In the early 1960’s, Europe was picking itself out of the rubble, deprivation and mess of the second World War. Industry was struggling to rebuild, rationing was gradually being left behind, and life was moving towards getting “back to normal.”

In America, a boom was taking place in many areas of manufacturing and business, and a new level of affluence was becoming commonplace. Television was beginning to replace radio by expanding into most households, and the advertising companies began to have a marked effect on the way society modeled itself.

In the West, Rock and Roll was becoming the new movement in the music world with fame and fortune greeting those who could find a clear outlet and an “image” to go along with their performance.

The formation of the Beatles came about over a few years. John Lennon and Paul McCartney had met and played music together at a garden fete, a kind of daytime church community party in Liverpool. George Harrison, a school friend of Paul’s joined in at George’s own insistence, and then Ringo Starr, a drummer with “superior” style was hired. “Love Me Do” their first recorded song together as the Beatles came out in 1962, and the rest, as they say, is history... Through their attitudes, humor and style, as much as their lyrics and musical style, they were embraced by a young generation ready for change.

In this article, we look at the Designs of four musicians who combined their energies to herald an enormous change in the world’s awareness.

John Lennon, the acknowledged leader of the Beatles, was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool into the Incarnation of “Penetration.” As its name implies, this Incarnation gives access to many levels of life, both for personal evaluation, and also as a catalyst for shocking others into a new level of personal awareness. The key to the Incarnation of Penetration is to hold a personal integrity within oneself, when relating to the dramatic effects one can have on others.

In his Design chart, John is an Emotional Generator. Generators have a fundamental principle at work in their makeup : they have a Design to Respond. Emotionally define people have a fundamental principle in their life makeup : to wait for emotional, feeling, clarity. Generators will always find frustration when they try to launch themselves into relationships or activities without first appealing to their own sacral response, and in John’s case, without allowing himself the time to reach emotional clarity. Inevitably, one of John’s major lesson’s in his lifetime will have been learning patience.

Evident in the rest of his Design chart, is a great openness and empathy, which comes through his undefined centers. There are two possible ways that undefined Centers play out in life : one, is that they can be a source of great wisdom through reflecting the world back to itself with the particular nuances of any activated gates in the Center; two, they can become a place of personal conditioning when one takes on the world’s interaction in those Centers and absorb it as though it were one’s own makeup, therefore becoming “conditioned” by others.

For instance, in John’s chart, at his Throat Center, his voice reflects through the three activations he has there, the 12, the 8 and the 31. The wisdom of the 12 comes through his linking words and expressions that metamorphose meanings held by other people. The wisdom of the 8 comes through a barefaced expression of honesty. The wisdom of the 31 expresses in dramatic terms, influencing people towards a positive regard for their future.

The conditionings in these same gates, can manifest in saying things that even though they might be exactly true, completely antagonize others, which distressed John because he he was misunderstood, having “talked out of turn.”

Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942, also in Liverpool, into the Incarnation of The “Garden of Eden.” Although he was always reticent to discuss his upbringing, the Garden of Eden mythically relates to expulsion from a very beautiful inner space, early in life, due to external influences sometimes of a shocking nature. People born into this Incarnation, are often brilliantly clever, but are beset by a need to “return” the beautiful memory they have of earlier life into their daily reality. Inevitably, they go on a great outward search, and hopefully realize sooner than later, that the experience of the beauty they seek is inside themself all the time, and not in the experiences they have with others.

Of the four members of the band, Paul is the “Manifestor,” and an Emotionally defined one. Emotional Manifestors have a great effect on the lives of other people because they catalyze everyone’s emotions. Paul has a defined 35 - 36, the Channel of Restlessness and endless experiencing. Restless emotional activity can be contagious, with flares of excitement and depression following each other in quick succession. The other members of the band would experience that Paul’s mood often predicated how they would all interrelate. In his Design chart, Paul also has a very powerfully defined Throat Center that in effect, establishes the expression for the band as a whole.

The defined 33 - 13, the Channel of Related Experience, gives him the means to describe all manner of different human experiences, particularly in the lyrics he writes, never necessarily choosing one life experience to be more meaningful than another. The 37 - 40, the Channel of Community, in a curious way, gives Paul an almost fatherly presence in a community that includes the band, and extends into the world. Everyone can feel included in the Beatle family, particularly through Paul’s smile. An “open” Spleen Center can render Paul fearless, even in potentially dangerous situations.

George Harrison was born in Liverpool on February 24, 1943, into the Incarnation of “Spirit.” Without sounding trite, George came in with an Incarnation exactly aligned in assisting others to evolve in their soul journey. This evolution is possible through association by others with the aliveness and “spirit” that George allowed to come through him. The Incarnation brings an innate gift to collaborate with others and to find a natural flow in knowing what is possible to achieve on the physical level and what is beyond the range such possibility. Inevitably, the more someone with this Incarnation feels loved, the more he or she can be open to the amazing energies that flow through them into the lives of others.

