global cultural phenomenon

This account of three of The Beatles taking LSD with two of The Byrds in LA 50 years ago this week marks a significant moment in the mass cultural breakthough of non-dual thought and practice in the West that occurred two years later (48 years ago this week), when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave a talk at the Hilton hotel on Park Lane in London. That event, attended by all The Beatles, triggered an eruption of this kind of discussion on mainstream Saturday night TV, that brought concepts into public discourse of a kind that had previously only been known among a small cognoscenti, but have been a part of our world ever since (with occasional popular waves like the widespread uptake of Mindfulness today).

Perhaps the chief event during the LA Acid drop was George Harrison hearing Dave Crosby playing Indian raga style on the single guitar they had between them (they were in the bathroom at the time, all of them, hiding from the armed security guards hired to prevent fans overrunning the house they were staying in), and recognising an artistic fit for his growing spiritual sensibility. Crosby and Roger McGuin in their previous incarnation as the Jet Set had practiced at World Pacific studios where their manager worked as an engineer, and where Ravi Shankar, the great Indian maestro, recorded. Crosby's raga prompted an enquiry from George that led to him investigating the source material, buying a sitar on his return to England, and introducing the sound (an elementary riff played as if on a guitar on the song Norwegian Wood) on The Beatles next album (Revolver, released Aug 1966 – 49 years ago this week).

But it also led to him meeting Ravi Shankar and travelling to India to study with him. While in India, George, along with his then wife, Pattie Boyd, were introduced to Indian spirituality by Shankar, who considered the philosophy a vital underpinning to his musical approach. They met teachers and practiced physical yoga, partly because it was necessary for the posture required to play the sitar effectively. But it was back in England that Pattie Boyd, who worked as a model and had met George while playing a small part in The Beatles first film, A Hard Day's Night (release in July 1964 – 51 years ago last month), began to pursue a dedicated practice in order to realise a deeper personal understanding. At that time, London had many centres that studied and practiced in the Indian traditions, but none were as active in promoting the message as the Spiritual Regenaration Movement founded in 1957 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 

Maharishi was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati the head of the Jyotir Math, a monastery in northern India founded in the 8^th century by Adi Shankara, the great teacher who established Advaita as the principle school in the Vedanta tradition (as propounded in three key texts, the Upanishads, the Baghavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras). According to Advaita (literally translatable as non-duality) the idea that we exist as separated, competing individuals in a world of material objects, is a delusion caused by ignorance of the reality, and creates suffering, the endless dissatisfaction of desire. From its perspective the world of form arises from the formless ground of pure consciousness, and everything that appears in the world has its root in consciousness. Realising the reality – which eliminates the sense of isolation and fear, ends yearning for the objects of the senses, and brings blissful fulfilment - is the goal of human life, and turning inwards to recognise this truth is the end of a natural process that governs the cosmos (known as Karma).

Maharishi thought that the post-2^nd World War world, dominated by the West, which was then locked into a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, had drifted so far from the truth that it needed a rescue mission, and so he stripped out much of the potentially alienating cultural accoutrements of Indian spiritual practice, and presented a key component, meditation - and in particular, mantra meditation (the repetition of a sacred sound in order to lead the mind off of its deluded thoughts and allow its core reality to emerge naturally) - as an accessible pursuit. He then began a series of world tours in 1958 that by 1967 saw him established in many countries, including Britain, and able to command respectably sized audiences for his talks. His London supporters used to advertise events in The Times newspaper, one of which caught the attention of Pattie Boyd one Sunday at home in Surrey. She subsequently attended a course at Caxton Hall over a weekend, received initiation and became a practitioner of what is termed Transcendental Meditation.

That was in February 1967, while her husband was away touring with The Beatles. She then inspired George enough for him to recruit the rest of the band into attending the famous meeting some months later in August of that year. The Beatles were such a huge global cultural phenomenon that every action they took was recorded by the international media. The event at the Hilton, and what followed (The Beatles flew to India to study at Maharishi's ashram, along with a retinue that included the Hollywood star Mia Farrow, and influential folk-rock musician Donovan) represented a moment when ideas about spirituality, consciousness, the non-dual nature of the universe and our purpose in life - held as revealed truth in all cultures throughout history, yet long dormant in the West, where spiritual traditions had lost sight of their own essential message - forcibly reasserted itself as a field of cultural enquiry. It is remarkable to see the form it took in 1960s British society, and allows us to look more objectively at current circumstances, and how similar debates are structured around these issues today.

pic from here