Sometimes the deepest spiritual teaching arrives as a simple plate of food.
I have often wondered why food occupied such an important place in the life of Neem Karoli Baba, lovingly known as Maharaj-ji.
Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji). Photographer and original source unknown.
In the recollections of his devotees, feeding people appears again and again. Alongside darshan, prayer, and conversations about God, there was the practical work of cooking, serving, and making sure that people had eaten.
What was it about this seemingly ordinary act that made it so central to his teaching?
A recent account of the composer Ilaiyaraaja’s early struggles brought that question back to me.
A Simple Answer to a Profound Question
In an excerpt from Polishing the Mirror, published on his official website, Ram Dass recalled hoping to receive esoteric teachings from Maharaj-ji. When he asked about becoming enlightened, Maharaj-ji’s responses included an instruction of remarkable simplicity:
“Feed people.” [1]
Imagine travelling halfway across the world in search of spiritual understanding and receiving those two words.
A seeker might expect a meditation technique, a secret mantra, or an explanation of consciousness. Feeding someone could seem almost too ordinary.
Yet perhaps its ordinariness is precisely what makes it challenging.
We can discuss compassion without being inconvenienced by anyone’s needs. Feeding another person asks something concrete of us: time, attention, effort, and a willingness to share.
I hear a question within that teaching: what happens to our spiritual understanding when someone beside us is hungry?
Food Prepared Before the Guests Arrived
One account reproduced by the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos comes from Ravi Prakash Pande “Rajida’s” The Divine Reality of Sri Baba Neeb Karori Ji Maharaj.
It describes an afternoon at Kainchi when few visitors were present. Maharaj-ji nevertheless asked devotees to prepare a large quantity of puris and vegetables. Later, two buses carrying scouts from Rajasthan arrived unexpectedly, and the children were generously fed. [2]
For devotees, this is a story of Maharaj-ji’s extraordinary awareness. What also stays with me is the welcome those children received: food was ready, and their arrival was a cause for happiness.
Another recollection, attributed to Dada Mukerjee’s By His Grace, describes an elderly woman becoming tearful at a Kainchi feast because she had never been fed with such generosity. [3]
For someone familiar with scarcity, an unhesitating offer of another helping can carry enormous meaning.
It can say: you are welcome here. There is room for you. Your need matters.
A Kitchen That Became More Welcoming
Dada Mukerjee also wrote about his mother, whose orthodox Brahmin upbringing had shaped strict boundaries around her kitchen.
In his account, those boundaries gradually softened in Maharaj-ji’s presence. Western visitors entered the kitchen, and she became accepting of Muslims entering the house. Dada described a widening sense that others were her own children.
Maharaj-ji’s instruction was simple:
“Ma, give food to all.” [4]
What moves me about this recollection is the way change entered everyday life.
Preparing food for another person requires us to attend to something we share with them. Whatever our differences, both of us know hunger. Both of us depend on the care and labour of others.
I wonder whether repeated acts of hospitality can sometimes loosen prejudices that arguments leave untouched.
A person once regarded as an outsider becomes someone whose meal we are preparing.
Ilaiyaraaja: Remembering Hunger Before Fame
A report by TOI Entertainment Desk, published in The Times of India on 17 October 2026, recounts Ilaiyaraaja’s memories of hunger after arriving in Chennai in 1968.
During Navaratri, he, his brother Bhaskar, and Bharathiraja collected food distributed near the Vadapalani temple. Back in their room, they pooled what they had received on a sheet of paper and ate together.
According to the report, hearing about those difficult days moved his wife to begin Navaratri celebrations that included feeding visitors. A modest Golu and the distribution of cooked rice eventually developed into a larger tradition with musical performances. [5]
The part that stays with me is the response to remembered hunger.
A meal offered during someone’s difficult years can remain in their memory long after their circumstances change. Here, that memory helped inspire further generosity.
