Conversation with Seekers: Inner Strength with Kelsey
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Kelsey is a communication and performance coach who helps professionals communicate clearly and powerfully, including managing their mindsets when the stakes are high. Prior to her coaching career, she trained as an actress at the Globe Stage in London and performed in musicals around the world. Chandresh sat down with Kelsey to discuss what it takes for a seeker to navigate their inner strength, how to handle death and creativity together, and how to handle the pain and fears that show up in the spiritual path. They also discuss how the path of tantra can help navigate these topics. You can learn more about Kelsey at www.kelseycrouch.com.
If you love this episode, please let us know on Instagram @cbmeditates.
Episode Transcript
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Who are you, as a Seeker? What does it take to show up with rawness and vulnerability? Do you ever experience embarrassment or uneasiness, seeing yourself as a Seeker? If these questions resonate with your heart, I invite you to listen to this heartwarming conversation with my dear student, Kelsey. Kelsey is part of Leela Gurukul, and attended the first cohort. Kelsey is a communication and performance coach. Her work is focused on helping professionals to communicate clearly and powerfully, including managing their mindsets when the stakes are high.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Her clients include Fortune 100 and 500 companies, entrepreneurs, as well as global and local nonprofits. Prior to her coaching career, she trained as an actress at the Globe Stage in London and performed in musicals around the world. You can know more about her on kelseycrouch.com. And in this conversation, I showed up as a curious human. I'm glad. As expected, Kelsey showed up as a curious, human, too.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: These conversations are raw and unscripted. It was a pleasure having Kelsey in the podcast. I hope you feel the same inspiration and warmth that I felt while speaking to Kelsey. To support the Leela podcast, write your reviews, share it on Instagram, share it with people who might benefit from it. I'm Chandresh Bhardwaj and this is Leela Gurukul. Hi, Kelsey. Welcome to the Leela Gurukul podcast. So happy to have you here.
Kelsey: Hi, Chandresh. Happy to be here.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So you have been part of Leela, I feel you're still part of Leela, even though you were in the first cohort. I have many questions to you and my personal curious is all about learning you, as a Seeker, what goes into the mind of a Seeker when they begin a spiritual journey. It looks cozy and easy to the people who are not part of the journey, right? And they get inspired, but they also feel very overwhelmed looking at the Seekers, especially the Seekers who are walking that talk, who are really living that spiritual energy and the others do get overwhelmed.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I've seen that many times. You are communication and public speaking coach, and I always felt your work and my work is similar in many ways. We work with vulnerability of people, their fear, their doubts. So I'm also going to have that communication coach step in, in you, and the Seeker and go into the questions. I guess my first question is, who's Kelsey, the Seeker, in you? Who is that person?
Kelsey: I have to tell you, I can't remember the first time that you used the word Seeker with me or with our cohort, but I really pushed back on it at first. It didn't feel right for me. And that's no criticism of you. It felt like there was so much pressure in that, when in reality, I think I was a little embarrassed because I was judging myself for anything, like pick a day. There's just some different thing to judge.
Kelsey: So I think that there was a self-judgment about how I was going about being curious. I mean, now I can look at that judgment and I think it's cute, how sweet to be critical of something like that. And in a way, it actually reminds me of one of the podcast episodes you did. Oh God, maybe a year ago, or no two years ago, about identity. Do you remember that?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah.
Kelsey: Anyway, the question was who am I as a speaker?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: You're answering that beautifully, by the way.
Kelsey: Thank you. Let me walk you through the maze of my mind. Thank you. I joke that I was born to Catholic Midwestern actors. So my whole childhood was really me looking for what was true. There's so many performative elements to each of those types of people, especially the way that I was raised, and a child of divorce and modern American family. Parents everywhere, kids everywhere, traveling back and forth between them. And I think, for a child, as exciteable as I was about the world, to have that much discombobulation around me was really jarring.
Kelsey: I mean, I remember being four and five and wondering what was true, like needing to find something that was more stable than the life around me. And I think I had a pretty good childhood. There was a lot of difficulty, but pretty good, but still I found myself hungry, hungry, hungry to belong to something that was more stable than what was around me.
Kelsey: So when I was old enough to receive my first communion in the Catholic church, I think I was seven when that happened, I dove so hard into that world. I think I was really happy to find something. It had its own home. I got to visit every single week. Beautiful. Everyone seemed happy. And so I was that very, very devout young, little girl who would pray on the side of my bed and have a little bottle of holy oil. You annoy yourself and cross your forehead three times. Really, really into it. And I would bring the Bible to school. I was raised in a public school. This is not something you did, but I did. I just was so hungry, I guess.
