History of The Beatles Meditation caves at the abandoned Academy of Meditation in Rishikesh, 2006 The Quarrymen In Hamburg At The Cavern Club Decca audition Beatlemania in the United Kingdom North American releases In the United States 1966 More popular than Jesus Studio years In India Break-up Reunions Line-ups Religious beliefs Timeline This box: view talk edit

The Beatles visited Rishikesh in India in 1968 to attend an advanced Transcendental Meditation (TM) training session at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Amidst widespread media attention, their stay at the ashram was one of the band's most productive periods. Their adoption of the Maharishi as their guru is credited by some as changing attitudes in the West about Indian spirituality, and encouraging the study of Transcendental Meditation.^[1] The Beatles first met the Maharishi in London in August 1967 and then attended a seminar in Bangor, Wales. Although planned to be a 10-day session, their stay was cut short by the death of their manager, Brian Epstein. Wanting to learn more, they kept in contact with the Maharishi and planned to attend his ashram in October, but their trip was rescheduled due to other commitments.

The Maharishi's compound was across from Rishikesh, located in the holy "Valley of the Saints" in the foothills of the Himalayas, and the home to many ashrams. The Beatles arrived there in February 1968, along with wives, girlfriends, assistants and numerous reporters, joining about 60 other TM students, including musicians Donovan, Mike Love of The Beach Boys, and flautist Paul Horn. While there, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison wrote many songs (Ringo Starr wrote one), of which eighteen were later recorded for The Beatles (White Album), two for Abbey Road, and others for solo works.

Starr left on 1 March, after only a short stay; Paul McCartney left mid-March due to other commitments; while John Lennon and George Harrison left abruptly in April following financial disagreements and rumours of inappropriate behaviour by the Maharishi, accusations which were made public. Harrison later apologised for the way he and Lennon had treated the Maharishi, and in 1992, he gave a benefit concert for the Maharishi-associated Natural Law Party. In 2009, McCartney and Starr reunited at a concert held at New York's Radio City Music Hall to benefit the David Lynch Foundation, which funds the teaching of the Transcendental Meditation technique in schools.

Background[link]

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in 1973

In the mid-1960s, The Beatles were becoming more interested in Eastern influences and had been using drugs in an effort to expand their consciousness.^[2] They first visited India in 1966, but cut it short due to a bad experience elsewhere on their tour.^[3] Alexis "Magic Alex" Mardas, a friend of all four Beatles and head of Apple Electronics,^[4] had heard a lecture by the Maharishi in Athens, Greece, so when Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, became interested in the teachings of the Maharishi he encouraged the individual Beatles to attend a lecture.^[5] At Boyd's suggestion,^[6] The Beatles attended a lecture at the London Hilton on Park Lane, presented by the Maharishi on 24 August 1967.^[7] He had announced his imminent retirement, so it was expected to be his last public lecture in the West.^[8] Band members had already seen him on Granada TV years earlier.^[9] The Beatles were given front row seats and were invited to meet the Maharishi in his hotel suite after the lecture had finished.^[10][11] During the ninety-minute meeting, he invited them to be his guests at a training retreat in Wales.^[5]

Two days later, on 26 August, the group travelled by train to the campus of a teaching college in Bangor, Wales. It was perhaps the first time the band had travelled without their tour managers and they had not even thought to bring money.^[12] The station was mobbed because of a bank holiday and Cynthia Lennon, mistaken for a fan, was held back. She ran after the train, missing it, but arrived later by car.^[13] The group, along with Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Cilla Black, Jenny Boyd and around 300 others,^[14][15] learnt the basics of Transcendental Meditation,^[16] and were given their mantras.^[17] While there, they announced at a press conference that they were giving up drugs (apparently referring to psychedelics, but not marijuana), a choice they had made prior to meeting the Maharishi.^[18][19][20] The Maharishi advised them privately to avoid involvement with the "Ban the Bomb" movement and to support the elected government of the day.^[21] Although meant to be a 10-day series of seminars, their stay was cut short by the death of their manager, Epstein, in London on 27 August.^[22] The Maharishi helped ease their shock by convincing them that Epstein was still with them and that their good thoughts would help his journey "on to its next evolution".^[17][23]

