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You deny existence of my soul
Much too long I've worn these chains
Much too long I've borne the pain
I hear the voice of my pride in the rage
Much too long it's been in its grave
So look out, here I come
Look out till you know that I'm the only one
Look out, here I come
Look out till you know that I'm the only one
Won't let grass grow under me No long and distant memory
So look out Look out, here I come now
ENGLAND 1942
My family lived in Am old Grove in the 1940s.
The Liverpool Blitz was terrifying,
and I will never forget as a child the drone of sirens and the approaching bombers.
ARNOLD GROVE UNADOPTED
The Grove was a really neighbourly place
and we were always in and out of each other's homes.
What, for me, was strange, was the music coming from the house at number 12.
The home of the Harrison family.
George's mother Louise loved to listen to Indian music on the radio.
I'm told that it helped to keep her calm and relaxed during her pregnancy.
When I first heard Indian music,
I just couldn't really believe that it was so... so great.
And the more I heard of it, the more I liked it,
and it just got bigger and bigger like a snowball.
THE BEATLES AND INDIA
One day the telephone rang, and my father always answered it.
He had a particular sort of authentic Indian accent.
SHANKARA ANGADI Asian Music Circle
His Indian accent had remained unchanged in all the forty years he'd been here,
and he was shouting down the telephone, "Ringo who? Ringo who?"
And apparently it was because
Ringo was on the other end of the line
asking my father whether he had a spare sitar string.
The return of the heroes to their native land.
They conquered the colonies.
The Beatles, who originated as a small-time act out of Liverpool,
now have no rivals as the kingpins of the teenage set.
The group have certainly turned Liverpool
into Britain's answer to any pop trends from across the Atlantic.
On every sign...
ELVIS IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE BEATLES
WE LOVE YOU NEVER LEAVE US
...there is hero-worship that recalls the heydays of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Beatlemania has ceased to be a phenomenon and seems to have become a way of life.
My father had never heard of the Beatles,
so he knew nothing about anything European or popular,
but what happened was that they'd broken a sitar string
while George was recording Norwegian Wood in Abbey Road Studio.
EMI knew my father because he was often the person
they came to when they required a group of musicians,
so when the string broke, they phoned my father and he did have one.
Amazingly he did have a set of sitar strings.
So the whole family got in a tiny little car
and they all drove to carry one string to Abbey Road
and there they handed it over and they watched them recording.
It started with Indian music.
I like so many Indian instruments, but mainly sitar,
and I'd used a little sitar on our records.
The Beatles had already discovered Indian music,
I think, when they were making Help!...
on THURSDAY 29th JULY 1965 at 8.30 pm THE BEATLES HELP!
...which is of course the story of a mystic, Eastern religious group
and they are after Ringo Starr's ring.
SIDHARTH BHATIA Author I India Psychedelic
So they had already discovered,
and there's that famous scene about them going into a restaurant.
On the set of Help!,
a sitar was used in a little group that's playing in the restaurant.
George picked it up and was playing with it...
STEVE TURNER Author I The Complete Beatles Songs
...and he sort of got interested in the sitar because of that.
It was a very inappropriate film for most Indians
because that film really lived up to all of the stereotypes about India,
about a bloodthirsty thug cult.
AJOY BOSE Author I Across the Universe
The goddess which was named as Kaili was really based on a real goddess,
the Kali goddess, and Hindus are very reverential to her.
So the whole film would be offending a lot of Indians.
And then there was this book on yoga.
While they're on shoot in the Bahamas,
they suddenly come across this very diminutive yogi,
who cycles up to where they are and distributes this book.
BOOK OF YOGA SWAMI VISHNUDEVANANDA
This is VISHNUDEVANANDA, the first illustrated book on yoga
that went across the West,
but I don't think the Beatles paid him much attention.
I think much later they thought back,
and there was this very mysterious connection.
The palace of the Queen has lived through many historic events,
and it's our privilege today to witness one of the most earth-shaking,
The Beatles.
Fresh from an audience with the Queen,
they hold medals indicating they have been made members of
The Most Excellent Order of The British Empire.
The Beatles, of course, have proven to be one of Britain's prime exports.
They have brought in more foreign exchange than many industries
and the Queen saw fit to reward their economic contribution to the nation.
The award entitles the Beatles to put the letters MBE after their names.
That was the most miserable time of our lives, was the MBE cop-out period.
We got an MBE, which is one of the biggest jokes
in the history of this island, probably.
The great cavalcade of Empire makes a grand spectacle.
One of the smallest countries on the map
is responsible for the mightiest Commonwealth of nations in history.
India was always in British lives because of the Empire.
We knew about the tea and we knew about rubber,
but the idea of its music being in any way
an influence on anything from this country was simply not considered.
MARK LEWISOHN Author & Historian
From the music that I play to get better and better musicians
generally in the West progress into, say, modern jazz.
When I first heard Indian music, there was so much more freedom
and there was so much more in it compared to jazz,
and I just couldn't really believe that it was so, so great.
And then I just started to listen to it more and more
and to try and listen a bit closer, and the more I heard of it, the more I liked it.
DELHI, 6 JULY 1966 The Beatles First Visit To India
My mother meets the Beatles in India way before I'm even born.
I think she, by virtue of being in the Hindustan Times at that point...
BARKHA DUTT Journalist
...being a pre-eminent journalist, being a chief reporter,
got the opportunity but didn't really see, my God, the magic of that moment.
And then I'm always asked,
"What's the one thing about your mother that you really wished you would do?"
And she's been India's first woman war correspondent,
she's done all kinds of crazy trailblazing things,
and I always look at this photograph and I say,
"My God! I wish I had been that person sitting between John and Paul!"
This is the first time the Beatles had, as a group, come to India.
And they symbolised to us, not just a new kind of music,
it was almost like symbolising a new kind of life.
They represented the whole '60s to us.
When I heard they were in Delhi...
KABIR BEDI Actor
...I went to the Oberoi intercontinental and I sat in the lobby
and everyone was circling all of the different entrances of the hotel
waiting for The Beatles to come in via the kitchen entrance or various ways.
I sat near the lift and I waited for Brian Epstein to emerge
because I knew he was their manager.
And sure enough, after a few hours of waiting,
I saw him come down and I sidled up to him
and I said, "Excuse me, Mr Epstein. I am from All India Radio
"and the government has scheduled an interview with The Beatles."
And he stopped in his tracks and said to me,
"How dare you! The boys will not give an interview! How dare you!"
I said, "Sir, I'm just conveying the decision of the government
"because it seems to have been announced
"and it would be very embarrassing if this didn't happen.”
"I will not permit this!" he said.
"Well, I will give the interview!"
I said, "Good enough for me, sir. You're Brian Epstein, good enough for me."
Is there going to be any change in the sort of work that they do?
Possibly. As I've said before, there's no dynamic or important change,
but the Beatles have always progressed. And to progress, you have to change.
At 7:00, 1 go up in the lift, I get out and I walk to the end of the corridor.
I knock, and there is Brian Epstein in a bathrobe, sweating.
He emerges, walks me across the length of the hotel,
opens the suite door on the other side of the floor,
and there I was, in with the Beatles, all four of them.
I asked them what they were doing
and they said they had an album coming out in a month's time.
George Harrison mentioned that he had an Indian influence in one of the songs,
which turned out to be Love You To,
and Paul mentioned that he had a classical arrangement behind one of the songs,
which I think must have been Eleanor Rigby.
Even then, there were going to be Indian influences in their songs.
I personally hope that there will be more Indian influences in just, generally,
in any music because it's worth it, it's very good music.
I'd just like to see it more popular, more people appreciating it.
It was the 6th of July, 1966. Some foreigners came.
They never knew what the name of the person were...
JASPAL SINGH Owner Lahore Music Store, Delhi
...but they were interested in buying some sitars,
harmoniums and tablas and sarod, and that's all.
A huge crowd assembled here outside,
looking at the new face of the English people,
like their big hair and all that. It was a craze.
My father and uncle went to the hotel
and showed instruments and later on gave a lesson to George Harrison especially.
After the Beatles, there was a big craze for sitars, tablas and other instruments.
In a day, in a month, we were selling sitars like hot cakes.