Kelsey: I remember making friends with the trees on my property and telling them secrets because I believed that there was some life in them, as well. So it was sort of my own story of truth that I was creating. Anyway, leading up to confirmation. So you're in eighth grade, which is, what, 13 years old when you get confirmed in the Catholic church. And I was in my catechism school asking questions, really simple questions of the nun who were teaching school. And I got in trouble for that curiosity. I was told not to ask questions. And this is a very traditional American Catholic Christian way of raising young adults.
Kelsey: But boy, it didn't work with me. And in that moment, like in that moment, I knew that my truth wasn't there. So there was something about always being able to believe something in myself. I'm still trying to piece it all together. But anyway, and then I began thinking everything from Wicca to reading the ancient Christian texts of the Nag Hammadi library, to Pema Chodron.
Kelsey: I cast a very wide and inclusive net so maybe it's funny that Seeker was a title I couldn't take on when you offered it. I think I was identifying with the fact that I hadn't found it yet, as opposed to the fact that I was on a journey. It seems to me to highlight the very difference that I see, at least, between my Catholic upbringing and what Tantra offers, right?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah.
Kelsey: I feel like I'm rambling, but the end of this little secret journey, I think that... End, I mean, up to the present, I think that working with Leela and the cohort and you, and learning your perspective, was a bit of a crash course in letting go of the right and wrong binary, of allowing really the mess that was there, again judgment, but the perceived mess that was there to really be okay, to really love up on it. And that is where I am in this secret journey, just learning to love everything and feeling really good about that. I'm sure we'll get into more of it, but that's a sort of the background identity that I'm bringing right now.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Thank you for sharing this, Kelsey. You touched so many points and I went to Catholic school for-
Kelsey: You did. That's right.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah. In my small hometown, in the Himalayas, we didn't have too many schools. It was a very small town. So all the good schools were mostly Catholic schools and that's where I went and I would meditate in the church every morning. You carried Bible in your school bag. I carried Tantra books in my school bag and my teacher would call my mom. "Chandresh does not bring the school books. He brings these books with weird pictures on it." And those weird pictures were just abstract Tantra paintings. And my teacher freaked out because I was in fourth grade. Why a fourth grader is reading this?
Kelsey: Like, "Oh no, the devil has got him."
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Exactly.
Kelsey: That sort of thing?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah. Things got crazy in school, and I was always someone who would arrive very early in school. I would ride my own bicycle to school and I liked to be alone in the early morning, a few minutes of the school. I'm still like that. I like to arrive very early so that I can just be in my solitude wherever I go. So I started walking into church. It was a beautiful church in the school. I would sit there with my friends. This is India, so we went to Catholic school, but there were barely any Catholic kids in the school. I knew only one, a Christian boy, just one that's all.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Everybody else was... there were Hindus, Sikh kids, very few Muslims because my region was majority of just the north Hindu and Sikh population. So I would sit there and my friends would be like, "Why are you sitting in church, especially you?" They all saw me as this child of a Hindu teacher. They didn't know anything more than that. Was it a priest, teacher, Tantra? Nobody knew anything. Even I didn't know anything about what my father does.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So I was like, yeah that's a good question. Why do I sit there? I started doing my mantra there and it felt good. It was only, I used to be there at 7:00 in the morning there. So I asked my father, I said, "I go to church and my friends have told me not to sit there. My family is telling me not to sit there. So I'm curious, should I not sit there?" He said, "What do you do when you sit there?" I said, "I don't know. I just do the mantra you have given me."
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And he said, "Yeah, keep doing that mantra." I said, "But there's no Durga or Kali. No Goddess Durga, no Goddess Kali in the church." He said, "Then who is there?" I said, "Mother Mary." He said, "Yeah, she's extension of Goddess Durga. Goddess Durga's an extension of her. So don't get into that mess." He said, "People who are dividing it, they're only doing a great job in dividing. People are getting convinced in the division so you should not be one of them. Don't get divided in your mind, keep doing your mantra."
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And that opened up something so crazy in me because I would go to Buddhist monasteries, Sikh temples, Mosques. I still go there. I still do the mantra. I still feel very powerfully opened up when I go there. But I also witnessed a lot of fear, anger, control, guilt, shame, all the complexities of religion. And that made me move away from the norms of religion and kind of define my own religion in my own head, and that this is my path. This is my way.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And I relate to the hunger that you had as a child. I've witnessed that in Leela also, by the way. You were one of the most sincere receivers of everything that we were sharing. And I remember there was one day, Kelsey, being the communication coach, you would share such brilliant insights. "Chandresh, why don't you do this? Why don't you do it this way?"