Curious to learn more, all four Beatles made plans to attend a TM initiator training programme at the Maharishi's new ashram in India in late October.^[21] However, the trip was postponed due to their commitment to the Magical Mystery Tour film and its soundtrack album.^[24] Harrison and Lennon twice appeared on David Frost's programme talking about TM in Autumn 1967.^[25] Now publicised as "The Beatles' Guru", the Maharishi went on his eighth world tour, giving lectures in Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, Canada, and California.^[26] He spoke to 3,600 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City, in January 1968. The Beatles sent a large flower arrangement to his suite at the Plaza Hotel.^[27] Attendance at TM lectures tripled almost immediately after The Beatles became involved.^[28] The Maharishi appeared on the covers of a number of magazines from late 1967 through 1968, including Time, Newsweek, Look, Life, and Esquire.^[29]

The customary fee for TM initiation at the time was one week's salary. That fee, a considerable amount for a Beatle, was paid by the band and many of their entourage though not by Lennon.^[30][31] Harrison flew to Bombay in January 1968 to work on the Wonderwall Music soundtrack, expecting the rest of the group to follow shortly. When they were delayed he flew back to London where the group spent a week in the studio.^[32] Before leaving for India, the band recorded the instrumental tracks for "Across the Universe", whose refrain, "Jai Guru Dev",^[33] was a standard greeting within the Maharishi's Spiritual Regeneration Movement.^[34] Also in January, the Maharishi and Mia Farrow flew together from the US to London and then India.^[32]

Arrival[link]

Lennon, his wife Cynthia,^[35] the Harrisons, and Jenny Boyd,^[36] arrived in Delhi on 15 February, where they were met by Mal Evans,^[37] their advance man, who had arranged the 150-mile (240 km), six-hour taxi drive to Rishikesh. McCartney, his girlfriend Jane Asher, Starr and his wife Maureen arrived four days later.^[37] The group arrived three weeks after the session, due to end 25 April, had already begun.^[38] They were accompanied by a small retinue of reporters and photographers who were mostly kept out of the fenced and gated compound.^[39][40] Entourage members Evans, Brown and Neil Aspinall were there for all or part of the time.^[41] Mardas arrived four weeks later.^[36]

As soon as Starr arrived in Delhi he asked Evans to take him to a doctor because of a reaction to an inoculation: "When we arrived at the local hospital, I tried to get immediate treatment for him [Starr], to be told curtly by the Indian doctor, 'He is not a special case and will have to wait his turn.' So off we go to pay a private doctor ten rupees for the privilege of hearing him say it will be all right".^[42] Also there at the same time were Mia Farrow (who had recently divorced Frank Sinatra), her sister Prudence and brother John, Donovan, Gyp "Gypsy Dave" Mills,^[43] Love,^[44] jazz flautist Paul Horn, journalist Lewis H. Lapham, film-maker Paul Saltzman, socialite and author Nancy Cooke de Herrera, actors Tom Simcox and Jerry Stovin,^[45][46] and dozens of other, all Europeans or Americans.^[47][38] Shirley MacLaine did not appear despite speculation that she might attend.^[26] Lennon had thought of taking Yoko Ono, but decided against it.^[48]

Facility[link]

Located in the holy "Valley of the Saints", the International Academy of Meditation, also called the Chaurasi Kutia ashram,^[49] was a 14-acre (57,000 m²) compound. It stood across the River Ganges from Rishikesh, the "yoga capital of the world" and home to many ashrams in the foothills of the Himalayas, 150 feet (46 m) above the river and surrounded by jungle.^[50] While ashrams are traditionally spartan or primitive, the Maharishi's was designed to suit Western habits and described as "luxurious" but also as "seedy".^[30][51] It had been built in 1963 with a US$100,000 gift from American heiress Doris Duke,^[52] on land leased from the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department.^[49] While The Beatles were there the Maharishi was negotiating with the Indian government to use some nearby park land for an airstrip for a plane which he had been given;^[30] a deal which several thousand landless peasants objected to as they had been denied the use of the land for farming.^[53] The stone bungalows were equipped with electric heaters, running water, toilets, and English-style furniture.^[54]