RIKHI RAM Musical Instrument Mfg. Co.
The famous Beatles...
FROM: BEATLES C/O OBEROI INTER CONTINENTAL HOTEL
NEW_DELHI. (INDIA) JULY 7, 1966.
...they came in 1966 to our store. They were dressed very differently,
so that the people there could not recognise them.
AJAY SHARMA Owner RIKHI Ram Shop, Delhi
And they walked into the store
and they started talking about Indian musical instruments,
especially the sitar, the tanpura, the sarod, and also the tabla.
And he was a good sitar player, my father.
And he was showing them how to play it and how the finger movements are,
how to coordinate both left and right hand
and, you know, and how to strike the strings,
how to pluck the strings.
They asked him whom he learned the sitar from,
so he said Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Thank you.
Ravi Shankar, as I see it, was really the first ambassador for all musicians,
artists, singers, dancers from India to the West.
Over the last few years, I heard the name of Ravi Shankar mentioned.
A good friend of mine told me to buy a record, which I did.
This was the first time I'd ever heard Indian music properly.
But when I first heard it, I couldn't believe it really.
He's also been turned on to Ravi Shankar by,
like, David Crosby and Roger McGuinn from The Byrds.
Because Ravi Shankar had appealed to the sort of, the Beat Generation,
going back to the '50s actually. It was all part of that kind of ambience.
I'm sure you must have been asked this lots of times before,
but what's your opinion of sort of English pop groups...
A WHOLE SCENE GOING | 8 JUNE 1966 Keith Relf | The Yardbirds
...and American pop groups using sitar and the Indian influence in their records?
It will make me very happy if I see that some people take true interest
and learn properly.
JEFF BECK The Yardbirds
Because after having played the sitar for 36 years,
I feel that one has to give some time to it.
Indeed.
My father and my mother were running the Asian Music Circle.
ASIAN MUSIC CIRCLE QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL
My father was quite successful...
International President: Yehudi Menuhin presents Two Great Dance-Dramas (Ballets)
...at getting musicians to come to this country...
Further information from Director, AM.C., MR AYANA DEVA ANGADI
...and he put on concerts for them. It was very much for erudite English people.
Intellectuals, who knew about Indian music.
Yehudi Menuhin, amazing man.
He was the president of the Asian Music Circle
and I think it was through him that Ravi Shankar first came.
And George was fascinated by our family
and so he was invited round to spend the afternoon,
and I think he came round for lunch.
PATTIE was there as well.
And then George came quite regularly.
Eventually I said, "If we could get Ravi free at a time when George was free,
"we would invite them both together
"and introduce them and see whether they got on."
And the doorbell rang and I rushed to the door, and it wasn't George, it was Paul.
And Paul said, "I'm Paul McCartney," and I said, "I know!"
And he came in, and a little while after that, I think George arrived next.
Finally, we met very nicely at somebody's house having dinner.
We met just as two people, instead of being a big publicity gimmick.
Ravi came in and we just said, "Ravi, this is George. George, this is Ravi."
And we had a dinner there. We just ate and talked.
Paul was a little bit on the outside, actually,
looking a little bit bored, smoking like a chimney.
My young sister went around collecting the cigarette butts
to take to school the next day, the used cigarette butts.
And from then he offered to give me,
to start me off on sitar with a few lessons, which he did.
He had many students in India, very talented musicians.
So to try to explain what drew...
VIVEK BHARAT RAM Ravi Shankar Disciple
...George and Ravi Shankar together is not easy, because it defied logic.
When George Harrison came to me, I didn't know what to think.
But I found he really wanted to learn.
I never thought our meeting would cause such an explosion.
That Indian music would suddenly appear on the pop scene.
George said, "I want to learn the sitar," and Ravi Ji said, "Yes, I can teach you...
VINAY & ARUN BHARAT RAM Ravi Shankar Disciples
"...but it's a very difficult instrument to learn and you will have to spend
"a lot of time and your fingers will hurt.
"It's going to be a difficult thing for you to do.
"But I want you to come to India and I will teach you over there."
So when Ravi invited George and me, I was thrilled to be going.
PATTIE BOYD
You know, at 22, I hadn't really thought much about it.
I thought of the King's Road and, you know, clothes.
And we started off in Mumbai.
Ravi took us to concerts, private concerts, that he gave in people's houses
and then bigger concerts in front of his students.
George Harrison came with his wife, September 1966.
You know, Pandit Ravi Shankar picks him up, he takes him to the Taj Hotel,
and within about four hours, the whole of the Apollo Bunder and the Ta;...
FALI SINGARA All India Radio
...it was just filled with people and media and fans just coming and shouting,
"George! George! George!"
So finally, George just got fed up and he told Pandit, "Let's give a press conference.
"Let's go and talk to the press."
So, of course, Pandit Ravi Shankar
was the music director of All India Radio for many years...
TALKS STUDIO 1
...50 he said, "Let's go and do a radio interview."
Studio 1. This is where Pandit Ravi Shankar and George Harrison did an interview.
So we searched for it and we actually opened quite a few spools,
dusty spools lying in the side of a corner, and then we found George Harrison,
there was a paper inside that said "George Harrison interview".
The tape hadn't been played in maybe 30 years.
Good afternoon, George.
Good afternoon.
We'd like to know from you. Do you think you could not make a public appearance?
If I did want to make a public appearance, I would have come here to do a show
and I would've come with John, and Paul, and Ringo.
It's just like all our fans who go to school during the week.
Well, if they go on their holidays
and suddenly somebody is making them learn maths
and learn English and learn all this,
then they don't like to do that when it's their holiday.
It's the same for me. I go around having me photograph taken
and signing autographs and waving at people and being a Beatle,
and when it comes to my holiday,
then naturally, I want to not be a Beatle, I want to be me.
When I was 19, I went to India.
PAT REKHI Beatle Fan
My aunt greeted me at the airport and promptly said,
"Do you know that George Harrison is staying at the hotel?"
Beatle Fans Storm Hotel As George Meets Press
We asked around...
"What do they want?" he burst out. "I am not God!"
...you know, "Where's Mr Harrison?" And we weren't told.
"They will do anything to see me," he said with the air of a martyr.
And we then hopped onto the elevator and we started going to floors
and then eventually there was one floor
where there was a waiter standing outside a room
and I don't really know what made me do it...
RAVI SHANKAR SUITE AT THE TAJ MAHAL PALACE MUMBAI
...but I sort of hobbled in
and George Harrison asked what I was doing there
and I just said, "I would like your autograph, Mr Harrison,"
and he said... You know, he wasn't too happy about me being there.
I also said to him he had numerous fans outside the hotel, and his words were,
which I've never, ever forgotten,
"Tell your friends if they like me, to keep away from me."
Which I thought was rather nasty, but I needed the autograph.
To Patsy - love from George Harrison xx
Everything that Ravi had shown us and told us about and introduced us to made an impact.
He took us to the Ellora Caves, fascinating.
And we went to Benares, Varanasi.
Benares was unbelievable, because we came by boat,
and Ravi had explained to us the whole reason for people coming to Benares to die,
and they would request that they be burned and I was fascinated by this.
The pyres and the family of the wife or the husband taking it into the Ganges
and letting the ashes float away.
So, Agra, we went to the Taj Mahal, beautiful.
I love the story surrounding it.
It was more exquisite than I could ever have described to anyone.
And then...
KUMBH MELA PILGRIMAGE
...towards the end of our trip, KUMBH MELA.
There were all these sadhus walking down the road and I said,
"Ravi, what are they doing, where are they going?"
He said, "They walk hundreds of miles to come to this KUMBH MELA."
And I was just watching this spectacle
and all these people and families and groups of sadhus.
All of India, it seemed.
He also told us about Indian culture and spirituality.
Ravi took us to meet his spiritual guru.
This man was over 100, and obviously,
we didn't know what they were saying, but it wasn't very many words.
Ravi was very reverential towards his guru.
Throughout my life, I look to the great Yogi Tat Maharaj, my spiritual guru.
As a Hindu, I believe the blessing of guru is the most priceless thing in life.
It was very moving for me to see somebody as powerful as Ravi,
George adored him, and here he was humbled in front of his guru.
Ravi Ji said that "There was something that I found in George,
"where he was so simple, so down-to-earth.
