It took me 40 years, but I think I finally realized what John Lennon was saying in one of the last songs he wrote and sang with the Beatles.

    “Nothing,” a term used by Eastern mystics, was the meditative “void” he meant, when saying “it” was going to “change my world.” You remember the lyric and haunting melody, if not the words of the song. A movie using the title was made: “Across the Universe.”

     It was about a fellow named “Jude” who leaves Liverpool and meets a “Lucy” in America with offerings of many of the Beatle’s songs including a slow, sensual version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by one lovely lady to . . . another . . . lovely lady. (Something I bet the Fab Four never envisioned in the early ’60s!)

Was John Lennon’s Song About Stoic Philosophy?

    Never understood any of the lyrics, including the most famous, “Nothing’s Gonna Change My World,” and actually thought it meant stoicism; that no matter what happens in this world, a guy was never going to change the love he had for his girl. Couldn’t understand a lick of the other words. Quite unmemorable, is how I viewed the “record,” on its release.

    The Beatles broke up and, too soon — 10 years later — we heard of John Lennon’s shooting death Dec. 8th; (why do I remember the date?) the rise of Paul and Wings; and the death of George (has it really been nine years ago? Dec. 1, 2001. My birthday. Seems like only yesterday when George was singing “My Guitar Gently Weeps.”) Say . . . what ever happened to Ringo? Saw him in a movie about a million years ago. Haven’t heard much from him since.

Buddhist Seek the “Nothing” in all Attachments

   While meditating this past week, however, a facilitator at The Resiliency Center in Ambler, PA, recited Lennon’s “Universe“ song and it hit me. “Nothing” was the Buddhist view of complete detachment from earthly desires.

     I could not understand it at an earlier time in my life. But now, at a different stage in life, I realize what was meant. In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon referred to the song as perhaps the best, most poetic lyric he ever wrote. Nothing is what the song is all about. ‘Twas hidden from me in plain view all these years.

• Words are flying out like
  endless rain into a paper cup
  They slither while they pass
  They slip away across the universe
  Pools of sorrow waves of joy
  are drifting thorough my open mind
  Possessing and caressing me 
•  
• Jai guru deva om
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
•  
• Images of broken light which
  dance before me like a million eyes
  That call me on and on across the universe
  Thoughts meander like a
  restless wind inside a letter box
  they tumble blindly as
  they make their way across the universe
•  
• Jai guru deva om
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
•  
• Sounds of laughter shades of life
  are ringing through my open ears
  exciting and inviting me
  Limitless undying love which
  shines around me like a million suns
  It calls me on and on across the universe
•  
• Jai guru deva om
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world
  Nothing’s gonna change my world

—————–

“Jai guru deva om” is a Sanskrit mantra meaning “glory to” the “teacher” and “shining one” of “ultimate reality.”