The ashram was surrounded by barbed wire and the gates were kept locked and guarded.^[38] Evans wrote in his diary on 17 February 1968: "The press really tried kicking down the gates into the Ashram, the Indian people on the ashram called me half way through, but as soon as an Indian reporter told me 'No bloody foreigner is going to stop me in my own country', I cooled it".^[55] While he kept the media away from his famous students, the Maharishi frequently gave them personal interviews.^[38]

Experience[link]

Donovan remembered that the first day with the Maharishi was awkward, as everyone sat around on the floor, but nothing was said. Lennon relieved the tension by walking across the room to the Maharishi and patting him on the head, saying, "There's a good little guru".^[56]

The days were devoted to meditating and attending lectures by the Maharishi, who spoke from a flower-bedecked platform in an auditorium.^[47] The Maharishi also gave private lessons to the individual Beatles, nominally due to their late arrival. The tranquil environment provided by the Maharishi—complete with meditation, relaxation, and away from the media throng—helped the band to relax. Harrison told Saltzman, "Like, we're The Beatles after all, aren't we? We have all the money you could ever dream of. We have all the fame you could ever wish for. But, it isn't love. It isn't health. It isn't peace inside, is it?"^[57][58] Maharishi canceled the formal lectures for a time and told students to meditate as long as possible. One student meditated for 42 straight hours,^[59] and Pattie Boyd once meditated for seven hours.^[60] Jenny Boyd meditated for long periods as well, but also suffered from dysentery (misdiagnosed as tonsilitis). She said Lennon also felt unwell, suffering from jet lag and insomnia.^[15] The lengthy meditation sessions left many students moody and oversensitive,^[59] a side-effect called "unstressing".

Like the 60 other students at the ashram, all four Beatles adopted native dress, as the ashram had a tailor on the premises to make clothes for the students.^[60] They shopped in Rishikesh and bought saris to be made into shirts and jackets in the loudest colours, which went on to affect Western fashions when they wore them back home.^[61][62] The women took to wearing saris.^[63]

Vegetarian meals were eaten in an open dining area,^[64] where they were shared unwillingly with aggressive monkeys and crows.^[37][65] Accounts of the food vary, some calling it spicy while others said it was bland. Lennon called the food "lousy",^[31] while Pattie Boyd says it was delicious.^[65] Menu items included chickpeas mixed with cumin seeds, whole wheat dough baked over a fire, spiced eggplant, potatoes that been picked locally,^[66], and, for breakfast, cornflakes, toast and coffee.^[64][67] Starr had problems with the diet because of his past illnesses:^[42] "The food was impossible for me, because I'm allergic to so many different things, so I took two suitcases with me: one of clothes and one of Heinz beans".^[4] After dinner, the musicians shared an evening joint on the roof of Harrison's bungalow,^[68] listened to records, and played their guitars and sitars.^[69][70] Their partners gathered together in one of their rooms, often talking about life as the wife or partner of a Beatle.^[71]

Donovan taught Lennon a guitar finger-picking technique that he passed on to Harrison.^[72] The technique was subsequently implemented on "Julia" and "Dear Prudence".^[73] The latter was composed by Lennon to lure Prudence Farrow out of her intense meditation.^[74] Lennon later said: "She'd been locked in for three weeks and was trying to reach God quicker than anyone else".^[75] Another inspiration was hearing for the first time Bob Dylan's newly released album, John Wesley Harding.^[41] The stay at the ashram turned out to be one of the group's most creative periods, as Lennon remembered: "I was going humity-humity in my head and the songs were coming out. For creating it was great. It was just pouring out!"^[76] Farrow remembered Lennon once saying, "Whenever I meditate, there's a big brass band in me head".^[77] But later said: "Although it was very beautiful and I was meditating about eight hours a day, I was writing the most miserable songs on earth".^[78] Both Lennon and McCartney often spent time composing rather than meditating,^[79] and even Starr wrote a song, "Don't Pass Me By", which was his first solo composition.^[80] Plans were made for a concert in Delhi to feature The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Donovan, and Paul Horn.^[81] Harrison complained that more time should be spent on meditating, saying, "We're not here to talk about music. We're here to meditate".^[68] Harrison's commitment was lauded, albeit comically, by Lennon, who said, "The way George [Harrison] is going, he'll be flying a magic carpet by the time he's forty".^[68]

