Music critic Ken Hunt describes the song as an "early landmark" in Harrison's championing of Shankar, and Indian classical music generally, which gained "real global attention" for the first time through the Beatle's commitment. Peter Lavezzoli also highlights the effect of "Sgt. 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". 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".