Steve Jobs, a

Hindu holy man,

and the Apple logo
Thursday 4 April 2013 2:19PM
Geoff Woods
In the '70s Steve Jobs travelled to India to visit a
renowned guru whose favourite fruit became the
logo of one of the world's most renowned companies.
Geoff Wood talks with other spiritual seekers and
finds out what the future billionaire might have been
looking for.
There are many stories about the meaning and origin
of the Apple computer logo.
Some say Steve Jobs was inspired by one of his
favourite bands, The Beatles, whose record label was
called Apple. Others say it came from his days as a
young man working on an apple farm, a story Jobs
himself mentions in Walter Isaacsons recent
biography. He was on one of his fruitarian diets and
the name 'sounded fun, spirited and not
intimidating.'
'Plus,' he added, 'it would get us ahead of Atari in the
phone book.'
But there may be more to it than this anodyne
account. An alternative explanation points to an
ashram in India and a pilgrimage to a guru whose
favourite fruit was the apple.
Before Mr Jobs founded what is now the worlds
largest tech company, he travelled to India early in

1974, desperate for darshan (sight), and to be in the

presence of the renowned Hindu holy man Neem
Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj-ji.
Considered to be a manifestation of the god
Hanuman, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, Maharaj-ji
had become something of a magnet to young
westerners making the now-familiar journey to the
East. From his ashram in Kainchi in the foothills of
the Himalayas, he received a steady flow of spiritual
seekers from all over the world. Among them was the
young Richard Alpert who would later find fame as
Ram Dass, author of the seminal book Be Here Now.
Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who went on to run
Googles philanthropic organisation Google.org and
oversee the Skoll Global Threats Fund, was another
early visitor. Given the name Subramanyum, he was
tasked by his guru to eradicate smallpox, a project
which he undertook with the help of the World Health
Organization.
Mr Jobs at the time was working at the young video
games start-up Atari in Los Angeles. But the seed of
his spiritual quest had already been sown. Jai Uttal, a
Kirtan musician and world sacred music pioneer, told
me this story on a recent trip to Australia:

Let me share with you a very interesting story.

We dont know the effects of ourselves and
every step that we make in life. Its very hard
to know. We say hi to somebody in the street,
we dont know the ripples of all of our actions.
So my memory for my lifemy memory is not
that greatI went to Reed College in 1969,
which is the same school that Steve Jobs went

to. Now Steve was a year younger than me, so

I dropped out in five months, so I didnt stay in
school. So I didnt meet him then. I met him a
little later with a friend of mine, just said hi,
kinda, and then after I had dropped out of
college I went up to Reed College on a small
music tour with some friends and Steve and his
friend came to hear our concert. After the
concert we all hung out and I was just freshly
back from India and I told Steve and his buddy
all about Maharaj-ji and this is what ignited the
desire in him to go see him.
Now I didnt remember any of this until a
couple of months ago, right after Steve died his
friend sent me an email and said hi, and so
great to reconnect with you. I [did] not
remember him but he reminded me of a couple
of times that we had re-met over the years and
he said that I wanted to tell you that it was our
hanging out with you that night in 1973 that
stimulated us to go to India to see Maharaj-ji
and sadly we didnt meet him. And I thought,
that is such an amazing story, and not because
I, big me, got him to go to India. I didnt mean
that, but just how we influence each other on
this journey and we never know it. I was blown
out by that and I was very happy to hear it.
And odd that I have no real memory of it, but
there it is.
Mr Jobs flew into New Delhi in April 1974, booked into

a cheap hotel and came down with dysentery almost

immediately. As soon as he was well enough he
travelled to Haridwar in western India for the great
Hindu festival known as the Kumbh Mela. From there
he took a train and a bus to Kainchi in the foothills of
the Himalayas to the ashram of Neem Karoli Baba.
He rented a room with a mattress on the floor from a
local family who fed him vegetarian meals. But he
had arrived too late. Maharaj-ji was no longer
present, having attained Mahasamadhi (left his body)
the previous September.
Another devotee at the Kainchi ashram in the early
'70s was Jeffrey Kagel, known today as Krishna Das,
the chant master of American yoga. Like many
others he arrived at his first darshan loaded with
apples as an offering to Maharaj-ji. I asked Krishna
Das what happened next:

Well we heard that he likes apples, so we

brought apples. It was funny. I offered them to
him and he took them and immediately
distributed them to other people in the room.
And I thought, 'Oh, he doesnt like my apples.'
So he immediately looked at me and said,
What did I do? And I said, I dont know. Did I
do right? I said, I dont know. Did I do right?
I said, Anything you do is right. He just
laughed and said, If one has God, one doesnt
need anything. One has no desire. And then I
saw myself and all my desires and I went, Oh
boy, Ive got a long way to go. It was funny but
the thing was he knew exactly what I was

thinking immediately. And he showed me he

did. And he taught me from the inside that way.
Like Krishna Das, Mr Jobs never forgot his time at the
Kainchi ashram. Although he arrived too late to meet
his guru in personand despite his subsequent rise
to famefor most of his life Mr Jobs continued to
pursue prajna, a Sanskrit word used in Hindu and
Buddhist philosophy meaning consciousness or
wisdom, a form of cognitive understanding of the
nature of reality achieved through meditation and
mindfulness.
In his later years he turned also to Zen Buddhism for
answers. But as a young man, his first great
pilgrimage took him to India, and to a Hindu holy
man fond of apples.
You can hear world sacred music pioneer Jai Uttal in
conversation with Geoff Wood on The Rhythm Divine,
Sunday 7 April 6.05 am and online. The program will feature
music from his recent album Queen of Hearts, from his 1991
album Footprints, and from his teacher, the renowned sarod
master Ali Akbar Khan. Jai speaks about his life in music and
his influence on a generation of spiritual seekers that
included the young Steve Jobs.
Comments:
Vinay Pathak :
18 Oct 2014 8:45:12pm

According to Mr Aneg Singh Sharma, S/o Mahasamadhi Sri

Lakshmi Narayan Sharma[ Baba Neeb Karori]...Steve was
gifted the Baba's Blanket and Apple logo came in existance
by his inspiration only. On his arrival to USA Steve Job got the
blanket framed and mounted it in his drawing room Wall.
Later Bill Gates enquired about the blanket and Steve told
him that it was the Gift from his Indian Guru Baba Neeb
Karori who blessed him and inspired him to conquer the

world. Steve was very much influenced by the Maharaj ji's

Fruit Prasadam miracles. Babaji while resting on the wooden
planked bed used to offer Fruits sweets to hundreds of
devotees with lot of affectionate smile. He was very caring
and was very much natural in his approach he never tried to
put any false impressions on the mind set of his devotees
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