Cosmic Set-Up: How the Beatles First Met Maharishi

by laughing crow

My old friend Geoffrey Baker, an art professor at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, once recounted to me the story of how Maharishi met first the Beatles in London.

Geoffrey was traveling with Maharishi in 1967 as an assistant (and later was with Maharishi in Rishikesh when the Beatles were there). Geoffrey recalls riding with Maharishi on a train across England, when, seemingly out of the blue, Maharishi asked, “How many are the Beatles?”

Geoffrey was surprised that Maharishi had even heard of the Beatles, being focused as he was on one thing: teaching meditation.

“I believe there are four of them,” said Geoffrey, himself a couple generations out of sync with Beatlemania.

Maharishi then asked that Geoffrey prepare four copies of “The Science of Being and Art of Living,” Maharishi's new book about the principles of meditation, and to give one to each of the Beatles. Geoffrey wondered where and how he was to get the books to the wildly famous quartet. But Maharishi assured him there would be a meet-up. Sure enough, with no visible orchestration from Maharishi's side, the Beatles mysteriously showed up at Maharishi's talk at the London Hilton, as the famous photograph (above right) of the Fab Four sitting with the master afterward attests—each Beatle sitting with his own personal copy of "The Science of Being and Art of Living."