User:Goethean/SRK/Bio/Vedanta/Vineeth

Totapuri and Vedanta

The Panchavati and the hut where Ramakrishna performed his advaitic sadhana. The mud hut has been replaced by a brick one.

In 1864, Ramakrishna was initiated into sanyassa by a vedantic ascetic, a wandering monk — Totapuri. Totapuri was "a teacher of masculine strength, a sterner mien, a gnarled physique, and a virile voice". Ramakrishna address the monk as Nangta or Langta — the "Naked One".

Totapuri first guided Ramakrishna through the rites of sanyasa — renunciation of all ties to the world. Then he instructed him in the teaching of advaita — that "Brahman alone is real, and the world is illusory;I have no separate existence; I am that Brahman alone." Under the guidance of Totapuri, Ramakrishna experienced the Nirvikalpa Samadhi which is considered to be the highest state in spiritual realisation:

I [Ramakrishna] said to Totapuri in despair: "It's no good. I will never be able to lift my spirit to the unconditioned state and find myself face to face with the Atman." He [Totapuri] replied severely: "What do you mean you can't? You must!" Looking about him, he found a shard of glass. He took it and stuck the point between my eyes saying: "Concentrate your mind on that point." [...] The last barrier vanished and my spirit immediately precipitated itself beyond the plane of the conditioned. I lost myself in samadhi.

There is a view that it was Totapuri who gave him the title of Ramakrishna after initiating him formally into Sanyasa.

Totapuri stayed with ramakrishna for nearly eleven months and instructed him further in the teachings of advaita. After the departure of Totapuri, Ramakrishna reportedly remained for six months in a state of absolute contemplation:

For six months in a stretch, I [Ramakrishna] remained in that state from which ordinary men can never return; generally the body falls off, after three weeks, like a mere leaf. I was not conscious of day or night. Flies would enter my mouth and nostrils as they do a dead's body, but I did not feel them. My hair became matted with dust.

Ramakrishna said that this period of nirvikalpa samadhi came to an end, when he received a command from the Mother Kali, — "Remain in Bhavamukha; for the enlightenment of the people, remain in Bhavamukha." — Bhãvamukha being a state of existence, intermediate between samadhi and normal consciousness.