We celebrate Ilaiyaraaja for the music he has given the world. This recollection also asks us to see the young man who once needed someone to give him food.
Hunger Does Not Wait for Enlightenment
Reading these accounts together brings me back to something very basic.
When a person is hungry, food is not a philosophical subject. It is an immediate necessity.
We may talk about God, consciousness, compassion, non-violence, meditation, and liberation. These questions have occupied humanity for centuries, and I find myself returning to them often.
But for someone who has not eaten all day, a meal may matter more than every spiritual explanation we could offer.
I do not read Maharaj-ji’s emphasis on feeding people as a reason to abandon those questions. I read it as a reminder to remain attentive to the person in front of us while we ask them.
We do not have to resolve the mysteries of existence before recognising hunger.
Nor do we need to wait until we feel spiritually accomplished before helping.
A person’s need for food does not depend on whether they believe in our God, follow our rituals, or agree with our understanding of life.
The Dignity of Receiving
In Hindu devotional practice, food offered to the divine and then shared is commonly called prasad.
For me, these stories also raise a question about the manner in which food is given.
Does the person receiving it feel welcome? Can they ask for more without embarrassment? Are they treated as a guest, or made to feel that their hunger has placed them beneath someone else?
Generosity carries a different meaning when it protects another person’s dignity.
The accounts reproduced by the Taos ashram also describe Maharaj-ji’s concern about waste in the distribution of prasad. [3] I find that detail meaningful: care includes both ensuring that people receive enough and valuing the food being served.
In our own lives, that care might take the form of cooking for someone, contributing to a community kitchen, or quietly checking whether a person going through difficulty has enough to eat.
Such acts may be small in scale. To the person receiving them, they may be anything but small.
What These Stories Leave With Me
Maharaj-ji’s feeding of visitors and Ilaiyaraaja’s recollection come from different lives and circumstances. Bringing them together here is my own reflection.
What connects them for me is the human importance of being fed when we need it.
Hunger can narrow a person’s world to the question of the next meal. Someone who answers that need offers relief, but also the experience of being noticed.
Perhaps that helps explain why these stories stay with us.
We may spend a lifetime trying to understand God. Along the way, there are people whose immediate needs we can understand quite clearly.
I cannot claim to know the full meaning of Maharaj-ji’s insistence on feeding everyone. But I find myself returning to one possibility:
Perhaps feeding someone is one of the simplest ways of acknowledging that their existence matters as much as our own.
And sometimes, the most meaningful spiritual response we can offer is to make sure that someone has eaten.
- Ash
Sources and Acknowledgements
This article is a personal reflection drawing on the sources below. Accounts concerning Maharaj-ji are presented as devotees’ recollections. The connection drawn between those accounts and Ilaiyaraaja’s experience is the author’s interpretation.
Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart, excerpt published as “What Does It Mean to ‘Be Here Now’?” on RamDass.org. Source for his recollection of Maharaj-ji’s instruction to feed people.
Ravi Prakash Pande “Rajida”, The Divine Reality of Sri Baba Neeb Karori Ji Maharaj, excerpt reproduced as “Feeding the Children” by the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram and Hanuman Temple, Taos. Source for the account of the scouts arriving at Kainchi.
Neem Karoli Baba Ashram and Hanuman Temple, Taos, “Feed Everyone: Part One — Feed the Poor and Remember God.” Includes passages attributed to Dada Mukerjee’s By His Grace concerning generous feeding and care in distributing prasad.
Dada Mukerjee, By His Grace, excerpt reproduced as “Feed Everyone” by the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram and Hanuman Temple, Taos. Source for the account concerning his mother and the instruction, “Ma, give food to all.”
TOI Entertainment Desk, The Times of India / etimes.in, 17 October 2026: “Ilaiyaraaja recalls struggling with hunger during old Navaratri days with Bharathiraja in Chennai.” Source for the summary of Ilaiyaraaja’s recollection and the family’s Navaratri tradition.
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