When Zuckerberg came to Uttarakhand in search of spirituality

Kainchi, near Nainital, attracts devotees from near and far, 42 years after the death of its spiritual leader, Neem Karoli Baba.

Photograph: Rakshit Pandey/Creative Commons

A temple village in Uttarakhand has gained universal fame after Mark Zuckerberg disclosed he had visited it about 10 years ago at the behest of Steve Jobs. Mahesh Yogi in his heyday could only have dreamt of such followers. Given that Zuckerberg’s Facebook is where young Indians spend a better part of their lives, the Kainchi temple is assured of many “likes” in the days to follow.

The temple is run by the followers of Neem Karoli Baba, the spiritual leader who spent his last days at Kainchi and died, or as his followers like to believe took samadhi, in 1973.

The temple’s architecture is hardly arresting. From a distance, the glossy red paint on the spire shines through the thick foliage around it. Inside, a couple of priests bustle about preparing for morning prayers, but there is an odd sense of calm about them.

The peace is often broken by the sound of traffic on the highway. On the banks of the Kosi, the temple is small and almost empty at 9 am on Tuesday, which, considering that it is was founded by a Hanuman devotee, is surprising. Shrines devoted to Hindu gods such as Vaishno Devi, Ram, Shiva and, of course, Hanuman, are evenly spread through the premises.

Outside each shrine, the passageway is carpeted. The walls too seem to have received a fresh coat of paint, adding to the overall sense of cleanliness.

The Baba, who derives his name from a district in Uttar Pradesh where he was found as an ascetic, lived in various ashrams across India before he came to Uttarakhand. He then became popular as a “reincarnation” of Hanuman, even setting up the Hanumangarhi temple near Nainital before his death.

Legend has it that the land where the temple is located was a burial ground for children who died of smallpox and other epidemics, and was thus believed to be haunted. The Baba then chanted over the land and decided to build a temple there to rid it of the “curse”. His fame spread swiftly. People from all over would come for his blessings.

One of his followers included Larry Brilliant, the famous doctor and former director of Google’s philanthropic arm, who was told by the Baba to work with the World Health Organisation to eradicate smallpox. A turn of events led him to do just that, making him attribute his success to the Baba. Other followers have similar tales of how the Baba rewarded them for their devotion by magically removing hurdles from their lives. Several such stories float about, and are chronicled in Miracle of Love, a book by his disciples. Even after the Baba’s death in 1973, devotees insist the miracles didn’t end -- much like Sai Baba.

A board of trustees runs the temple and its adjacent ashram. One such trustee, Vinod Joshi, agrees to meet me, but not before he completes his morning prayers. While I wait to meet him, hordes of tourists from Gujarat and Maharashtra enter the temple, which presumably is a part of their itinerary. Tea vendors outside the temple claim that business has picked up for them and the hotels in the area.

A Caucasian woman, dressed in beige salwar kameez, a matching shawl and her head covered in a white scarf, offers prayers at one of the shrines. Lynn Michelle, who now calls herself Prema, came to India from New York in 1997 and spends nearly six months at the ashram. The last time she went back to the United States was four years ago. Her familiarity with Hindi words such as achcha is a sign of the time she has spent at the ashram.

When I ask her about her association with the ashram and the cult of the Baba, she smiles and shakes her head to a “no”. “I think you should speak to the trustee. I’m just here for seva.”

While visitors wait in queue to take prasad -- boiled black gram -- I notice another Caucasian woman seated on the steps of the Baba’s shrine. She gives a blank stare, while an eerily life-like statue of the Baba, dressed in his iconic blanket and a woollen cap on his head, forms a poetic backdrop. When I approach her for a chat, she looks at me, eyes brimming with tears. “I’m having an emotional moment right now.”

At the Neem Karoli Baba ashram in the US, devotees recite the Hanuman Chalisa

Jennifer Mazzucco from California is here on her fourth visit since 2009. Her association with this temple began when her teacher, Krishna Das, recommended a film to her, one where “people were singing and dancing to spiritual chants”. “I then visited the Vrindavan Ashram of Neem Karoli Baba and it was an instant connection. I felt like I was home,” she says, tears threatening to brim over.

