Steve jobs and zuckerberg temple and guru neem karoli baba
During the town hall meeting on 27th September this year, Mark zuckerberg, founder of facebook, made a staggering revelation of visiting an Indian temple on the advice of his Guru and apple CEO “Steve jobs” to reconnect with the missing of facebook. Terming his adventure in India as the life-changing experience and the most important event in the history of facebook, mark called India as the temple of enlightenment. So, which is this Indian temple that has changed the fortune of many high-tech western visitors like zuckerberg? Which Indian guru continues to inspire hundreds of western spiritual seekers? Which Indian temple laid the foundation of high-tech companies like apple and facebook? In this article, we will go through the temple of enlightenment and the guru who inspired hundreds of high-profile spiritual seekers?
Kainchi Dham of nainital, Uttarakhand
Yes, the temple is located in Kainchi Dham ashram of beautiful Uttarakhand state in northern India. Situated on the banks of river kosi, Kanchi dham is a small ashram at the foot of Kumoan Hills, about 38 km from Naini Tal and 300 km from capital Delhi. Surrounded by tall pine-forested mountains, Ashram is a cluster of three small temples, a simple office and few quarters alongside the rushing waters of Kosi River.
Beautiful view of kainchi dham temple
Neeb Karoli Baba of Kainchi Dham
Kainchi Dham was established by Neeb Karoli Baba, a spiritual yogi who meditated in the Himalayas. In 1958, when his youngest daughter was just 11 years old, he left his home and traveled across northern India as a wandering sadhu. He was given different names by his followers. Many of his followers considered him the incarnation of monkey god “Hanuman”.
<>
In 1962, Baba built a platform for sacred yagna (Sacrifice). Two spiritual yogis “Sadhu Premi Baba” and “Sombari Maharaj” daily performed yagna on this platform. Later on June 15, 1964, hanuman temple was built on top of this platform. Baba, being an ardent devotee of lord hanuman, inaugurated this hanuman temple. After the death of Baba Neeb Karoli on September 10, 1973, a temple with his statue was built within the ashram on June 15, 1976. Beside Kainchi Dham ashram, there are around 108 temples associated with Neeb Karoli Baba including the ones in lucknow and Texas,
Tribute to Neeb Karoli Baba
Baba stayed in the white house located opposite to the three temples. On the verandah of white house, a dark woolen blanket is kept on top of the small wooden platform. It is said baba meditated daily on this wooden platform. This platform is now decorated daily with fresh beautiful flowers and ever-smiling pictures of baba. Favorite picture of most devotees is the one where he is half sleeping with his left palm supporting his head.
Neeb Karori Baba: The man who changed fortune of many lives
He was mostly seen wearing a blanket. Even his real- looking marble statue inside one of the temple is covered with the blanket. Candles and incense sticks are always lit in front of the statue.
Baba of Kainchi Dham inspired hundreds of high-profile spiritual seekers
Karoli baba died in 1973 but continues to influence hundreds of high-profile americans. This small ashram has big list of high-profile followers including Hollywood star Julia Roberts. Some high-profiles followers, other than Steve jobs and mark Zuckerberg, who were influenced by Neeb Karoli Baba, are Oscar winning actress “Julia Robert”, Google co-founder “Larry page”, humanitarian “Larry Brilliant”, scholar cum writer “Yvette Rosser” and bestselling author “Daniel Goleman” etc.
Ashram rules and rituals
Staying in the Kainchi dham ashram is by invitation only. With prior permission from the ashram management and reference from any of the older devotees, one is allowed to stay in ashram for 3 days. Due to extreme cold weather, ashram is closed for most of the time, especially during rainy and winter season.
All devotees staying in ashram need to follow rules and regulation of the ashram. All visitors have to mandatorily attend aarti performed in morning and evening. Recitation and chanting of holy verses from Vedas, clapping of hands, ringing of bells during aarti, beating cymbals, singing and raising their hands in praise are some of the rituals followed by devotees staying in the ashram. Devotees should help in cleaning the compound, meditate and socializing with nearby residents. Bhandara(Meal) is offered on special occasions every year. Meal to more than 1 lakh devotees are offered every year on June 15.
<>
Steve jobs got the vision of founding apple tech at kainchi dham ashram
In the 1970’s when steve jobs was a young student, he was deeply influenced by Indian spiritualism. Once a penniless college dropout, Steve jobs would travel 7 km to eat free meal at the local Hare Krishna temple. With growing interest in eastern spirituality when his classmate told him about Neeb Karoli baba, Steve jobs visited kainchi dham in 1974 along with his friend “Dan Kottke” but to his disappointment, he learnt that Neeb Karoli Baba has already passed away. He then spent most of his time wandering around the countryside and reading English Copy of "Autobiography of a Yogi", the story of another famed sage. Staying at kainchi dham ashram, Steve jobs got the vision of the creating a tech company named ‘Apple’.