"He looked upon me like a guru, like a father,
"and he had absolutely no airs about him."
And that is something that we also observed...
That's true.
...when he came to our home.
He was absolutely a simple person, not demanding anything.
I haven't learned to play the sitar.
Ravi Shankar hasn't learned to play it and he's been playing it 35 years.
He was not a star sitar player or a star musician,
but I've not seen Ravi Ji have so much time for someone.
This association, this link,
I can only explain it that they must have had some links in a previous life
that brought them together.
When George and me got connected
in '66, it was like wildfire, you know?
He's like a son to me. Something.
Sometimes I feel like his dad, as well, though!
He can be...
George Harrison. He loved India.
PANDIT SHIVKUMAR SHARMA San to or Maestro
He loved Indian music. He loved Indian spirituality.
So this thing, you know, pushed Indian classical music on the top.
You know, fusion, we can call it. Western and Indian classical music.
And that was the biggest fusion ever happened.
WONDERWALL THE MOVIE
7 JANUARY 1968
And then Harrison came here to record WONDERWALL
with Indian classical musicians.
MAHARAJAH AIR-INDIA
He was interested in meeting local musicians.
The Beatles used the sitars in their records.
Somehow we were able to imagine the Beatles...
NARESH FERNANDES Author & Journalist
...as our band, as an Indian band.
You know, India was a closed society and a closed economy.
And it was not very easy to get your hands on albums.
In 1962, or very early '63, on the international shortwave,
a group of people...
ENTERTAINMENT AT YOUR FINGER TIPS! RADIO CEYLON
...in Bangalore heard their music
and said, "Hey, wait a minute! This is very different."
What it did really was to liberate an entire generation
from the cultural shackles of the past.
The British had left in 1947.
SIDHARTH BHATIA Author I India Psychedelic
This cohort was born in the late '40s or mid-'50s, and they came of age,
they rejected the past and embraced the new.
In those days, most of the musicians
were really from the Anglo-Indian...
SURESH & DEVIKA BHOJWANI Musicians
...Catholic Christian community,
because they were the ones who were more trained in English.
The Jets was really the first beat band, it wasn't so much rock music,
it was known as beat music, and the word "beat" was not far from "Beatle".
We started to model our lives along the lines of what the Beatles were doing at the time.
RECORDS OF YOUR FAVOURITE STARS
The musicians those days were more into singing Jim Reeves,
Everly Brothers, Pat Boone, and then bang came the Beatles!
Who wants tradition in the Beatle generation?
And it was like an electric breath of fresh air.
Whatever we were used to, suddenly lost its relevance.
One day we just woke up and we saw...
MAHESH BHATT Film Director
...an image of the great Shammi Kapoor with that Beatle wig,
in a Hindi film.
That spoke about the enormous power and the clout of the Beatles.
THE SAVAGES
My mother was an Indian classical musician, and then she bought me my first 45,
which was I Want To Hold Your Hand.
THE SAVAGES 1960s Indian Group
And she bought me a British pop magazine
where I could read about what was happening in the UK and, you know, the UK pop scene.
One day, one of my classmates came back to India after the holidays,
and he brought an album by The Beatles, who we'd never heard of.
BIDDU Songwriter & Music Producer
By 10:00 that night, I'd fallen in love with the music
because I'd heard it three or four times and that music grew into me
and I thought, "Wow, this is fabulous!"
HMV RECORDS - PLAYERS - RADIOS harmony house
We used to play those records again and again and again.
You know, somebody is listening to the words,
somebody is trying to figure out the chords and the solos.
And the most difficult part was the harmonies.
The Beatles still remain one of the greatest, you know, harmony groups, you know, ever.
We went to Calcutta, we stayed with a friend
and the first night he took us to a restaurant called Trincas.
When we walked in, we were dressed in our Beatle clothes
and everybody got up and started clapping.
I don't know why. Maybe they assumed we were some famous group,
but we weren't. But the owner of the restaurant said,
"Hey, the people want to know if you guys sing" and I said, "Yeah, we sing."
He said, "Would you do a couple of numbers?"
So we did She Loves You and Please Please Me.
We brought the house down, shook our heads, etc, etc.
The owner came and he said, "Would you guys like a residency?"
And that's how our career started.
PAIN THE SAVAGES (Bombay) & ASHA PUTHLI
We were the first Western music performing group to be
ever recorded in India at the HMV studios.
H.M.V AIR CONDITIONED
"HIS MASTER'S VOICE"
And the song, if I'm not mistaken, there was a song called Pain
and The Girl Next Door.
I think The Girl Next Door had some influences of The Beatles.
Especially the harmonies.
-The harmonies. -Especially the harmonies.
I was planning to go West because, you know...
Forget the Indian culture.
Singles KUNG FU FIGHTING Carl Douglas
Produced by BIDDU SUBIDDU/CHAPPELL
The Western culture was what we youngsters wanted.
By some strange paradox, the Beatles,
who lived in the culture I wanted, were making their way to India.
LSD was really beginning...
MARK LEWISOHN Author & Historian
...to make its mark in London, in the circles that they moved in.
Some newspaper man came up and he said, "Have you had LSD?"
So I thought, well, I'll either be cagey here, or I'll be honest. So I said, "Yes."
Oh, God, well, I mean, the first time was when George and me,
John and Cynthia were invited for dinner by our dentist.
And that was a bit scary because you didn't know what was happening to them.
Do you know, I mean...
LSD
...it's just everything is surreal and you look at your hand
and it looks 500 years old.
And then I'd hear my voice and wonder where it came from.
And colours and there's an intensity to it.
When we took the notorious wonder drug LSD,
we had it and we went out to a club and it was incredible.
When I got on to acid right, you know, the day that you're at 100% potential
and you can handle whatever the situation is.
With acid or just after acid,
the percent of good days as opposed to bad days was just a bit better, you know.
They particularly got into drugs and Indian music at the same time
and it seemed like there was some kind of a connection between the two.
There wasn't, of course, because they both pre-existed separately.
There must be an intimate connection between Indian music and drugs,
maybe because of the bizarre sound, there should be a drug connection.
He said that's not what he remembers.
Watch who you're calling "bizarre," Dick.
THE DICK CAVETT SHOW | 23 NOVEMBER 1971
Yes, I have difficulty with the word "bizarre".
Oh, not... I meant B-A-Z-A-A-R. The other...
No, wait a minute, there's no way I can get out of this.
To Western ears, the unusual sound might suggest some sort of chemical intoxication.
I'm not blaming George, but, you know, somehow,
because of him, the sitar became really popular among the young people.
The "hippies" were the ones who caught on to Indian music
and it just happens that most of them were either smoking pot or something
and since then, the two got caught up together, but it's really a problem.
May I request my listeners to be in a clear mind?
Because I like to make them high with the music.
-Yourself. -Yes.
Yeah.
And I feel rather cheated when they're already high.
LSD opened them up to experiences...
STEVE TURNER Author I The Complete Beatles Songs
...and awarenesses of consciousness that they wouldn't have got in any other way.
Eastern religion, I think, would have been opaque to them,
they wouldn't have been able to understand it at all,
but having had that experience, suddenly these things made sense.
George said that when he first took LSD,
he heard voices in the back of his head saying, "Yogis of the Himalayas."
Maharishi, good evening. You once said...
Maharishi MAHESH Yogi
..."even if only one-tenth of the adult population meditated
"for short periods each day, it would not take more than a few months
"to remove the entire accumulation of tension in the world."
- I am absolutely convinced about it. -These are your words, yes.
I saw an advertisement in the paper for transcendental meditation classes...
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION of Maharishi MAHESH Yogi
...so I went with a girlfriend.
England I have been visiting once every year. People do feel stress and strain
due to the greater undertakings in their life.
Paul phoned George and said, "There's this man called Maharishi
"who's going to come to England and talk about meditation."
And I said, "That's the same guy that, you know, I follow."
So in those days when one Beatle did something, they all did it. So we all went.
Now you've been travelling the world now for many years,
you've made, I think, something like eight world tours...
Nine. I returned this time.
This was the ninth completed.
Maharishi was the most powerful,
magnetically-charismatic person I've ever met.
