Ramana Maharshi does not like to eat any food without sharing it with the people around him

[Guest guest]

18th October, 1947

 

Recently, owing to some maladjustment in diet,Bhagavan’s health has been

somewhat indifferent. Noticing this, a rich devotee, by name Kamala Rani,

sent a soup made of costly vegetables and sweet grapes to the Ashram one

morning, with a request that it might be served to Bhagavan.

 

As it was received just as Bhagavan was about to take his food, Bhagavan

accepted it.

 

Next day, she again prepared it in the same way and sent it to the Ashram.

But this time, looking at his attendants,Bhagavan said, “Why this daily?

Please tell her not to send it henceforth.”

 

The lady, however, sent it the following day too.

 

“There!” said Bhagavan, “It has come again. She will not stop sending it. I

should have said ‘No’ at the very beginning. It was my mistake to have

accepted it.”

 

A devotee said, “At present, Bhagavan is much run down.She is perhaps

sending it because a liquid preparation with grapes might be good for

Bhagavan’s health.”

 

“Oho!” Bhagavan exclaimed, “Is that so? And have you authority to plead on

her behalf?”

 

“That is not it, Bhagavan. I am saying so because I thought that such

preparations might be good for the health.”

 

“May be so,” rejoined Bhagavan, “but such things are for rich people, not

for us.”

 

“That devotee says that she herself will prepare it and send it,” persisted

the devotee.

 

“That is all right,” replied Bhagavan, “and if so, please find out if she

could supply the same thing for all the people who sit here.”

 

“Our anxiety is that Bhagavan’s body should be healthy.”

 

“That is all right,” Bhagavan rejoined, “but do you mean to say that health

could be maintained only if soup prepared from grapes and costly vegetables

is taken? If it were so, then rich people should all be enjoying good

health. Why is it then that they are more unhealthy and sickly than the

others? The satisfaction that poor people get by taking sour rice-gruel

cannot be had from anything else. In olden days, when we were doing the

cooking during summer, we used to have a pot into which we put all the

cooked rice left over, fill it up with water, a little buttermilk,a little

rice-gruel, dry ginger and lemon leaves, and set it aside. It would get

sour, cool and clear.

 

The liquid used to be drunk with a pinch of salt by all of us by the

tumblerful,and we used to feel very happy. No one had any illness

whatsoever. Even now, if I were to drink two tumblerfuls of such water, all

my ailments would disappear.

 

But then nobody prepares it for me. ‘Aye! Aye! How could we give sour milk

gruel to Swami?’ they say. What is to be done? To prepare soup of this sort

will cost a rupee. If, with that money, millet (ragi) were brought and

ground into flour, it would last for about a month for preparing gruel from

it Grape juice, tomato soup and the like are offered to me. Why do I require

such things? Tell her not to send the soup from tomorrow.”

 

The thing stopped there. Bhagavan told us several times that while he was

living on the hill he was eating bilva fruit (a sort of wood-apple) for some

days and sustaining himself on it.

 

Bhagavan does not like to eat any food without sharing it with the people

around him.

 

Source: Letters from Sri Ramanasramam VOLUMES I, II & Letters from and

Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam By SURI NAGAMMA Translated by D. S. SASTRI

 

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Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram

 

Love And Love Alone