Break-up of the Beatles Lennon was in a fragile state of mind after returning from the band's sojourn in India in early 1968 and was disillusioned and resentful that their Transcendental Meditation guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, had not fulfilled Lennon's expectations. Lennon became discontented over his personal identity and his artistic role within the Beatles and entered another period of drug use, which coincided with a deterioration in his marriage and family life. He began to develop an intense interest in the work of Yoko Ono, a Japanese-American conceptual artist whom he had first met at one of her exhibitions in 1966. The pair
The Beatles in India felt that the Maharishi had, in her words, "too much interest in public recognition, celebrities and money" for a spiritual man. Cynthia Lennon, Cooke de Herrera, and author and Beatles associate Barry Miles have blamed Mardas for turning Lennon against the Maharishi. Miles writes that Mardas feared for his status as Lennon's personal guru, and set about sabotaging the relationship between the Beatles and the Maharishi. In a statement published in "The New York Times" in 2010, Mardas denied that this was the case. Before leaving London in February, the Beatles had considered making a documentary film about the Maharishi