THE NIRVANA EXPRESS
by Mick Brown (Pain Publishers £25, 400pp)
It’s all The Beatles’ fault. Anyone who has endured someone’s vague story about “finding” themselves in India can blame John, Paul, George and Ringo.
In the summer of 1967, when the band studied meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the foothills of the Himalayas, they made spiritual tourism profoundly groovy. But, as Brown explains in The Nirvana Express, the Fab Four were just the latest in a long line of Western figures to fall under the spell of holy men from the East.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, these movements, often loosely linked to Hinduism and Buddhism, captivated Europeans and Americans seeking a quiet alternative to the more shouty dictates of Christian fundamentalists and the bling of Catholicism. George Harrison was just one of many seduced by the idea that “every soul is potentially divine.”
In the summer of 1967, when the band studied meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the foothills of the Himalayas, they made spiritual tourism profoundly groovy.
In a lively story, delivered with humor and warmth, Brown shows how Eastern mysticism went from suspect to venerable, and back to a subject of skepticism. Along the way, he delivers an outrageous cast of characters – movie stars, novelists, heirs and heretics – and shows how pacifying swamis and duplicitous charlatans have left their mark on Western ways.
It all started with the Victorian love of learning. In 1879, Sir Edwin Arnold published The Light of Asia, a poetic portrayal of the Buddha’s life that aroused curiosity among some colonialists in the East and among adventurous spirits at home.
By the early 20th century, Indian philosophy had become fashionable. Sir Edwin Lutyens, the most celebrated architect of the Edwardian era, was not a fan. His wife, Emily, embraced Theosophy – which combined world religions in Avengers Assemble fashion – and became an ardent admirer of Krishna, the mild-mannered 16-year-old son of an Indian clerk randomly chosen as his unlikely Messiah.
While Lady Emily devoted herself to the boy, poor Edwin worked for periods in India, where he saw little beauty among the poverty.
Emily wrote to him that he was no longer welcome in her bedroom and then made little but spiritual overtures to Krishna. These in turn were rejected.
Others were less easily influenced. The infamous occultist Aleister Crowley – also known as ‘the worst man in the world’ – found Eastern spiritualism far too passive. But gurus continued to attach themselves to celebrities and socialites to gain traction and money. In the 1930s, Meher Baba, a spiritual teacher with an eye on Hollywood, tried to gain the patronage of Greta Garbo, but failed.
As Brown notes, Indian spirituality became mainstream in the 1960s when The Beatles became fans. The saga of the world’s most famous band and the Maharishi – known as the ‘Giggling Guru’ for his mischievous humor – is a story of curiosity and disappointment.
In 1967 the band went to the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane to hear the guru speak (George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, recalled that “they seemed to do everything as a group; if one of them did something, they would all want to do it .’). The next day the four musicians left for a teacher training college in Bangor, North Wales, where the Maharishi taught Transcendental Meditation. However, the retreat was cut short when the band learned of the death of their beloved manager Brian Epstein.
In a lively story, delivered with humor and warmth, Brown shows how Eastern mysticism went from suspect to venerable, and back to a subject of skepticism.
The Beatles later studied under the guru in India, in an ashram overlooking the Ganges. Mia Farrow, raw from her divorce from Frank Sinatra, joined them along with her sister Prudence (Lennon wrote ‘Dear Prudence’ in her honor).
A gifted salesman, the Maharishi soon dubbed himself “the spiritual teacher of the Beatles.”
Lesser-known disciples, Brown writes, were required to bring “six fresh flowers, two pieces of fruit, a clean white handkerchief, and a financial donation.”
It didn’t take long for cracks to appear.
Ringo didn’t like the food and went home early. The rest of the band followed suit when rumors spread that the Maharishi had attacked Mia Farrow.
“We thought there was more to him than there was,” Paul McCartney noted. Lennon was more candid, recalling how stunned The Beatles had been when they learned of Epstein’s death and the Maharishi’s reaction when they told him Epstein had died. “And he said something like, ‘Oh forget it, be happy’ – bloody idiot.”
Some gurus have a touch of Yes Minister
Only George retained the faith and maintained a lifelong interest in Eastern religions. But the Beatles’ stay in India produced incredible music: more than half of the White Album was written in the ashram.
Perhaps the most complex Indian godmen was Bhagwan Rajneesh, Brown suggests. Rajneesh, the Gordon Gekko of the swami scene, looked as much to the heavens as to the bottom line and built an empire in the 1970s and 1980s that included a town in Oregon – which he renamed Rajneeshpuram – and the largest collection of Rolls -Royces in the world. In 1976, actor Terence Stamp arrived at Rajneesh’s Indian base in Pune and immediately recognized a fellow performer, who compared him to Orson Welles.
Stamp settled into the ashram: ‘I had a new name, I wore orange, I studied tantric sex. It was not uninteresting!’
Rajneesh’s American venture, which attracted thousands of visitors, collapsed in the mid-1980s after reports of violent therapy sessions, sex scandals and a litany of crimes: followers were convicted of bioterror attacks, arson and attempted murder. Their leader was arrested, fined and deported back to India.
Brown shows how the gurus’ woolly wisdom was both their strength and their weakness (there’s a whiff of Yes Minister in some of their opaque statements). Yet the influence of these mystics continues today. “Yoga classes are now taught in church halls,” Brown notes. ‘Meditation has been stripped of its spiritual connotations and renamed ‘mindfulness’.’
In his previous book, Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound: The Rise And Fall Of Phil Spector, Brown revealed how a musical icon became a murderer. There are more fallen idols here.
A pattern is forming of pure faith, curtailed by greed, and the instability of both gurus and believers. Brown illustrates the subjective reality of spiritual highs with a funny story about the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
In 1948, Ginsberg, whose mystical journey included Buddhism, mescaline and LSD, claimed to have had a visit from God while reading a poem by William Blake in his New York apartment.
“Overcome with the urge to share the good news,” Brown writes, “Ginsberg crawled out the window to the fire escape and tapped on the window of the adjacent apartment, which was occupied by two girls. The window opened: “I have seen God!” Ginsberg shouted excitedly.
‘The window slammed shut. “Oh,” Ginsberg later complained, “what stories I could have told them if they had let me in!” ‘