Lennon and his wife, Cynthia, initially enjoyed the experience: "John, always passionate about a new cause, was evangelical in his enthusiasm for the Maharishi, talking about spreading the message to the world. I was a little more sceptical, but I enjoyed the meditation so I was happy to go to India. I hoped, too, that time out of the spotlight would be good for John and me."^[40] The Lennons shared a four-poster bed at the ashram, with Lennon playing guitar, while his wife would draw and write poetry between their long sessions of meditation.^[71] After two weeks Lennon asked to sleep in a separate room, saying he could only meditate when he was alone.^[82] He walked down to the local post office every morning to see if he had received a telegram from Yoko Ono, who sent one almost daily.^[47] One of her notes said, "Look up at the sky and when you see a cloud think of me".^[83]

Special events[link]

Although access to the individual Beatles was limited, the Maharishi did have all of his students line up for a class portrait, each adorned with a marigold garland.^[28] In its various incarnations, the image has been called "one of the most iconic photographs in the history of rock 'n' roll".^[85] Cooke de Herrera says that the Maharishi placed The Beatles at the centre of the portrait.^[86] It was specially arranged on a podium with a picture of Brahmananda Saraswati in the background, as the Maharishi revered Saraswati as the "Guru Dev" (greatest teacher).^[84] They sat for a half an hour while photographers worked.^[28] They included Paul Saltzman, a Canadian film-maker who visited the ashram after completing film work elsewhere in India. Saltzman's snapshots during his time at the ashram were later assembled into a book, The Beatles in India (2000).^[87]

Mia Farrow, the star pupil before the band's late arrival, felt singled-out by the Maharishi's attention to her, including private sessions, gifts of mangoes, and a birthday party where he gave her a paper crown.^[88] The Maharishi celebrated Harrison's 25th birthday, on 25 February, with a cake and a display of fireworks.^[64] He gave Harrison an upside-down plastic globe of the world and saying, "George, the globe I am giving you symbolizes the world today. I hope you will help us all in the task of putting it right". Harrison immediately turned the globe to its correct position, shouting, "I've done it!"^[89] (Harrison often jokingly referred to the Maharishi as "The Big M").^[90] On 8 April, the Maharishi gave an Indian prince's outfit to the Lennons for their son in England on his birthday.^[91][35] McCartney was uncomfortable with the Maharishi's flattery, including calling the band "the blessed leaders of the world's youth".^[41] Cooke de Herrera, a long-time follower, complained that the Maharishi doted on his celebrity students.^[92]

An aviation company owner and patron of the Maharishi's, Kershi Cambata (K.S. Khambatta), flew two helicopters to Rishikesh to take the Maharishi and his guests for rides,^[93] for the publicity value,^[94] even though the flights required the transportation of fuel by truck to Rishikesh.^[94] Newspaper and newsreel reporters covered the event. McCartney remembered Lennon as being extremely eager to be the first to fly with the Maharishi in a helicopter, and after they landed McCartney questioned Lennon about his enthusiasm. Lennon replied, "I thought he'd slip me the answer".^[95] On another occasion, an Italian newsreel company filmed the Maharishi and many students, including the band and other musicians, going down to the river while the musicians sang standards such as "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "You Are My Sunshine".^[96] One evening, when the moon was full, the Maharishi arranged for everyone to cruise on the Ganges in two barges. The trip started with the chanting of Vedas by two pandits, but soon the musicians brought out their instruments. The Beatles sang Donovan's songs, Love and Donovan sang Beatles' songs, and Horn "really wailed".^[97][98]

