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Love Everyone: The Transcendent Wisdom of Neem Karoli Baba Told Through the Stories of the Westerners Whose Lives He Transformed
A celebration of one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our time: Neem Karoli Baba, the enlightened guru who inspired a generation of seekers—including Ram Dass, Daniel Goleman, and Larry Brilliant—on life-altering journeys that helped change the world.
In 1967, Ram Dass returned to the West from India and spread the teachings of his mysterious guru, Neem Karoli Baba, better known as Maharajji. Ram Dass’s words about Maharajji’s life-affirming wisdom resonated with a youth culture that had grown disillusioned with the violence, civil discord, and crude materialism of modern civilization. Hundreds of Westerners traveled to India and experienced Maharajji’s extraordinary presence directly until his death in 1973. His simple directives—love everyone, feed everyone, and remember God—opened their hearts and awakened their souls.
What these followers brought back to the West has since changed the landscape of everyday life. Meditation is now mainstream; yoga studios are in every town; and mindfulness is practiced in elementary schools and board-rooms everywhere, from Silicon Valley to Capitol Hill. A stirring piece of history, Love Everyone brings these stories to life, sharing for the first time the inspiring tales of the men and women who followed the siren call of the East to the foothills of the Himalayas, then returned to forever reshape the world.
A compelling and inspiring tribute to Maharajji from the Western men and women who knew him best, Love Everyone is a profound teaching on the power of love, as lasting and transformative as the truth, wisdom, and bliss of Maharajji.
In 1967, Ram Dass returned to the West from India and spread the teachings of his mysterious guru, Neem Karoli Baba, better known as Maharajji. Ram Dass’s words about Maharajji’s life-affirming wisdom resonated with a youth culture that had grown disillusioned with the violence, civil discord, and crude materialism of modern civilization. Hundreds of Westerners traveled to India and experienced Maharajji’s extraordinary presence directly until his death in 1973. His simple directives—love everyone, feed everyone, and remember God—opened their hearts and awakened their souls.
What these followers brought back to the West has since changed the landscape of everyday life. Meditation is now mainstream; yoga studios are in every town; and mindfulness is practiced in elementary schools and board-rooms everywhere, from Silicon Valley to Capitol Hill. A stirring piece of history, Love Everyone brings these stories to life, sharing for the first time the inspiring tales of the men and women who followed the siren call of the East to the foothills of the Himalayas, then returned to forever reshape the world.
A compelling and inspiring tribute to Maharajji from the Western men and women who knew him best, Love Everyone is a profound teaching on the power of love, as lasting and transformative as the truth, wisdom, and bliss of Maharajji.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2015
124 people are currently reading
524 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 16, 2015
This is an Awesome Book! A really fun read, and one that will take you closer to Divine Love, that deep wellspring of love that is in you always. This book's pages will help you find that wellspring of love and reveal it to you. Best to read before bed, so your dreams may be filled with visions, gifts and visitations of great Ones.
July 20, 2016
Beautiful description of Neem Karoli Baba. I have been to the Taos Hanuman Temple in New Mexico many times but did not truly know who he was until I read this book. Love is the true religion, which is what the Baba embodies.
For those who may not be aware of who he was, this is the Saint that Steve Jobs wanted to meet when he went to India.
I recommend this book to anyone who has no interest in religion, but wants to know if there is a God and if so who he or she is. Simple answer, God is love. And the way to practice that religion is to love your fellow beings and show it by living it. That is what you get from this book.
For those who may not be aware of who he was, this is the Saint that Steve Jobs wanted to meet when he went to India.
I recommend this book to anyone who has no interest in religion, but wants to know if there is a God and if so who he or she is. Simple answer, God is love. And the way to practice that religion is to love your fellow beings and show it by living it. That is what you get from this book.
December 2, 2015
Of the books I have read that use the experiences of Western devotees to offer a look at Maharajji, this one is far and away the finest in every way. In writing and presentation, it brings the reader into the ashram with Baba back when he was in the body and reinforces my experience that he never leaves us, dwelling now within us. Highly recommended.
October 6, 2017
Spiritual Passage to India
by Mark Chmiel
Love everyone, feed everyone, and remember God.
Neem Karoli Baba
I recently gave Ram Dass’s Be Here Now to Laura, an exceptional Maryville University graduate and psychology major. Previously, I had mentioned to her that part early in the book about Richard Alpert’s growing disenchantment as an upwardly mobile psychology prof and his eventual breakdown/breakthrough with Neem Karoli Baba (“Maharajji”), who became his guru. I thought she might appreciate both the design of the book and some of the teachings, which she’d probably not come across in upper-level psych courses.
