Hey Jude

Another interpretation from my book, The Pouring, or How the Universal Mind Reached Out to a Generation

Hey Jude

The Beatles

Single

Written by Paul McCartney, 1968

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/heyjude.html

Hey Jude is number 89 on the Rolling Stones Magazine list of top 500 rock songs. It was released as a single a little before the White Album. [As a reminder, the reason why no lyrics are actually quoted is because the song’s publisher refused to give permission under the Fair Use Doctrine.]

While ostensibly the song can be heard to be about encouraging a young lad to go after the love of their life, the song was also heard by some members of the Generation as a message referencing a Cosmic mind game in which the listener (being addressed as Jude) is being called upon to save the world from eternal damnation. Having entered the world of altered states of consciousness unprepared and without proper guidance, it was easy for some in the Generation to stumble into the Christ Complex archetype and Hey Jude was a trigger for this mind trap.

The core of the Christ Complex archetype is that the listener, or the subject, imagines themself or becomes convinced that the fate of the Cosmos depends on them and on their making the correct cosmic choice. The particular version of this mind game suggested by Hey Jude involves a sexual component—that the listener must successfully mate with their cosmic counterpart. However, Jude, the listener, is extremely insecure about this because they see the consummation of this act as having ambiguous consequences—including possibly their own ego-death or even the annihilation of the Created world. Consequently, they are extremely fearful of what they are being called upon by the Cosmos to do. Thus, the urgent encouragement that they are being given.

The song begins with the singer, the Cosmos itself, asking the listener not to make things bad. This immediately signals to the listener that there is a very real element of danger. They, through their action or inaction—and the listener doesn’t know which—can provoke a disastrous consequence. The implication of this line coming from the singer to the listener is that it is up to the listener not to make bad things happen.

In the next line, the Cosmos or the Spirit is telling the listener to take this sorrowful song, which is the state of the Creation, and transform it. The sorrowful song does not simply refer to the state of the world, with all its conflict and suffering. It refers to the existential state of the soul being trapped in the Mind. What Jude is being asked to do is to take the risk that will end the game of the Mind and, potentially, liberate the soul from her bondage. The risk, and the existential dread which Jude faces, is that the Mind may be all there is and by ending the Cosmic Game, we may all be plunged into Nothingness.

There is a fear even worse than this, however. This is that our desire to end the Game of the Mind is born out of our own ego and that, choosing to end the Cosmic Game—which means ending the Game for everyone—is a trick designed to further bind us to the Great Cycle. It may actually be impossible to end the Cosmic Game but, if we choose to try to do this, we may expose to the world our own ego-motivation and may be thrust into a Cosmic Hell.

Yet the singer enjoins Jude to allow her into their heart in order to make things better. So, we have the question of who is “her?” The benign answer is that she is the Divine Beloved, Love Herself. The message that the Spirit is trying to convey to Jude seems to be to just let Love in and this will transform your consciousness and transform the world thereby. At an even higher level, the act of letting Her into our heart can be seen to symbolize the Divine Union, the cessation of Duality when the Heart, our consciousness, is consumed by the Presence of the One. Yet, here the fear and insecurity arises again, because in all of our experience we see that Creation—perhaps Existence Itself—depends upon the existence of Duality.

The singer/Cosmos then tells Jude to conquer their fears and that it is our destiny to achieve this moment of Divine Union whereby the Cosmic Cycle will be brought to an end. However, we must act. It is ourself who must take the initiative to pursue the Divine Union.

But then the singer slips in a chilling reference. They say that we must allow her to come under our skin which, particularly for the Generation, conjures images of shooting up narcotics and the dark dungeon of addiction. While the singer assures us that this will make it better, the risk involved seems palpable. So, what does this mean? Obviously, the singer is not really suggesting that we shoot up. Yet the Cosmos appears to be asking the listener, Jude, to willingly submit to some cosmic experience that would seem to further enslave us to the Great Cycle while ensuring us that this is necessary and it will all turn out all right.

In the next verse, the singer seems to realize and address the inner turmoil that Jude is feeling because of our inner fears and insecurities. They say: Don’t succumb to the Christ Complex. If things start getting weird and heavy, back off. Above all, do not react. Do not intensify the situation. The singer then refers to a cosmic dynamic, in which the subject (Jude, the listener) finds themself in a cosmic crisis only to have their courage fail them so that they make the ego-driven choice that causes their cosmic mission to fail, thus making the world a bit more cold. The implication is that this pattern is cyclical—it has happened many times before. The Christ Complex ensues, the situation intensifies and the “Christ figure” fails and each time this happens a little bit of cosmic energy is lost.

Yet, the pressure builds on Jude as the singer tells them that now that She has been found, now that the Cosmic situation has presented itself, it is incumbent on us to complete the task. The sexual element of this task is referenced in the next verse (letting it out and in) although this can be seen as a reference to a movement of consciousness, sort of a mental sexuality with the Cosmos. There is an implied heightening of Jude’s anxiety, however, in the reference to somebody with whom to perform, for “performance” implies an audience or an expectation of successful performance and this would seem to ratchet up the cosmic pressure.

The next lines seem to be reassuring, telling Jude that they will do, that they are sufficient, but there is also a line that introduces a new element of anxiety as the singer tells Jude, the listener, that it’s only you. This line may have multiple meanings. The most anxiety provoking is the implication that: don’t you know that all this is just your own imagination, that you are the singularity that is dreaming all of this and that it doesn’t matter in the end because it’s only you in your aloneness after all? This is so frightening because it is the logical conclusion to the radical monotheism that was delivered by the Small Enlightenment. If All is One, then at the highest, or terminal, point of consciousness, God exists solely in Their Aloneness and, since every soul is a particle of the Divine, this is the logical end for each and every one of us. Of course, this is the mind, with its inherently limited perspective, which reaches this conclusion. Nevertheless, it can be an existentially frightening prospect.

This perspective is only confirmed by the last line of this verse about the movement needed being on our shoulders. In other words, it’s all in the mind. The body has no reality. And, if this is all just a dream of the Mind, where does it end but in singularity?

Yet, for all this existential anxiety, isn’t the ultimate message of the song that everything will be better? It is just ourself that is causing all of this anxiety and confusion. We can understand that the singer is really saying: Just do it, Jude. You can do it. You can achieve spiritual liberation. You can turn the sorrowful song around and make things better.

After all, there is nothing sinister in the tone of this song. The singer is compassionate and warm. The song ends in a burst of encouragement for Jude. The repeated syllables at the end seem not to be a rejection of any kind so much as a negation of the fears and insecurities that have bedeviled Jude. All we need to do is to toss aside our existential fears, our spiritual insecurities and take the plunge. And trust that we will make things better.

If you enjoyed this post, there is much more in the book - some 875 songs. The Pouring is available as an e-book from Smashwords.com and from Amazon in print. The e-book has links to the song lyrics online. The print edition obviously doesn’t so you have to search on the internet for them - quite easy to do.

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