<>
Steve jobs, founder of apple tech
Steve job love with Indian spirituality and Neeb Karoli baba
Why Steve jobs came to India? What was Steve jobs looking for in Indian spirituality? Probably, he was looking for the answers to the same questions that every one of us have. i.e the meaning of life, the purpose of life, the reason of our existence, why to live?, how to live? What to do? etc. For his questions, he got the answer as “Creating the tech company that would revolutionize the world”, which he later did.
<>
According to close associates, Steve jobs read "Autobiography of a Yogi" frequently and always kept a copy of this book in his bedroom. Even though he never came back to India, he embraced Zen Buddhism and practiced meditation for the rest of his life. According to Brilliant, who is a science adviser to Warner Bros and president of Skoll Global Threats Fund, Steve Jobs had kept pictures of the baba by his bedside till his last breath.
In 1997, Steve jobs even suggested Microsoft founder “Bill Gates” to broaden his vision by undertaking spiritual tour of India. He said to the New York Times “I just think he (Gates) and Microsoft is a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”
Mark zuckerberg visited kainchi dham on advice of Steve jobs
Narendra Modi’s visit to Facebook’s headquarter in the U.S.A. on September 27,2015 became a memorable event as people from all over the world were eagerly listening to the whole conversation between Indian PM “narendra modi” and facebook CEO “mark zuckerberg” but mark revealed something that took the world by surprise. This revelation was the most important one and life-changing event of facebook history, dating back to the era when facebook was not the global phenomenon as we know today. Mark shared about his past time when he was facing a tough time with face book as everyone around him was advising him to sell the company to one of the interested buyers. It was then, mark approached his mentor and apple CEO “Steve jobs” for advice. Steve advised him to visit an Indian temple, which he himself visited before starting apple tech, to realize the mission of facebook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii3QMQG1QCs
In his own words, Zuckerberg said “He told me that in order to reconnect with what I believed as the mission of the company I should visit this temple that he had gone to in India early on in his evolution of thinking about what he wanted Apple and his vision of the future to be”
Ashram where mark stayed for two days
As a matter of fact, apple was one of the first tech companies to show an interest in facebook when the company was known as ‘Thefacebook’. Steve Agreed to sponsor a dedicated Apple Facebook on the social network to the tune of $1 per user, and a monthly minimum of $50,000
Mark understood the mission of facebook in india
Who does not listen to his mentor? Mark abided by the advice of his mentor and wandered across India for almost one month to realize the mission of facebook. Below are the exact words used by mark to describe his Indian adventure:-
“So I went and I traveled for almost a month, and seeing the people, seeing how people connected, and having the opportunity to feel how much better the world could be if everyone had a stronger ability to connect reinforced for me the importance of what we were doing and that is something I’ve always remembered over the last 10 years as we’ve built Facebook.”
<>
Mark zukerberg visit to Kainchi Dham
Vinod joshi, a close associate of “Neeb Karori Baba”, spent his entire life in the service of spiritual guru and the ashram after the death of his guru. Vinod joshi, now the secretary of kainchi dham ashram, remembers talking to “Larry Brilliant”, an American physician and former director of Google's philanthropic arm Google.org, about a young man named “mark Zuckerberg” arriving at his ashram.
Totally unaware of who mark Zuckerberg is, Vinod considered him like any other American spiritual seeker. But since he was referred by “Larry Brilliant”, Vinod did notice mark coming to nainital from Pantnagar. As he remembers, he saw Zuckerberg wearing a T-shirt and trouser torn at one knee. He was scheduled to stay for only one day but stayed for two days as pantnagar was hit by bad weather and storm due to which all flights were cancelled.
Mark inspired by PM modi and PM modi praises mark
PM Modi praised Zuckerberg on his extravagant achievement of being the only responsible person in connecting everyone across the world.
"I am happy that I am connecting with you (Mark Zuckerberg) today, the person responsible for everyone over the world connecting. I hope you will be the voice of millions, billions of people all across the world. When you came to India, you went to a temple. And look where you have reached. I hope your experience inspires a lot of other people," said PM Modi.
PM Modi hugging Mark zuckerberg
In a Facebook post after the townhall event, Mr. Zuckerberg described Mr. Modi’s stories of his childhood and the impact his mother had on his life, as “deeply moving and inspiring” and “the most amazing moment,” in the conversation.
