Neem Karoli Baba

Neem Karoli Baba (Hindi: नीम करौली बाबा) or Neeb Karori Baba (Hindi: नीब करौरी बाबा) (1900 c. - September 11, 1973), also known to followers as Maharaj-ji, was a Hindu guru, mystic and devotee of the Hindu deity Hanuman. He is known outside India for being the guru of a number of Americans who travelled to India in the 1960s and 1970s, the most well-known being the spiritual teachers Ram Dass and Bhagavan Das, and the musicians Krishna Das and Jai Uttal. His ashrams are in Kainchi,Vrindavan, Rishikesh, Shimla, Nib Karori village near Khimasepur in Farrukhabad, Bhumiadhar, Hanuman Gadi, Lucknow, Delhi in India and in Taos, New Mexico, USA.

Biography

Born as Lakshmi Narayan Sharma, around 1900 CE, at Akbarpur, Uttar Pradesh, in a Brahmin family of Durga Prasad Sharma. He was married at the age of 11, later he left home and was found by his father at a village named Neeb Karori (Nib Karori), near Khimasepur, Farrukhabad, which gradually lead to his popular name, Neem Karoli Baba, with baba being a common honorific title for saints.