Kelsey: I'm getting called out.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And then one day I said, "Kelsey, I'm nervous, because you're giving me such brilliant insights. I don't know if I can live up to this guidance." And she said, "Now, you know how we feel because you share your insights and we don't know if we can live up to it." And that hit me, and I still think about it when I share anything with the students. I try not to get over ambitious for them. And I share it in doses because I'm like, your voice rings in my mind that you also share this. And we don't know if we can live up to that stuff you're sharing.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And I keep asking myself, is it too much? Is it all right? Can they handle it? But the point is your hunger, as a Seeker, was the first thing I noticed when I spoke to you. That was before Leela. The first introduction call we had. And I wanted you to be part of the group, selfishly, because I knew you would bring the energy I wanted in the circle, I wanted in the Leela.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And I can also see why the embarrassment of Seeker showed up. That embarrassment lived in me for many years when I also didn't accept my role as a teacher. People would ask me, "So are you also going to be a teacher? Because you come from this lineage, your father and grandfather and so on." My instant answer would be, "No, of course not. I'll work in Wall Street. I'll work in finance. I'll work with this." It felt too heavy of a label to live up to. And if anyone would call me as the next Tantra teacher in the family, I would feel embarrassed, even angry, I would close myself that, no, don't talk about that. I don't want to be that.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And I don't even know when and how the layers started peeling off. Maybe the frustration built so much with the other part of the world that I wanted to go back to my roots. So my question is, when did the hunger of this four-year-old Kelsey started transforming, transmuting into who you are today? And you are a very emotional, sensitive human. I know you read, you feel a lot. So where and when the shift started happening? Was there one experience or a bunch of them?
Kelsey: Even you asking that question, I can feel myself getting choked up. I don't know why. I can think of concrete moments in the last four years that have reignited that, so I don't think it was ever out so I think... My father is a social worker. He's a trauma therapist. He actually teaches EMDR to others. So the conversation, the language of healing, has always been in my life. But I think that, married with the Catholic so-resist-to-blame Catholicism. Because I know so many people find relief, love, home in it.
Kelsey: But for me, the combined shame with the language of healing, actually, in my mind, set up this, and our human negativity bias, set up this lens through which I looked at everything, but especially myself, of shame. I mean, the colors of it is something like a scarcity mindset. I'll never have what I need, but I also may not be worthy of it. I'm always behind. So I'm frantically searching, so plenty of anxiety, feeling that.
Kelsey: So I think most of my 20s, even though I was reading and looking and immersing myself in different yoga communities, Buddhist communities, intentionally non-Western religious communities, there was so much negativity that I was getting in my own way, I think, of actually seeking. What's this phrase about, like running in a circle, trying to figure out how to calm down. That's kind of how it felt.
Kelsey: So there were a couple moments, and let me list as I remember them. The first, a couple years ago, and you know this, I had a death in my family that just sideswiped me. I mean, I remember waking up the next morning and my understanding of the world had changed. What I understood about what life was, the patterns, what to expect of it, was different because previously I lived in a world where that didn't happen. But now this one, because that one thing was allowed to happen, and "allowed to" is really interesting language, then what else was different about this world?
Kelsey: And that sent me in two directions. One, it did send me in a seeking direction that was beautiful. And what else is different? What else is there? What else can I find? But it also sent me into a really deep depression. So it was like a friend who talks about how something like, I'm just going to make it up, but we can make small changes, day to day, by pushing ourselves in the right direction but the big growth moments always come with big amounts of pain.
Kelsey: I feel like I'm misrepresenting it, but that is what happened to me. So that was the first. And what I remember the next morning, waking up, feeling totally out of body. And for some reason I got myself to go outside and it was a beautiful day. It was so gorgeous. I mean, like the sun, the warmth and people walking around. I remember thinking, how is it that this world looks so similar than it did yesterday, but there was something else.
Kelsey: I looked up at the trees. We're in Harlem so we don't have many of them, but the ones we do were so beautiful in bloom, and as the leaves moved, between where they had been and where they were, there was now like a white light. And it looked as if I could see through the play, like the stage of this life, into what was actually there.
Kelsey: I don't think we've ever talked about this. It was remarkable. And I hadn't seen that again. So after that, I just kind of went on and I thought, well, that's amazing. Maybe that's God or the universe or his presence or whatever. And then sometime later I was lucky enough to meet a friend of mine, an Indian healer. And he did a sort of bio energy healing, he called it. And he can drop you into a really deep sayda state and keeps you there for a long time.
