Monday, February 19, 1968
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr travel to India
Last updated on September 28, 2024
Monday, February 19, 1968
Last updated on September 28, 2024
Location: New Delhi, India
Session Feb 15, 1968 • Mixing "Lady Madonna"
Article Feb 19 to Mar 24, 1968 (Paul) • The Beatles in India
Article Feb 19, 1968 • Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr travel to India
Article Feb 23, 1968 • The Daily Express publishes psychedelic photos of The Beatles
Article Feb 24, 1968 • The first Apple ad appears in the New Musical Express
Aug 24, 1967 • The Beatles meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Aug 25, 1967 • The Beatles travel to Bangor with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Aug 26, 1967 • The Beatles join a seminar with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Aug 27, 1967 • The Beatles leave Bangor and react to Brian Epstein's death
Aug 31, 1967 • The Beatles meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Kensington
October 14-15, 1967 • Paul McCartney and George Harrison visit the Maharishi in Sweden
Feb 19 to Mar 24, 1968 (Paul) • The Beatles in India
Feb 19, 1968 • Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr travel to India
Mar 24, 1968 • Paul and Jane leave Rishikesh
Mar 26, 1968 • Press Conference - Paul and Jane are back from India
On August 24, 1967, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison, along with their partners, attended a lecture held by the 56-year-old guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at London’s Hilton Hotel. Ringo Starr could not attend due to the recent birth of his and Maureen Starkey’s second child, Jason.
Following the lecture, the three Beatles met with the Maharishi in his hotel suite. During this meeting, the Maharishi extended an invitation for the band to join him as guests at a five-day training retreat scheduled to commence the following day in Bangor, Wales.
On August 25, the Maharishi and the four Beatles embarked on a train journey to Bangor, accompanied by Pattie Harrison, her sister Jenny Boyd, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithfull. They were soon joined by Cynthia Lennon, Jane Asher, and Neil Aspinall.
On August 27, the Beatles abruptly returned to London after it was announced that their manager, Brian Epstein, had died. The Beatles met again with the Maharishi on August 31 in London.
On September 4, NEMS announced that The Beatles would travel to India in early October. But in October, as the editing process for their “Magical Mystery Tour” TV special took longer than expected, the trip was subsequently delayed. Eventually, in February 1968, The Beatles embarked on their visit to the Maharishi in India.
On February 14, 1968, the Beatles’ assistant, Mal Evans, travelled to India, transporting luggage belonging to George and Pattie Harrison, her sister Jenny, and John and Cynthia Lennon.
The next day, John, Cynthia, George, Pattie, and Jenny flew from London to Delhi. In Delhi, they were met by Mal Evans and Mia Farrow. Mal had arranged for three taxis to take the group from Delhi to Rishikesh, where they were to study meditation with the Maharishi. The journey covered about 150 miles.
On February 19, Paul McCartney and his partner Jane Asher, along with Ringo and Maureen Starr, flew to Delhi. The 20-hour flight lasted through the night, and they landed in Delhi early on February 20.
On the flight over, we, Paul and I, decided to go the whole way, and become vegetarians. I shall still eat eggs, but that’s it. That’s about all in that line. I suppose it would be better to call us ‘fruit-atarians’ than anything else. We all think it is a lot healthier than eating meat, anyway.
Ringo Starr – Quoted in The Beatles Bible
Usually, I tell people I want to get somewhere quietly, and it turns out that everyone knows. A hundred people are in on the secret. I know what it is; the airline likes to get you photographed with the name. This time, we just drove into Delhi, got a ticket, and that was it. We stopped off in Tehran and this bloke from the airline came up and said, ‘Excuse me, are you one of The Beatles?’ So I said, ‘No,’ and he just walked away and that was that. I guess we’re not too big in Tehran.
