Baba Rampuri, born William A. Gans (July 14, 1950), also known as Baba Ram Puri -ji is an American born Sadhu. He claims to be the first westerner to become a Naga Sadhu, having been initiated in 1970. He is the author of the 2010 Destiny Books published book Autobiography of a Sadhu: A Journey into Mystic India, originally published in 2005 by Harmony/Bell Tower as Baba: Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi, and now released by Amarpuri Wellness in 2016 as Autobiography of a Sadhu: An Angrez among Naga Babas which has also been translated into German, Russian, Czech, Croatian, and Serbian.^[2] He was initiated into the religious order the Naga Sannyasis after traveling to India on a spiritual quest from his native California in 1969, at the age of 18.^[3][4] Like many Sadhus, he has stopped using his birth name since his initiation, refuses to give it,^[5] and is unwilling to talk about his past.^[6][7] He is Shri Mahant at Shri Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara^[8][9][10] (The Sacred Juna Akhara of the Ten Names).^[11]

Baba Rampuri was born William A. Gans^[1][12][13] on July 14, 1950 in Chicago where his father was a dental surgeon,^[14] possibly Jewish.^[7] His family moved to Beverly Hills, California in 1953.

Rampuri says Edwin S. Stern approached him in September 2010, and asked him to secure the commitment of the Shri Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara religious society in a spiritual "Kumbha Mela" event to be held in 2012 in New York City. The planned event was cancelled by Stern in August 2011 due to an inability to secure sufficient funding. A court case subsequently ensued.^{[1][12][13][24]}

Rampuri's claim for a $250,000 plus expenses Agent Fee for his assistance in securing the Juna Akhara's participation and a further $1,325,967 that was promised by Stern and his company as a Dakshina (donation) to Juna Akhara itself, was dismissed by the New York Supreme Court on January 15, 2013.^[25]

Rampuri's Autobiography of a Sadhu: A Journey into Mystic India was first published in English in 2005 (as Baba: Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi) and translated into Russian in 2006 and German in 2008, with an updated republication in English in 2010.

Published in English as:

• Rampuri. (2010). 'Autobiography of a Sadhu: A Journey into Mystic India'. Destiny Books. ISBN 978-1594773303. – originally published as Rampuri. (2005). Baba: Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi. Harmony/Bell Tower. ISBN 978-1400080380.

Published in German as:

• Rampuri. (2008). 'Unterwegs zu den Wurzeln yogischen Wissens' (On the Road to the Roots of Yogic Knowledge/Heading to the Roots of Yogic Knowledge). Sphinx. ISBN 978-3720590112.

Published in Russian as:

• Rampuri. (2006). 'Биография голубоглазого йогина' (Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi). Гаятри (Gayatri). ISBN 5-9689-0040-7. and translated by А. Горбатюк (A. Gorbatyuk)

• Radhanath Swami