Kelsey: And when I woke up, I was like, "Thank you for the nice nap. That felt great." I kind of didn't feel any different, but I walked out and, again, the trees, I could see them the same way. And that was like a little rabbit that I could follow. It made me excited again about spirituality and all these things. The depression I'd been in, I could see a way through it.
Kelsey: And so basically I followed him. And he studied Tantra and I spent over a week with him learning about it, reading through Yodananda's book and other virtual texts to get an idea of other ways of being in the world, of seeing. I've forgotten your question. Oh, I'm just talking myself into circles. I feel like I'm far enough past these moments to be able to look at them as real gifts and to feel like the consistency of my idea of reality, breaking. Not like a psychotic break, but like there's something more here. There's always something more. Help me get that curiosity back. And then I found your podcast and you were the next wonderful step on that journey.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Thank you. Wow, this was powerful.
Kelsey: You're asking very big questions. I can't help but answer with these run on-
Chandresh Bhardwaj: That's the flaw, but also the magic, of not scripting conversation. You can go from here to there to anywhere, but I love that. You know, we were talking that. It's uncomfortable, painful, to speak about it, but also listen, hear about it. I have witnessed plenty of young deaths, starting from the time when I was 16 and then it only escalated after that. And it kind of made me, my first reaction was to just stop believing all the voices of healers, teachers, who would promise healing.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I'm like, if they cannot save a young person who doesn't deserve to leave the body too soon, then it's all just wrong teaching, it's all just fraud, it doesn't have any space. And my father, my teacher, he saw that in me. And I remember he told my cousin, he said, "Don't leave him alone for next few days. Just stay around him, because I know he's being very sensitive right now."
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I feel that was a moment, Kelsey, I could have either become a very harsh disbeliever and just completely shut off my world, toward the spiritual signs. Thankfully, it didn't happen. After a few days, I started questioning everything, death, birth, relationships, because everything just collapsed. It's like overnight, a 50-floor building just collapsed and I'm like, oh wow. I thought this was a pretty good foundation, but it collapsed.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: It opened my journey as a human. Forget about teacher, Seeker. As a human, I felt I was reborn. Because the deaths that happened after that, I wouldn't say I was better prepared, but I didn't go into the route of hurt or suffering. I was sad. I was in pain, but suffering was less because I was seeing this is just the circus of life, it's going to repeat again and again. I'm curious. Did the experience, this witnessing of death, did it teach you any one particular lesson that you want to share? Any one lesson that just changed you or changed your perspective?
Kelsey: There's something, a lesson I guess I'd been dancing with for a while, that finally clicked in. This is my experience of this and let me know if these words make little sense. I found that there was a difference between me missing this person and me desperate, grasping. And the desperation, grasping thing actually caused physical pain in me. Now, I think it's because, I don't know, I'd love to know your perspective on this, I think it's because I was wanting for something that wasn't possible. He wasn't coming back or you can call it denial, but denial, it feels so simple and calm.
Kelsey: I mean, this was gripping in on myself. And there's something else about feel that pain. It felt like I was trying to become a rock or something. It just made it worse. And if I could just find a way to let myself, not even relax into that, I mean, that just sounds so casual, but if I could find a way to, I guess, maybe feel what I was... the sadness, just to go, "Yes, that is sad. Lean into the sadness. Let that be there." And even sometimes just opening up my body, urging it to let go of that tension for a second.
Kelsey: And I felt so much better. And it's not that I felt happier. The pain actually wasn't that bad. And I feel strange saying that because, at the same time, this did break how I saw the world. It's amazing to hear you say you had a similar experience when you were 16. That's a foundation you thought was pretty good, but maybe not.
Kelsey: I think that lesson, and this feels a lot like how I define or simplify Tantra for myself, that what is really there may always be manageable and livable. It's the fear of it, the shame of it, the judging of it, any of this gripping, that actually makes it painful. I think. I mean, I also say this from a place where I'm really... Today's my birthday. I'm really happy today.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Oh, wow. Oh my goodness. Wishing you many happy returns of the day. My goodness. And what a privilege to have you on the Leela on the day of your birthday. My God.
Kelsey: Well, and I thought, how nice for me to get to speak to you on my birthday.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: That's amazing.
Kelsey: Anyway, I realize that I'm saying something so big from a place of real joy and excitement today, but I think that's got to be true. So I think that's the big lesson for me, that something about letting go of control, that feeling whatever is there will always be better. I mean, that's how I set up Tantra is being sort of that, in many ways, anti Catholic. I don't have to make myself feel something different or be something different in order to find happiness.
