Tag: The Beatles

On the Road to Rishikesh (and Beyond)

Posted on by David

50 years ago, this month, The Beatles traveled to northern India to attend an advanced Transcendental Meditation (TM) training course at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh.  They were joined by their wives and girlfriends, along with a number of friends and associates, including Mike Love (Beach Boys), Donovan, and Mia Farrow.

This was a seminal event in the 1960s because it helped put eastern spirituality on the world map, big time.  All the sudden Indian fashion was in vogue (especially Nehru jackets), you started hearing a lot of Eastern flavored songs some featuring the sitar, and it seemed like every rock band now had their own guru (The Who had Meher Baba, The Rascals followed Swami Satchidanada, etc.).

I was a 16-year-old high schooler living in New Orleans.  One day the postman delivered the latest edition of Life Magazine and it had a 10-page layout of color photos of the Beatles and everyone taken at the Mararishi’s ashram.  It looked really cool.  Whether something was cool or not was the barometer by which I judged just about everything.  And still do to some extent.

After seeing these photos, I decided almost immediately that I had to find a new religion and philosophy.  I suspect the Beatles to Indiae had a similar effect on many others of my generation.  George Harrison’s exploration of Indian philosophy and his promotion of Indian music and the sitar (through Ravi Shankar) had already opened the door.  The Beatles stay in Rishikesh pushed it wide open.  This one event was critical in popularizing Indian culture and meditation around the world.

If you don’t already know, then you should understand that The Beatles impact was not only musical, it was also social.

The philosophy I became most interest in was Buddhism, thanks also to the Beat Generation writers who were heavily into Zen.  My high school library didn’t have any books on Buddhism, but it did have a book of quotes by Mahatma Gandhi and that was the first book on Eastern spirituality I read.

Evidently, Ringo didn’t stay at the ashram for long, only 10 days.  Paul stayed for about a month, while George and John stayed 6 weeks.

For the Fab Four, the India trip was also about music.  Many of the songs on the “White Album” were written there, including one called “Sexy Sadie.”  In this song, John satirically expresses the group’s disillusionment with the Maharishi (who claimed to be celibate) after he hit on Mia Farrow.  (“Sexy Sadie, what have you done/You made a fool of everyone.”)  Now that the Maharishi had revealed himself to be a phony, the Beatles had no use for him.  According to Rolling Stone magazine when the Maharishi asked John Lennon why he was leaving the ashram, he said, “Well, if you’re so cosmic, you’ll know why.”

That didn’t end everyone’s interest in Eastern spiritually.  Its influence permeated many of John and Paul’s songs afterwards.  George continued to study the sitar and he found the teacher A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, under whose guidance began a practice of japa-yoga.  Donovan and went on to study with other Indian teachers and eventually developed an interest in Buddhism.  Only Mike Love stuck with the Maharishi, embracing TM to this very day.

As for me, I embraced Buddhism and eventually became the world-famous guru, Lama Dharma Rama Ding Dong.

To commemorate the 50-year anniversary of this event, here are some photos (click on them for a larger view).  I don’t know if any of them are from that Life article (I wished I’d kept it), but one or two could be.  I don’t recall the individual photos in the layout very well.  Following the pics are videos of two unreleased Beatles-era John Lennon songs, “The Happy Rishikesh Song” and “Child Of Nature (On the Road to Rishikesh),” the melody Lennon later used for “Jealous Guy”.  This video has lyrics and film from the India trip.

Mike Love in the back with white hat, Mia Farrow next the Maharishi, Donovan in yellow (mellow), John, George, Paul, girlfriends, wives.

 

John, after accidentally dropping his pick into his guitars, tries to shake it out. Happens to me all the time.

Jammin’ with Donovan
Viewing the photo in this size, it looks like they’re using cell phones!
Entrance to the Maharishi’s ashram today.

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I Will

Posted on by David

It’s Valentine’s Day when we celebrate all things romantic, a day of candy hearts, chocolates, flowers, love poems and love songs.

I thought that since this week we are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the arrival on these shores by The Beatles, I would share my favorite Beatles love song with you.  Actually, it was more of a solo effort by Paul McCartney for the “White Album,” and while he has received some flack over the years for his “silly love songs,” this is one of his best.

