Life flows within you and without you

I still remember the very first time I listened to this song, within you without you. It was a late Friday night when my friends and I were in the car on our way to dell taco to satisfy our midnight munchies after having a crazy time at a house party.  I had listened to many Beatle’s songs before but this one was just not nearly the same as the other ones.  As soon as the song started, my mind was blown away. The sound which is a combination of beautiful Indian music and the Beatle’s was so shocking and outrageous that I could not explain it in words. There I was, sitting in the backseat of the car, in a trance that felt so unreal, as if I was disconnected from my physical surroundings.  The sound had absolutely stunned me the first time that I barely heard the lyrics which later became my motto of my life.

After that extreme experience, I became addicted to this song and listened to it almost every day, twenty four seven. It still amazes me every time, the same as it did four years ago.  Music is always in my life whether I am having a bad day or at my most happiest. However, this particular song provides a solution to any problems I have encountered and has an answer to almost every question I could not answer for myself.

The lyrics are simple and very straight forward. However, its deep meaning is so profound that it can be taken in various ways by depending on the listener. In my opinion, the main statement George Harrison tried to explain in the song is that everything in our lives is happening to us and we are the ones who control it. Realizing the fact that things are all within us or not is up to individuals themselves.  Life will go on without one realizing it. I tend to listen to this song when I am stressed out about something. It loosens my tension very nicely and put me in a different world where I do not care in the world. Sometimes I ask myself “why I am stressing out?” Most of the time, the answer is because things are not going as the way I want them to. For instances, school and relationship are the most common stress factors in my life right now. I did not do well on the exam than I expected or my boyfriend whom I want the most is so far away in New York.  If I start listing, there will be no end.  Sometimes, there are factors involved which I cannot control.

We can do almost anything in our lives. At the same time there is nothing we HAVE to do.  If I don’t want to go to school, I don’t have to. If I want to move to New York to live with my boyfriend, I can move. Then why don’t I do so? It is because there is something holds me back from doing what I really want to do. As Alan Watt said in a video Music and Life, I am always forced to focus on the next stop towards the end which was thought to be the success and not this particular moment in my life. It is almost like I am not in my present life but only in the future or the past. Being so busy working towards getting to the next step such as working toward graduation, I sometime forget the reason why I am doing what I am doing right now.  George Harrison writes, “We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people, Who gain the world and lose their soul-They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?”  This illustrates exactly what I just explained. The time we live right now at this moment is so precious. It is good to ask ourselves sometimes, what if there was no tomorrow, what would you do?  What within you without you taught me is that I should do all that I can do with whatever I have in the time that I have in the place where I am right now. There is no end in our life.  Life flows on within you without you.




Within You Without You by the Beatles

We were talking-about the space between us all
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth-then it's far too late-when they pass away.
We were talking-about the love we all could share-when we find it
To try our best to hold it there-with our love
With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.
We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul-
They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself-then you may find, peace of mind,
Is waiting there-
And the time will come when you see
we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you