Kelsey: In fact, that just leads to burnout. That just leads to real unhappiness. Yeah. I haven't really thought through all of this. I think that's right, that that's the lesson that I learned. I'm four years into it so we'll have this conversation again next year and we'll see what's different.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Right. Yeah. Do you think-
Kelsey: What did you learn?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I mean, the lessons change. Just so you know, Kelsey, next year, the lessons will change. So my lessons have been changing rapidly. In those days, when I was a teenager, I think my lesson was to just not take things for granted, just stay present, present around friends, family, people you care about. Another lesson was this is also fragile. It's not as strong as I was thinking. Everything, from human life to just life in itself, it could be flowers, it could be human. It's all very temporary.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So I stayed with that lesson for many years, that everything is so temporary. There's illusion in everything. And now if you ask me, now I look back what lessons I have learned, not to let the pain become suffering. There is a way to heal. There's a beautiful book, Kite Runner. I have read parts of the book, but I've watched the movie, and there's a beautiful line in the movie. He says, "There's always a way to come back and fix your mistakes. There's always a way to come back and change the story." I'm not quoting it perfectly. The way they said it is so beautiful, but that's the crux of it, that there's always a way to come back and then change what has happened before.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So I also lived in that guilt and anger that I didn't spend enough time with them. These were just my left hand, right hand kind of people, my sister, my best friend and others also, in that process. And there was guilt. There was also this pain. I didn't express my love enough to them. And this was the reason why I'm much better in my expression than 10 years ago, than 15 years ago.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So now I don't hold back my expression so much. It could be with a stranger. It could be with someone I know. I do not hold back so much now. And when I hold back, I realize it's the old me that's coming up, who was afraid to express. And I was afraid to express because we also had that conditional love in our head. It was all based on some condition. If I express my love, I have to receive equal, if not more or less, just something back.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: But that also taught me to be able to love unconditionally, not to get trapped in the narrative of mind that love has to happen in a certain way, that love is a state of being. These are the lessons I still continue to nurture, but they change every year, honestly. They evolve.
Kelsey: Hearing you say that, it just makes me think that something that I see, from my newbie perspective on Tantra, is that I think it allows us to learn those life lessons. Right? To be open to them, to evolve into whatever it is we're going to be. I had this realization. My split with the church was a long time ago, over 20 years ago, but it's only been recently, in our sessions together in, the Leela group, where I realized I was still holding on to so many of my understanding of the world and how it worked and how I needed to work in.
Kelsey: I was so informed by that. And I think there are so many, this just sounds so silly, there are so many lessons to be learned in the world. I mean, it's possible to really just stay curious and to learn more right from every person, every moment. But it's only possible if you've got that curiosity, if you're allowing that to be there. It feels really good to me when it moves from curiosity into appreciation, into a holding or a loving [inaudible 00:30:41] thing. And that, to me, from this newbie Seeker, feels like Tantra to me. I think that's right. Yeah.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And do you feel forgiveness or love, vulnerability comes easier to you now than before this uncomfortable experience of witnessing death?
Kelsey: Yeah. I think it's a renewed understanding that all of us are in this crazy life right now, and equals. I mean, I really have this feeling like me and my cat are in this experience together as equals and I respect him as much as I think he respects me. That's yet to be seen. So, rather than separating the world into things that are right and things that are wrong or obstacles to overcome or the right way, I just didn't feel like there's much of a fight the way it used to feel. It feels more like it can be like moments of joy that we together. I think that's come from our conversation as a group and mentally understanding the Tantra perspective, as much as it has come from meditating and sitting in those moments with myself. Yeah.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: After you joined Leela, what do you think, what is it about Tantra that people don't get right? Or what is it about spirituality that people don't get right, and that you discovered either after Leela or even before Leela?
Kelsey: I don't know that I anymore feel myself in a place where I can even make a general sweeping statement like that. But I can say for myself, I used to see spirituality as maybe a pill that I could take, like this thing that was external to me. I don't think I understood what it felt like to actually make a shift in myself, even though I've been trying for years and reading. My bookshelves are full of beautifully written self-help books.
Kelsey: I was doing a lot of doing. And I imagine that is probably what a lot of people are doing, running around, trying to figure out how to calm down. It's a lot. When, in fact, I don't know that it's all that complicated. That might be the thing that people misconstrue. I can't even begin to guess what people misunderstand about Tantra. You can imagine. I told my dad that I was working with a Tantra teacher and a group and the look on his face is genius, because of course he only knows the Kama Sutra, what he thinks it is. So priceless.
