Maharishi - Joe Hagan

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- the latter had pa.id
thirty-five dollars for a personalized mantra. "There wouldn't be
any Doors without Maharishi,"
says Densmore, who recalls the
guru as "this androgynous little
weird fairy dude" who emanated
Densmore
"a palpable love
vibe."
The Beatles took the Mahari-
shi into living rooms worldwide,
but his spell on them tempo rartly
broke when he supposedly hit on
Mia Farrow in Rishikesh, promptingJohn Lennon and George Harrison to depart in disgust. The
rumor was never proved, and
Harrison later apologtzed.If Len
non were alive today, says Yoko
Ono, he probablywould have reconciled with the man he accused
of having "made a fool of every.
one."'John would have been the
first one now, if he had been here,
fo recognize and acknowledge
what Maharishi has done for the
world and appreciate it," she says.
Maharishi
MaheshYogi
the Maharishi retreated to the
Himalayas to develop his own
practice and emerged with the
idea of Transcendental Meditation, or TM. Based on ancient
Guru to Beatles and
Beach Boys dies in
the Netherlands
i-1"3a
Mike Love ascended through
the multimillion-dollar TM empire the yogi built in the r97os
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Vedic scriptures, it promises ele-
Yogi promised his
vated states ofconsciousness and
a path to world peace.
most
L
prized acolytes - the Beatles,
the Beach Boys and Donovan not only cosmic wisdom through
meditation but something far
more valuable: creative super-
In the late r95os, the Maharishi aspired to take TM to the
West and eventually landed in
LosAngeles, where
a
new culture
powers. "If the Beach Boys would
portedly ninety-one when
he
died on February 5th at home in
the Netherlands, left an indelible
mark on rock history with his
fabled meeting with the Beatles
in Rishikesh, India. The son of a
civil servant, the Maharishi came
from central India, where he stud.
ied physics before turning to the
teachings of a master yogi named
Guru Dev. When his guru died,
ered," he says.
The Maharishi is said by followers to have scheduled his de-
blossom. Richard Bock, the head
of World Pacific Records, the jazz
parture from the earrhly plane to
coincide with the fortieth anniversary of his rock summit. And just
in time, one of his original devotees returned: In 2006, Donovan
was reintroducedto TM byDavid
Lynch and was made the Maharishi's musical "ambassador." The
label that signed Ravi Shankar,
Maharishi asked Donovan to
continue to meditate," he told
Mike Love, "they'd become the
world's most influential group."
The Maharishi, who was re.
and r98os (some critics have
deemed it a cult). Through advanced teaching sessions, said to
cost as much as $r million, Love
reached the status of"Governor
of the Age of Enlighrenment" and
received instruction in "yogic flying." "I experienced some light.
ness, but I wouldn't say I've hov.
ofhippies, students and assorted
spiritual seekers was about to
became smitten
with TM
and
start a TM school
- "Invincible
turned on UCLA student Ray
Donovan University," he chanted
Manzarek by giving him two LPs
he had produced of the Maharishi speaking. It was at a TM lecture that Manzarek met guitarist
while in a trance. As Donovan
Robby Krieger and drummer John
explains, the root of "university"
is "universe," which means "one
verse" - a mantra. "He's very, very
hip," says Donovan.
Down at the Crossroads
ln Search of the Blues
By Marybeth Hamilton
Basic Books
ignored blues hitmakers in favor
of forgotten recordings of singers
such as Son House and Robert
Johnson. Hamilton de.
IF YOU BUY THE PRE\IISE OF
this fascinating historr-. the Delta
blues actually began in Williams-
burg, Brooklyn. There, starting in the mid-rg4os. obsessive
votes her book to the tales
of people like McKune:
scholars, field recorders
and record geeks who
sought out what they saw
ingJohn Lomax, who treated his
"discovery" Leadbelly with sick
ening condescension - is often
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unflattering, suggesting
that traditional assumptions about the blues are
racist. And the book may
make sorne blues fans reconsider what they think
WhatWould
Flyleaf Do?
How the Texas
rockers finally
went platinum
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r.rober zoo5, Fiyieaf
with Korn and
have toured
Evanescence, scored radio and
MTV airplay, and sold records
everywhere from Best Buy to
Christian bookstores. And on
February 7th, they did something rare for a young group
these days: They scored
a
platinum debut after their label
shipped the one millionth copv
of Flyleaf. "I don't really understand the magnitude of selling
a million records," says Flyleaf
singer Lacey Mosley.
"It
makes
want to ask,'Who am I that
the Lord has brought so far?"'
But ten years ago, Mosley
me
'tThere was a lot
of self-loathingr"
says Flyleaf singer
Mosley. "l hated
everybody."
-
now twenty-six - was a teendrinker and drug user with
a death wish. "There was a lot
of self-loathing," she says. "I had
a lot of problems in school, and
I hated everybody." After she'd
been shipped from Texas to her
age
grandmother in Mississippi,
Mosley decided to kill herself. But a fight
with her grand-
mother landed her in church:
"The deacon took me by the arm
and said,'God knows your pain,
and he wants to take it from
you.'I felt something happen in
me, and I had to listen."
Mosley's teen angstis serving
her well. Forrned in zooo, the