George Harrison of the Beatles was a devotee of Yogananda, and Yogananda’s image appears on the cover of the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya and Swami Sri Yukteswar, other gurus in Yogananda’s lineage, are also on the album cover.

Harrison liked to give away copies of his “Autobiography of a Yogi.”

Harrison’s interest in India began during production of the Beatles’ second movie, Help! (1965), with its slapstick Hindu subplot. He was intrigued by the sitar used in an Indian restaurant scene filmed in London.