Kelsey: But I think that there is, especially in the United States, people are doing a lot of things to try to get it right, yoga every day, I have to touch my head to my knees and be a pretzel Yogi and all these things. And the have-to, the drive to do more, I think is getting in the way. If there's some way to just slow down and see what's there and reframe, or whatever mental acrobatics are needed to go, "You know what? That moment, I can love that. That jar, that glass of water that's sitting there, I can identify with that." I think that's part what's necessary. I have no idea if I'm making any sense.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: You are.
Kelsey: Yeah. I'll say something interesting. I haven't meditated in a really long time. Here's my confession. That hasn't been a part of my practice right now. And I can feel like spring is blossoming and the sunlight is filling my apartment and I'm being drawn back to my mat, back to sitting. I have so loved the last couple of months where I've been a little bit more in my head and helped myself to unravel some of those things. It doesn't feel like Tantra, to me, has to be yeah, I wish I had more discipline, but it feels like, if I need to take a month off, I can.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Exactly.
Kelsey: Yeah.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I'm so glad you shared that you have not meditated for a while because this is the number one concern that I see in people. I get messages from people that, "I love Leela, but I don't think I'm already yet for this kind of work." And I would ask, "What do you think? What kind of work is this?" They have this assumption that I'm going to make them meditate for hours a day and I'm going to judge them or I'll lose respect for them if they don't meditate.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And I'm like, "Did you ever feel I would judge someone if they're not able to meditate?" They're like, "No. That's why we connect to you. But somehow we feel, in Leela, I have to live up to some extraordinary level of spirituality." And that's not the case. You lived Leela for six months. I consciously, unconsciously, I tried my best that never, ever to appear in the calls. And that's easy for me because I didn't live in that kind of a spiritual environment.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: My father never told me to meditate, because we are spiritual lineage, or whatever. He never brings that pressure on me. Even now, if I skip, he would not ever tell me. He'll tell me when I come up with a problem that, okay, I have this problem. It's only building up. And then his next question is "When did you meditate?" I would say, "Yeah, it's not going too well." And that's all. He'll say, "Okay. Let's start from there."
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And the beauty is, when I start from there, yes, the clouds will start to fade away, but there's never a place of judgment. It's, we are humans. We are going to go through seasons. I feel people look at spirituality or even think of it as this one-dimensional space where meditation, meditation. That's the only way.
Kelsey: Yes, yes, yes.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I love how you said you are feeling the flowers, the tree, the spring. That's Tantra. That's absolutely what Tantra is.
Kelsey: Yeah. When I was in middle school we had a home economics class and we were taught stitching. And there was a stitch, I don't remember it, but you go two stitches forward and then you double back and you come through the last stitch through the thread and then forward two and back one. And it creates this really pretty V pattern. And that beauty can't be created unless you go two forward, one back, two forward, one back.
Kelsey: I'm so excited to get a chance to step back into the class that you created for us and to do it from the beginning again. And having, I don't know that it's one stitch back to stop meditating, but having taken a break and had a winter. I can't wait to see what new discoveries I'll have and that I don't have. I'm not judging myself at all for having gone a little bit to the left.
Kelsey: It reminds me, I love this metaphor, when you are sailing a sailboat and you want to go straight, to that point... Actually, I think someone on our class may have said this. When you want to go straight, you can't turn your sail, your nose, directly to that point. If the wind is strong, you'll capsize. You have to actually make a sort of V shape back and forth, diagonally, across the line until you finally get there.
Kelsey: And in the meanwhile, you get to experience the full power of the winds. You get to see, to extend the metaphor, what it looks like to be over there really far to the right, what it feels like to then be really that far to the left over there. There's so much joy in not necessarily doing the right way or going straight. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm feeling about all that.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And I feel there is no right way to arrive at your truth. I learned so much from creative people. It could be filmmakers, movie directors, script writers, speaker like you, I learned so much about spirituality from people who are not labeled as spiritual teachers, because they talk about humans. They talk about life. And there is Tantra in every life. It's a silly example, but so funny to even relate Tantra to it. You know, when I was a teenager, I'm sure maybe you also remember the movie American Pie. There was a second or third-
Kelsey: If I were to make a list of all the movies that I didn't think you were going to say, I mean, this is like the movie. Please, American pie?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yes. Let's talk about American Pie in the Leela Group podcast. In the second sequel, I believe it was second or third, there was that one guy, I forgot his name. I didn't see it after high school, thankfully. So the one guy who was always very sophisticated, very elite, the tallest guy in the group, he started the Tantra journey and you know what he would do, he would touch a leaf. There's one scene, he's just touching the leaf.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: And then his friends were like, "What are you doing?" He said, "Oh, this is Tantra. I am feeling the energy of the leaf." And then he gets into this orgasmic state. He's like, "Oh my God, the universe is entering me." And I was in high school. I'm like, maybe I'm reading the wrong Tantra books, because this guy is really doing something here.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: But the good point was, that is Tantra. You may not have the universe joining you in orgasm, but Tantra is feeling the leaf and just connecting with the life in that leaf. But if you cannot find Tantra in that leaf, or a rabbit jumping here and there, I think, the meditation cushion is not going to give you any Tantra, because it starts from there, the real life. But yeah, thank you for-
Kelsey: Have you seen the movie Soul, the Disney movie? It just came out.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: No, I'm ashamed to admit. I just talked about American Pie, but I have not watched Soul. It's on my list. I have not seen that yet. So many people have recommended it, but yeah, it's on the list. It's just too many subscriptions. I'm already subscribed to so many streaming channels and this is on Disney. Yeah, I got to jump on that one. I haven't haven't done that yet, but yeah.