Like Ram Dass a devotee of Maharajji, Parvati Markus has recently compiled ardent testimonies in Love Everyone: The Transcendent Wisdom of Neem Karoli Baba Told through the Stories of the Westerners Whose Lives He Transformed. The influential psychologist Daniel Goleman was one of those Westerners, and his experience in India was crucial to developing a more holistic and powerful psychology: “In the West I had been in the heart of American psychology, and here was a sea of love, totally off the map of Western psychology. It was so clear that we had missed something really important about human abilities, human potential, about the heart. Here was a being who was endless love and presence. It wasn’t some temporary state; it was who he was. That’s what really got me.”
Markus’s book covers the years 1968 to 1973. Many people went to India at a young age (late teens, early twenties), and eventually returned to the U.S. to integrate what they had experienced in ashrams and following the guru around India. People went into the professions, raised families, got stuck, got unstuck, achieved fame (e.g., Krishna Das). All of them had been marked for life by Maharajji, as the following remarks indicate…
“He never asked for anything. Not a dime, not a commitment, not anything.”
“The true miracle was his state of consciousness, his being, that infinite love, that oneness with God, that beyond the beyond. That is so priceless. His presence—that’s the whole thing.”
“I began to get this extraordinary feeling of coming home.”
“I felt that for the first time in my life I was home, that my life was not a mistake.
“…After a while, we understood and even expected, in the very core of our being, that Maharajji did indeed know everything. Our past, present and future were all available to him like an open book…. You’d see your desire for attention, your reactivity, your anger, your greed, your sexual secrets… and you knew he saw it all. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Many tears were shed while facing your inner darkness.”
“These were tears of homecoming—the feeling of finally, finally having come back.”
“We all had our moments of feeling unworthy of the extraordinary love that Maharajji showered upon us. Our desires, our moral defects, our personal issues would come up and block the light that was always shining on us from Baba.”
“Simultaneously I felt this upwelling rush of compassion that rose to my heart, and I felt such love for these people whom I didn’t even know.”
“That’s the moment that most of us had, where all the pretense of your life, who you think you are, crumbles and you feel that love in your heart for the first time.”
“From the first time with Maharajji, he was lover, father, best friend, child, and so much more to me, all in one.”
“He was showing me that he had visited me in my dream state and told me to come meet him.”
“I knew I was with someone who knew God personally.”
“I felt so grateful that he called me to give me the teaching about death, because clearly that wasn’t Maharajji. I could feel it.”
“Maharajji said to love everyone. Even Monsanto. Even the army. It turns out to be the best teaching. Finding out how to do that, that’s what it’s about.”
Ram Dass observed that the Westerners learned from Maharajji and other Indian devotees that they could identify more with their souls than with their roles. And Jai Uttal came to realize that there is a much bigger context for the devotion that Maharajji attracted: “the path of bhakti wasn’t for ourselves, our own experience, our own bliss. Rather, it’s for service, it’s for guru, God, the devotees, the visitors, the universe of suffering people.”
by Mark Chmiel
Love everyone, feed everyone, and remember God.
Neem Karoli Baba
I recently gave Ram Dass’s Be Here Now to Laura, an exceptional Maryville University graduate and psychology major. Previously, I had mentioned to her that part early in the book about Richard Alpert’s growing disenchantment as an upwardly mobile psychology prof and his eventual breakdown/breakthrough with Neem Karoli Baba (“Maharajji”), who became his guru. I thought she might appreciate both the design of the book and some of the teachings, which she’d probably not come across in upper-level psych courses.
Like Ram Dass a devotee of Maharajji, Parvati Markus has recently compiled ardent testimonies in Love Everyone: The Transcendent Wisdom of Neem Karoli Baba Told through the Stories of the Westerners Whose Lives He Transformed. The influential psychologist Daniel Goleman was one of those Westerners, and his experience in India was crucial to developing a more holistic and powerful psychology: “In the West I had been in the heart of American psychology, and here was a sea of love, totally off the map of Western psychology. It was so clear that we had missed something really important about human abilities, human potential, about the heart. Here was a being who was endless love and presence. It wasn’t some temporary state; it was who he was. That’s what really got me.”
Markus’s book covers the years 1968 to 1973. Many people went to India at a young age (late teens, early twenties), and eventually returned to the U.S. to integrate what they had experienced in ashrams and following the guru around India. People went into the professions, raised families, got stuck, got unstuck, achieved fame (e.g., Krishna Das). All of them had been marked for life by Maharajji, as the following remarks indicate…
“He never asked for anything. Not a dime, not a commitment, not anything.”
“The true miracle was his state of consciousness, his being, that infinite love, that oneness with God, that beyond the beyond. That is so priceless. His presence—that’s the whole thing.”