In his Design, George is a pure Generator, with a single “tantric” definition, the Channel of “Discovery,” the Design of succeeding where others fail, or, alternatively, failing where others succeed. In the West, the concept of “tantra” is often exclusively associated with sexual practices, whereas, in the East, there is a more complete comprehension that Tantra is actually perhaps the fastest personal transformational science of all, that works through transmuting sexual energy into superconsciousness. Tantra works in the knowledge that sexuality keeps us locked into the physical but when harnessed consciously, also gives us direct access to the Divine. In George’s chart, Generator, sexual, life-force energy, which emanates from the defined, red-colored, Sacral Center is transmuted through the Channel 29 - 46, which connects into the Self Center, our place of inner geometry, life-purpose, connectedness, and the seat of the soul in our physical body.

A Generator has the makeup of someone who is guided from within their own sacral, “gut” response to life’s issues. A Generator has a deep inner wisdom that, in George’s case, aligned him instantly with right personal decisions by relating from his own inner response. In this world, we are often told to “go out and make it happen,” “get your trip together, “walk your talk,” and other patently unhelpful concepts of “how” to actively “live” life. In actuality, most of us are designed to wait to see what Existence offers us and through our consciousness, to recognize our own inner guidance in how to engage with life.

In George’s chart, out of nine potential Centers, he has only two defined, activated and constantly “turned on.” The other seven Centers are undefined or “open” to the energetic input from everyone around him. By Design, George, like John, with his single definition, was extremely empathic to the energetic whims of those around him. It would always be a painful experience for him to be around people who lived unconsciously and from a place of “personal untruth.” In his own chart, there are six “overlays” of “unconscious” (red) and conscious (black) activations implying that he was enormously conscious and sensitive. Hence, he became fascinated and personally realigned through his friendships and interactions with Ravi Shankar, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton and other conscious, courageous and highly evolved souls.

With his “open” (no activations at all) Ego/Willpower Center, the little white triangle Center, it would be almost impossible for George to put a monetary value on things, and he might often appear totally unimpressed with “issues” that other people considered important. Inevitably however, George would have a very high sense of standards and values, and in the context of the Beatles, would be a touchstone for the quality of everything they played and produced.

Ringo Starr was born in Liverpool on July 7, 1940, into the Incarnation of “Individuality,” in which he brings a natural empowerment for other people to find their own truth as unique individuals. (Incidentally, this is the Incarnation marking the birth of the Constitution of the United States and also of GW Bush). Ringo’s presence will always empower others to feel “okay” with being “themself,” by sometimes even being the object of their joking.

Of the four Beatles, Ringo is the only one who has a defined Spleen Center. In Design terms, the Spleen is the “Feelgood” Center, and Ringo, apart from holding other personal qualities, is the one around whom the band would always feel good by bringing a consistent presence of good natured humor.

By Design, Ringo is a Projector. Projectors are the guides, connectors and “helms people” of the world, and anyone who has ever played music will know that percussion provides the backbone for the quality of any performance. His two defined channels, the 20- 57, the Channel of Intuitive Awareness and the 25 - 51, the Channel of Initiation, which are both acoustic, romantic and empowering Channels. Even though he might not have contributed to the writing and organizing of the Beatle’s songs, he would always provide the encouragement for his friends to go ahead with, and test their growing genius. In the background, and sometimes in the foreground, Ringo would have a profound a unique effect with his uncanny and often irregular, but never out-of-place, sense of rhythm.

Enormously sensitive, Ringo can be relied on to find an unique and individual solution to any situation, sometimes infuriating those around him for his very particular views of things. Of the four Beatles, he is the “pure individual,’ the one who never quite “fits in.” As anyone who has the Design of a “pure individual” will know, they are constantly misunderstood and often more comfortable on the “outside looking in.” Sometimes Ringo will feel completely apart from a world he might wish to embrace and which he might feel does not give him true recognition. Such is often the lot of projectors who are designed to wait for invitations and, from being recognized and invited, can weave their magic into the world. When recognition and invitation does not come in obvious ways, Projectors can hanker for a reality that will often elude them, and so, even though Ringo has not sustained the fame accorded to him as the fourth Beatle, his presence will always empower others who associate themselves with him.

The Magic of the Beatles

How does one describe the growing genius, innovation and sense of freedom that the Beatles brought into the world? The song-writing team of John and Paul; the light heartedness and apparent innocence of the four band members when they appeared together in many situations; the hysteria that their presence communicated into the world may continue to be a mystery for generations to come.

None of the Beatles, in their own Designs, have defined Crown or Ajna Centers and were therefore not constrained to be thinking all the time. People with undefined mental centers can be extraordinarily clear with the mental concepts they reflect into the world, often describing the nature of other people’s mental processes. None of the Beatles have a defined Root Center in their own charts, and therefore can live in their own “time-bubble” apart from the pressures and deadlines generally imposed in this world. The more space and time they gave themselves together, the more creativity could come through them, reflected from their own natural state of stillness and joy. The more they were constrained to interact with confines imposed by a mental, business-oriented and pressuring world, the more they would be overwhelmed and find themselves losing their carefree natures.

By Design, the powerhouse and “challenging-in-your-face” nature of the Beatles was John. The familial presence linked with a broad range of experience and emotional “expander” of the Beatles was Paul. The conscious spirit presence of the Beatles was George. And the constant empowering presence and binding force for the Beatles was Ringo. The Beatles, as a living entity, are long gone, but as a presence for introducing and holding open essential frequencies to the world, their works will long be played, remembered and cherished.

Next Month : The Voices of Light : Paramahansa Yogananda : Bridging East and West

© 2002 Chetan Parkyn

© Chetan Parkyn, 2002