In Popular Culture
Elvis Presley loved the shrine. According to his friend, Jerry Schilling, he walked around the lake and picked up some brochures, and later sent away for information about Eastern philosophy. Elvis developed a 12-year relationship with Sri Daya Mata, the woman who was then the president of the Self-Realization Fellowship, and would often call her for advice when he was troubled.
George Harrison's funeral was held at the Lake Shrine. Anne-Marie O'Connor of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "After the death of George Harrison, one of the most high-profile members of the Self-Realization Fellowship, his family and friends gathered at the Lake Shrine's small Windmill Chapel for his funeral. Ravi Shankar was there with his wife."
Dennis Weaver was a member Self-Realization Fellowship and spoke once a month at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine for seventeen years, while Gerry, his wife, played the organ. He said, "We called it our "mom and pop" church and it was one of my great blessings. It was life-changing."
The actress Linda Evans was invited by Dennis Weaver, when she was doing a guest appearance on McCloud, to the SRF Lake Shrine, to hear one of his monthly Sunday sermons. Weaver gave her the Autobiography of a Yogi, saying that it changed his life. Linda wrote, "Because of Dennis I took the first in what would become a life long spiritual journey. After years studying the Self-Realization Fellowship at Malibu, I went on to learn from books and other teachers".
Gary Wright was frequently involved with the Lake Shrine.
Read more about this topic: Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)