It was my first Guru Purnima course, held in Lake Tahoe in 1999, where I experienced 8 days of silence and deep meditations in Gurudev’s presence. As a new and innocent participant, I went very deep into the experience and the seva aspect. During one of the seva activities, we were silently chopping red peppers and showing each other that they were “hollow & empty.” As a joke, we put one in a paper bag with a note asking to look inside and placed it on Gurudev’s seat.
To our surprise, Gurudev opened the bag in front of the Satsang, looked inside the pepper, and exclaimed, “Huh? What is this? Oh, hollow & empty.” I was amazed at how he knew what we had silently communicated to each other. The course was so much fun, and it completely changed my life from then on. I was so elated that I felt like I didn’t touch the ground for at least six months after that experience.
