Dear prasanth,
There is an entry in Day by Day, dated 30.05.1946, giving details
about Bhagavan Ramana's bad health. This was on that afternoon,
where T.P. Ramachandra Iyer.
In the afternoon, TPR remarked: "Chadwick has a picture of Bhagavan
in a reumbent posture where Bhagavan looks a mere skeleton. I don't think anyone else has a picture. [This photograph is there in Arunachala's Ramana, Boundless Ocean of Grace, in one of the volumes].
I [TPR] said: It must have been taken at the time when Bhagavan
was purposely under eating.
Bhagavan said: Yes. For sometime when I was in Skandasramam, I
used to take only one meal a day at 11.00 a.m. and nothing else.
At that time, I got very thin.
Bhagavan Ramana went on to explain the early days in Arunachala.
He was living in Gopura Subramania's temple. TPR's father who first took Him to his house for a full fledged meal. He literally lifted Him up and took Him home.
As otherwise He was begging food. He, for the first time, begged food from Chinnakurukkal's house. Thereafter. He went on to tell how after that He freely begged food in almost all the streets of
Tiruvannamalai.
Bhagavan Ramana further added: "..... First, I felt bashful about it as a result of upbringing, but after that there was absolutely no feeling of abasement. I felt like a king and more than a king. I have sometimes received stale gruel at some house and taken without salt or any other flavoring, in open street, before great pandits and other important men who used to come and prostrate themselves before me at my Asramam, then wiped my hands on my head and passed on supremely happy and in a state of mind, in which even emperors were mere straw in my sight. You can't imagine it. It is because there is such a path that we find tales in history of kings giving up thrones and taking to this path....."
When I went to the Asramam a few days back, and after each
meal, [hot hot meals with curries, sambhar, rasam, and buttermilk and pickles], I could not but pray specially to Mother Azhgammal. It is she who gave hot meals for the first time in Skandasramam to Bhagavan Ramana and other devotees like Kunju Swami. This Brahma Jnani had also to be given hot food only from His Mother who is none else than Annapurani. Today, thanks to her, hundreds of devotees are continued to be fed with hot meals and hot breakfast, and wonderful tea in the afternoon.
Arunachala Siva.