He was also the happiest person I ever met.
SUSAN SHUMSKY Author I Maharishi & Me
He was filled with this energy;,
that you wanted to be near him all the time. All of us who were on his staff,
we fought each other to get in the room with him.
It was just the right time anyway.
There we were waiting for someone.
Waiting for a guru.
-The great magic man to come. -He came.
He came, you know, and there he was talking about it all and he had great answers.
He's got that kind of thing, you know, the twinkle in the eye.
They told Maharishi that they'd been seeking a spiritual experience.
They'd been trying to do it through drugs, but it just didn't work, you know.
And so he invited them to come to Bangor in North Wales
where he would be doing a meditation retreat for ten days.
25 AUGUST 1967
BANGOR
The Beatles seem to be among your supporters now, how do you feel about that?
They seem to be very intelligent and alert.
So you think that if the Beatles adopt your teachings,
then they can spread it amongst other young people in England?
Not only England, but throughout the world.
Because the word "Beatle" has gone on all the continents
and the younger people are fascinated by their fame.
What do you think of the Beatles?
Very good, intelligent young boys and there is a great potential.
And their music?
Music, I haven't heard, but because they are appreciated all over the world,
they must have something very graceful in their music.
I think he's trying to say that the things we're getting into aren't that important,
money has taken over from God.
Instead of trying to get where God is, we all try and get the biggest bank balance.
That's what it seems to me.
The mind is like an ocean.
Very deep, and the activity is only on the surface like that.
So if the waves of the ocean contact deeper level of water,
then the waves become stronger.
That means that we're going to be happier?
Much happier and much more creative also.
EPSTEIN (The Beatle-Making Prince of Pop) DIES AT 32
THE QUIET MAN FROM LIVERPOOL WHO RAN A STABLE OF STARS
27 AUGUST 1967
He was found in his second floor bedroom just after 2:00 this afternoon by his housekeeper.
Mr Epstein has been unwell now for some months
and he has been in the habit of taking tablets to help him sleep at night.
When Brian died, the Beatles, clearly, were lost. They were like jelly.
Their manager, their best friend, the man who they rely on totally
for their fame, for their fortune, you know, their guide in life, was now gone.
John, where would you be today without Mr Epstein?
I don't know.
I understand that Mr Epstein was to be initiated here.
When was he coming up? Was he coming up this afternoon?
Tomorrow. Monday, that's all we knew.
I spoke to him Wednesday evening,
the evening before we first saw Maharishi's lecture,
and he was in great spirits.
EPSTEIN (The Beatle-Making Prince of Pop) DIES AT 32
I wanted Maharishi to bring him back to life again.
You know, by this time, I had given him so much power...
PATTIE BOYD
...and how extraordinary that they were with Maharishi,
who was now going to be their spiritual guru,
but also, that they could lean on him because they trusted him so much.
So for that moment in time, he replaced Brian.
I understand that Maharishi conferred with you all.
He told us not to get overwhelmed by grief
and whatever thoughts we have of Brian, to keep them happy,
because any thoughts we have of him will travel to him wherever he is.
I come to India because I want to leave material world
Come to simple country
Ganga is a holy river because it comes from the Himalayas
and this place has much energy
MANOHAR Sadhu
And it comes down, no?
Takes energy and comes here
RISHIKESH
GANGES RIVER
The ashrams, or monasteries of the various religious orders,
glimmer over the smooth green water.
Now, the sun is hot, the river is icy,
flowing from a glacier high up in the Himalayas, the land of the gods.
But RISHIKESH, its name means "Place Of The Wise Ones",
is far from being a remote or desert region.
It's one of the most celebrated centres of pilgrimage in the whole of India.
In the cool, clear air of RISHIKESH, North India,
the meditation retreat of Maharishi MAHESH Yogi.
Flower-loving Yogi told reporters that his brand of peace of mind
could only be truly appreciated by intelligent men of the world
with rewarding activities and high incomes.
"The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness.
"Anyone can find a way."
That's the basic teaching of Maharishi MAHESH Yogi.
Are the Beatles really going to find happiness here in RISHIKESH?
Are they really going to become as Maharishi hopes the practical philosophers of the age,
or must they return home unsatisfied?
Eternal rich young men, victims of a fad,
looking for something, anything, to make their lives worthwhile.
I was a reporter.
I'd heard that the best thing that a reporter can do
is to beat all the other reporters in getting to the news.
SAEED NAQVI Journalist
A friend of mine read the Beatles were coming to stay with the Maharishi...
Beatles may come to India by month-end "The Times of India" News Service
...and he said, "SAEED, do you know what it means?
"The whole world and its media is going to be here."
16 FEBRUARY 1968 John and George Arrive In Delhi
Mia at airport to receive Beatles
20 FEBRUARY 1968 Paul and Ringo Arrive In Delhi
The idea is to beat them. How do you beat them?
"Ah!" I said.
The idea is to become a disciple.
If I become an insider, I get the story.
So I walked in. You had to make some excuse.
If you were a drug addict, if you had failed, if you were a junkie...
He whispered a mantra, a chant, in my ear,
which I am not supposed to share with anybody.
Then I went in, and again, and again,
until all the sadhus who were going to be his managers recognised me.
And the password was "Jai Gurudev."
You say, "Jai Gurudev" and you were in.
HARDWAR
From Ha rid war to RISHIKESH
across Lakshman Jhula.
I was taken aback.
It was like a locust storm.
Journalist, after journalist, after journalist... Hundreds of them.
"What's going on? They're not letting us in."
I said, "They're not letting anybody in."
Overnight, I went off to RISHIKESH.
SUSMIT BOSE
There were quite a few people from all over India...
SUSMIT BOSE Folksinger & Songwriter
...and it was very difficult to even know where the Beatles' ashram was
because it was so fortified.
"Fortified" in the sense that there was a lot of police.
There was a lot of bandobast in there.
The whole day, we would just, early morning, wake up,
somebody said, "Hey, the Beatles are coming to the Ganga!"
And so, we'd all rush up there and wait there for two or three hours,
but nothing would happen, you know?
But it was like a celebration.
It was like an exhibition. You know, there was so much of joy.
One day, Maharishi called me in and he said,
"The Beatles are going to be arriving in a few days,
"but I want you to go fix up their rooms."
NANCY COOKE DE HERRERA Maharishi Publicist
They put me in charge to make their rooms nicer.
I would have them paint this, but they dropped so much paint on the floors
then they would have to paint the floor.
Anyway, we had curtains put up, we had mirrors.
We even had toilet fixtures that worked.
They had mattresses on their beds.
There's a fan club of real beetles waiting to welcome them.
But the hardest thing about the life they will lead here
are the beds they'll sleep on.
A hard wooden base.
A simple rather than a spartan existence.
When they did arrive, he introduced them to me and said,
"If you want anything, get hold of Nancy.
"Nancy will be my ears and eyes.
"In case you need anything, let me know through her."
So I found my way and I went to the gate and I said, "Jai Gurudev."
"Ah." I was in.
There was a commotion outside. "How did this bastard get in?"
I said, "I'm just a devotee of the Maharishi."
So, anyway, I entered, and there under the tree,
Maharishi, George, John Lennon, Paul, their respective ladies.
A whole galaxy.
|I mean, I can't keep describing them, I need a photograph.
So I called the sadhus.
I said, "Look, I'm having difficulty managing this on my own."
I immediately assumed the role of Publicity Manager for the Maharishi.
So I said, "Here's the name, Raghu Rai. You go outside, call him in."
JAI GURUDEV WELCOME
This man came who was from the ashram, and he says,
"Mr Naqvi wants to see you." I said, "Give me two minutes."
So I went in, I put a big zoom lens on my camera and put it inside my la bad a...
RAGHU RAI Photographer
...so when I'm walking, nobody can see if I'm carrying a camera.
So I walked with him for about eight, ten minutes.
One sadhu was standing there and SAEED was standing next to him.
So, SAEED said, "Look there."
I was shocked.
Then I turned around, I saw that sadhu standing next to us.
I said, "Bhai sahab..."
I'm thirsty, please may I have a glass of water
So he goes to get a glass of water for me.
And SAEED says, "Hurry up, hurry up."