By the way, in case you don’t know, the girl who appears in the photos with Paul in the video below is Jane Asher, an English actress and author, and sister of Peter Asher, of Peter and Gordon, a respected record producer.  Paul and Jane were together from the early days of Beatlemania until mid-1968.

So, as you sally forth on this Valentine’s Day, just remember, as the Fab Four told us all those years ago, all you need is love and love to you all.

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Living in the Spiritual World

Posted on by David
George Harrison: Living in the Material World on HBO

I watched Martin Scorsese’s new documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World. It’s excellent, as was the filmmaker’s previous documentary on Bob Dylan. Naturally it tells the story of the Beatles rise to fame, their phenomenal success and impact, breakup, and George Harrison’s solo career. The film shows that Harrison was perhaps the first of the Fab Four to question living in the material world. Long before he had even heard of the Maharishi, in 1965 George wrote to his mum,

I know that this isn’t it. I knew I was going to be famous, but now I know I can reach the real top of what man can achieve, which is self-realization.”

I was one of the 74 million Americans who tuned into The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 to see The Beatles for the first time. From the moment the show started, you knew this was not going to be your average Ed Sullivan variety program. You could feel the electricity all the way from New York City to where I was at, in Wichita, Kansas. Ed introduced the Beatles, they began to play, and nothing was ever the same again.

For me, it was like stepping out of a black and white world and into a Technicolor one.  After that first appearance, everything was different: the way we talked, walked, styled our hair, and dressed. It may sound superficial, but it was really as profound as change can possibly be. It changed how we thought, too.

Rishikesh, 1968 (l-r): Jenny Boyd, Jane Asher, Paul McCartney, Donovan, Mia Farrow, George Harrison, the Maharishi, the Beach Boys' Mike Love, John Lennon & Pattie Boyd

The Beatles had a second significant impact on the world. In the fall of 1968, either Life Magazine or the Saturday Evening Post (I don’t remember which) ran a multi-page spread on the Beatles in India hanging out with that groovy guru, the Maharishi, with some great color photographs. It looked really cool.

Before you knew it, Eastern spirituality was all over the place. Love beads and Nehru jackets were in style. Every other song had a sitar in it, and every other band seemed to have a new religion and a guru. I don’t remember them all, just that The Rascals found the swami Satchinanda and for The Who, it was Meher Baba.

I am not too proud to admit that I was a dedicated follower of fashion. I set out then to find a new religion for myself. I had only one criteria: no God. I figured that if I wanted a religion with a god in it, I could just keep the one I had. Naturally, the first god-less thing I found was Buddhism, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Beatles were to abandon the Maharishi while in India (after he allegedly hit on Mia Farrow), just as eventually most of our rock gods abandoned their gurus and returned to more secular music. George Harrison, however, pretty much stayed on the path provided by Eastern spirituality for the rest of his life, which is certainly reflected in his post-Beatles music.

Martin Scorsese says,

George was making spiritually awake music. We all heard and felt it, and I think that was the reason that he came to occupy a very special place in our lives.”

The narration that moves George Harrison: Living in the Material World along is provided by friends and family, as well as letters the late singer wrote home; the film covers the Hamburg days quiet extensively, as well as other facets of Harrison’s life, including his relationship with Eric Clapton, and of course, the Beatles’ breakup. Scorsese, who made the film with the backing of George’s widow, Olivia, was given access to the singer’s own collection of photographs, films, recordings and documents, and he makes good use of them.

George Harrison’s interest in the sitar and Indian music opened him to new ways of thinking based on ancient spiritual traditions. He wasn’t the only influential person of that time keen to explore Eastern spirituality, but I think a case can be made that his influence, with his bandmates, was considerably greater.

These days, I tend to get sentimental when I think about The Beatles. For a time in our lives they were like angels, they were magical, and we, my generation, were magical too. The world was a brilliant tapestry we were trying to unravel and all its violence and darkness could not dim the brightness of our youthful hope and aspiration.

I don’t know if it is natural or silly, or both, to be nostalgic for your youth. I don’t really care. I like to feel sentimental from time to time. Makes me feel good.

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