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On September 29, 1967, John and George were guests of David Frost on the live late night television show The Frost Report. The subject of this particular edition was Transcendental Meditation and it included an interview with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, filmed earlier the same day at London Airport. In the invited audience at the studio in Wembley, north London was Sanskrit scholar Juan Mascaró, a Cambridge professor. The following month, Mascaró wrote to George enclosing a copy of Lamps Of Fire, a collection of spiritual wisdom from various traditions which he had edited. He suggested that George might consider putting verses from the Tao Te Ching to music, in particular a poem titled 'The Inner Light'. In his preface to Lamps Of Fire, first published in 1958, Mascaró wrote: "The passages of this book are lamps of fire. Some shine more, and some shine less, but they all merge into that vast lamp called by St. John of the Cross 'the lamp of the being of God'." 'The Inner Light' was the first song of George's to appear on a single when it became the B side of 'Lady Madonna'. |
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