Kelsey: Let me see if I can hook you up with a subscription. You let me know. But I won't give it away, but there's a character who finally, at some point, starts to let herself play and she's running through the streets of New York, interacting with weird characters and enjoying pizza. It's a montage of her leaning in to all these impulses and giving and receiving. It's so beautiful. And she calls it jazzing. She says, "I'm so good at jazzing." And really, I mean, it's so Tantric. It's just beautiful.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: It is. Absolutely.
Kelsey: Whenever you do see it, you'll love it. You'll do a whole podcast on it, I'm sure, a whole episode.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I'm going to watch. You have inspired me. I've been watching too much of dark cinema lately, so I need a good soul kind of movie. So yeah. I'm going to add that on top of the list. One question, what does Leela, just the word Leela, it means to you in this part of life?
Kelsey: It feels like soft promise and love. I know that you create created your school, created this podcast, the way you named it so intentional, it was so much love. I've heard the stories of that, but I've also experienced it, having worked with you. And I think that your tenderness and genuineness around that word has really colored how I see it. Of course, I've never heard of this word before you, but I can't help but seeing it in that way, like this little rosebud or something that needs to be deeply respected and held. It feels like something I can reach out and touch when I need a touchstone. Yeah. Quite nice. And you know, our six months together was a long time. I don't know that you're doing six months anymore.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: No.
Kelsey: You've found a way.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah. You were that exceptional group I fortunately spent six months with, but now it's three months. Yeah, it has changed a lot since you guys inspired me to look into it from so many dimensions. So now it's three months. That's why I feel our time together was so cozy. It was like a gathering. I would feel I am part of you guys. I never felt the pressure to lead. I loved. There was less of leading, more of loving and that felt so healing and I always feel you have spoiled me because I always look for you in every group. I'm like, okay, is this how good is this compared to that first cohort? But yeah-
Kelsey: Oh, no.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I know. It will keep evolving. I am receptive to all the seasons of Leela that will show up and I've accepted that. It's going to be seasons. It should not be just a one-dimensional experience, right?
Kelsey: That feels right. Well, and I'm sure that it was a very informed decision that you made to turn it into three months. I will say that it's now been, I think almost exactly a year since we first spoke, something like that, and the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows that I've been in, in life, but in my relationship with Tantra, with Leela, with spirituality, with all of it, feels so good that this is still a consistent that I can come back to. And yeah, the word Leela, to me, feels like an invitation that's always there, an open hand anytime I want to touch it and take it.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Thank you. Wow.
Kelsey: Thank you.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: No, you made Leela. I have only created the bridge, but if people don't walk through the bridge, it's just a useless bridge, right? So when you walk on it becomes important. It becomes meaningful. So I thank you always for making it meaningful. Now, before we sign off, if you were hosting the Leela podcast, Kelsey, what question would you ask to yourself that I did not? Maybe I missed on something that you wanted to share.
Kelsey: Oh, well, I can tell you things that I'd love to hear you talk about.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: [crosstalk 00:45:09].
Kelsey: Yes. Yes. This isn't the question, though, is it? Let me slip this in. I would love to hear you talk about your future journey. And I don't know what you can share or what you would want to share. And of course sharing affects how you would experience your future, but as a student of yours and a listener, practitioner, like a lover of this whole thing, I do find myself wanting to get excited for you. It's kind of interesting.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah.
Kelsey: But I just dropped that there. What was your actual question?
