Author: David Orr
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: February19, 2006
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/19/wyogi19.xml
The spat between the Beatles and Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi in 1968 became an instant pop legend as perhaps the most bitter
bust-up in the era of Free Love.
Now, after almost four decades of rumour and
counter-rumour, a confidant of both sides has gone public with revelations
that could upset many of the band's fans.
The spiritualist and author Deepak Chopra,
a former maharishi disciple and a friend of the late George Harrison, has
said that contrary to popular myth, the row was nothing to do with claims
that the maharishi made sexual advances on Mia Farrow, the actress and friend
of the band.
Instead, he said, the maharishi had objected
to the group taking drugs at his home in Rishikesh, northern India. Dr Chopra
told the Sunday Telegraph: "What isn't generally known is that the maharishi
had got fed up with the Beatles taking drugs while they were at his ashram
[spiritual home].
They were smoking ganja [cannabis] and taking
LSD. He hadn't come across anything like that before and he took a strong
view."
The group had gone to the ashram in search
of spiritual enlightenment, meditating during the day and writing songs in
the evening. According to reports, they consumed no alcohol or drugs when
they first arrived and kept to a strict vegetarian diet.
A few weeks into their much-publicised sojourn,
however, relations soured between the guru and the band's entourage. In a
subsequent television interview, John Lennon and Paul McCartney said they
had lost interest in the maharishi's teachings.
Dr Chopra said of the rumour that the guru
had misbehaved with Farrow, who was part of the entourage: "There was
never any truth to stories about the maharishi's womanising. When he was sick
in the UK, he wouldn't even allow any female nurses near him.
"As for the stuff about Mia Farrow, that
was complete nonsense. I met her years later and she asked me to tell the
maharishi that she still loved him," he said.
Dr Chopra said Harrison later apologised to
the maharishi during a visit to his meditation centre at Vlodrop in Holland
where he now lives as a recluse. Nobody at the centre was available for comment.
