Written by lead guitarist George Harrison, it was his second composition in the Indian classical style, after "Love You To", and inspired by his stay in India in late 1966 with his mentor and sitar teacher Ravi Shankar.

The recording marked a significant departure from the Beatles' previous work; musically, it evokes the Indian devotional tradition, while the overtly spiritual quality of the lyrics reflects Harrison's absorption in Hindu philosophy and the teachings of the Vedas.

Writing for Rolling Stone, David Fricke described the track as "at once beautiful and severe, a magnetic sermon about materialism and communal responsibility in the middle of a record devoted to gentle Technicolor anarchy".

[11][12] Since recording the latter track for the Beatles' Revolver in April 1966, Harrison had continued to look outside his role as the band's lead guitarist, further immersing himself in studying the sitar, partly under the tutelage of master sitarist Ravi Shankar.

[39][40][nb 3] The education Harrison received in India, particularly regarding the illusory nature of the material world, resonated with his experiences with the hallucinogenic drug LSD (commonly known as "acid"),[43] and informed his lyrics to "Within You Without You".

[15] Written and performed in the tonic key of C (but subsequently sped up to C♯ on the official recording), it features what musicologist Dominic Pedler terms an "exotic" melody over a constant C-G "root-fifth" drone, which is neither major nor minor in mode.

[50] Based on a piece that Shankar had written for All India Radio,[51] the structure of the composition adheres to the Hindustani musical tradition[15] and demonstrates Harrison's advances in the Indian classical genre since "Love You To".

[61] The lyrics convey basic tenets of Vedanta philosophy, particularly in Harrison's reference to the concept of maya (the illusory nature of existence),[62] in the lines "And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion / Never glimpse the truth".

Peace will come when we learn to see past the illusion of differences and come to know that we are one ..."[63] The solution espoused by Harrison is for individuals to see beyond the self and each seek change within,[64] further to Vivekananda's contention in Raja Yoga that "Each soul is potentially divine.

[4][nb 7] Musicologist Michael Hannan comments that, relative to standard Indian practice, the use of three tamburas produces "a denser-than-usual, pulsating jivari" (or "buzzing sound"), highlighting the naturally rich harmonics of the instrument.

[85] The session was also attended by Lennon,[48] artist Peter Blake,[86] and John Barham, an English classical pianist and student of Shankar who shared Harrison's desire to promote Indian music to Western audiences.

[51] During the same session, Harrison recorded his vocal and a sitar part, the solo of which, in the description of music critic David Fricke, "sings and swings with the clarity and phrasing of his best rockabilly-fired guitar work".

[3] Martin and Emerick were both opposed to this addition but deferred to Harrison,[104] who later said that the laughter provided "some light relief", adding: "You were supposed to hear the audience anyway, as they listen to Sergeant Pepper's Show.

[119] Among the song's lyrics, printed on the back cover, the positioning of the words "Without You" beside McCartney's head served as a clue in the Paul Is Dead rumour,[107][120] which grew in the United States partly as a result of the Beatles' failure to perform live after 1966.

"[125] David Griffiths of Record Mirror praised the album's musical and lyrical scope, which included "life-enhancing philosophy", and added: "George Harrison's 'Within You Without You' is a beautifully successful and adventurous statement in song of a Yoga truth.

Pepper, Richard Goldstein, writing in The New York Times, said the song was "remarkable" musically and a highlight of the album,[128] yet he considered the lyrics "dismal" and full of "the very clichés the Beatles helped bury".

[129][nb 12] Allen Evans of the NME found the "deep, rich rhythm" of the tabla "most appealing", although he bemoaned that it was difficult to decipher the lyrics "because they merge with the sitar music so closely".

[131][132] According to the Beatles' official biographer, Hunter Davies, writing in 1968, some contemporary reviewers speculated that the burst of laughter at the end of "Within You Without You" was inserted by Harrison's bandmates to mock the song.

[142] Writing for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham admires the track as "beautifully put together"; he describes it as both "some of the most exotic music released under The Beatles' name" and a "philosophical meditation on life and love beyond self ... [that], once surrendered to, is a central part of the Pepper experience".

[144] AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger admires the melody, but he considers the track overlong and notes the potential for offence in this, "the first Beatles song where [Harrison's] Indian religious beliefs affected the lyrics with full force".

[145] Musicologist Allan Moore says that Harrison's "command of the quasi-Indian medium is of a very high order" and, with regard to the song's message, he writes: "In its explicit, prescient call to the me-generation, perhaps 'Within You Without You' is a key track [on the album] ... expressing the deepest commitment to the counter-culture.

[148] He described it as, variously, the Beatles' "purest excursion ... into raga", and "at once beautiful and severe, a magnetic sermon about materialism and communal responsibility in the middle of a record devoted to gentle Technicolor anarchy".

"[154][nb 15] According to New Yorker journalist Mark Hertsgaard, the lyrics to "Within You Without You" "contained the album's most overt expression of the Beatles' shared belief in spiritual awareness and social change".

[160][161] This led to the Beatles' endorsement of Transcendental Meditation[162][163] and their highly publicised attendance at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's spiritual retreat in Rishikesh, India, early the following year.

Pepper and its "spiritual centerpiece ['Within You Without You']" on Shankar's popularity, during a year that served as "the annus mirabilis" for Indian music and "a watershed moment in the West when the search for higher consciousness and an alternative world view had reached critical mass".

[175] In his Harrison obituary for Salon, in December 2001, Ira Robbins considered "Within You Without You" to be "the song that most clearly articulated his devotion, both artistic and philosophical, to India", with a lyric that "pairs worldview and personality in lines that now seem prophetic".

[180] The duo's singer, Lisa Gerrard, told The Boston Globe that they had obtained Harrison's blessing but "the [record company] pushed it", with the result that they were forced to give the former Beatle a partial songwriting credit.

[190] Reviewing the album for PopMatters, Zeth Lundy writes: "The 'Within You Without You'/'Tomorrow Never Knows' mash-up, perhaps the most thrilling and effective track on the entire disc, fuses two especially transcendental songs into one: ... a union of two ambiguous, open-ended declarations of spiritual pursuit.

[207] In 2007, the staff of the pop culture website Vulture placed Sonic Youth's version at number 2 in their list titled "Our Ten Favorite Beatles Covers of All Time".

[213] Guitarist Rainer Ptacek opened his 1994 album Nocturnes with what AllMusic critic Bob Gottlieb describes as a "stunning instrumental" reading of the song,[214] recorded live in a chapel in Tucson, Arizona.