Chandresh Bhardwaj: The question was, if you were hosting Leela, what questions would you ask to Kelsey? But I can see you very smartly turned that question. You are still the host, but you chose to-
Kelsey: Oh, I see.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah. I have an answer for what you asked. I'll share that, but is there anything I missed on asking you that you wanted to share?
Kelsey: Yeah. I think that these questions so reveal where we are in our own-
Chandresh Bhardwaj: They were so heavy.
Kelsey: ... mindsets right now.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah, they were so powerful.
Kelsey: Yeah. I feel excited about my life for the first time in a long time.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I'm so happy for you, Kelsey.
Kelsey: Thank you. Me, too. So if I were to ask myself a question on a podcast in order to, I think that I could use pulling that out. I think there'd be some muse in me just saying, really out loudly, these are some of the things I'm excited about. Just to own them. Doesn't mean it has to happen, but that excitement is there and I can nurture it. And of course the answer is, I don't know. I'm excited about possibilities. I'm excited. I do what I can to just run at the next part of my life. And it's like running through a field, freer that I had been. I'm so curious to know what I'm creative with. I work with people, I work with words, and I like that, but there's so many other ways to be creative.
Kelsey: I wonder what else? I started playing the piano again, after 15 years away, and that was such a surprise that it was still in my hands. I'm so curious as to what other connections are there. My friend, his name is Yash, who I told you about who did the bioenergy healing. He uses this language that you can have Tantra with many things. So you can have Tantra with communication or Tantra with time or Tantra... I like this. And I'm just so curious to know what else I can have Tantra with.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Love that.
Kelsey: Yeah. If we could talk for another hour, we could explore what those things might look like. But yeah, I feel all lit up. Thanks for the question.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: I will do another series with you. I have something on my mind. Let me invite more creativity to it and I'll plan something. I can see there's so much.
Kelsey: Okay.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Yeah. I will make it happen. So before we sign off, I want to quickly answer the question you asked, because I know the listeners will say, "Oh, you didn't answer what Kelsey asked you about your future plan," because I would be happy to skip it and just save my life and make it easy for me. And my instant answer would have been, "Oh, I don't want to go into the future. I want to stay in the present." That's more spiritual answer, right? Stay in the present. Don't worry about the future.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: But also the truth is we are humans. The future will show up and even if you want to avoid it, it continues to make its appearance in your mind. I think you kind of answered what I'm also looking into, creative courage with Tantra. I also want to experience what else Tantra has for me. And I don't want to share this on the solo episode, but if anyone has made its way to listen to this episode so far, so I'm going to reveal it here.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: Before COVID, I was initiated into advanced learnings into Tantra with my teacher. And because of COVID, we didn't initiate that on that level because traveling was a requirement for it, sitting with plenty of experts and practitioners was a requirement for it. So we kind of put it on the backseat, but it's almost like saying that I'm going to step into a new degree, educational degree in Tantra. So that's part of the future. I feel excited, super blessed, privileged to be part of that advanced teaching.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: My intention with that is to be able to help more Seekers, to be able to solve more complex problems of humans around me. And I'm inviting freedom, freedom from the old way of showing up. I use this word a lot, reinvent your expression, redefine your ambition. And I also think I get bored very easily and it's a good thing sometimes. Sometimes not so good thing. But I get bored when I feel it's not inviting any fire. It's not going anywhere or it's still there. It's still looking good to people, but I'm not feeling any fire.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So I've been inviting this new creative courage in my expression. And I was looking for ways on how I can inspire myself further into helping more Seekers. So Leela is part of that expression, but within Leela, I'm inviting more freedom. I'm letting go of the hopes, expectations, or plans that was driving me, because the hopes, expectations, and plans, they're also the play of mind, and Tantra doesn't teach you to live with mind.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: So I feel, I hope, the next few years for me are pure play, creative possibilities and just being receptive to it, as well. So hopefully the listeners will see those possibilities shaping into some tangible stuff that they can experience. But yeah, that's where I am. And again, thank you, Kelsey, for showing up on your birthday. I'll always be so grateful. I mean, this is special. This is very special. Thank you.
Kelsey: You're welcome. We gave me a gift. It felt really good for me, too. And I'm so happy. I love hearing you say that you're looking forward to playing. That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
Chandresh Bhardwaj: May the teachings of Tantra continue to guide you and heal you. And I hope Leela Group helps you to unlearn the old and embrace the unknown mystical possibility unfolding for you. To support this podcast, share it among the Seekers who are ready for the next step in their spiritual path.
Useful Links
Find Your Source of Happiness - 21 Day Challenge
Private Guidance Program with Chandresh