<>
He also added
"I am personally impressed by example PM Modi has set in using social media to directly communicate with citizens"
Mark love with India continued
Mark Zuckerberg still owns Facebook and has connected more than 1.5 billion people across the globe, increasing up the valuation of his company to $254 billion.
“India is very important to the history of our company. I consider India as a temple of enlightenment”, Mark added during townhall event.
Mark has a special interest in India as there are 130 million active users in India which is predicted to increase multi-fold over the next few years. Mark Zuckerberg believes that the internet can lift people out of poverty and launched an initiative called internet.org, through which millions of poor Indians can access internet for free. Mark has ambitious expansion plans in India and his seriousness can be understood from his meeting with narendra modi after which he immediately changed his profile picture to include the visionary logo of “build in India”
Mark love affair with India hit the new high when he visited Taj Mahal and posted a photo on facebook ahead of the townhall Q&A session at IIT-Delhi. In his post, he said "It is even more stunning than I expected. It's incredible what people can build and what love can motivate us to build"
Mark and his team at taj mahal
Larry Brilliant experience with Neeb Karoli Baba
“Larry Brilliant”, an American physician and former director of Google's philanthropic arm, arranged the stay of facebook founder Mark zuckerberg at “Kainchi dham” ashram. “Larry Brilliant” is one of the few surviving techies who have personally meditated alongside Neeb Karoli Baba. After staying for nearly three years at kainchi dham ashram, Neeb Karoli Baba forced him to leave ashram and work on smallpox epidemic. After repeated insistence by baba, Brilliant finally took up a job at the World Health Organization and worked for smallpox eradication effort.
"Everybody in the world wants to go and see this place," said Larry Brilliant, a doctor who once lived at the ashram and later became head of Google's philanthropy division. "It's a combination of 'Eat Pray Love,' know thyself and change the world."
Why small Kainchi dham ashram attracted high profile visitors?
As with hundreds of other ashrams and spiritual centers in India, this small riverside retreat has quietly attracted western backpackers and tourists including top technology professionals from Google, Apple and eBay. Temple still looks very simple and there is no board that will tell you the long list of high profile visitors. Some of us may think why this modest ashram was able to attract such a huge list of American entrepreneurs. May be, because it is one of the few genuine ashrams where real spirituality is practiced and not some attention-seeking fake ashram where fake guru does all the cheap tricks for publicity. This is perhaps the reason why Steve jobs and mark Zuckerberg found total peace and solace in this small ashram.
Neeb Karoli Baba-The great guru of kainchi dham
Increase in visitors at Kainchi Dham ashram
After Zuckerberg indirectly mentioned about his visit to a temple of Kainchi Dham to Narendra Modi at Facebook's headquarters this September; number of visitors arriving to this small temple has tripled. Attention seeking visitors arriving in train and buses, hoping for a good change in their life, have started calling this temple as 'Zuckerberg temple'
With the huge influx of devotees arriving at this small temple, let us hope that unlike other ashram, kainchi ashram does not lose its real spiritual value and continues to maintain its purity and sanctity.
Summary:
Indian culture and spiritual values have attracted tourists and spiritual seekers from across the globe. Impact of Indian spirituality on global tech companies is such that many of biggest Silicon Valley's biggest companies are employing "mindfulness counselors" and opening meditation rooms for distracted and tensed employees. Demand of Indian heritage, culture and spirituality is so high that spouses of African countries that came during the indo-African summit decided to visit akshardham temple instead of Humayun’s Tomb, qutab minar or red fort. It is a matter of great pride for all Indians that the rich cultural heritage and spiritual values of India continues to inspire millions of people across the world.
May all my visitors have kindness in heart, calmness in mind and awareness in life.
Note: Images used on this website
are either a production of Bhaktivedanta Book Trust(https://www.krishna.com), Iskcon
Foundation or were found in google search under "Free to use and share". If any
of the images presented here violates copyright issues or infringes anyone copyright
or are not under "Fair use", then please bring it to our notice. Read
Disclaimer for more.
Share this to your friends. One of your friend is
waiting for your share.
Related Articles
Swastika in Canadian buildings and culture
Steve jobs and zuckerberg temple and guru neem karoli baba
Creating your first application in JQuery
Different Strings Format for Date Time
Who invented snakes and ladders
Origin of word Hindu
Ram Setu samudram project-the disaster project of all times
Symbolism of story behind kumbh mela-world largest gathering on earth
Swastika - Good luck emblem of ancient america
Chanakya-The greatest diplomat cum politican of all times
Post Comment