Steve Jobs never actually met Neem Karoli Maharaj ji. By the time Steve Jobs arrived in India in the year 1974, Maharaj ji had already left his body. In Steve Jobs’s bedroom, the room in which he breathed his last, the walls were bare except for a picture of Neem Karoli Baba hanging on one one of them. Until I read this in Jobs’s biography, I’d little or no knowledge of ‘Neem Karoli Baba’ and, even after I did, I didn’t really feel the urge to find out who he is, or why Steve Jobs had his picture up in the room he was preparing to die in.
Some of the noteworthy personalities in the world who were influenced by Neem Karoli Baba were:
Larry Brilliant, who eradicated small pox from India
Daniel Goleman, gave the concept of Emotional Intelligence
Krishna Das, Grammy nominee and world’s best known kirtanwallah
Ram Dass, the author of "Be Here Now," and notable spiritual teacher in recent times
How did Neem Karoli Baba Inspire them to do great things?
The first thing that strikes you about Maharaj ji is his simplicity. He had no lectures to give, nor he wrote books or initiated people. He allowed people from all parts of the world to be there, talk to them, serve food and send them away and that was enough to get their cylinders fired up.
No big talk, no big words, no esoteric philosophies. He told devotees that the way to enlightenment is servitude.
The way to God is by feeding people.
You can only truly give if you don’t consider it your own in the first place.
Jai Siya Ram