Ringo Starr – Quoted in The Beatles Bible
The arrival of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in Delhi was quite different from the journey taken by John Lennon and George Harrison a few days earlier. The world’s press was now aware of The Beatles’ presence in India, and cameramen and reporters were on hand as they disembarked.
They were met in Delhi by Mal Evans and Raghvendra from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh. Garlands of red and yellow flowers were placed around the visitors’ necks.
Ringo was suffering pain in his arm following inoculation injections, and the party set off for a hospital. Their driver, however, lost his way and drove down a dead end in a field, along with the press convoy. One local reporter eventually led them to the hospital.
Afterwards, they began the 150-mile journey to Rishikesh. The Academy of Transcendental Meditation was situated 150 feet above the Ganges and was surrounded by mountainous jungles.
There was an Indian driver and Raghvendra from the camp in front and me and Jane Asher in the back and it was long and it was dusty and it was not a very good car and it was one of those journeys, but great and exciting. I remember these Indian guys talking in what was obviously an Indian language and I was starting to doze off in the car in the back because once you were two hours into the journey the tourism had worn off a little. It was fascinating seeing naked holy men and the kind of thing you just don’t see unless it’s late-night Soho, and the ones you tend to see in Soho tend to be covered in s**t and very drunk. I slipped into sleep, a fitful back-of-the-car sort of sleep. It was quite bumpy, and the guys were chattering away, but in my twilight zone of sleeping it sounded like they were talking Liverpool. If you listened closely, it so nearly slid into it. There was like a little segue into very fast colloquial Liverpool. And I was thinking, Uh, where the f**k am I? What? Oh, it’s Bengali, and I would just drop off again. ‘Yabba yabba, are yer comin’ oot then, lad?’ It was a strange little twilight experience. It was a long journey.
Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997
THE PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS – with the Beatles in India
Two BEATLES sat in the hot Eastern sun on a breathtaking plateau overlooking the Ganges listening to an Indian greybeard perched on a pink plinth. They were learning how to face a hard day’s night meditating without food, drink or sleep while in search of the secrets of peace and everlasting life. In uncluttered caftans, George Harrison and John Lennon, with wives Cynthia and Patti, have stopped the show for a while to be the pupils of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The Maharishi told me today that George and John, along with Paul McCartney and Ringo who arrive on Tuesday to complete the set, face thirty-hour fasts – or meditative trances – as part of the two-month course at his fifteen-acre academy in the forest-clad foothills of the Himalaya.
But the Maharishi pointed out that, when the foursome reach this advanced stage in their meditation, they will gradually decrease the fast sessions and readapt their systems to rejoin the everyday world.
When they return, will they be better Beatles?
Before he ascended to the Maharishi’s academy George Harrison told me : “I believe I have already extended my life by twenty years. I believe there are bods up here in the Himalayas who have lived for centuries. There is one somewhere around who was born before Jesus Christ and is still living now.“
And John. “The way George is going he will be flying on a magic carpet by the time he is forty. I am here to find out what kind of role I am now to play. I would like to know how far I can progress with it. George is a few inches ahead of us.”
But there can be no doubt John believes. He has sent his famous psychedelic Rolls-Royce to America where he hopes it will be sold — the proceeds will help the Maharishi to open academies across the world.
George, the leader of the Beatle pilgrimage, and John attended the Maharishi’s first lecture today along with sixty other devotees, including Sinatra’s wife, 22-year-old Mia Farrow — who now wears robes and carries a staff. Also in the Beatle party is Patti Boyd’s 20-year-old sister Jenny.
Bu their first day wasn’t all peace and love. Angry Indian newsmen crashed down the locked gates of the academy because the two Beatles had arrived unnoticed and had refused to be photographed. John said: “This is one time in our lives when we refuse to be disturbed by anyone or anything.“
On Tuesday Ringo brings his wife Maureen, and Paul his actress girlfriend Jane Asher to the bare feet of the Holy Man. They will live in whitewashed chalets and attend lectures in a hall which are eighty-four caves in rocks where followers meditate in complete silence. At home, the Beatles have left a pile of legal contracts to take care of administration in their absence. They have even cut their new single record, appropriately titled “Lady Madonna,” for release in the beginning of next month. Beatles’ children Zak, Jason, and Julian are being looked after by nannies and mothers-in-law.
