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 Bangor message was met with approval, their championing of the Maharishi and his TM technique was often the subject of confusion and ridicule in the mainstream press, particularly in Britain. At a court event in October, Queen Elizabeth II remarked to Sir Joseph Lockwood, the chairman of EMI: "The Beatles are turning awfully "funny", aren't they?" Now publicised as "The Beatles' Guru", the Maharishi went on his eighth world tour, giving lectures in Britain, Scandinavia, West Germany, Italy, Canada and California. Among the counterculture and the underground press, the Maharishi's ascendancy was viewed as a significant development in the youth movement's