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 Beatles' denunciation of drugs in favour of TM and received widespread media attention. The band's interest in the Maharishi's teachings was led by George Harrison's commitment.; ; . The visit influenced Western attitudes about Indian spirituality and encouraged the study of TM. It 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 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 had 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.
Background
The Beatles attended Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation (TM) seminar in Bangor in Wales, but their stay was cut short on 27 August 1967 after they learned that their manager, Brian Epstein, had been found dead in his London home. Eager to explore meditation further, the Beatles made plans to travel to the Maharishi's training centre in Rishikesh, India, in late October. At Paul McCartney's urging, they postponed the trip until the new year to work on their Magical Mystery Tour film project, since he was concerned that, with the loss of Epstein, the band should first focus on their career. George Harrison and John Lennon, the two most committed to the Maharishi's teachings, appeared twice on David Frost's television program in autumn 1967 to espouse the benefits of TM.
Now publicised as "the Beatles' Guru", the Maharishi went on his eighth world tour, giving lectures in Britain, Scandinavia, West Germany, Italy, Canada and California. Harrison introduced Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys to the Maharishi when he and Lennon joined their teacher at a UNICEF benefit in Paris in December. Wilson's bandmate Mike Love described the private lecture the Maharishi gave beforehand as "awe-inspiring" and "the most profound experience I'd ever felt". Having long shared Harrison's interest in meditation and Indian religious texts, Scottish singer Donovan also recognised the Maharishi as the "guide" they had been searching for.
The Maharishi received considerable media coverage in the West, particularly the United States, where Life devoted a cover article to TM and declared 1968 the "Year of the Guru". The mainstream press remained largely suspicious of the Maharishi's motives, however; the British satirical magazine Private Eye nicknamed him "Veririchi Lotsamoney Yogi Bear". Lennon defended the Maharishi's requirement that his students donate a week's wages to his organisation, the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, saying that it was "the fairest thing I've heard of". Lennon added: "So what if he's commercial? We're the most commercial group in the world!" The Beatles were nevertheless concerned that the Maharishi appeared to be using their name for self-promotion. According to Peter Brown, who temporarily assumed Epstein's role following his death, the Maharishi was negotiating with ABC in the US to make a television special featuring the band. In an effort to stop him, Brown twice visited the Maharishi in Malmö, Sweden – on the second occasion with Harrison and McCartney – only for him to "giggle" in response. In Brown's description, Harrison defended their teacher, saying: "He's not a modern man. He just doesn't understand these things."
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. The group spent a week in the studio, recording songs for a single that would be released while they were away on their spiritual retreat. The B-side, Harrison's "The Inner Light", was mostly recorded in Bombay and featured Indian instrumentation and lyrics espousing meditation as a means to genuine understanding of the world. Although it remained unreleased until late 1969, Lennon's "Across the Universe" contained the refrain "Jai Guru Deva", a standard greeting in the Spiritual Regeneration Movement. Aside from the celebrity musicians who now endorsed TM, the Maharishi had gained the support of American film star Mia Farrow while in New York City. In late January, amid the publicity surrounding her separation from her husband, Frank Sinatra, Farrow accompanied the Maharishi to India in advance of the Beatles' departure from London.
Arrivals
The Beatles and their entourage travelled to Rishikesh in two groups. Lennon and his wife, Cynthia, Harrison and his wife, Pattie Boyd, and Boyd's sister Jenny arrived in Delhi on 15 February. They were met by Mal Evans, their longtime assistant and former road manager, who had arranged the , six-hour taxi drive to Rishikesh. Once there, the party walked across the Lakshman Jhula footbridge, over the River Ganges, and up the hill to the Maharishi's ashram. McCartney and his girlfriend Jane Asher and Ringo Starr and his wife Maureen landed in Delhi on 19 February. Since the press were expecting McCartney and Starr's party after the first group's arrival, they were subjected to constant attention. As soon as Starr arrived, he asked Evans to take him to a doctor because of a reaction to an inoculation. As a result, Starr, McCartney and their partners stayed overnight in Delhi and travelled to Rishikesh with Evans early on 20 February.
The Beatles arrived at the ashram three weeks into the course, which was due to end on 25 April. They were followed by a retinue of reporters and photographers, who were mostly kept out of the fenced and gated compound. Evans and Beatles aide Neil Aspinall were there for much of the time. Alexis "Magic Alex" Mardas, the Greek electronics engineer who had been among the first to recommend the Maharishi to the band in 1967, arrived four weeks later. Denis O'Dell, the head of the Beatles' company Apple Films, also joined them for a brief time. In his memoir The Love You Make, Brown says that he only learned of the Beatles' intention to leave for India that same month, even though he and the band were committed to launching their multimedia company Apple Corps. He adds: "The mastery of Transcendental Meditation, they hoped, would give them the wisdom to run Apple."
Also there were Donovan, songwriter and sculptor Gyp "Gypsy Dave" Mills, Mike Love, jazz flautist Paul Horn, actors Tom Simcox and Jerry Stovin, and dozens of others, all Europeans or Americans. Farrow was joined by her sister, Prudence, and their brother John. American socialite Nancy Cooke de Herrera was also present, in her role as the Maharishi's publicist and confidant. A lifelong devotee to TM and subsequently an instructor to many celebrities,Associated Press (4 March 2013). "Meditation teacher Nancy Cooke de Herrera dies". Newsday. Retrieved 14 January 2018. Cooke de Herrara later wrote that the Maharishi gave "special attention" to the celebrity meditators, which she feared would feed their egos and be detrimental to the experience. Although members of the press were barred from the ashram, journalist Lewis Lapham was granted access to write a feature article on the retreat for The Saturday Evening Post. Paul Saltzman, a young Canadian filmmaker travelling in India, camped outside the compound until he was invited in and welcomed into the Beatles' circle.Thrope, Vanessa (21 January 2018). "Revealed: Lucky break that led lovelorn traveller to a fling in India with the Beatles". The Observer/theguardian.com. Retrieved 9 April 2018. Despite speculation, Shirley MacLaine did not attend the retreat, and Lennon decided against bringing his artist friend Yoko Ono.
Facility
Located in the "Valley of the Saints" in the foothills of the Himalayas, Rishikesh is a place of religious significance, known as the "yoga capital of the world". The Maharishi's International Academy of Meditation, also called the Chaurasi Kutia ashram, was a compound surrounded by jungle set across the Ganges from the town, above the river. The facility was designed to suit Western habits; Starr later compared the ashram to "a kind of spiritual Butlins" (a low-cost British holiday camp). The Beatles' bungalows were equipped with electric heaters, running water, toilets, and English-style furniture. According to Cooke de Herrera, the Maharishi obtained many "special items" from a nearby village so that the Beatles' rooms would have mirrors, wall-to-wall carpeting, wall coverings, foam mattresses and bedspreads. She wrote that, compared to the other students' bungalows, the Beatles' cottages "looked like a palace". In Cynthia Lennon's description, her and her husband's bedroom contained a four-poster bed, a dressing table, two chairs and an electric heater.
Evans recalled there were around 40 staff, including cooks, cleaners, a joiner, and a full printing department. One of the Maharishi's aides, Ravindra Damodara, who later became a swami himself, kept a diary of this period at the ashram. For the Beatles' stay, according to Damodara, four small stone-covered buildings had been constructed along the path from the main centre down to the ashram gates. These dome-shaped rooms included a raised platform, accessed by ladder, on which each Beatle could engage in advanced meditation. The Maharishi's accommodation was a long, modern-style bungalow located away from the other buildings.