Prabhupada sent two Krishna devotees and two other couples to London to open a Hare Krishna temple. One was a former jazz musician who had been lifted to the elite of the music world by his success in Haight-Ashbury. He had seen the power of fusing rock and roll with Krishna Consciousness. Now he wanted to do it again. But bigger. If he could interest the Beatles, the Krishna mantra would be on the lips of every kid in the Western world.

The devotees tried every trick in the book to hook the Fab Four. They sent an apple pie to Apple Records with "Hari Krishna" written in saffron icing across the top. There was no reply. They sent a wind-up walking apple with the mantra printed on the side. Still no reply. They sent a tape of folks singing the Hare Krishna mantra. They received a preprinted rejection letter.

Because everybody wanted a piece of the Beatles it was difficult. They figured they could make contact because the the Beatles were hip to Eastern religions and had traveled all the way to India to be with the Maharishi.

When the devotees arrived at Apple's Beatle headquarters in 1968, it looked like an employment office specializing in the placement of recently released mental patients. Pallid musicians with scraggly hair hung around listlessly, hoping to play a song or convince somebody to listen to a demo tape. Crazed fans from all over the world waited outside on the sidewalk or, if they were lucky enough to get in, sat on the edge of chairs, ready to mob any Beatle who appeared. Hucksters with incredible schemes paced the floor, waiting for one of the four to come by and bestow some Beatle magick and make their dreams, whatever they were, come true.

George Harrison hated running the gauntlet in the outer office. He had just come out of a conference and was bracing himself to duck through the room when he spotted a guy in robes.

"You're a Hare Krishna, aren't you?" Harrison asked, walking up to him. Everybody in the room ran over to surround them.

"You know us? That's great," the devotee said.

"Know you? I've been trying to meet you people for over a year. Where have you been?" "Trying to meet you," the two replied.

"I saw you in the park in San Francisco," Harrison said, "when I got back home, I picked up the recording of the mantra Prabhupada made with the New York devotees. I've played it over and over, I've even started chanting a little."

"That's wonderful!" the devotee said, trying to make himself heard above the shoving mob. "Wait'll Prabhupada hears about this. He'll be so pleased!"

George invited the two Krishnas to the back office, where they talked for almost an hour. George said his interest in Eastern religions was so deep, he sometimes thought he must have been a yogi in a previous incarnation.

"Listen," he said finally, getting up, "I've got to be somewhere. But why don't you come to my house for lunch tomorrow." He took a pad of paper out of his pocket and scribbled the address. "Come around twelve-thirty, or so. A couple of friends will be there."

His friends turned out to be John, Paul, and Ringo. They told the two young devotees all about their trip to India. George had loved it; the other Beatles had been disappointed by the trip and the Maharishi. John Lennon seemed especially unhappy.

"How do you know when you've found a real guru?" Lennon asked. "That's what I want to know."

You'll know when you meet Prabhupada," the visitors replied.

The two devotees began spending so much time with George, they became an almost inseparable threesome. The Beatle started to describe himself as a "plainclothes devotee" and offered to rent a place for them to open a temple. The devotees thanked him, but didn't push it. They didn't want George to think they were interested in his money. Besides, they had bigger plans. What they really wanted was a record.

"what would you say to the Beatles recording the mantra?" they asked finally asked one night over dinner at George's house.

"I'd say no," George replied.

They'd blown it, they thought. George was probably thinking they were trying to use him, just like everyone else.

"You guys record it, "George said, "I'll produce it, and we'll put it out on Apple."

They started at George's house. The half-dozen London devotees chanted. George taped them and dubbed in a guitar. A few days later, they went to Trident Studios in Saint Anne's Alley, where George's friend, keyboard artist Billy Preston, helped make a tape.

They cut the record on Abbey Road, at E.M.I. Recording Studios. The devotees arrived in George's big Mercedes. When they got out, a crowd of teenagers shrieked and started singing Hare Krishna. The devotees were stunned. The kids were chanting. Well, almost chanting. They were singing the words, but to a tune he had never heard before.

"Where'd they get that?" they asked George.

"What?" the Beatle asked.

"The tune."

"Oh, that's the soundtrack to Hair, George replied. "You'd hear it if you ever listened to the radio."

"I' guess I'd better start listening," they replied.

"Not really," George said, kidding them. "You'd find out how big you are and you'd lose your purity."

It took four takes to cut "Hare Krishna Mantra." George played the organ, Mukunda played the mridanga drums, and Paul and Linda McCartney worked the control console.

"You thought 'Hard Day's Night' was big?" George yelled at Paul as the session wound down. "Wait till this hits. We'll release it on a Monday, and when we wake up on Tuesday it'll be number one in thirty countries!"

The joke was almost prophecy. "Hare Krishna Mantra" sold seventy thousand copies the day it was released and broke into the British top ten in under two weeks. Apple pushed it by throwing a big promotional party, stuffing reporters and photographers into a psychedelic-colored bus and driving them to a blue-and-white pavilion, where George and the devotees chanted. The next day, the devotees sang their hit on "Top of the Pops," an English version of American Bandstand and the hottest show in the United Kingdom.