Neem Karoli Baba Age, Death, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Neem Karoli Baba

• At the age of eleven, he became a wandering sadhu and later returned his home at his father’s request.

• In 1958, he left his home and boarded a train without a ticket. Finding baba without a ticket, the conductor pushed baba off the train at the village Neeb Karori. Suddenly, the train stopped moving in spite of all efforts. Then, someone suggested to the conductor that allowed baba back on the train. So he did so after accepting baba’s one condition that there would be a station at village Neeb Karori. As baba boarded the train, it started moving ahead again.

• Later, when a station was built in the village Neeb Karori, baba lived there for a short period of time and locals started calling him by the name – Neem Karoli Baba.

• While doing tapasya and sadhana  (austerity and spiritual practice) at Vavania Morbi in Gujarat, he was known as Tallaiya Baba. In Vrindavan, local people addressed him by the name of Chamatkari Baba (miracle baba). He was also known by the names like Handi Wala Baba, Lakshman Das, and many others.

• Usually, he sat on a wooden bench wrapped in a plaid blanket in his ashram. Babaji usually gave parashadam (Offering of Lord), a pat on the head or back to the visitors visiting his ashram.  He also liked to make an intimate relationship with them by cracking jokes and laughter. 

• Absorbing in another world, he sometimes went into complete silence; pouring bliss and peace on the devotees sitting around him. 

• According to a Babaji’s follower Sri Yogesh Bahuguna, in 1973, once he brought eight oranges as an offering for the Babaji and soon Babaji distributed them to all workers and devotees of the Ashram. He was surprised as of how Babaji gave eighteen oranges instead of eight to all.

• Soon, his popularity also spread in foreign countries during the 1960s and 1970s.

• One unusual thing about his personality was the manner of his coming and going. Sometimes, suddenly, he would walk into a person’s  presence unannounced and it was impossible to chase him even on a motor car when he took a leave and walked on the road.

• It is believed that he had ‘Siddhi’ (psychic power) through the Upasana (worship) of Hanumanji (an Indian deity) and knew everything mere at the age of 17. 

• According to his disciples, Babaji was totally unattached to this material world and was compassionate to the people in distress and suffering.

• Richard Alpert had been a leader of the American drug cult, but after meeting Babaji, he transformed completely and became a teacher with the name of Baba Ramdas.

• On September 1973, he was returning to Kainchi (near Nainital) from Agra and felt severe pain in his chest. He requested his companions to take him to Vrindavan. In Vrindavan hospital, doctors said that he was in a diabetic coma and tried to treat him, but Babaji, after asking Ganga water, repeated the words, ”Jaya Jagadish Hare”(Hail to the Lord of the Universe) several times and left the body (approximately 1.15 a.m. in the early morning hours of 11 September 1973) in a peaceful manner.

• His samadhi (shrine) is located at his Vrindavan Ashram.  

• As Babaji ordered his disciples to run the ashram, so baba Hari Das supervised and maintained the Ashram in Nainital, Ram Das and Larry Brilliant founded the Seva Foundation (an international health organization in Berkeley, California). One of the most significant contributions of this foundation is to return the eyesight of over 3.5 million blind people of Asia, Central as well as South America and of Africa.

• His ashrams in Vrindavan and Kainchi were built when he was alive. Others are located in Neeb Karori village, Bhumiadhar, Hanuman Gadi, Lucknow, Shimla, Rishikesh, Delhi, Taos (New Mexico, USA) and many other countries (approximately 108).

• The Kainchi Dham ashram (1964) on the Nainital- Almora road, has now become an important pilgrimage for the people who visit there to commemorate the inauguration of the temple; on the occasion of Kainchi Dham fair, celebrated on June 15, annually. 

• In late 2000, the ‘Love Serve Remember Foundation’ was established to preserve and continue the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba.

• In April 2017, Babaji’s two handwritten notes were discovered in which he had written the holy names of Lord Rama and gave the blessings to a person named Suraj.

• It is the belief of his disciples that he was a Siddha Purusha’ (perfected being) and Trikala Jnani (knower of the past, present, and future).

• His famous disciples are Jai Uttal (the famous musician), Krishan Das, Bhagwaan Das, Ma Jaya, Ram Rani, Surya Das and Ram Dass (the author of ‘Be Here Now’), Dada Mukerjee (former professor at Allahabad University), Danial Goleman (author of ”The Varieties of the Meditative Experience” and ”Emotional Intelligence”), Yvette Rosser (scholar and writer), and John Bush (filmmaker).

• Larry Brilliant, (the former director of Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org) and Steve Jobs (founder of the Apple Computers in 1976) are also the followers of Babaji.