Neem Karoli Baba

No one knows when he was born, and he told different stories to keep it that way. Wrapped in a plaid blanket, moving unpredictably between temples and villages of northern India, Neem Karoli Baba — Maharaj-ji to his devotees — taught almost nothing formally and transformed thousands, including Western seekers whose lives he quietly redirected toward service.

He was a devotee of Hanuman, and his way was bhakti at its most disarming: he fed people, endlessly — food first, philosophy never. Asked profound questions, he would often reply with instructions to eat, to serve, to remember Ram. The teaching recorded by his devotees compresses his whole way: love everyone, serve everyone, feed everyone, remember God.

His reach extended far beyond India. Richard Alpert, a Harvard psychology professor, traveled to India in the late 1960s and found in Maharaj-ji the teacher who saw through him completely — he returned as Ram Dass, whose book Be Here Now became one of the most influential spiritual texts in the West and brought millions their first encounter with Indian devotion. Krishna Das, who sat at Maharaj-ji's feet as a young man, carried the kirtan tradition to Western audiences and became the best-known chant artist in the world. Steve Jobs sought him out in India in 1974 — arriving just after Maharaj-ji's passing — and later credited that journey with shaping the intuition and simplicity that defined his life's work. Larry Brilliant, who went on to help lead the World Health Organization's smallpox eradication program, was sent to that work directly by Maharaj-ji's instruction. Through these and many others, a blanket-wrapped saint from the villages of Uttar Pradesh quietly redirected the spiritual life of the modern West.

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