When the Beatles flew off to India to study transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a lot of dope-smokin' acid-droppin' hippies went with them -- in spirit at least. George Harrison was the driving force who led the Fab Four onto the Hindu path because he believed that while psychedelic drugs would open a door into a spiritual realm, they wouldn't let you stay there, and he was looking for a way to do that. That sounded pretty good to a lot of us hippies.
If you weren't part of that generation and movement, it is hard to understand how much influence the Beatles had. Lennon's comment that they were bigger than Jesus wasn't true, but they did have quite the following.
At the time, we were living in a big ole clunky house on Geranium Street, on the edge of the LSU campus in Baton Rouge. My wife, two small children, our half-Shepherd, half-Great Dane, Cookie, and, from time to time, Uncle Jay and whichever of our hippie friends who needed a place to crash, and me.
The house was large, the rent cheap, because the place was soon to be torn down to widen the road. It was next door to Genesis House, a local hippie-run drug and suicide hotline, which is another story.
So, the Beatles were learning to meditate, and a goodly portion of young folks around the world wanted to do so, too.
Not coincidentally, TM teachers began quickly to appear throughout the land. An introductory TM lecture was scheduled for the student union, and my wife and I got a sitter for the kids and went to hear it. If John, Paul, George, and Ringo were into it, we were there.
It sounded wonderful. A path to bliss, harmony, a way to touch the cosmic all. We were ready to sign up, only, it cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars per person. This was in the day when that was more than a month's rent, and we didn't have it.
Why, we asked the lecturer, did it cost so much?
Well, he said, Americans don't value anything that is free, so we charge enough to make them want to get their money's worth.
Okay, that made a kind of sense, but still, it was beyond our reach.
We fretted about it. Maybe we could scrape up enough for my wife and then she could teach me. I could sell my motorscooter ...
While pondering the problem, we heard about another lecture. The Ananda Marga Yoga Society would be on campus, they were teaching mantra meditation -- which was the same as TM -- and guess what? It was free. If you had an extra five or ten bucks, you could put it in the jar, but if you didn't, no problem.
So we went.
The teacher, who was a hippie-chick in a white robe, frizzy hair, big smile, named Trigunavati, was out of New Orleans. We started the session with a Sanskrit chant, she laid out some ideas, and
bam! we were hooked.
Our Indian guru was Baba, (Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) who was married to Ma, and they were pure and holy and fully-realized human beings. They had written a library of material, and it would be made available to us.
In the classes we learned yoga asanas and a generic mantra, which is a word you mentally intone while sitting quietly to meditate. Twice a day, we did asanas -- on a wool blanket, mind you -- and then sat for fifteen or twenty minutes in meditation.
Both of these activities are beneficial -- physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Because we had a big house, the weekly group meditations wound up there, and quickly, we became the headquarters in that part of the state. So there were were, members of Ananda Marga -- the path to bliss -- and just two inches shy of a cult.
One of the high teachers, Dadaji, came from India in his orange robes, to give us our personal mantras. Dadaji, to keep his karma clean, would not touch women. If one handed him a glass of water, he was careful not to make contact with her fingers.
Each of us went into the back room with him, one-on-one, and he would tune into our auras and then give each of us a new mantra, specifically chosen to match our spirits. If you had done any kind of dope for a couple weeks prior to meeting Dadaji, you were screwed, because he would see it in your aura.
He closed his eyes, swayed from side to side, and then your mantra came to him, and he told you what it was. This was a magical, holy Sanskrit word, yours alone, and it was never to be revealed to any other person, for that would render it inert.
Dadaji initiated us. Next time he came back, we'd get Indian names, if we were ready.
We were in high and holy cotton. Doing yoga, meditation, no drugs, no booze, clean living and on the path. Baba nam kevalam, om shanti!
Alas, the path to bliss is beset with obstacles.
One fine Saturday morning, as we were all sitting crosslegged for the group session and silently intoning our personal mantras, our big dog Cookie began barking outside. Part of meditatation was learning how to tune out extraneous noises, so I was trying to do that when, all of a moment, Cookie yelped and stopped barking.
Later, I found out that the reason for this was that Trigunavati, our mellow yoga and meditation teacher, had gone outside and kicked the dog. One of the students, sitting by the door, had watched as she did it.
I found this, as Darth Vader was later to say, disturbing. What kind of holy woman kicks dogs?
While we were digesting this, Trigunavati moved off to Boulder, only a couple weeks later.
Ananda Marga sent another teacher, a pimply-faced boy who wanted to put Baba's picture up for us to kowtow to as we arrived for the group meditation, and that didn't fly, either. We decided that we could manage our own sessions.
Meanwhile, back in India, Baba and Ma split up. Where I had been getting a newsletter every so often from them before, I now started getting two newsletters.
Baba's letter said, "Ma has fallen off the path. Disregard anything she has to say."
Apparently Ma had run off with one of the teachers -- I hoped it wasn't Dadaji -- and, according to the scuttlebutt, was living in unholy sin.
Ma's letter said, "Baba has lost his way. We are now the spiritual leaders of the movement."
At some point during a public gathering, followers of Baba and those of Ma came together, and began to beat the shit out of each other with their holy placards. Some of them died.
Baba was busted for murder.
Sentenced to life, his conviction was later overturned, but still ...
This, as you might imagine, caused some consternation among those of us in far Louisiana.
The final straw came when, feeling somewhat disillusioned, some of us were having a discussion, using one of the texts we had been given. I came across my mantra in the book. I'd have to be careful, I allowed, not to read a section of the book aloud.
Me, too, one of the other students said. My mantra is in the book, as well.
Really? Which page?
No shit, so's mine!
The group gathered round.
Which paragraph?
Which line ... ?
It wasn't necessary to say the word, but we all knew.
Ole Dadaji, misogynist holy man that he was, had given us all the same personal mantra. (Which, for the record, was "Brahma," and fuck the spiritual warranty.)
That did it. The golden idol had feet of clay, and we were done. While the meditation technique was valid enough and useful, the organization had lost all credibility. Some of us continued to meditatate and do yoga, some of us blew it off. It was, as the old Trainex film strip lessons used to say, " ... a learning experience!"
Om ...