In those days, we didn't have auto-focus, or auto-exposure cameras,
so you had to set the focus, set the exposure, everything.
And I take just one picture, nicely focussed and proper.
Under the tree, MAHESH Yogi and The Beatles.
INDRA SRIVASTAVA Ashram Manager's wife
Everything has changed
When the Beatles arrived
we arranged everything for them
I looked after their accommodation and food
I did everything for them
They liked things like lettuce, salad, tomatoes
Instead of water they drank Coca Cola
They learnt a lot from us
They used to shake hands a lot in their culture
Their way of showing affection was different
Staying among us made them learn our culture
Husband and wife would walk around...
...with their arms around each other
They soon stopped doing that after watching us
In our culture, no matter how much husband and wife love each other
...we maintain a distance in public
They started following our customs
saying things like Namaste to greet us
See this building? This is the building where they lived.
This room, I'll show you, this side.
Ashram Forest Ranger
This is the room of John Lennon.
John Lennon was staying here.
Other Beatles were staying in these rooms, along with their wives and family.
When Beatles came, I was a little kid.
We were enjoying the whole atmosphere
and the jungles, and Beatles and the Maharishi.
We were very close.
We never find he's a celebrity or some big thing,
we should not go near him.
AMITA CHOUDHRY Ashram Manager's Daughter
So this was the place where Maharishi used to converse with Beatles and guests.
Straight, we can see River Ganga. Clear water and forest.
There was a raised platform, rectangular shape.
He was usually posing with the visitors and Beatles for the group photographs.
Jai Gurudev.
Jai, jai Gurudeva.
This was the main ashram
The Beatles came here to meditate
They usually preferred to meditate out in the open
...in fresh air
Maharishi's disciples can wander in peace amongst the trees and bungalows,
or meditate in some quiet spot overlooking the Ganges.
He doesn't require you to give anything up, except drugs and a week's salary.
In the Beatles' case, around £11,000 apiece.
What exactly have you been doing? How do you meditate?
You sit down, you relax and then you repeat a sound to yourself,
and it sounds daft, but it's just a system of relaxation.
And that's all it is, you know, there's nothing more to it.
It's expanding the conscious capacity of the mind.
Mental capacity will be stronger,
thought power will be great
and when the thought power great,
then the thought will find their fulfilment more easily.
"You go into those interstellar spaces,
"where the spaces ultimately shrink into your being."
Now this gibberish goes on and on and on relentlessly,
and you have these people close their eyes
and the more unintelligible it gets,
the more profoundly affected they pretend to be,
because I can't really imagine anyone being moved by words
which are patently and absolutely absurd.
His lectures were in the nature of this kind of arcane nonsense.
SUPERNORMAL POWERS Levitating the body at will - Invisibility
Nothing succeeds like success, and it succeeded.
SUPERNORMAL sight and hearing Lecture: TM and SUPERNORMAL powers
The TM Program Transcendental Meditation
-Are you a businessman? -I don't deal with money directly,
but I'm conducting the movement in 50 countries.
I can't be said to be no businessman even though I'm not dealing with money.
I was a young girl, 21 or 22.
So there I was in this beautiful ashram.
I was taken to meet The Maharishi.
ARUNA NAQVI Ashram Visitor
He asked me to come close to him. I did, too close, in fact.
He said, "I'm going to whisper something in your ear", a mantra.
Then he said, "I want you to go down into my prayer room
"and I want you to concentrate upon that mantra.
"You're going to feel like a new person."
And I actually believed that this was going to happen to me.
It was a dark room
and there was some incense burning
and there were some things hanging on the wall.
And I started repeating the mantra.
I repeated it
and the only feeling that I remember there
was this intense, you know, desire to escape from that place.
I went near the Maharishi and he said,
"How do you feel, my daughter? Do you feel like a different person?"
I said, "Actually, I don't."
He looked at me and he said,
"I'm going to whisper another mantra.
"Back you go, repeat that mantra. You might have to spend a little longer.”
By now, I was in control.
I repeated the mantra
and within half an hour, I came upstairs.
I gave him a glorious account of how I felt like a totally new human being.
I felt like a different person altogether.
That was the only way to escape and I walked out into freedom.
Maharishi really influenced the Beatles' songs and lyrics tremendously,
starting with Across The Universe,
which is written right after the Beatles learned meditation.
In that song, it says, "Jai Gurudeva"
and Maharishi used to use that expression all the time.
Now once more.
Vande Gurudeva. Jaya Jaya Gurudeva.
-Jaya shree... -Jaya shree Gurudeva.
-Jaya Jaya... -Jaya Jaya Gurudeva.
It is in praise of the guru.
So John Lennon put that into the song "Jai Gurudeva"
and then he said "Om",
and "Om" is the primordial sound
that underlies and gives rise to the universe.
Just the exposure to mantras...
I mean, the idea was that repetitious sound
could create an altered state of consciousness.
You get it in Hello, Goodbye, you get it in "Goo Goo G'Joob."
Repetitious sounds creeping into their songs, whether deliberately or not.
STEVE TURNER Author I The Complete Beatles Songs
This is the Ganga ghat
Occasionally the Maharishi came here, but the Beatles came here frequently
Back then the water was unpolluted
It was crystal clear
Sometimes when we all gathered, we would sing
Even though they did not understand our language...
...this is what I used to sing, 50 years ago
Oh dweller of the forest
I live by your name!
What can I want from this world?
The world is false, its bonds are false, a false illusion!
Every breath from this body is false
I take your name
MIA FARROW Actor
I lived for three days in a cottage at a camp in RISHIKESH,
just 100 yards from the Beatles.
I remember sitting around a bonfire at night with the Beatles...
AMRITA KUMAR Beatles Fan
...and Mike Love of the Beach Boys and Donovan and others
singing and playing the guitar.
It was a cold, cold evening and at some point,
I muttered to the person next to me, "I'm freezing."
A man seated just ahead of me,
wrapped in a huge brown grey blanket, heard me.
He said, "Move up, love, come and share my blanket with me."
It was George Harrison.
I should have said yes,
but by then, I had successfully cultivated an air of nonchalance
and looked at George like he was a nobody
and replied, "No, thanks, George, I'm fine."
Four regrettable words that I could never take back
and that have haunted me all my life
for what could have been, but never was.
The person who was actually sincere about meditation,
about Indian culture, Indian music, was George Harrison.
Maharishi said, "Of all the Beatles,
"George is the most advanced and this is his last life."
SUSAN SHUMSKY Author I Maharishi & Me
George wanted to understand why he was chosen to be famous.
PATTIE BOYD
He found it curious that he, a boy from Liverpool,
who otherwise would have had a very menial job,
was selected and was famous and he wanted to know the answer.
Really, the only reason to be living
is to have complete full knowledge, full bliss consciousness.
Everything else is just mundane and secondary.
The purpose is to transcend
from this relative state of consciousness to an absolute state of consciousness.
Maharishi said, "John Lennon has many more lives to go,
"and he must not give in to his weakness for women,
"or it will ruin him."
Keeping company with himself, it could be part of the treatment,
John stalked along the shady paths.
John Lennon, when he first arrived,
he was grey, he'd been heavily into drugs.
He just looked awful,
and then little by little, you saw the change that came over this man.
He had pink cheeks, he started to be very sociable,
he was out playing his guitar, chatting with other people
and he was having such a lovely time.
Meditation worked all right.
You know, you could handle each day better than I could handle it before.
I was meditating like eight hours a day, things like that
and it was really some trip like acid was nowhere, you know.
Just sitting there, muttering some word in a room,
it was the biggest trip I've ever had in my life.
Ringo is always in meditation
and he goes by feeling and heart,
whereas the other Beatles, too much brain is in the way.
Ringo enjoyed the peaceful togetherness with Mrs Ringo.
It was a very peaceful scene.
Ringo Starr, two or three days he sees all this and he declares,
"It's like a Butlin's holiday camp" and disappears.
He left, and then there were three.
Ringo and his wife Maureen stayed at the ashram for ten days.
Ringo's allergies caused problems with the ashram's food.
He was allergic to so many things that he took two suitcases to India.
One had his clothes and the other one was stuffed with cans of Heinz beans.