Early departures[link]

Starr's wife had an aversion to insects:^[99] spiders, mosquitoes, and the swarms of flies that were ever-present in the ashram,^[100] so he complained to the Maharishi, but was told: "For people travelling in the realm of pure consciousness, flies no longer matter very much". Starr replied, "Yes, but that doesn't zap the flies, does it?"^[90] The Starrs left India on 1 March, saying the unfamiliar food was not to their liking, and that they were missing their children.^[39][101] Starr later compared the ashram to "a kind of spiritual Butlins" (a low-cost British holiday camp).^[102][103] Their departure was per schedule by one account,^[104] but premature by others. McCartney and Asher departed in mid- to late-March^[105] as he needed to get back to London to supervise Apple Corps and she had a theatrical commitment.^[106] When he left he told another student, "I'm a new man".^[106]

Mia Farrow, who had come and gone from the ashram before, left again and drifted around India before returning to the United States. Geoffrey Giuliano in Revolver: The Secret History of the Beatles says that, before leaving, she told The Beatles that the Maharishi had made a pass at her.^[107] Ned Wynn, one of Farrow's childhood friends, wrote in his 1990 memoir that she had told him in the early 1970s that the Maharishi had definitely made sexual passes at her.^[108] In her 1993 autobiography, Cooke de Herrera wrote that Farrow had confided to her, before the arrival of The Beatles, that the Maharishi had made a pass during a private puja ceremony. Cooke de Herrera's opinion was that Farrow was probably mistaken about the encounter.^[109] Farrow's 1997 memoirs are ambiguous, describing an encounter with the Maharishi in his private meditation 'cave' when he tried to put his arms around her. She reports that her sister said she was confused about the matter.^[88]

Alex Mardas arrived after McCartney left,^[110] either at Lennon's invitation or on his own initiative.^[82][59] Mardas, who might not have been an active meditator, obtained alcohol which he gave to the musician's partners.^[63][111] He pointed to the luxury of the facility and noted the business acumen of the Maharishi.^[112] During one of their frequent walks through the woods, Mardas asked Lennon about why the Maharishi always had an accountant by his side.^[39] When Mardas questioned the Maharishi, he says the Maharishi offered him money to build a high-powered radio station.^[113][114] Writers such as Barry Miles and Cooke de Herrera have blamed Mardas for turning Lennon against the Maharishi,^[115][109] which he has vigorously denied.^[110][116]

Tensions[link]

Money, sex, and drugs were sources of tension between the Maharishi and The Beatles. Aspinall was surprised when he realised the Maharishi was a sophisticated negotiator, knowing more than the average person about financial percentages.^[117] Evans told Saltzman that the Maharishi wanted the band to deposit up to 25% of their next album's profits in his Swiss bank account as a tithe, to which Lennon replied, "Over my dead body".^[118][119] Lennon later told his wife that he felt that the Maharishi had, in her words, "too much interest in public recognition, celebrities and money" for a spiritual man.^[120] According to her sister, Patti Boyd had a dream in which "the Maharishi wasn't what he seemed".^[15]

Some of the negotiations concerned conflicting deals over a film about the Maharishi. One project involved Four Star Films and Bliss Productions, a company run by Charles Lutes who was the head of the Maharishi's Spiritual Regeneration Movement in the US.^[121] It was negotiated by Horn and John Farrow was scheduled to direct.^[98] It was hoped that The Beatles would appear in it, but the contract was signed without their commitment. That deal conflicted with a different movie deal being negotiated with The Beatles,^[122] who were bound by a contract with United Artists. When the film crew from Four Star arrived on or before 11 April, Harrison and Lennon stayed out of sight. Cooke de Herrera considered the presence of the crew, and Lutes and his lawyer, to have precipitated the sudden departure of Harrison and Lennon,^[123] and Horn said it was the catalyst for their discontent.^[124]