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Anthony <Stop genetic manipulation!>
mailto:tony@...http://tony.donetsk.ua/_tm/
Jaya Gurudeva
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The Beatles in Rishikesh (shortened version) from "Sunday Telegraph"
of 10/9/2000
From: Hubert <hubert@...>
The Sunday Telegraph (UK) Sunday 10 September 2000
WHAT IS THIS MEDITATION LARK?
In this second exclusive extract from The Beatles' autobiography, the band
head into the Himalayas to join the Maharishi
.../...
PAUL: I tink by 1968 we were all a bit exhausted, spiritually. We'd been
The Beatles, which was marvellous. We'd tried for it not to go to our heads
and we were doing quite well - we weren't getting too spaced out or
big-headed - but I think generally there was a feeling of: 'Yeah, well, it's
great to be famous, it's great to be rich - but what's it all for?'
So we were inquiring into all sorts of various things, and because George
was into Indian music, the natural thing was to ask: 'Well, what is this
meditation lark?
Do they levitate? Can they really fly? Can the snakecharmer really climb up
the rope?' It was really just pure inquiry, and after we met Maharishi and
thought about it all, we went out to Rishikesh.
GEORGE: Each year, Maharishi had a course for Westerners who wanted to
become Transcendental Meditation instructors. Although I wasn't going to
become an instructor, I wanted to go and have a heavy dose of meditation.
John came, and Paul came after him, and then Richard [Ringo] followed with
15 sherpas carrying Heinz baked beans. There was also the world's press; I
pretended to be asleep all the way to Delhi so I didn't have to talk to them.
Rishikesh is an incredible place, situated where the Ganges flows out of the
Himalayas into the plains between the mountains and Delhi. There is quite a
hefty flow of water coming out of the Himalayas, and we had to cross the
river by a big swing suspension bridge.
Maharishi's place was perched up on a hill overlooking the town and the
river. It was comprised of Maharishi's little bungalow and lots of little
huts that he'd had built quickly for the Westerners coming out there, in a
compound of about eight or ten acres. There was a kitchen with some outdoor
seating and tables where we would all have our breakfast together. Nearby
there was a large covered area with a platform where he'd give the lectures.
RINGO: It was great; a lot of fun and a lot of meditation. It was pretty
exciting. We were in a very spiritual place, meditating and attending
seminars with Maharishi. We had breakfast outside, and monkeys used to come
and steal the bread. After breakfast, we'd usually have a morning of
meditation in groups, on the roof. Then after lunch we'd do the same.
We did a lot of shopping. We all had Indian clothes made because they could
do it right there: huge silly pants with very tight legs and a big body that
you'd tie up tight, Nehru collars. We got right into it.
You'd have to fight off the scorpions and tarantulas to try to get in a
bath, so there used to be amazing noise in the bathroom. To have a bath
you'd start shouting - 'Oh yes, well, I think I'll be having a bath now' -
and banging your feet. You'd keep shouting in the bath, 'Oh, what a time I'm
having, yes, it's wonderful!' Then you'd get out of the bath, get dry and
get out of the room before all the insects came back in. At the time I was
married to Maureen, who had a phobia of moths and flying things. It was
pretty far out.
GEORGE: I had my 25th birthday in Rishikesh (a lot of people had birthdays
while we were there), and they had lots of flowers and garlands and things
like that. Maharishi made me play my sitar.
PAUL: An average day there was very much like a summer camp. You would get
up in the morning and go down to a communal breakfast. Food was vegetarian
(which is good for me now), and I think we probably had cornflakes for
breakfast.
After breakfast you would go back to your chalet, meditate for a little
while, have a bit of lunch and then there might be a talk or a little musical
event. Basically it was just eating, sleeping and meditating - with the
occasional little lecture from Maharishi thrown in.
There were probably about a hundred of us. There would be a lot of flowers
on the stage and then Maharishi would come in. It was almost magical. He
would say, 'This is only a system of meditation. I'm not asking you to
believe in any great God or any great myth. It's merely a system to help you
to be calmer in your own life.'
I still think it's good for that exact reason. I don't buy any of those
other stories about flying and levitation, although it interests me now
because you can actually take courses where you learn these 'siddhis' as they
call them, and you fly - you bounce off the ground a bit. I well remember a
little chat we had with Maharishi when we asked him if levitation was
possible.
He said, 'Well, I can't do it, but I know a fellow in the next village who
can.' And we said, 'Can we get him here? We'd love to see it.' That would
have been something to write home about, but we never did get to meet him.
Maharishi was very up with modern technology because he thought it would
help him get round the world and get his message over quicker. Once he had
to get into New Delhi, and a helicopter came to the camp and landed on the
beach down by the river. We all traipsed down in our kaftans and then it was,
'One of you can go up for a quick ride with Maharishi. Who's it going to be?'
And, of course, it was John.
I asked him later, 'Why were you so keen to get up with Maharishi?' 'To
tell you the truth,' he said, 'I thought he might slip me the Answer.' That
was very John! Mike Love was in Rishikesh. Donovan was there. I can remember
people like that. Mia Farrow was there, and her sister, Prudence. John wrote
the song 'Dear Prudence' for her because she had a panic attack and couldn't
come out of her chalet.
RINGO: Prudence meditated and hibernated. We saw her twice in the two weeks
I was there. Everyone would be banging on the door: 'Are you still alive?'
PAUL: I wrote a couple of little things while I was there. I had a song
called 'I Will', but I didn't have any words for it. And I wrote a bit of
'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'. We went to a cinema show in a village where a guy put
up a mobile screen, and all the villagers came along and loved it. I remember
walking down a little jungle path with my guitar to get to the village from
the camp. I was playing: 'Desmond has a barrow in the market place. . .'
