Lord Ghanshyam's Great Feast

Once, when Lord Ghanshyam was less than 12 months old, His parents, Dharmadev and Bhaktimata had decided to hold a feast for the Brahmins and their wives at their home. Bhaktimata had made all sorts of delicious food such as, bhujiya, mango pulp and fresh yogurt. When she had finished, Dharmadev offered this wonderful meal in a golden plate to the Murtis in the sinhasan and prayed, 'O Lord I am your servant and am offering this food to you. So please kindly accept it.'

At this time, Lord Ghanshyam in His human form, decided to show a divine sport, in which He claimed He was very, very hungry. He asked Dharmadev to give Him the food, to which Dharmadev replied, 'Just be patient. After the Lord has eaten, we shall eat his prasadi.' However, Lord Ghanshyam showed a child-like lila and just continued to say, 'When will he finish? Please give me the food.' Dharmadev explained to Lord Ghanshyam, 'We cannot eat until he has eaten.'

In this short space of time, Lord Ghanshyam had already crawled to the food, and not only had He began eating, but at just 12 months old, He had eaten it all! Having finished everything in the golden plate, the Lord claimed He was still hungry. So Bhaktimata served Him another plateful of food. Despite finishing this lot of food as well, the Lord said He was not satisfied as yet. In this way, Bhaktimata kept refilling the Lord's plate, and the Lord would miraculously eat it all, always leaving room for more, until eventually all of the food which was intended for the Brahmins had been eaten.

It was then that Bhaktimata and Dharmadev realised that despite His human form, Lord Ghanshyam was not a mere child. He is in fact the all powerful Shree Swaminarayan Bhagwan himself, and is not affected by age or any other such worldly things. The Brahmins and their wives, who were also sitting there, were astounded by this divine feat. They said they had never seen anything quite like this. They had seen many small children but Lord Ghanshyam was truly unique. Whilst all the people were talking amongst themselves, Dharmadev looked at the Lord's divine stomach, in which he saw all of the oceans, rivers and worlds in just this one part of the Lord's Murti. Without a trace of doubt in his mind, Dharmadev said that this is Lord Ghanshyam himself, and began to do His darshan, forgetting completely that the Lord was in the form of his own child. Bhaktimata was so overcome with joy that she too began to play with Lord Ghanshyam. But the problem still remained of what to feed the Brahmins? Bhaktimata, who was filled with true devotion and dedication, cooked all of the food again and fed all of the Brahmins and their wives, and then finally ate herself.

This is just one of Lord Swaminarayan's divine lilas, in which He has shown that He is not limited by Maya, but is the Supreme, all powerful Lord, who has mercifully taken on a human form for the salvation of the souls. Jeevanpran Swamibapa has said that whoever hears this divine baal lila, will be able to attain true bhakti towards Lord Swaminarayan.