Meditating with the Beatles --
The Beatles in India with Paul Saltzman will be held in Conference Room B at the Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton Center for Health and Wellness, 3100 Quakerbridge Road, Hamilton, New Jersey March 15, 2007 @ 7 p.m. Admission is $5. Advance registration required. For information, call (609) 584-5900. On the Web: www.rwjhamilton.org. Mr. Saltzman on the Web: www.thebeatlesinindia.com -- article source: http://www.pacpub.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=1091&dept_id=343157&newsid=18050966 Meditating with the Beatles By: Susan Van Dongen, TIMEOFF 03/09/2007 Filmmaker/photographer Paul Saltzman will talk about his path to inner peace during his time with John, Paul, George and Ringo. Author, filmmaker and photographer Paul Saltzman has been passionate about exploring his inner life and giving back to the community as far back as he can remember. In 1965 he left Canada to do voter registration work in Mississippi with Stokely Carmichael and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. While he was there, he was attacked and jailed. President of Sunrise Films Limited in Oakville, Ontario, he began his media career at the National Film Board of Canada as a production manager and assistant director, then later at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as a public affairs story editor and on-air host. In 1967 he interviewed American inventor and visionary Buckminster Fuller, who would later say that Mr. Saltzman changed his assessment of the '60s generation. But he wasn't immune to heartache. It was the breakup of a romantic relationship that sent him thousands of miles from home to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's spiritual retreat center in Rishikesh, India, in 1968. Little did he know that among the other guests at the retreat were four guys from Liverpool named Paul, John, George and Ringo. An amateur but gifted photographer, Mr. Saltzman had unprecedented access to the Beatles in Rishikesh, as well as other guests at the retreat, including Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Mia Farrow and folk-rock legend Donovan. Upon returning home to Canada, Mr. Saltzman placed his work in a box and forgot about it for nearly 30 years. His 18-year-old daughter became interested in the Beatles and asked him about the photos, suggesting they would make a great book. Eventually, the images were gathered in Mr. Saltzman's self-published book, The Beatles in Rishikesh. Since launching the book in 2000, Mr. Saltzman has been invited to speak around the world about his experience. He will be at the Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton Center for Health and Wellness March 15 to present his pictures and stories of those weeks with the Beatles. Mr. Saltzman also will have his photos and limited edition books available for purchase. The much-ballyhooed Beatles time with the Maharishi changed their lives and sparked a creative period in which they wrote 48 songs in eight weeks. Seventeen of those songs turned up on The Beatles (commonly referred to as The White Album), including "Sexy Sadie," excoriating the Maharishi. It was equally pivotal for Mr. Saltzman. But before he could be enlightened, however, he had to actually get into the retreat. He says the Beatles' presence in Rishikesh almost prevented him from being allowed in. "When I came to the gate I was told by a young man that the ashram was closed," says Mr. Saltzman, speaking from his home in Ontario. "I told him what was going on inside of me and said, 'You have to teach me meditation.' So he went back and asked the Maharishi, but the Maharishi said, 'I'm sorry, not at this time.' So I waited. I slept in a tent for eight days waiting to get in." Once he was allowed into the ashram and had his first half-hour meditation, Mr. Saltzman was amazed at the transformation. Just 30 minutes of meditation relieved the agony he had been feeling. "I was buzzed," he says. "George (Harrison) later told me that he got higher meditating than he ever did on drugs he felt more bliss. That's what it was like for me." The retreat was divided into several sections, including a group of very serious students who were there to learn and teach transcendental meditation. They had a much stricter schedule of meditation, classes and lectures. Among the students was Mia's Farrow's sister Prudence, who spent so much time in her room meditating that the Maharishi became concerned. He asked Lennon if he might entice her to come out and be with the others and Lennon was inspired to write "Dear Prudence," famous for the line "... won't you come out to play." But the Beatles and Mr. Saltzman were in a group with much less pressure. They meditated for maybe an hour or two a day, and the rest of the time was spent journaling, writing music and hanging out. "The gathering point was a long table underneath a trellis on a cliff side that overlooked the Ganges below," Mr. Saltzman says. "The Beatles took me into their group and I found them to be playful, at ease, warm, generous and very funny, with a wry Liverpool sense of humor. There was no 'star stuff' in the four of them. It was exquisite how down to earth each of them was. And this was in 1968 when they were probably the most famous four people on the planet." Out of the four, Ringo struggled the most with meditation, Mr. Saltzman says. The drummer and his then-wife, Maureen, stayed for only 11 days. Paul was there with Jane Asher his main squeeze before Linda Eastman and enjoyed the routine. John, who was still with his first wife, Cynthia, was very much into it, as was George. They stayed for eight weeks. Mr. Saltzman still practices meditation, but not in the style of the Maharishi's teachings. In fact, he says the venerable one was "never my cup of tea." "I am grateful for the Maharishi opening the gates and giving me the gift of this form of meditation, which I used off and on, but then being young I let it go," he says. "Meditation is a key, a tool, a technique, and there are many forms that take you to an inner connection with the divine. My relationship with the divine is very intimate and, by the way, has nothing to do with religion. It's a very personal form of spirituality. I was brought up as an atheist but I discovered spirit and soul in my own journey." One of the greatest lessons he says he took away from his time in Rishikesh and from profound conversations with Harrison and Lennon was that through the practice of meditation, "it's easy for us to stay in our hearts, to stay in our grounded wisdom." One can't imagine a 20-something celebrity imparting this kind of truth. But the Beatles, especially Lennon and Harrison, had the maturity and deeper understanding to grasp this. "I was first introduced to this (concept of higher consciousness) listening to the 'Revolver' album, especially the song 'Tomorrow Never Knows,'" Mr. Saltzman says. "I actually listened to the album with my girlfriend, the one who broke up with me years later. There are lines in the song about the inner void and the inner journey and I thought, 'What are they talking about? This is something my teachers and my parents have never told me about.' And that's when I became interested in an internal journey. The Beatles opened this curiosity for me with their music and then I connected it years later sitting with George and talking." Mr. Saltzman also spent time with Harrison as the "quiet Beatle" practiced his sitar, telling Mr. Saltzman about his studies with Ravi Shankar, and how the instrument worked its way into the Beatles' music perhaps introducing pop audiences to what is now called "world music." "I had a lovely conversation with George and told him how much I enjoyed the way he brought the sitar into the song 'Norwegian Wood,'" Mr. Saltzman says. "He invited me to come and sit with him while he practiced. When he was finished, we had a remarkable conversation about life. We were both 24, but he was so wise a man of humility, groundedness and wisdom. There were two things he said that I have never forgotten. One was about the high he got while meditating." Mr. Saltzman pauses to convey the gravity of Harrison's other thought, making sure the syntax of the sentence is correctly recorded. "George also said, 'Like, we're the Beatles after all, aren't we? We have all the money you could ever dream of, we have all the fame you could ever wish for. But it isn't love. It isn't health. It isn't peace inside, is it?'" is how Mr. Saltzman quotes Harrison. "I've won many film awards and made significant money but I never forgot this. It was an amazing gift George gave to me and I always make sure to include it in my talks. "The whole thing was serendipity, going there not knowing the Beatles were there too, but following my heart," he continues. "That's the only real guidance system."
