“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

Apple co-founder and long-time CEO Steve Jobs died Wednesday at the age of 56. Known as an inventor, an “outside the box” thinker and one of the most successful businessmen in the world,

Jobs also had a deep spiritual life, marked by a pilgrimage to India in the 70’s, experiments with psychedelic drugs and a life-long Buddhist practice supported by a strict vegetarian diet.

After working at Atari Inc, as a video game developer in 1974, Jobs took a break and backpacked around India in search of spiritual enlightenment.

His interest in the Indian pilgrimage began when he entered Reed College, in Portland, Oregon.

He first dropped out and then he “became a ‘drop- in’ back at Reed, attending only the courses, such as calligraphy, that interested him, while scratching an existence earning a few cents recycling cans and eating for free each week at the local Hare Krishna temple.”

In the summer of 1974, Steve and his college friend Dan Kottke with whom he shared his interest in Eastern religion and mysticism set out on a month-long journey to meet a spiritual leader in India.

“He is said to have visited the Kainchi ashram in Kumaon Hills in Uttar Pradesh, and wanted to meet Neem Karoli Baba. Unfortunately by the time they arrived Baba had died and people were trying to profit from his popularity..

As an aside, in Anthony Imbimbo book, Steve Jobs: The Brilliant Mind Behind Apple, he mentions that Dr. Larry Briiliant (Google.org) was a friend of Jobs, and also a follower of Karoli Baba who partnered with Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert) to start the Seva Foundation, an organization devoted to ending poverty. The Seva Foundation’s first $5,000 donation came from not-yet-famous computer inventor, Steve Jobs.

“When Steve came back, he resumed his job at Atari, and would spend some of his days in primal scream therapy sessions or at the Los Altos Zen Center, where he befriended Governor Jerry Brown and his guru Kobun Chino. He also spent several weeks with his girlfriend Chris-Ann and Dan Kottke in a hippie commune in Oregon, the All-One Farm. Here they would cultivate apples and for some time, Steve would eat only that — when he wasn’t fasting, that is.”

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You may also want to read these articles:

The Gospel According to Steve Jobs by Andy Crouch, Christianity Today [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

Steve Jobs and the Great Commission by Mike Milton, Reformed Seminary