This pilgrimage must be the Manarishi’s finest hour—though when he spoke to me today he was reluctant to admit the Beatles brought him fame.
“It would have happened in any event,” he said. “It was only a question of time before the world came to know about me.”
Only a question of time? He had roamed the world for seven weary years and failed to arouse any real interest by his promises of salvation. Then, out of the blue, came the Beatles, their curiosity aroused by the developing interest of George Harrison in Indian music and tradition. The Beatles proclaimed the Maharishi their spiritual leader. And suddenly the rest of the world stopped, looked and listened… Some laughed.
On his way to the academy George Harrison admitted to me: “A lot of people think we’ve gone off our heads. Well, they can think that — or anything they like. We’ve discovered a new way of living.
“The fact is that since we have been initiated we have moved closer to the people we know. We have always been close to our homes and families in Liverpool and its dockers and the people we grew up among. Now we are closer than ever In the same way with our fans. We hope they have trust in us to know what we are doing. We have always kept our identity with them.“
Two years ago, when George first started experimenting with Indian music, he reached a point when he nearly quit the Beatles. He yearned for the new life that was awaiting him in India.
He told me: “I felt I wanted to walk out of my home that day and take a one-way ticket to Calcutta. I would have even left Patti behind in that moment and all I would have taken would have been my sitar… Anyway, I didn’t go and it was just as well for today I realise that the Beatles must never cop out of the scene. We have got to prove to people what we believe in, and the only way we can do that is by remaining Beatles and transmitting our message through our music.”
Surprisingly, it was model George’s model girl wife Patti who was the first of the Beatle folk to become initiated into the British branch of the Maharishi’s Spiritual Regeneration Movement. Then George, Paul, John and Ringo joined the Maharishi’s clan. They gave up drinking and finished with drugs.
“Drugs,” said George, “were just a flirtation and nothing more. It served only as an experiment. But we found that through meditation we could reach newer horizons.”
Now the Beatles adhere to the Maharishi’s beliefs — including reincarnation. George said: “I am sure I was with Paul, John and Ringo before. What were we doing? I’ve no idea but we couldn’t have done all that good because we wouldn’t be here now. We didn’t make it.“
Just before he went into the academy George said to me: “We must go now I imagine it’s going to be something like a school camp.” Then he grinned. “Or may be like Billy Butlin’s.”
And with a wave, he shouted back: “We’ll see you in a couple of months’ time.”
Beatle manager Brian Epstein said to me just before he died last August: “The Beatles will go on and on because they possess such inquisitive minds.” Today those inquisitive minds have brought the Beatles to the Old World in search of the world to come.
From The Daily Mirror – February 19, 1968
Ringo’s Vaccination Starts A Spot Of Bother
NOTHING went right for Beatles Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney when they arrived in New Delhi today on their way to join John Lennon and George Harrison in meditation.
Ringo’s cholera vaccination was the trouble. It led to a whirl through Delhi’s fashionable and not so fashionable suburbs in search of treatment for a delayed reaction to the vaccination.
The whole thing could have come out of one of the Beatles’ films.
Ringo and Paul had stepped shivering, from their aircraft on the way to the retreat of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Rishikesh on the forested bank of the sacred Ganges river. Ringo was accompanied by his wife, Maureen, and Paul by his girlfriend, red-headed actress, Jame Asher.
Apart from a few cameramen and reporters, no-one paid any attention to the visitors as they prepared for the five-hour trip by car.
Finally, the motorcade moved off — but in the wrong direction — and came to a halt in a tiny settlement of grass huts on the northern fringes of Delhi. Baffled pressmen were told “Ringo’s cholera shot is playing up… he wants it checked before he goes to Rishikesh.”
