Unlikely Lightworkers from Liverpool

The Beatles were more than musical masters-they were spiritual pioneers.

- PHILIP GOLDBERG

"In February 1968 the Beatles went to India for an extended stay with their new guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It may have been the most momentous spiritual retreat since Jesus spent those 40 days in the wilderness."

That's how I opened my book, American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation: How Indian Spirituality Changed the West. When it was published in 2010, I braced myself for blowback. Nothing happened. Not a single angry email. No one accused me of demeaning Jesus. No one tried to convince me I was mistaken. Instead, I received dozens of messages from people whose lives had been transformed by the Beatles' India sojourn.

In fact, over time, millions of lives were affected by that event. It was as though the earth tilted on its axis, allowing India's ancient wisdom to flow more easily to the West. The media, always in pursuit of the Fab Four, descended on the quiet, holy town of Rishikesh in the Himalayan foothills. Photographers and reporters, banned from the ashram grounds, tried everything from bribery to perching in trees with the monkeys to get something to publish. As a direct result of the nonstop coverage, formerly esoteric precepts and practices quickly went mainstream.

But let's back up a few years to get a better grasp on why this happened.

The lads from Liverpool started out as a ragtag band playing local clubs and in time became bigger than Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra had been when female fans screamed and wept at the sight of them. Mass media had become truly massive since those previous crazes, and there were four Beatles to go around, each one photogenic and lovable in his own way. As for their music, the beats were danceable, the harmonies infectious, and the lyrics told simple tales of youthful love and heartache.

Then they grew up.