HEINZ BEANZ
The fourth Beatle, drummer Ringo Star,
slipped out of India with his wife after only 10 days' study.
But the primary reason that Ringo and Maureen left
was because they missed their kids.
Ringo had to leave "under pressure of his wife Maureen,
who was longing to see here tiny daughter."
Maharishi, I thank him, you know, all the time.
I thank him for giving me what he gave me
and I'm glad I got it in case I ever want to go into it again.
You know, you can't lose if you learn something.
Maharishi wanted to take them off on a trip to the Himalayas.
A company ran these helicopter services.
I'd always wanted to become a pilot.
I became a chief pilot for the Maharashtra government.
RUSTOM CAPTAIN Pilot
I flew everybody, including the prime minister often
and Indira Gandhi also and the Beatles.
Paul kept on saying, "Me, me, me" because he wanted to get in
and John said, "No, me, me, me"
and anyway, finally, John just pushed him aside and went in.
I'm flying John on my left and the Maharishi on my right
and the Maharishi leant across me, as you know he had a lot of hair and beard.
So it's difficult for me to fly the helicopter.
He is telling John, "Down there in the mountains, people live there.
"They never go down to the valleys, and they're praying all the time."
So John said, "What are they praying for?"
Maharishi said, "They're praying that we crash."
And John said, "Goodness, why do they want us to crash?"
He said, "Well, they are on the mountain top with hardly any food
"and I'm in RISHIKESH with all these celebrities there
"and all the money in the world."
So John said, "Maharishi, if you don't move your head and hair,
"their prayers will be answered."
And of course I started laughing and everybody did.
He had a sense of humour.
PRATAP MUSIC HOUSE Everything Musical
They were visiting Dehradun. George, John and Paul.
He said, "This Saturday, they are having celebrations in the ashram
"to celebrate the birth of George Harrison's wife."
If I could bring some other musicians along with me, they'll be very happy.
AJIT SINGH Owner PRATAP Music, Dehradun
So I told them, "Okay, I can arrange it."
So we all sat down, Maharishi MAHESH gave a lecture
and then I was asked to play.
There was a composition by George Harrison Within You Without You
which was based on Raag Jog.
So I decided to play that and George was so excited about it.
And I smiled and he smiled and he waved at me.
At that time, Nick Nugent went with me.
Nick was a visiting teacher.
Now tell me, where did that famous photo of us...
Was it in the middle, or was it over here?
-Here, in this area. In this wall. -Okay. Okay.
NICK NUGENT Teacher, The Doon School, Dehradun
I have such vivid memories of that birthday party where so much music was played,
so much glamour.
PATTIE Harrison there in her mauve sari.
17 MARCH 1968
Part of our mission was to bring her
George Harrison's birthday present to her, the dilruba.
It was so relaxed coming from Britain.
The Beatles were impossible to see, or touch, or reach,
and here, it was a completely different atmosphere.
They were absolutely natural, all the musicians there.
I think I spoke to Donovan, Mike Love, Paul Horn
and of course Paul McCartney, Jane Asher, John Lennon.
I don't think I spoke to George Harrison because he was so tied up
in both the occasion of his wife's birthday and also the music.
He really was playing music and enjoying music
and absorbing Indian music.
There was no pretence about it, he was completely hooked.
The music started off being very Indian and played on Indian instruments.
But then you could say it deteriorated into a birthday party
with the Happy Birthday song
and the British national anthem for some curious reason.
As the evening went on and perhaps people got a bit fidgety,
we went outside and enjoyed fireworks.
Of course I went away feeling
that perhaps the meditation was all a bit of a lark
because they enjoyed themselves so much in the evening.
Now George Harrison was thinking mostly of playing better, serious music
which belong to the world.
But John Lennon was a serious human being.
He was not very talkative, but his thinking was very beautiful
and I was slightly more fascinated by John.
They gave me so much respect, you know, they treated me very well.
They called me "Sir" and I was feeling...
It was strange, you know.
I told them, "Don't call me 'Sir'. "No, no. For us you are sir."
They could not have seen me at all, there was no need to, but they did.
Success had not gone to their head, you know. They were simple human beings.
We came up the path here, we were killing time,
and the Beatles, meantime, had come back to their bungalow.
And they were on the roof. Not just the Beatles,
but many musicians were on the roof of the bungalow
playing music and it's the most memorable thing of my day here
was hearing this music, which was of course unrecorded music.
It was just being created at that time
and we felt we were witnessing
the first time round, the first version of this music.
The word was coming to Maharishi that they had suspended their meditations
and that they were sitting and composing music.
We were there for about six weeks and during that time,
there was no pressure from the outside world, there was no pressure of them being Beatles
and their creative juices just overflowed.
They wrote all the songs for The White Album.
They worked out gradually what they wanted to do
for the rest of their time as Beatles.
Other than when they were in the studio,
they didn't get to spend a lot of time together.
STEVE TURNER Author I The Complete Beatles Songs
So in India, they were suddenly together, like, sort of, mates again,
so they could sit out and play
in the way that John and Paul used to play in the council house
where Paul had grown up.
And you've got Mike Love from The Beach Boys there,
so they've got that whole tributary of American music that had influenced them
and Donovan with his kind of folk tradition
and Paul Horn who was a jazz flautist, he was there, too.
So you've got a lot of interesting streams coming in.
I'll show you the stairs. Here.
Ashram Forest Ranger
They'd sit here on these stairs.
There was a bamboo structure here as a fence those days.
They would come and they'd make new songs here,
staying here, sitting on the stairs.
That side, Prudence was living.
Maharishi told her to be inside, stay with their practices.
Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, was way ahead of anybody else.
As soon as she entered her thing, she went into meditation...
SAEED NAQVI Journalist
...and as she has not emerged, it's already 24 hours.
So she sings.
They would invite her outside.
"Hello. Prudence, come out. Come out, Prudence" and she won't come.
And then they made a song Dear Prudence.
I think one that was, kind of, interesting
was when I came back from a tiger hunt with my eldest son.
When we came walking in, he said to Maharishi,
"I shot a tiger today, is that bad karma?"
NANCY COOKE DE HERRERA Maharishi Publicist
Well, sitting there, observing this was John Lennon
and John said, "You don't call that slightly life destructive?"
And I said, "It was the tiger or us."
Maharishi glared at Nancy the whole time they were talking about it.
"Life destruction is life destruction. End of story."
That's how the song The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill originated.
It was John's answer to Nancy's paltry excuse.
Because Mike Love was there and they knew the Beach Boys' music
and there was this, kind of, friendly rivalry with them wanting to top each other.
Back In The U.S.S.R is just like a parody of a Beach Boys song...
ONE NIGHT ONLY - LAST BOSTON APPEARANCE
IN PERSON - MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI (THE GURU) & THE BEACH BOYS
...but instead of being about the USA, it was about Russia.
DELHI
It was a very novel idea at the time to think of a rock 'n' roll song
that appeared to be celebrating Russian culture,
and had all these Russian names and Russian places being mentioned.
RISHIKESH as spy centre: probe plea against Yogi
Opposition members today demanded an enquiry into Maharishi MAHESH Yogi,
alleging that RISHIKESH had become a centre of espionage.
The issue was raised by Mr K Anirudhan...
'RISHIKESH, hot-bed of espionage'
...after a radio transmitter was found on a bus
near the antibiotics factory in RISHIKESH belonging to a foreigner.
A furore broke out in Parliament.
It was led by the Communists, backed by the Socialists...
AJOY BOSE Author I Across The Universe
RISHIKESH a spy centre, alleges MP
...and they said that there was a CIA camp in the ashram.
MAHESH Yogi denies harbouring spies
And the Maharishi was getting all these foreigners, including the Beatles...
The Beatles and the Hippies "had started their own colony."
An American secret service boss was also "at the feet of the yogi,"
...to destabilise India.
1964 - CLASSIFIED
I give the CIA a total credit for sponsoring and initiating
the entire consciousness movement,
counterculture events of the 1960s.
TIMOTHY LEARY Psychologist And Psychedelic Drug Advocate
This was exactly the time
when Indira Gandhi was making friends with the Soviet Union.
PENTAGON BUILDING MALL ENTRANCE
Today, we're going to show you cases of attempted espionage
by agents of the Sino-Soviet intelligence system.
