrobe. If you can manifest a meal when hungry and all mankind can do the same, as we humans are meant to live, then no man would go hungry and there is no need for any to stock or keep supplies of food. With no need to hoard out of fear there is no greed, no one is hungry. There is nothing left but love and brotherhood, nothing to fight over. All the people living on the earth with no claim on the resources as everyone has all they need.
Mention has been made of John commenting that the line “I wonder if you can” should be “I wonder if we can”. If that is true, it could simply indicate that while he was imagining the life of those masters and could perhaps picture it, Taking it to the next level and picturing yourself living that life is difficult as our whole lives have been about survival with food clothing and shelter and then with success in some monetary way, we try to thrive by having “the good things in life” as we have been taught. Conceptualizing no need for the whole false monetary system to exist and no need for goods or manufacturing of goods is a big leap in thought for most and even those of us who can conceptualize it have no idea if we are capable of achieving that state in this lifetime or how long it will take to get there and we fall into the thought of what we need, or perceive we need right now to be comfortable. Holding onto the higher vision is hard. The truth is a Dharlja can choose to manifest a house with things in it that they enjoy being around and live there for any period of time they want. They have no true attachment to those possessions. They can be dematerialized at any time or changed. There is no need to protect them or cling to them or be fearful about having or not having.
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Repeat the prayer / affirmation chorus and let it be heard from the heart!
Tatiacha Bhodsvatan 