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
Beatles Ashram of the Beatles to meditation, and they were the last members of the band to depart from the ashram. They left on 12 April amid an atmosphere of recrimination towards the Maharishi, based on rumours of his alleged impropriety with some of the female students, and the two band members' misgivings that he was taking advantage of the Beatles' fame. Despite their subsequent repudiation of the Maharishi, the Beatles' stay at the ashram generated wide interest in Transcendental Meditation, which encouraged the study of Eastern spirituality in Western popular culture.<ref name="Hussain/Uplift"></ref> Asked if he forgave the Beatles for their slight