Master's ravenous appetite

The Master said: "I was seized with a ravenous appetite, that no amount of food could satisfy. No sooner had I eaten something than I would feel hungry again. Day and night my mind was possessed by one thought alone: what to eat. I pondered: "What kind of disease is this?" When I described it to the Brahmani, she replied: "My son, don’t worry. The scriptures explain, that those, who advance on the path of spirituality, pass through such abnormal states. Wait, I shall cure it". She asked Mathur to supply various kinds of food - from flattened rice and sugar-coated parched rice to sandesh, rasagolla, luchi, and other delicacies - and stack it all in a room. She then told me: "My son, stay in this room day and night and eat whenever and whatever you like". I remained in that room and walked around, touching different foods. Every now and then I would taste one item or another, according to my fancy. In this way three days passed, that strange hunger and desire for food left me, and I was relieved”.

We have heard that such inordinate hunger appears before the mind of an aspirant has become absorbed and settled naturally in yoga or God, and sometimes after that. We ourselves were amazed, when we witnessed this phenomenon in later days. ... We did see that, when he was in an ecstatic mood, he would eat four or more times his normal quantity of food without experiencing any stomach trouble. 

(Once, when the Master was staying in Kamarpukur), the neighbours crowded together to see him and to hear him talk on spiritual matters. ... At about 9:00 p.m., the visitors left for their homes. The Master had been having stomach trouble for a few days, so at night he was taking only sago water or barley water. That night he had milk and barley and went to bed. The women of the household … were about to go to bed after finishing their other work. Suddenly the Master opened his door and emerged in an ecstatic mood. Addressing Ramlal’s mother and the others, he said: "Are you all going to bed? How can you go to bed without giving me any food?” "My goodness!” - Ramlal’s mother replied: "What do you mean? You’ve just finished your meal!” 

The Master said: "When did I eat? I’ve just come from Dakshineswar. When did you feed me?” The women looked at one another in amazement. They realized that the Master's ecstacy was making him say this. … Ramlal’s mother could find no solution, and told him timidly: "Look, there is no cooked food at home except for some puffed rice. Why don’t you eat that? It won’t upset your stomach”. She then brought a big plate of puffed rice and placed it in front of the Master. He turned his face away like a petulant boy and said: "I won’t eat just puffed rice”. She tried to persuade him, ... but who would listen to that? At last Ramlal was sent to a sweets shop. He called loudly to wake up the shopkeeper, and bought two pounds of sweets. … The Master then happily sat down to eat and finished everything. … Amazingly the Master’s health was fine the next day; he was not sick at all because of what he had eaten the night before. 

Similar situations would sometimes occur in Dakshineswar. One midnight the Master got up, called Ramlal, and said: "I’m very hungry. Find some food for me”. … When Ramlal searched, he found nothing. So he went to the Nahabat and informed the Holy Mother and other women devotees. They hurriedly made a fire with hay and wood and cooked about two pounds of farina pudding. A woman devotee carried it to the Master in a big stone bowl. Entering the room, she saw a dim oil lamp flickering in the corner. The Master was pacing in an ecstatic mood, and Ramlal was seated nearby. In that calm and silent night, she was startled to see the Master’s solemn and luminous face, and his unclothed god-intoxicated form. ... Her heart was filled with joy as she watched the Master pace majestically, moving blissfully and without motive, his mind one-pointed. It seemed to her that the Master’s body had become much larger, as if he were not a person of this world! A god had taken human form, descending from Heaven to this earth full of misery prompted by his compassionate heart. … This was not the same Master, whom she saw all the time. She shivered with an indescribable awe as she drew near him.

Ramlal had already brought a seat for the Master, and the woman devotee put the bowl of farina in front of it. The Master sat down and, still in an ecstatic mood, gradually consumed all of it. Did the Master know what was in that woman’s mind? Who can say? While eating, he noticed that she was silently watching him. He asked her: "Well, can you tell me who is eating - myself, or someone else?” The woman devotee replied: "It seems to me that there is someone else inside you, who is eating”. The Master was pleased to hear this and said with a smile: "You are right”. 

(Swami Saradananda "Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play", translated by Swami Chetanananda, V4, Ch.1, Story of Vaishnavcharan and Gauri, pp. 551-5)