The Beatles in India
In February 1968, the English rock band the Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in northern India to take part in a Transcendental Meditation (TM) training course at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The visit followed the group's denunciation of drugs in favour of TM[1] and received widespread media attention. The band's interest in the Maharishi's teachings was led by George Harrison's commitment,[2][3] and it changed Western attitudes about Indian spirituality and encouraged the study of Transcendental Meditation.[4] The visit was also the most productive period for the Beatles' songwriting.
The Beatles had intended to join the Maharishi in India soon after attending his seminar in Bangor, Wales in late August 1967. Their attendance at the seminar was cut short by the death of their manager Brian Epstein, after which they committed to making the television film Magical Mystery Tour. Harrison and John Lennon were convinced of the merits of TM and became spokesmen for the Maharishi's Spiritual Regeneration Movement, as he gained international prominence as the guru to the Beatles. The band members arrived in India in mid-February 1968, along with their wives, girlfriends, assistants, and numerous reporters. They joined a group of 60 training to be TM teachers; among the other celebrity meditators were musicians Donovan, Mike Love and Paul Horn, and actress Mia Farrow. While there, Lennon, Paul McCartney and Harrison wrote many songs, and Ringo Starr finished writing his first. Eighteen were recorded for The Beatles ("the White Album"), two others appeared on the Abbey Road album, and others were used for various solo projects.
The retreat and the discipline required for meditation were met with varying degrees of commitment from the individual Beatles. Starr left on 1 March, after ten days; McCartney left later in March to attend to business concerns. Harrison and Lennon departed abruptly on 12 April following rumours of the Maharishi's inappropriate behaviour towards Farrow and another of his female students. The divisive influence of the Beatles' Greek friend Alexis Mardas, financial disagreements, and suspicions that their teacher was taking advantage of the band's fame have also been cited by biographers and witnesses.
The Beatles' denunciation of the Maharishi was detrimental to his reputation in the West, while their return from Rishikesh exposed differences that anticipated the group's break-up in 1970. Harrison later apologised for the way that he and Lennon treated the Maharishi; like many of the students at the ashram, he acknowledged that allegations concerning the Maharishi's inappropriate behaviour were untrue. Harrison gave a benefit concert in 1992 for the Maharishi-associated Natural Law Party. In 2009, McCartney and Starr performed at a benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation, which raises funds for teaching TM to at-risk students. As a result of continued interest in the Beatles' 1968 retreat, the abandoned ashram was opened to the public in 2015 and has since been renamed Beatles Ashram.
Tensions[edit]
Business arrangements and Mardas' arrival[edit]
According to Gould, Lennon and Harrison viewed their bandmates' departures as an example of McCartney and Starr "once again balking on the path to higher consciousness", just as the pair, particularly McCartney, had earlier held out before joining them in their LSD experimentation.[190] While Harrison and Lennon remained steadfast in their devotion to meditation, some members of the Beatles' circle continued to be distrustful of the Maharishi's hold on them.[191] Aspinall was surprised when he realised that the Maharishi was a sophisticated negotiator, knowing more than the average person about financial percentages.[191] According to Saltzman, Evans told him that the Maharishi wanted the band to deposit up to 25 per cent of their next album's profits into his Swiss bank account as a tithe, to which Lennon replied, "Over my dead body."[192][193] In Brown's account, Lennon was not opposed to paying the tithe until Alex Mardas, the Maharishi's "most powerful critic", intervened.[191]
Mardas arrived after McCartney had left.[194] He pointed to the luxury of the facility and the business acumen of the Maharishi[195] and asked Lennon why the Maharishi always had an accountant by his side.[40] Mardas also derided the characters of the non-celebrity meditators and was highly critical of the way the Beatles had been assembled for the "class photo" and the promotion of the Maharishi's movement.[191] In an attempt to silence his criticism, according to Mardas, the Maharishi offered him money to build a high-powered radio station.[191] 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.[196] Cynthia Lennon, Cooke de Herrera, and author and Beatles associate Barry Miles have blamed Mardas for turning Lennon against the Maharishi.[197][198] Miles writes that Mardas feared for his status as Lennon's personal guru, and set about sabotaging the relationship between the Beatles and the Maharishi.[199] In a statement published in The New York Times in 2010, Mardas denied that this was the case.[194][200]
Competing documentary film proposals[edit]
