Radhekrishna Pathak, trustee of Neem Karoli Baba Ashram, said they expected the couple to come in the afternoon but the two reached the place early in the morning, as reported by PTI. He also said that Sharma's family has been a follower of Baba Neem Karoli. Apart from them, other notable who have visited his ashram and are followers are Steve Jobs, Julia Roberts, Mark Zuckerberg.
Who is Baba Neem Karoli?
Neem Karoli Baba was a Hindu Guru and a devotee of Lord Hanuman.
His followers called him Maharaj-ji.
His real name was Lakshman Narayan Sharma and born around in 1900 in the Akbarpur village in Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh to a wealthy Brahmin family.
He was married by by his parents at the age of 11. However, he left home to become a wandering sadhu. At his father's request, he returned home to live a settled married life. He fathered two sons and a daughter.
He is known outside India for being the spiritual master of a number of Americans who travelled to India in the 1960s and 70s.
He encouraged service to others as the finest expression of unrestricted devotion to God and was a lifetime practitioner of bhakti yoga.
He would say attachment and ego are the greatest hindrances to the realisation of God and that “a learned man and a fool are alike as long as there is attachment and ego in the physical body."
In 1974, Steve Jobs, along with his friend Dan Kottke had traveled to India to study Hinduism and Indian spirituality. They had also planned also to meet Neem Karoli Baba but he had already died.
Influenced by Steve Jobs, in 2015, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also visited Baba Neem Karoli’s ashram in Kainchi when the company was facing tough times.
Hollywood actress Julia Roberts is also said to be influenced by Baba and was drawn to Hinduism because of him. In an interview she was asked where did the interest in Hinduisim come from, she said, “It came from seeing a picture of a guru called Neem Karoli Baba and I was so drawn to the picture of this person and I did not know who he was or what he was about, but felt very strong interest."
Baba died in the early morning hours of 11 September 1973 in a hospital at Vrindavan, India after he slipped into a diabetic coma.
His ardent devotees, Ram Dass and Larry Brilliant also established ‘Seva Foundation’ in Berkley, California which was also funded by Steve Jobs. His ashrams are located in many cities in India and US.