The cars headed back to the city centre, where eventually the Swami (Holy Man) acting as guide entered the emergency ward of a hospital. “Please give special treatment… this is Beatle Ringo,” he told a startled doctor.
“We give special treatment to everyone,” the doctor replied. “In that case, we will look for a better doctor,” the Swami said.
As the motorcade drove through the fast thickening morning traffic, Ringo spotted a doctor’s sign, and disappeared inside with his wife.
Paul McCartney filmed the final scene as Ringo emerged, shouting, “I’m all right, I’m all right… it’s just the second kick.”
The doctor had not given him any treatment, he said before the party at long last set off on the road to Rishikesh and to the serious study of meditation.
From Leicester Mercury, February 20, 1968
Now in session.. the Maharishi’s well-known summer school and its very distinguished class of ’68 – A FIRST LESSON FOR THE BEATLES
THE Maharishi Mahesh Yogi sits cross-legged on his raised dais. And his pupils gather round to hear the word. So begins the first lesson at the Maharishi’s mountain academy, the school specialising in transcendental meditation and the everlasting life that goes with it.
This 1968 intake is already a celebrated one, including as it does Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison. And their wives Cynthia and Patti. And Mia Farrow, actress wife of Frank Sinatra.
They sit in a semicircle before their leader for the first open-air lecture in this wooded ampitheatre overlooking India’s River Ganges. The Maharishi, holding a red rose, talks slowly and quietly as he tells of the five steps of meditation which, he claims, lead to divinity. Then comes question time. And some of the questions bring a bubbling high-pitched chuckle from the bearded Maharishi.
Soon Ringo Starr and his wife Maureen, and Paul McCartney with actress Jane Asher, will arrive to catch up on the two-month course. And all the Beatles — together with the other pupils — will meditate non-stop for thirty hours without food, drink or sleep.
A few aids are supplied to help them to achieve this desired state of idyllic happiness and peace. There are, for example, heavy locks on all the gates and three separate rings of barbed wire all round the rural academy. These are needed to keep out an increasing number of Indian girls — some in saris and some in mini-skirts — who have also been making a pilgrimage to this lonely Himalayan outpost. Well, it appears they aren’t terribly interested in transcendental meditation. They just want to study the Beatles.
From The Daily Mirror – February 20, 1968
PILGRIM BEATLES ON BANKS OF THE GANGES
BEATLES John and George sat crosslegged on the banks of the Ganges yesterday and sprinkled themselves with water from the holy river. Meanwhile, back at the mountain retreat of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the rest of the Beatles entourage was settling down to some transcendental meditating.
Ringo Starr, his wife Maureen, Paul McCartney and his actress girl-friend Jane Asher arrived at the Maharishi’s temple after slipping quietly through New Delhi. And by the time they reached the retreat in the Himalayan foothills, the newcomers were probably in need of meditation.
For their 180-mile journey was like something right out of a madcap Beatles film. First, the car in which Ringo was travelling knocked down a pilgrim — who was not hurt. Then the motorcade had to make a detour because of landslides. They made the final lap of the journey on foot in driving rain.
The Maharishi was there to greet them. “Be happy,” he said. After the reunion, John and George — now old hands at the meditating game — went on their pilgrimage to the Ganges.
From The Daily Mirror – February 21, 1968
A serious business for Beatles
Mr. James McCartney, Beatle Paul McCartney’s father, said today that Paul and his three fellow Beatles “are taking their meditation in India very seriously.”
Mr. James McCartney, of Heswall, Cheshire, is on holiday in Malta with his second wife while the quartet study transcendental meditation in the Himalayas with their spiritual mentor. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He said: “Although we know very little of what the visit entails, we are convinced there is nothing wrong in learning to relax and meditate. Paul has not changed much since he became internationally famous.“
From South Wales Argus, February 26, 1968
The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years
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