Neem Karoli Baba

Neem Karoli Baba (Template:Langx) or Neeb Karori Baba (Template:Langx) (born: Laksman Narayan Sharma; c. 1900 – 11 September 1973), also known to his followers as Maharaj-ji, was a Hindu guru and a devotee of the Hindu deity Hanuman.

Biography

File:Early morning Glimpse of Kainchi Dham Nainital 2023.jpg

Kainchi Dham ashram established by Neem Karoli Baba in 1964.

Lakshman Narayan Sharma was born around 1900 in the village Akbarpur in the Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh, India, in a wealthy Brahmin family. After being married by his parents at the age of 11, he left home to become a wandering sadhu (religious hermit). He later returned home, at his father's request, to live a settled married life. He fathered two sons and a daughter. Neem Karoli Baba, known at the time as Baba Lakshman Das (also spelled "Laxman Das"), left his home in 1958 and wandered through Northern India. During his life two main ashrams were built, at Kainchi and at Vrindavan. In time, over 100 temples were constructed in his name.

The Kainchi Dham, where he stayed in the last decade of his life, was built in 1964 with a Hanuman ji temple. Neem Karoli Baba died at approximately 1:15 a.m. on 11 September 1973 in a hospital at Vrindavan, India, after slipping into a diabetic coma. He had been returning by night train to Kainchi near Nainital, from Agra where he had visited a heart specialist due to experiencing pains in his chest. He and his traveling companions had disembarked at Mathura railway station where he began convulsing and was taken to a hospital where he died. His last words, repeated several times, were "Jaya Jagadish Hare" ("Hail to the Lord of the Universe"). His samadhi (shrine) was built in the complex of the Vrindavan ashram.

Legacy

After returning to the United States, Ram Dass and Larry Brilliant founded the Seva Foundation, an international health organization based in Berkeley, California. In the late 2000s the 'Love Serve Remember Foundation' was established to promote the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba. In 2024 his follower Rahul Verma founded the NKB Divine Meditation Foundation, offering free guided meditation sessions based on the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba.

Each year on June 15, to commemorate the foundation day of Kainchi Dham in 1964, a large mela (fair) known as Kainchi Dham Mela, is organised, in which thousands of devotees and pilgrims take part.