Totapuri

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Ishwar Totapuri (also Tota Puri) (1780-1866), born likely in Punjab, India, was a parivrajaka (wandering monk) who followed the path of the Advaita Vedanta. He regarded the gods and goddesses of dualistic worship as fantasies of the mind and reportedly spent forty years practicing austerity and other disciplines of self-exertion.

By the time he arrived at Dakshineswar Temple in 1864, he was a wandering monk of the Dasnami order of Adi_Shankara, and head of a monastery in the Punjab claiming the leadership of seven hundred sannyasins. He initiated Ramakrishna into Advaita Vedanta Swami Nikhilananda, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1972), Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, New York, as well as Anandpuri Ji from the tradition Geaves, R. R., From Totapuri to Maharaji: Reflections on a Lineage (Parampara), (2002). Paper presented at the 27th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, Oxford. March 2002.

Totapuri taught Ramakrishna that the sole reality of the impersonal Absolute could only be realized in a state of consciousness devoid of all conceptual forms.Von Dehsen, Christian D. (Ed.) WritersPhilosophers and Religious Leaders p.159, Oryx Press, 1999Totapuri was "a teacher of masculine strength, a sterner mien, a gnarled physique, and a virile voice". Ramakrishna affectionately addressed him as Nangta, the "Naked One", because as a renunciate he did not wear any clothing.

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