You recognise the way a Sino or Soviet agent operates,
both in finding someone vulnerable to subversion,
as well as in their technique of ensnaring him
and applying pressure to get him to play ball.
The KGB sent their top man in India, Bezmenov,
to the ashram to check out the Maharishi.
Well, my function was to discover what kind of people attend this school.
Yes, there are some influential opinion makers
who come back with the crazy stories about Indian philosophy.
YURI BEZMENOV KGB Agent
Maharishi MAHESH Yogi, a great spiritual leader,
or maybe a great charlatan and crook,
depending from which side you are looking at him.
The Beatles were trained at his ashram.
Mia Farrow and other useful idiots from Hollywood visited his school,
and they returned back to the United States
absolutely zonked out of their minds with marijuana, hashish,
and crazy ideas of meditation.
Maharishi used to always say,
"You can never create peace through signing treaties,
"through legislation, through any kind of external means."
SUSAN SHUMSKY Author I Maharishi & Me
The only way to create world peace is for people to meditate.
If you carefully look, what Maharishi MAHESH Yogi is teaching,
is that most of the problems,
most of the burning issues of today can be solved simply by meditating.
Don't rock the boat,
don't get involved,
just sit down, look at your navel, and meditate,
and the things, due to some strange logic, due to cosmic vibration,
will settle down by themselves.
It's in the air of spiritually regenerating
every man everywhere in the world
and creating peace.
You can get control of yourself just by sitting quietly
and by turning off from the external problems we have
and all this society...
You can go inside yourself where it's always calm and peaceful.
This is exactly what the KGB and Marxist-Leninist propaganda want.
To distract their attention and mental energy from real issues
into non-issues, into non-existent harmony.
Maharishi MAHESH Yogi obviously is not on the payroll of the KGB,
but whether he knows it or not,
he contributes greatly to the demoralisation of American society.
Another Beatle leaves Hindustan Times Correspondent
New Delhi, March 23 - Paul McCartney, one of the Beatles,
and his girl friend, Jane Asher, an actress, left for London tonight.
Paul McCartney and his girlfriend, Jane Asher,
stayed for five weeks,
and they left because Jane had a theatrical commitment back in London.
This, presumably, is your first big meditation.
What effect has it had on you?
I think it calms you down.
It's hard to tell because it was so different, life out there.
It'll be easier to tell now that I'm back and doing some ordinary things
to see just what it does.
They were four working class guys from Liverpool.
They had an innate sense of not being taken advantage of.
So when they get together with Maharishi, Maharishi is inevitably tempted
to capitalise on his sudden worldwide fame
because of the Beatles association.
MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
They realised that
maybe Maharishi had been using them all along for publicity,
ever since the vinyl record
that was by "the Beatles' spiritual teacher," it said on the album.
Maharishi MAHESH Yogi the Beatles' spiritual teacher
speaks to the youth of the world on Love
and the untapped source of Power that lies within
So John and George started to think, "Something fishy is here,
"he's using us for publicity."
So they began to hear little bits of news here and there from the grapevine...
a feature for Four Star Productions
based on the life of the Maharishi MAHESH Yogi
..."Maharishi's planning this and planning that,
"and you're gonna be in it,"
and they go, "Are we?"
Maharishi kept promising ABC that he would do a special with the Beatles,
and the Beatles kept saying, "We're not gonna do this special”,
but Maharishi kept promising it over and over.
There comes a time in late '67 when Paul and George go to Sweden
basically to tell the Maharishi to cool it a bit.
"Don't start making plans that involve us without telling us first."
-We're glad to have you here. -Thank you.
We do appreciate your music.
14 OCTOBER 1967 Falsterbo Sweden
And...
That's good, yeah.
The smell of the flowers.
-We only decided to come yesterday... -Yes. Yes.
Just to pop over to have a little chat.
Yes.
And when the Beatles were in RISHIKESH,
he, without their knowledge, was having discussions
with a Hollywood film company called Four Star International.
FOUR STAR
Maharishi promised them that they could have exclusive rights
to make a film about Maharishi and about Maharishi's guru,
but unfortunately, Maharishi made the same promise to someone else.
He had given rights to Four Star Productions
and a lawyer arrived in RISHIKESH with a signed contract
that gave exclusive rights to film Maharishi for the next five years.
Some suits arrived from Hollywood and a crew
and John and George were going, "We didn't want this.
SERBJEET SINGH PROD. "LOOK WITHIN"
"We're here to meditate, we don't want these film people here"
and there was a confrontation with Maharishi about,
"Why are you doing this? We told you not to."
In any case, The Beatles became quite disillusioned about that.
The film was really kind of a deal breaker and they got very angry
because they had been granted exclusive rights to do this film
and now another film company is there, so the whole thing just fell apart.
I don't know what happened.
I still don't know, and I know there are many rumours around,
but John said, "That's it, we're going, we're going."
PATTIE BOYD
But I know John wanted to come back to England to see Yoko.
And so, any little excuse, John was ready to go,
'cause we'd been there for weeks.
Well, it was only John who was upset.
John dragged George along
and I still think it was when Magic Alex came from the Apple Corp group.
Alexis Mardas was one of the Beatles' associates.
In fact, he was very close to John.
He'd sort of attached himself to John's hip and Cynthia really didn't like Alexis.
She was very concerned about the Svengali influence
that he was having on John.
John had introduced Alex as "my new guru".
He was this electronics marvel, supposedly.
He introduced himself as somebody who was like Edison and Marconi combined...
He's the Beatles' personal boffin - you want an invention? Then he's got it
...but in fact he was just a TV repairman.
We've just got a friend of ours
-who's in electronics... -Oh, yeah.
...who's called Alex.
And he's great, he's a Greek fella and he's invented...
He's invented incredible things.
He was a minx. Yeah, a naughty little boy.
You see, he wanted to have power over John
so he would, you know, create all these things,
pretending he's a scientist.
He said, "Here's this wonderful new wallpaper,
"but it's all speakers, so the whole room will be one big speaker."
So he loved all that, controlling John.
So clearly, and obviously, Maharishi was in the way.
One night, John and Maharishi were having this wonderful rapport...
NANCY COOKE DE HERRERA Maharishi Publicist
...and you know how you can see sometimes
when a person lets the mask drop from their face?
And I could see this real dislike of Maharishi on Magic Alex's face.
It disturbed me enough that I felt something was going wrong.
No one ever saw him meditating
and as a matter of fact, he admitted that he came to India
for the purpose of getting the Beatles away from Maharishi.
Alexis said, "It's because we don't want
"Maharishi to have that much influence over the boys."
I'm totally convinced that Magic Alex made a friend
of one of the young women at the ashram
and he got her to tell John Lennon that she was having sex with Maharishi.
This just horrified all of us when this whole thing happened.
I believe that Maharishi made a pass,
and the reason I believe it
is because he made a pass at many women that I knew.
She wasn't the first, or the last one.
Well, I remember Maharishi saying that, you know,
if you have an ugly woman over here and a beautiful woman over there,
it's just easier for your attention to go to the more beautiful.
John and George didn't believe it at first,
but finally Alexis convinced them,
and then went and got taxis for all of them before they could change their mind.
While they were waiting for the taxis, John wrote,
"Maharishi, Maharishi, what have you done? You've made a fool of everyone."
The song had a lot of expletives in it
and George said, "You can't say that, that's ridiculous."
So John changed the lyrics to "Sexy Sadie."
Sexy Sadie, it was actually called Maharishi,
and it was a putdown of the Maharishi in very vicious terms.
I don't think there was any chance of it getting out
with the words that John had originally written.
He basically denounces him and says he was a bit of a rogue.
John dragged George along and then he just bolted from the ashram.
10 APRIL 1968
-It was a mistake. -What do you mean it was a mistake?
We made a mistake.
We thought there was more to him than there was, you know, but he's human.
And for a while we thought he wasn't, you know, thought he was a...
...and the devil was released
Back home, we got a postcard in the mail
That was in the good old days
Along the hippie trail
The Beatles, they were opening us up to different experiences in various ways,
Indian philosophy and Indian music and then when they went to RISHIKESH,
it was the idea of Indian travel.
