Neeb Karori Baba: Meet the baba who helped Mark Zuckerberg find his vision for Facebook

At the town hall with PM Narendra Modi, Mark Zuckerberg revealed an unusual connection between Facebook and India. When Facebook wasn’t the behemoth it is today, Zuckerberg visited his mentor Steve Jobs, whose suggestion was to visit an Indian temple. The Facebook CEO spent a month in the country, including two days at the ashram of Neeb Karori Baba, who is famous for having given guidance to some tech greats, including Steve Jobs, ET reports.

Jobs is said to have been deeply influenced by the Indian spiritualism in the 70s, and he visited Neeb Karori Baba’s Kainchi Dham ashram near Nainital, Uttarakhand. It is here Jobs is said to have got his vision to create Apple.



Though Neeb Karori Baba passed away in 1973, he continues to enchant people even today, and his followers include some well known personalities, including Hollywood actress Julia Roberts. A strong follower of Lord Hanuman — and also believed to be his incarnation — Baba has established more than 100 temples in India, as well as the US.



Jobs, Zuckerberg and Roberts aren’t the only foreigners enchanted by Baba. His followers also include Larry Brilliant, former director of Google.org, New York-based photographer Jim, who was renamed Rameshwar Dass by Baba, and Richard Alpert or Ram Dass, an American psychologist, among others