While the Baba has been dead 42 years, long before she was introduced to his cult, Mazzucco speaks of him as if she met him and spent time as his disciple. “He used to chuck a banana at anyone who would go into a depressive trance. He greatly believed in karma,” she says, laughing. “For me, finding a guru is like when a light bulb is plugged into the socket. The spark is Shakti.”

For many like Mazzucco, that Shakti came in the form of Richard Alpert, or Ram Dass. The Baba spent his last few years with disciples such as Alpert and Joshi, and Alpert has been instrumental in carrying forth his guru’s legacy in the US. Alpert was a Harvard professor who, in the 1960s, worked with iconic cultural and ideological figures such as Aldous Huxley and Alan Ginsberg.

He and his friends worked on the effects of “psychedelics” -- primarily substances like psilocybin and LSD-25 -- before he was declared persona non grata by the university. Born Jewish, Alpert’s website claims that he believed he was an atheist till he met the Baba. Alpert then founded the Love Serve Remember Foundation and the Hanuman Foundation and took the Baba’s teachings to followers in the US.

In the US, the Baba’s cult thrives through a temple in Taos, New Mexico. Its manager, Anandi Geroy, explains to me over email how “Maharajji” (as the Baba’s followers call him) transformed her life. Born Amanda, Geroy first visited the ashram on a school trip when she was in class six. “My mother and I both immediately felt that Maharajji was our guru,” she says.

After waiting for nearly two hours, I meet Joshi in the temple courtyard. Seated on a small cane stool, dressed in dhoti kurta with sandalwood paste on his forehead, he keeps one hand on his walking stick.

As a schoolboy, Joshi says he met the Baba and like other boys his age, all he wanted was to pass his exams. “Maharajji told me I would do well and I did. Initially, that’s what got me to visit him again,” he laughs. He recalls Zuckerberg as just “another American boy” who came here for peace and guidance. “Maharajji made him come here,” he says enigmatically.

While Joshi fondly remembers the days he spent with the Baba, he cannot define what they were like. “He was beyond the scope of words,” he says. He then goes on to list some more “miracles” and “prophesies” of the Baba.

About 20 kilometres away in Nainital, Krishna Kumar Sah echoes this sentiment. Inside an old house with slanted roofs, he struggles to explain the reason behind the Baba’s popularity, despite his knowledge of all things spiritual. “The reason he became popular was that there were no dogmas in his teachings. They were a reflection of his austere lifestyle -- owning just a dhoti and a blanket,” he says.

Well-respected historian Sekhar Pathak says that the Baba has always been popular locally. “What sets him apart from other godmen is that he always worked for the downtrodden.” The other aspect, as I gather from locals, was the “miracles” he performed.

Journalist Mick Brown, who extensively researched Indian spiritual cults for his book, The Spiritual Tourist, agrees that Western audiences have always been fascinated with Indian spirituality, be it with Anandamayi Ma, Maharishi Rajneesh or Sai Baba. “It offers an antidote to materialism in the West,” he explains.

Brown adds that spiritual movements are cyclical, emerging from the ’60s and ’70s hippie movements, galvanised by rock bands such as The Beatles and ending in the revelation of financial and sexual misdemeanors of self-professed godmen. “In fact, I find Indians much more skeptical of saints and gurus in general.”

But some gurus have remained popular because the “timeless appeal” of their teachings, especially leaders such as Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo. “Neem Karoli Baba is, to a large extent, free from any such scandal. Perhaps it helps that the guru is dead and his cult is posthumous,” he laughs.

Rationalist Narendra Nayak is one of the few voices of critique to this cult. “He is credited with converting water to ghee. Do you really think such ridiculous things are possible?” Nayak adds that these gurus act as placebos to problems people find have no rational solution. “Otherwise rational people make irrational choices when faced with adversity. Both Jobs and Zuckerberg are an example of that.”

As Zuckerberg enjoys god-like aura amongst Indians, Prime Minister Narendra Modi included, will anybody listen to rationalists?