One thing is clear from all the recollections on this site - whatever you feelings about Maharishi's teaching and activities, meeting him was a unique experience which many people claim changed their lives.

In the 1960s and 1970s Maharishi made a whole generation aware that spiritual development was an aspiration anyone could hold.

The turning point of Maharishi's TM Movement undoubtedly came in 1968 when The Beatles attended a residential course with Maharishi in Bangor, North Wales.

Suddenly a teaching that had taken the interest of largely middle-aged theosophists and followers of the esoteric mystic Gurdieff was thrust into the conciousness of a generation of young people in search of peace and love.

The Beatles went on to attend a teacher traing course in India but all left during the course.

The reasons for their leaving have been the subject of debate ever since and we carry some accounts on this site. Mia Farrow's account in her autobiography states that Maharishi was showing her excessive attention and then embraced her during a one to one meditation session

The reasons for their leaving Rishikesh been the subject of debate ever since

Most followers of Maharishi subsequently discounted the idea that Maharishi, an avowed celibate, would take a sexual interest in a young woman.

Linda Pearce, a one-time teacher of TM however later gave an account of how she slept with Maharishi on a number of occassions and knew of others with the same experience

One caution to her account is that she was encouraged to give it by Sri Mataji, another Indian teacher, who it is reported deliberately set out to discredit a number of 'false Gurus' with stories of sexual impropriety

Whatever the truth of the allegations, apart from John Lennon, the other Beatles and Mia Farrow seem to have recalled their involvement with Maharishi with affection

As a footnote, according to a journalist who claimed to have asked Maharishi about The Beatles shortly before his death, Maharishi stated that it was he that made the Beatles famous not the other way round.

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