“I began to get this extraordinary feeling of coming home.”
“I felt that for the first time in my life I was home, that my life was not a mistake.
“…After a while, we understood and even expected, in the very core of our being, that Maharajji did indeed know everything. Our past, present and future were all available to him like an open book…. You’d see your desire for attention, your reactivity, your anger, your greed, your sexual secrets… and you knew he saw it all. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Many tears were shed while facing your inner darkness.”
“These were tears of homecoming—the feeling of finally, finally having come back.”
“We all had our moments of feeling unworthy of the extraordinary love that Maharajji showered upon us. Our desires, our moral defects, our personal issues would come up and block the light that was always shining on us from Baba.”
“Simultaneously I felt this upwelling rush of compassion that rose to my heart, and I felt such love for these people whom I didn’t even know.”
“That’s the moment that most of us had, where all the pretense of your life, who you think you are, crumbles and you feel that love in your heart for the first time.”
“From the first time with Maharajji, he was lover, father, best friend, child, and so much more to me, all in one.”
“He was showing me that he had visited me in my dream state and told me to come meet him.”
“I knew I was with someone who knew God personally.”
“I felt so grateful that he called me to give me the teaching about death, because clearly that wasn’t Maharajji. I could feel it.”
“Maharajji said to love everyone. Even Monsanto. Even the army. It turns out to be the best teaching. Finding out how to do that, that’s what it’s about.”
Ram Dass observed that the Westerners learned from Maharajji and other Indian devotees that they could identify more with their souls than with their roles. And Jai Uttal came to realize that there is a much bigger context for the devotion that Maharajji attracted: “the path of bhakti wasn’t for ourselves, our own experience, our own bliss. Rather, it’s for service, it’s for guru, God, the devotees, the visitors, the universe of suffering people.”
March 8, 2016
Love is all.
February 11, 2020
Lovely book. Warmly written stories of western devotees of Neem Karoli Baba. I guess I could give a little minus that some of the stories have appeared in other books but even those stories often had some extra details. If your heart, your core, has been touched by Maharaj-ji then this is one of the several books you simply want to read.
November 16, 2016
Beyond words and profound
This book.. what can I say. Flood gates opened .. meaning both heart and eyes. Tears were steaming from my eyes as I read every one's personal experience with Baba.
This book.. what can I say. Flood gates opened .. meaning both heart and eyes. Tears were steaming from my eyes as I read every one's personal experience with Baba.
August 29, 2022
Great book that tells the stories of the people that make up the “satsang” , devotees of Maharaji, Neem Karoli Baba. Fascinating to hear all of their stories and how Maharaji changed their lives, and through them the world
July 31, 2025
love is everything
This book embodies the love and grace of a great being who is one with God. No words could express the level of appreciation I have for Him in my life. Om Jaya Jagadish Hare.
This book embodies the love and grace of a great being who is one with God. No words could express the level of appreciation I have for Him in my life. Om Jaya Jagadish Hare.
November 9, 2018
Amazing
Just a fantastic book. The stories are just wonderful. It must have been so transformative to be in his presence.
Just a fantastic book. The stories are just wonderful. It must have been so transformative to be in his presence.
July 13, 2019
I would give this book all the stars! Magnificent and inspiring. I was in tears through most of it.
September 20, 2022
love it.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was deep for me. This book fulfilled my quest for a deeper and long stories of Maharajji.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was deep for me. This book fulfilled my quest for a deeper and long stories of Maharajji.
Read
January 6, 2024I have become a fan of Ram Dass in the past few years and this book ended up on a sale, so I picked it up.
January 15, 2024
There are may stories in here that I had not seen elsewhere. It is told chronologically and is thus more coherent than 'Miracle of Love' and also free of Ram Dass' heavy editorial hand.
July 1, 2024
A very emotional description of Guru Shishya relationship. Detailed review - https://www.anuradhagoyal.com/love-ev...
November 10, 2016
Great collection of stories about those who were connected with Maharaji…love the flowing format that really makes you feel like you are there, and captures the intial disbelief and later adoration of his devotees.
July 25, 2021
Maharajji's love flows through this book!
Varying accounts of how Maharajji's grace changed lives across continents...all these stories touch you at some personal level while filling your heart with love and happiness!
Varying accounts of how Maharajji's grace changed lives across continents...all these stories touch you at some personal level while filling your heart with love and happiness!
December 1, 2017
What a wonderful way to live. These are the stories of all those who were called to India to meet their Guru Maharaj-ji, and how this powerful experience changed their lives profoundly and lastingly so that they could live his message: Love everyone, feed everyone, serve everyone, and remember God.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews