December 8, 1980
Rest in Peace
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…
Imagine there’s no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace…
Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you’ll join us,
And the world will live as one. 
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
I never could quite understand the importance some people have attached to John Lennon. I’ve always considered him as just another dead teen-idol pop star. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this subject.
John Lennon was an idol for my generation (born 1948). He talked about peace on earth, whereas we were afraid of a third world war. It was the time of Berlin wall, Cuba crisis, Vietnam war, when we were young. John stood for a new (great) music and a new world.
Sorry for my english, I’m german.
I remember a Devout Christian Teacher,Not very happy to teach this song to me on Guitar
Perhaps both of the above are why I never got into the John Lennon, or the Beatles, for that matter True, Lennon idyllically talked about Peace on Earth, and I guess in the lyrics shown here, his path would be for everyone just to forget everything and magically become peaceful. This is a charming assumption, but it’s also very naive in that it simply ignores human nature, not to mention the role of deity in our lives. I, for one, strongly believe in God and would rather die first than deny His existence. So, I think that Lennon’s references to imagining that there’s no heaven nor religion only serves to anger me against him and simply ignore anything else he would have to say.
Who is John and what he has to do with CHESS???This is a chess blog, remember?
In Imagine, the late-great John Lennon was asking us to imagine a world in which things that divide people (sociology, culture, faith, material wealth, etc.) did not exist. He asked us to imagine a world where understanding, maturity, and morality temper selfishness…a world in which humans finally master their animalistic instincts.
As you can see, daring to imagine such a world still evokes vicious attacks, rather than understanding in the ballad’s central theme, its strengths and limitations, even from self-proclaimed “believers in God”.
Imagine is nothing more and nothing less than a strong political message sugarcoated within a beautiful melody. Realizing his own limitations, and with his audience in mind, Lennon hoped that this softer approach would bring Imagine to a wider audience, who hopefully would listen to and judge his message on its merit, its concept, alone.
Lennon later felt that Imagine should have been a Lennon/Ono collaboration. Said John, “The selfless lyric, the selfless concept, came from Yoko, but in those days I was more selfish…”
Throughout history, as humanity has separated/segregated itself into separate cultures, rather than striving to bridge the differences that separate one from another, we still may only imagine a world led by understanding—and not by selfishness.
Imagine
Yes, like I said, Imagine shows naivete in regard to human nature. What he’s stating as an ideal is more like a Clockwork Orange ideal where everyone becomes lobotomized robots. It simply denies the existence of Evil (and Good for that matter) in the world, which is at a minimum ignorant and in the worst case a very dangerous assumption (in that unilateral adoption of such a philosophy could get a lot of innocent people killed).
In Imagine, John Lennon the songwriter, John Lennon the poet, denied nothing. Rather, he asked you to examine yourself closely, and your own prejudices. Wherein, you may or may not excuse your own prejudices and excesses because of your own preconceived notions of human nature. And thus, to typecast Imagine as naive avoids the very issues it addresses, and rather suggests your own character defects, and your own pettiness, i.e. you deal only with your preconceived notions of right and wrong, and not with the substance of Lennon’s message.
And thus, Lennon rose above petty stereotyping and appealed to our more human nurturing side.
And thus, you completely miss the point.
As much as I disagreed with his pro-communist anti-religious tendencies his music touched me deeply.
The beauty of music and lyrics is that you can take whatever meaning you want from songs and there is a great deal of postives I can take from a song like “Imagine” or the hundreds of other s that he wrote.
AS a performer he projected a lot of positive energy and feeling and I’ll never forget that night 25 years ago when I listened to Vin Scelsa euligize him on WNEWfm until I finally fell asleep.
He had it all. Sensitive voice, intelligent lyrics, melodic music and had just put out a loving successful album.
Ironically his assasin used to love him but tragically grew to hatehim when John made his anti-religois views more known.
may I comment:
CelticDeath said…
Perhaps both of the above are why I never got into the John Lennon, or the Beatles, for that matter True, Lennon idyllically talked about Peace on Earth, and I guess in the lyrics shown here, his path would be for everyone just to forget everything and magically become peaceful. This is a charming assumption, but it’s also very naive in that it simply ignores human nature, not to mention the role of deity in our lives. I, for one, strongly believe in God and would rather die first than deny His existence. So, I think that Lennon’s references to imagining that there’s no heaven nor religion only serves to anger me against him and simply ignore anything else he would have to say.
9:22 AM
I must begin by saying that I am spiritually awake. I have never been into music. as I read the poem for the first time I was transported to the spiritual truth of god. I was amazed. I did not know he was spiritually awake. he might not have been. but his poem speaks of the Truth. I used a capital T for god.
there is One True God because he is not up in heaven to be fought over in wars. there is only one because he is inside of each and everyone of us. he is inside of you. you can find him only inside of you. not inside of me. I can only find him inside of me. so there is only one true god.
Jesus says that organized religion is a contridiction in terms.
Probably the biggest block to god is religion.
The path to god can be summarized. let go of everything outside of yourself and go only inside of yourself and find everything.
church and religious leaders are outside of yourself and therefore are false idols. everything of the world that we choose is a false idol. but some are so subtle that we are hooked. religion is a hook. religious leaders are the ones who hook us. the logic and use of our mind is to be let go of. it is ultimately the biggest hook of all. we tend to believe and do what our mind tells us. and that is an error. a big time spiritual error.
using reasoning and logic is an error. notice your subtle logic.
I believe in god and therefore…..
you have already fallen into the trap of the world with the logic.
ghandi knew when he said. I seek to be as nothing.
sit down and close your eyes and go inside. feel love. that love is eminating inside of you. that love is god. you are incredible because you can experience love. wow. that is incredible. you are incredible. you are love. god is love. it must be that god is expressing himself in the world as YOU……
the athiest says there is no god. the believer says there is a god. both are saying the same thing. the athiest is really saying that the religious definition of god is not god. and he is correct. and the religious is saying there is a god and he is correct.
we are all ONE. therefore Jesus is not a separate human being who lived 2000 years ago. Jesus IS YOU…….
the church will NOT teach you any of this.
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…
God exits only in the Eternal Now moment outside of time. no heaven refers to the concept of heaven which is an error. wrong heaven. hell? there is no sin. to say there is hell and sin is to say that god is not god. that he made a mistake in creating you.
Imagine there’s no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace…
Now this would be nice. It is what will be when we all are ONE. It is what is when we are all united with god.
Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
this is the spiritual path to god. letting go of the world and embracing love which is giving not taking.
You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you’ll join us,
And the world will live as one.
spiritual enlightenment is living as ONE with God as Love. we will ALL attain that. to say otherwise is to say god made a mistake. This is the final destination of all men. appropriate for the end of the poem.
Beautiful Poem Deep Deep insite.
Incredible.
To say “Jesus is you” would mean you would have to be sinless. Jesus couldn’t be in all of us…As simple evidence I cite Hitler. People say God is loving and merciful, and that is true. But is God also just, and will he punish Hitlers, murderers, liars, adulterers, thieves, etc.? We all have our personal ideas, but if there’s a one-in-a-billion chance there is a just God who must by nature punish sin, then it’s something every one of us must consider due to its eternal consequences.
http://www.goodpersontest.com/
…or for a video, http://www.whatstandard.com/
God is, by definition, above Good and Evil.
God is, therefore incapable of sin.
By definition, God created all of what we humans call reality—all of time, state, and space.
By definition, God is in everything and everywhere, simultaneously.
Therefore, God is, not only of our time-state-space continuum, but also another, a continuum “on a higher plain,” of what scientists call “other dimension(s).
Perhaps God exists as a state…the state as yet undiscovered by humanity, the “state of God.” The state not bounded by time and space.