Ringo came home early; he couldn't stand the food and his wife couldn't
stand the flies. It was understandable; he was a British lad. There were
curries and spicy food - and he has a stomach that gets upset easily
(probably due to the peritonitis when he was a kid). Maureen didn't like the
flies - if there was one fly in the room, she would know exactly where it was
at any given time. I remember her once being trapped in a room because there
was a fly over the door. So, obviously, conditions in Rishikesh were not
ideal for them.
RINGO: It's all a bit hard to remember now. I was only there for two weeks,
then I left. I wasn't getting what I thought I would out of it. The food was
impossible for me because I'm allergic to so many different things. I took
two suitcases with me, one of clothes and the other full of Heinz beans
(there's a plug for you). Then one morning the guys who were dealing with the
food said, 'Would you like some eggs?' And I said, 'Oh yeah, sure,' And the
next morning they said it again. I thought, 'Oh yeah, great - things are
looking up.'
Then I saw them burying the shells. That was the first of several incidents
that made me think that it was not what I thought it would be. You weren't
supposed to have eggs inside this religious and spiritual ashram. I thought,
'What do you mean, you're burying the shells? Can't God see that too?' came
home because we missed the children. I wouldn't want anyone to think we
didn't like it there. I said it was like Butlins holiday camp, we had learnt
by then that you could say anything and they'd print it. It was a good
experience - it just didn't last as long for me as it did for them.
PAUL: Being fairly practical, I had set a period for staying in Rishikesh.
To start with I thought, 'Whoa, this could be it, man. I could never come
back if this works.' Then I thought, 'Wait a minute, I'll go for a month. Even
if it's incredible, I'll still come back after a month.' If it had turned out
to be something we really had to go back for, I would have gone back. But at
the end of my month I was quite happy to leave. Nobody got any blinding
enlightenment. I thought: 'This will do me. If I want to get into it heavily,
I can do it anywhere.' That's one of the nice things about meditation - you
don't have to go to church to do it. I don't meditate as much now, but I say
to my kids that it's not a bad thing to learn, because if you're stuck
somewhere or if you're a bit disturbed, it is a great thing to do.
By saying I was only going to be there a month, I had to risk that the
others would say that I wasn't into it. And George did; he was quite strict.
I remember talking about the next album and he would say: 'We're not here to
talk music - we're here to meditate.' Oh yeah, alright, Georgie boy. Calm
down, man. Sense of humour needed here, you know. In fact, I loved it there.
GEORGE: Ringo only went for a couple of weeks - maybe just to put his toe
in the water and see what it was like. Paul just came and went. I don't think
he got much out of the trip because there's a bit of footage from Let It Be
where he's grinning, and saying to John: 'Oh, and it was like being at
school, you know: "Oh tell me, oh master."' Retrospectively, 20 years later,
he may think back and the penny might have dropped as to what it was about,
but I don't think it did at the time.
It was only really John and I who were there from the beginning up until the
end of the segment at Rishikesh, and I think John wanted to get back because
- you can see it historically now - he had just started his relationship with
Yoko before we went out to India.
Paul: I was quite happy. I was wondering how the others were going to get
out of it, though, and then they arrived back with a story about Maharishi...
GEORGE: Someone started a nasty rumour about Maharishi, a rumour that
swept the media for years. There were many stories about how Maharishi was
not on the level or whatever, but that was just jealousy about Maharishi.
We'd need analysts to get into it. I don't know what goes through these
people's minds, but this whole piece of bullshit was invented
.../...
The story stirred up a situation. John had wanted to leave anyway, so that
forced him into the position of thinking: 'OK, now we've got a good reason
to get out of here.' We went to Maharishi and I said, 'Look, I told you I was
going. I'm going to the south of India.' He couldn't really accept that we
were leaving, and he said, 'What's wrong?' That's when John said something
like,'Well, you're supposed to be the mystic, you should know.'
We drove for hours.
.../...
John flew back to Yoko in England and I went to
Madras and the south of India and spent another few weeks there.
The story was put around about our leaving and, of course, the newspapers
jumped on that. As it says in The Rutles, 'The press got hold of the wrong
end of the stick and started beating about the bush with it.' Now,
historically, there's the story that something went on that shouldn't have
done - but nothing did.
PAUL: When people say, 'Wasn't he stashing it away in a Swiss bank?' I
always say that I only ever saw him in one piece of cheesecloth. I never saw
him in a decent suit in his life. You would have thought if he was doing it
for the money you would catch him bombing off to a New Delhi nightclub in a
Rolls. But he always appeared to be in his hut meditating, in a piece of
cheesecloth, and I thought: 'You can't knock him for that.'
I remember us all sitting around and him asking us what would be a good
make of car to buy. We said, 'Well, a Merc, Maharishi. Mercedes very good
car.' 'Practical? Long running? Good works?' 'Yes.' 'Well, we should get a
Mercedes then.' It was only one, it wasn't millions, and we were in on the
discussions. He didn't say, 'What's the flashiest car that will pull all
the birds?' He asked, 'What is practical?' He was very like that.
.../...
Rishikesh was a good experience. I enjoyed it.
Ringo: When I'm driving I sometimes close my eyes and meditate - my
chauffeur drives me!
'The Beatles Anthology' (Cassell & Co, 35) is published on 5 October. To
order a copy at the special price of 33, post-free in the UK, please call
Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 155 7222, quoting ref NB1043
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