Bringing the Beatles Ashram back to life after 40 years

For nearly four decades the ashram where the Beatles once studied meditation sat behind a locked gate. After the continuation of the lease held by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's organisation was not awarded, the 22-acre forest was left to the trees, the monkeys and the slow work of weather on concrete.

I was the first person to be granted a lease on that land after all those years. It came with no budget and no blueprint — only a conviction that a place built for inner life should not be allowed to die quietly.

The approach was restoration, not renovation. We cleared paths, made the halls safe to walk through, and left the beautiful decay exactly as it was. Artists were then invited to treat the walls, the domes and the meditation cells as their canvas.

We re-initiated the temples on the property so that daily worship returned to the grounds. Mooji Baba began holding satsang again, and the sound of chanting came back to buildings that had heard nothing but birds for forty years.

Heritage does not need to be sealed off to be protected. Within days of opening, thousands of people — locals, pilgrims, backpackers, film crews — walked through a place they had only heard about in stories.

The ashram is alive today because a group of artists and volunteers decided to treat a ruin as a living temple rather than a museum piece.