RICHARD GREGORY Musician And Hippie Trail Historian
It's like, "It looks nice over there", you know.
They're enjoying themselves in the sunshine.
There had been a hippie trail, an embryonic hippie trail in the early '60s,
a few people had gone out.
The whole point, being that you drove over land,
the ultimate destination was, in fact, Kathmandu in Nepal.
I'm sure the Beatles inspired lots of people to go
because this little trickle of people on the hippie trail beforehand
suddenly turned into a flood.
Did you enjoy the trip over to India?
The journey was terrible,
-but the trip was all right. -Yeah.
-There was a report that... Now we... -Yeah, it's true. Smashed him.
You didn't like it, or you didn't have the patience
and you decided to go home?
We were there four months. Well, George and I were.
Did you think this man is on the level?
I don't know what level he's on,
but we had a nice holiday in India and came back rested.
Maharishi looked visibly frail and without his usual effervescence.
His brilliant and beautiful yogic radiance was reduced to grey and ashen.
He became physically sick
when the course moved from RISHIKESH to Kashmir.
He's still a nice fella and everybody's fine,
but we don't go out with him any more.
When the RISHIKESH experience finished,
Paul, John and Ringo just kind of, carried on, resumed, with their lives.
But for George, India was never a five minute thing,
India was a lifetime's devotion.
MARK LEWISOHN Author & Historian
And he wasn't just going to give it up because of the way that RISHIKESH finished
with a bit of a sour taste.
India, for him, was something that he continued to push.
George didn't want to go back to London.
George was still in meditation mode
and he didn't want to go straight back to see the press.
So he said, "Let's go down to Kerala just for a week."
And it was very calm then
and then, you know, he wanted to slowly come back into business life,
as it were, and London, slowly. In his way.
Everybody all of a sudden became an individual,
John, Paul, Ringo and George.
The Maharishi phase faded out...
SUSMIT BOSE Folksinger & Songwriter
...you know, but the Indian aesthetics
and the etiquettes remained with everybody
using the influence of Indian music and the culture.
You know, when you look back at the Beatles' story
on their return to the UK in the spring of 1968,
there was still the camaraderie that saw them through the madness of Beatlemania.
Soon to dissolve, as the fraught sessions of The White Album began.
Working separately most of the time and not as a unit,
and with Ringo quitting the band for a short period,
remarkably, they delivered what many would call one of their greatest albums.
1 (3) THE BEATLES (Double Album) Beatles, Apple
When The Beatles were in India,
Maharishi told them
if they don't continue meditating regularly, their band would break up.
Now does this mean a business or emotional split within The Beatles?
I should think a bit of both.
It's probably to do with growing up.
DEREK TAYLOR Beatles Press Officer 10 April 1970
There was a time when there were just four of them,
but now, they're married and there are children.
Night Special BEATLES SPLIT
I was born in 1971,
the same time around when Beatles broke up.
NEIL MUKHERJEE Musician & Producer
I mean, even like... I guess it's about 50 odd years or something,
it still sounds fresh.
It sounds amazing.
The world would have been, like, so shit without them, you know.
The world is so much better to live in with that music around.
The songs they made in India in RISHIKESH, I had no idea,
and out of them, some of the songs like Blackbird, like Dear Prudence...
the Score magazine BENNY DAYAL
Like, these are some of the songs that I used to perform
in my old band in Chennai.
To have known they have written these songs in India...
BENNY DAYAL Singer
...just gave it so much more meaning
because I used to connect to these songs as a classical musician
more than a person who loves English music.
I was born in 74.
So for me to get to know the Beatles happened much later...
We were not really bothered that time when the dressing,
how Beatles' haircut,
or the dress that they wore really attracted us,
we didn't see that.
BANN CHAKRABORTY Musician & Producer
We only heard the music.
It's purely the music.
It sounded very simple, very catchy and it had a high recall.
So, whenever you heard a song, you would remember it.
But when you sat down to work on it, to try and see if you can sing that song,
that was when you realise the complexity of it.
I don't know how it was appreciated when it was released,
but it's something that's still relevant today.
They came to see in the fullness of time,
and particularly in George's case, George discovered from gathering evidence
what exactly happened at the end of their stay in RISHIKESH
and how Alexis Mardas, Magic Alex, had cooked up this whole thing.
George always loved Maharishi
and towards the end of his life, he went back to see Maharishi.
George said to Maharishi, "I came to apologise."
And Maharishi asked, "For what?"
And George replied, "You know for what."
Maharishi, apparently, said to George
that he believed that the Beatles were angels on Earth
and that they were not guilty of any crime themselves,
so when George came away from that meeting, he felt cleansed of his guilt
of the method of the departure back in 1968.
I got into India.
I think that was the one thing in my life
that I could have done without everything else,
but that one thing of getting in touch with what's inside,
through Maharishi and Ravi Shankar and Indian music.
And as for the others, well, they all warmed again
to the culture and the spirituality of India.
The only way we can change the system is by changing it non-violently,
because they've done the violent kick for millions of years, you know?
I think the only way to do it is Gandhi's way
and that's non-violent, passive, positive,
or whatever they called it those days, you know.
John Lennon spoke kindly of Maharishi in other interviews.
Ringo and Paul have both said the same.
Everything became okay again in the end.
Years ago, we studied meditation with the Maharishi.
He was one of the ones that wasn't a fake.
There were a lot of them around that time that were into Rolls-Royce and chicks
and he wasn't one of them.
I actually met him quite recently.
He lives in the Netherlands now,
and I took Stella, my daughter and James, my son with me...
THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW I 6 NOVEMBER 2001
...and he is a spry old codger,
he's in his 80s and he's still working, he's still going.
The day when the Maharishi died, there was a big storm.
The water from the River Ganges came whirling up,
and it showered in this pandal.
The local folks, who came here to pay their tributes to Maharishi MAHESH Yogi,
were amazed to see this supernatural thing.
It was the power of Maharishi which brought Ganga
on this top of mountain.
MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
When I first came here 10 years ago,
this was just jungle, ruins and jungle.
And you would sneak in through the back.
There were cracks on the wall
and you would smoke pot and see leopards at night.
This is what people did.
So I take tourists into the ashram...
DANIEL Ashram tour guide
...I show them everything and I'm trying to bring them back into 1968
and give them some of the experience of the Beatles here.
Tourists that come here, they really appreciate it.
They really appreciate to have the sense for the Beatles as a historical entity.
My experience when I went to the Beatles' ashram was super magical.
These huge superstars, you wouldn't really think they would go to a simple,
no frills ashram in RISHIKESH.
ROLLING STONE MONICA DOGRA
ROLLING STONE INDIA
The most exciting thing about music
is the way it has the capacity to shift cultural norms
and expand people's minds.
A BiT 'OFF' BEaT
And in India, that's exactly what the Beatles did
by bridging the gap between East and West...
MONICA DOGRA Musician & Actor
...in a country that was very much, you know, under this dark cloud of colonial rule,
which, in many ways, created a culture of apology for being Indian
and a reverence for whatever was foreign.
That what was so powerful, is for the most powerful band in the world
to come and revere our culture.
They had descended in our part of the country
and they had embraced the spiritual narrative of India
and they had come to RISHIKESH...
MAHESH BHATT Film Director
...and they have images of them with MAHESH Yogi
and then suddenly, we felt, "Look, they are one of us."
As kids... As Indian kids, you know, we're always rebelling against our culture
and then you realise that, like, something that is so influential in pop culture
took a lot of influence from India.
My introduction to them was, I happened to be part of the age
of illegal downloading at the time of Napster and stuff.
TEJAS & MALI Singer/Songwriters
We used to have The White Album on CD.
That was my first introduction to the Beatles.
We still felt its influence even though we were born in, like, the '80s or '90s.
India is considered this place
where you can go for spiritual awakening, for meditation.
So I think the Beatles came to India to look for that
and in some ways, they really did find that.
I guess that's the small gift that India gave the world through the Beatles.
The happiest time of my life, one of the happiest times was in India.
And it was just such a groove.
You know, it was such a pure thing.
Everything is slightly more in perspective.
The whole of life should be a spiritual experience
because we are spirits who are just encased in bodies.
People forget and think they're just this body,
but we're actually spirits in bodies.