Before leaving London in February, the Beatles had considered making a documentary film about the Maharishi through Apple Films.[26][44] The idea gained traction once they got to the ashram, which led to their summoning Denis O'Dell to Rishikesh.[44] Together with Aspinall, he flew to India intent on dissuading the Beatles from making the film.[44][201][nb 14] According to Cooke de Herrera, the Maharishi gave the Beatles and Apple the rights for a film about him, his movement and his teacher, Guru Dev.[203] Joe Massot, who had directed Wonderwall, said that Harrison phoned him from India inviting him to participate in the project.[204] However, Charles Lutes, the head of the Spiritual Regeneration Movement in the US, had already arranged with the Maharishi to produce a similar documentary, with Horn. In early April, Lutes arrived at the ashram to ensure that his venture was not jeopardised by the Beatles' interest.[205] He signed a contract with Four Star Films and John Farrow was scheduled to direct the film.[169] Horn expected that Donovan, the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Mia Farrow would appear in it.[206]
According to Mike Dolan, another of the TM students, when a film crew from Lutes' company Bliss Productions arrived later in April, Lennon and Harrison "were more than a little pissed" and made a point of staying out of sight.[207] Horn said that the arrival of the film crew was the catalyst for the discontent that resulted in the last two Beatles' premature departure from Rishikesh.[208] In Massot's recollection, the crew was led by producer Gene Corman, who subsequently pleaded with Massot to use his influence with Harrison and Lennon to ensure the Beatles' participation.[204] Cooke de Herrera also felt that the Four Star deal and the presence of the film crew was the reason for the sudden departure.[209]
Lennon and Harrison's departure[edit]
On the night of 11–12 April, Lennon, Harrison and Mardas sat up late discussing the Maharishi and decided to leave the next morning.[176][238] In Brown's description, they argued, and Harrison was "furious" at Mardas' actions and did not believe "a word" of the allegations.[239] In the morning, the Beatles and their wives left hurriedly,[239][240] while Mardas went to Dehradun to find taxis.[195] Lennon was chosen to speak to the Maharishi.[239]
Lennon described the exchange in a highly emotional December 1970 interview with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone, which was later published as the book Lennon Remembers.[241] When the Maharishi asked why they were leaving, Lennon replied, "If you're so cosmic, you'll know why."[242][243] Lennon recalled that his mind was made up when the Maharishi gave him a murderous look in response.[243][244] Lennon said he was "a bit rough to him" and the Maharishi responded by saying, "I don't know why, you must tell me."[245][246] According to Mardas' 2010 statement: "John Lennon and I went to the Maharishi about what had happened ... he asked the Maharishi to explain himself"; and the Maharishi answered Lennon's accusation by saying, "I am only human."[194] With regard to his own position, Harrison said that he had already told the Maharishi that he would be leaving before the course relocated to Kashmir, because he was due to participate in the filming of Raga, a documentary about Ravi Shankar, in the south of India.[245] According to Harrison's account of his and Lennon's final conversation with the Maharishi, in the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology, Harrison reminded him of the plan to join Shankar, but the Maharishi was unable to accept it. Harrison added: "That's when John said something like, 'Well, you're supposed to be the mystic, you should know.'"[230]
While waiting for their taxis,[247] Lennon wrote "Maharishi" (later retitled "Sexy Sadie"), in which he sang: "Maharishi – what have you done? / You made a fool of everyone."[248][249][nb 20] In a 1974 interview, Lennon said that they were convinced that the delay in the taxis' arrival was orchestrated by locals loyal to the Maharishi, and this paranoia was exacerbated by the presence of "the mad Greek".[201] According to Cynthia Lennon, when the group finally left the ashram, the Maharishi looked "very biblical and isolated in his faith".[244][251] Jenny Boyd later wrote: "Poor Maharishi. I remember him standing at the gate of the ashram, under an aide's umbrella, as the Beatles filed by, out of his life. 'Wait,' he cried. 'Talk to me.' But no one listened."[215][252]
After leaving Rishikesh, the taxis repeatedly broke down, leading the Beatles to wonder if the Maharishi had placed a curse on them.[253] The car that the Lennons were in suffered a flat tyre and the driver left them, apparently to find a replacement tyre, but did not return for hours. After it grew dark, the couple hitched a ride to Delhi.[248] They then took the first available flight back to London, during which Lennon drunkenly recounted a litany of his numerous infidelities to Cynthia.[254] Harrison was not ready to return to London and face running Apple and the band's other commitments. In her autobiography, Boyd writes: "Instead, we went to see Ravi Shankar and lost ourselves in his music."[213] Harrison said when he got dysentery in Madras that he thought it might have been due to a spell cast by the Maharishi, but he recovered after Shankar gave him some amulets.[252][nb 21]
The Beatles wrote many songs during their visit to Rishikesh: 30 by one count,[313] 48 by another.[149][314] Lennon said: "We wrote about thirty new songs between us. Paul must have done about a dozen. George says he's got six, and I wrote fifteen. And look what meditation did for Ringo – after all this time he wrote his first song."[315] Many of the songs became a part of The Beatles double album, while others appeared on Abbey Road in 1969 or on solo records.[316]
Released on The Beatles:
Released on Abbey Road:
Released on solo albums, and others: