Find Your Playground
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In this episode, we share one of CB’s old talks with a new perspective. As a creative experiment, CB explores the old episode “Where are Your Monkeys” from a new perspective called “Find Your Playground”. We invite the listeners to not only find your monkeys but to also know your playground. Sometimes we find the playground first and the monkeys show up there. Other times the monkeys arrive first and they lead us to the playground. You never know which one will come first, but that is where the fun and joy are. We invite you to listen to the new perspective followed by the old one
Episode Transcript
Namaste everyone, I hope you're doing well. I hope you're feeling safe, easy and relaxed wherever you are. Leela podcast has always been a playground for me. Earlier it was Break The Norms podcast, that was the beginning of a playground, expanded into Leela podcast, and I'm so thankful for it. I always reflect, often reflect, on how can I make it more fun, valuable, accessible for all of you. In that attempt, I experiment with different ideas.
Two different ideas are currently showing up. One of them is currently in this episode, and that idea is, running an old episode with a new perspective and not just picking up any random old episode, but the one that has already been loved by you. The episodes that you still send me with the lessons, gratitude and expansion that you experienced with it. The second idea is AMA episodes, Ask Me Anything, and for that to happen, you can always send me questions on Instagram or email me info@leelagurukul.com. Send me any questions longer, shorter, one-liner, anything at all, and I will create an episode answering your questions in detail. For this episode, I have picked one of my favorites, Where Are Your Monkeys? That's the episode title, and for those who are new to the Leela podcast, welcome, and if you have not listened to the old episode, don't worry, it's part of this episode, it's part of this conversation. In the second half of this podcast, you are going to listen to the entire old episode of Where Are Your Monkeys?
But, what makes this particular episode a bit interesting and fun is a new perspective. What has changed since then? What has changed for you? For me? What has changed in the overall consciousness since we shared that teaching or that knowledge? One thing I do want to share with you, before I even recorded this audio that you're listening, I played the old episode and in the first one minute I started judging myself, started asking myself, why did you say this? That wasn't required, those are just extra words, and I could feel the uneasiness in my body. That's the self-judgment. I remember feeling that when I first recorded the episode of Break The Norms podcast then, but these moments of uneasiness, these self judgments, these confusions, they are essential part of your growth. It's very much possible I'll listen to this episode in six months, or six years, or maybe a year from today, and I'll judge this episode too, and that's all right. The point is, this is the part of the playground that I want to share with you today. This episode is all about knowing your playground. The earlier episode was Finding Your Monkeys, which was all about knowing the friends, that tribe, that you belong to, the tribe that will see you, that will love you no matter what.
A few things have changed since then. Monkeys are still my favorite, no doubt about it, but there is a new competition to the love of monkeys, and that's ducks. Exactly, when I say duck, people ask duck, duck or dog, what do you mean. Duck the bird, right? And I say, yes, duck, D-U-C-K, duck the bird. A year ago, a duck showed up outside my door. It was the nighttime, a friend came to the house and he said, there's a duck outside your door, and I thought a duck was probably flying, and she just showed up. I opened the door, it was that Pekin duck, they don't fly, they walk. I saw the duck, she looked beautiful, nighttime, winters, and she was this white duck in the night. Such a beautiful imagery, and I took a picture of her, and said, okay, it's just here for a while, and that's all. I took the picture, I put some water for her, which she didn't drink, and I went to sleep. Next morning I see that duck behind the house, and I was looking at her from the window. I was having my morning coffee and I felt bad. I'm having my coffee and she looked hungry, she was just putting her face everywhere.
I had bird food, I got the bird food. I fed it to her, and she had the bird food. Then the lunchtime came, I was having my lunch, and I looked at her. She was still there, looked hungry, and I gave her some more bird food, and she ate the bird food. The nighttime, she was still there, I gave the food when I had my dinner, and these random things started happening, and it's been a year now, and she's still here. It definitely kicks my patience at times because I have to maintain my entire life and schedule around her so that she gets the food on time. It's winter now, so she's out of her room, yeah, she has her own room now, things have changed. She got more buddies who visit her. They fly to see her and they spend few hours with her and then they fly away. Then there's a permanent buddy, her name is Devi, and the other duck that I talked about, her name is Parro. Parro and Devi, they are now buddies, they walk together, sleep together, eat together. Yeah, they are inseparable. But, why I'm mentioning her, what's this episode has to do with Parro or Devi or ducks.
They helped me figure out my playground, because when I would look at them, I noticed one thing. They sit around one spot every single day. They don't go to work, they don't have a job, they don't have a therapist, they don't have a guru, they haven't gone to school, they don't know from where the next meal will come, and yet they are just there. Look at their faces, they are relaxed, they're always relaxed. Of course, when they don't get their food on time, they are a bit grumpy, but that's all. They'll manage the food, they're back to their element, day and night, they are in such a ease with the nature. Maybe they have found their playground, but definitely they helped me to reflect on this one question. What is my playground? Where is my playground? Last year, I also made a big transition. I had to shift a lot of my creative base from LA to New York because I got into an advanced tantra training, and that required me to spend much more time in New York.
I travel much more frequently between LA and New York, and it still requires a lot of my energy, time, resources to just balance it all out, and it's exhausting. Also, in the COVID, it was just a very weird phase of just looking at your screen and connecting to everyone through phone, through Zoom calls. When I started making this transition toward New York, I also realized the tribe that existed 10 years ago, 13 years ago, they are all moved out. Things are so much more different. The college buddies I had here in New York, they are in different countries, different cities. Everything has changed, and although it felt like an interesting moment of self-reflection, sort of uneasy moment, that, all right, my comfort zone, my comfort tribe, is not here anymore. What happens now? What do I do? I'm an introvert and I thought I'll be fine.
Yet, I started to feel a bit impatient, a bit uneasy to go deeper into my creative expression, to reinvent my creative expression. As a result of that, goddess rising happened, but as a result of that, many other things started happening. I ventured into spaces which I never thought I would go into. I started showing up in places that I thought I would never show up. For example, for the first time in my life, I joined a writer's club, and I truly believe, and I've often said this, that I want to be in a room where no one knows me as the guru or the teacher. In fact, they know me as someone who is the least experienced among everyone in the room, because I don't want to be the one to give advice, I don't want to be the one to give some wisdom nuggets, but I want to be the one who can receive, who can just look stupid, ignorant, silly, and doesn't know what you know he's doing.
Because I want to reinvent how I show up for myself, and this writer's club is not the writing space I've always been in. I've always been in philosophy, spirituality, poetry, but this writer's club is all fictional writers. I don't read fiction, I don't write fiction, but I love the words, the expressions, the storytellers who write fiction. The best lesson I learned is, that the greatest way to make significant progress is to put yourself in a space, in a place, where you think you don't belong, and let the practice reduce the gap, let your dedication reduce that gap. So, that writer's community is becoming that place where I thought, I don't belong here, but I'm respecting, loving the process, I'm loving myself as I show up because it's not my comfort zone. The point is, this is playground and playgrounds don't always have to look familiar.
Playgrounds don't always have to look in your comfort zone. One of the best playground you could arrive at is the playground where you are not focusing on a specific result or an outcome. Of course, if you join, let's say a fitness community, or maybe you start writing, or maybe you'll learn singing, or maybe you start to learn taxes. But, as long as the goal is not to accomplish all of that in six weeks and then start creating programs, or coaching, teaching, writing next book, as long as those material goals are not dictating your process, you're fine. Because as kids, we loved showing up in playgrounds for the sake of it, for the love of it. Second point about playground, others may not get the idea of your playground, others may not understand your idea of playground, and that's all right. Your playground is your intimate space, it's your personal space. You may love it, you may hate it, but that's between you and your playground. Don't let others dictate how your playground should show up.
Third one is even on the days when you're tired, even on the days when you're feeling doubtful, anxious, angry, show up in the playground, that's all. I think the longest distance, the toughest distance, between you and your playground is the one between you and the playground. Those 10 steps, that 10 minute of drive, 30 minutes of drive, whatever it is, once you cover that ground, the playground will invite you in. It'll do its job, but show up for it, show up how it wants to play with you.
Finally, try different playgrounds. I didn't arrive at this writer's community just randomly, I've been reflecting on this for many, many months that where should I show up? I'm really enjoying the work, I'm creating new programs in Leela, connecting to all of you, but something is missing. I need to put myself in a space where I am uncomfortable, where I feel a bit challenged, where I feel I can question my ideas, I can question my entire process, and maybe end it and learn from scratch, start from the beginning. That's where I am. I feel I am in a space where I can start from the beginning, and I am starting from the beginning. So you may see plenty of interesting changes in my social media, podcast, the way I show up for you. Keep supporting, keep encouraging, keep sending your suggestions, questions, thoughts, because I pay attention to everything you share.
Finally, the episode that's going to begin now, it's the old one where you're going to hear about the monkeys. I don't want to say much about it, I want you to listen again. Those who have listened already, listen now with a new intention, with a new curiosity, and see where it takes you, because my conclusion is, find your monkeys, respond to the ducks that show up on your door. Don't send them away, don't run away from them. Show up for how they challenge your comfort zone, because monkeys, for me, they represent still the tribe, the buddies, that are piece of my heart. And the ducks represent those moments of love, where you are not inviting, you're not expecting, but they show up and you have a choice to close the door, send them away, or show up for them. In my experience, if you show up for your ducks, it's going to be game changer. Finally, no one knows what the right playground is. We experiment, we show up, we fall, we get hurt, and then we know this is my playground, or maybe I need to try the next one. Either way, enjoy the next episode and stay tuned for plenty of solid, amazing, exciting new things that are going to happen in the Leela universe, in the CB space that you always have loved and supported. Be safe, be well. Enjoy the next audio.
As you start to listen to this, if you have a moment, you could warm up your green tea or get that coffee for yourself because that's the energy I have right now. It's full moon tonight. I just had a very strong tea, I usually drink my teas very strong, and that's the reason when I stop drinking, I stop drinking for a few years and then I go back again to drinking the teas. I put a lot of herbs and spices in my teas, and nobody in my family drink those teas. I've always been very attracted toward the intensity, that's why I love the lions, I love Goddess Kali, that's why I love the things I love, because intensity brings out a certain longing in me, the longing to meet my own self. When I was growing up, I had a very specific definition of masculinity, and I thought that's the kind of strength I need to have. There were a lot of bullying energy around me, and I didn't want anyone to bully me.
I was in sixth grade, but I started going to gym, I started learning boxing, I started doing a lot of things that can just bring me more and more strength. Then after a certain point, I realized it's not bringing me strength, it's making me aggressive. It's making me a lot of things, but it's not bringing me the deeper strength that I need. Thankfully, at that time, my teacher, my guru, who's my father, he told me that I need to embrace the divine feminine because otherwise I'll keep on missing the point in meditation. Because I loved intensity so much, my meditations were, and they still remain, very intense, but now it's a different intensity. In those days, it was different. After I started to cultivate the divine feminine, my relationship with the masculine, with the feminine, with the entire existence, started changing, and it's still a progress. That's why I call meditation a love affair with the unknown. It's a love affair that you continue to build with unknown, and that's why it's a love affair. That's why it's just eternal, it continues even after the body dies, it continues forever.
Today, I usually have no topic, no specific outline for the podcast. But, today I didn't want anything in my head, I just turned the mic on and I wanted to just share something, share whatever that would come to my mind because I feel we all need to exchange a certain love note of strength, a certain love note of vulnerability. The first thing that's coming to my mind is how we all need to redefine our strength. I have been redefining my strength for years and years, and whenever I start to work with any student, that's the first thing I start to notice in them. I don't talk to them about it, I notice how are they connecting with their strength? How are they defining their strength? Because when our relationship with our Shakti starts to change, then everything changes, and Shakti is a Sanskrit word, which means strength, but Shakti also means sacred feminine. This is the reason why I started doing the weekly meditations on Instagram, and I call them Shakti meditation series, because not only I need the strength, but I know you also need the strength. We all are in this together.
When we all are conditioned to think about our strength in a certain one dimensional way, it'll obviously mess up our blooming. If a rose is forced to become sunflower, or even worse, cauliflower. I mean, I love cauliflower, but can you imagine a rose becoming a cauliflower or a cauliflower becoming a rose? It cannot, right? It's just impossible. But that's what is happening with all of us. We are born to become tomato, and then we are told you cannot be a tomato, you've got to be kale, because kale is loved by everyone. I hope you get the point. I love both by the way, but I love tomatoes a little more. The challenges we are told to witness our strength, to witness our energy, in a very wrong way. This is the reason when life throws a certain disaster, we don't know how to cope up with it. Or when someone offers us a love, authentic love, deep love, divine love, we don't know how to return it, we don't know what to do with it, and we end up keeping that away from us because we are simply not trained to receive, we are not trained to cultivate the most beautiful things in our life.
While I was growing up, I developed a certain emotional bond with a lot of animals. One of the reason was because I grew up in a tiny town near the Himalayas, so there were a lot of animals, especially elephants, monkeys, snakes, and I still have a lot of fondness for all of them. But, the lion and the monkeys, lion is my strength, but monkeys are my weakness. If you want to make me stronger, put me with the lions, but if you want to make me emotional, put me with the monkeys. I'll tell you something that happened, which shocked me. This is from last year, I don't know if I shared this already, but this is something that felt extremely personal at that point.
It was my retreat to India last year, the retreat I was teaching in the Himalayas, and we were having breakfast and there were three people sitting in the breakfast table, and I know the other two will listen to this episode, so he would shout out to Parinaz and Danielle. I was having breakfast with these two beautiful ladies, and Danielle being the wonderful human she is, she was just talking about the wonderful Himalayas, and how she's witnessing that I connect so much with the nature and with the mountains and the Himalayas. I started talking with her about the monkeys, and I said, monkeys were jumping around us at that time, and I was just so joyful looking at them. She said, you are so happy looking at the monkeys, and I said, my father never calls them monkeys, he says, they are your friends.
I've grown up knowing monkeys as my friends, because not only I was a huge devote of Hanuman, who's known as the monkey God in India, or more like in America. In India, he's known as Hanuman. I developed a very emotional bond with them, but the last few years, I have been extremely occupied in doing the work I do. I visit India a lot, but my spiritual path, my quest to attain a certain spiritual ecstasy, has been my major prime goal. That love affair has gone on its own intensity. But when I was surrounded by these monkeys, I was just so happy, and she said, you look so happy. I started explaining how I always connect with monkeys, and I always keep bread and bananas in my car whenever I'm driving through India because wherever I see monkeys, I stop the car and feed them bread or bananas.
While I was talking, I choked, I could not talk, I felt as if I'm about to cry, and in few seconds, the tears were coming out and I was like, it's 9:00 AM in the morning, there's nothing to cry, why am I crying thinking about monkeys or talking about monkeys? It was a time that my relatives were calling me that you are in India, when are you going to see us? Don't you miss us? My friends were calling me and telling me, don't you miss us? And I was telling them, I miss all of you, but give me some time, when I'm done with retreat, I'll come and see you. But I was not emotional when they were calling me to meet them, but I became emotional when I talked about monkeys and Parinaz, who stepped away for a moment to get her coffee, and she came back in like one minute and she was like, what the heck happened?
They were just talking normal, and Chandresh looks like Chandresh, has tears on his face, pouring from his eyes, and I didn't know how to explain why I have tears while talking about monkeys. I finished the breakfast, I went to my room, and I called someone really close to me, and I started explaining to her that I think I got emotional talking about monkeys. While again, I was about to explain more, that was a terrible breakdown, I could not control my tears. I don't know when was the last time I had this deep breakdown, and I had no clue what the hell is happening, why the tears are not stopping while I'm talking about monkeys. They were not tears of pain or sadness, they were just tears of, I don't know, love, gratitude, I don't know what they were, but they were not tears of pain, they were not tears of depression. When I released all the tears within me, I walked out and the Gunga River, the Holy Ganges, was one minute away from my room. I just sat there, meditated, because I wanted to know why did I cry talking about monkeys?
A certain voice showed up and it said, because you have forgotten these monkeys, you neglected your relationship with these monkeys, and these monkeys were your childhood. They were your playfulness, they were your joy, they were your happiness. They were your friends, like nobody in your family calls them monkeys, they always say, oh, they're Chandresh's friends because they all know them as your friends. That voice clearly told me, you forgot your friends, you have been too busy healing, talking about healing, teaching, writing, indulging in your poetry. You have grown up, you're adults now, so your friends have changed and you forgot the friends that you made when you were a little kid. That was hurtful, that did not go well, and I realized I have actually ignored the most special, the most incredible, precious, people in my life, and they were monkeys.
The reason I'm sharing this with all of you, is because I want you to meditate on your monkeys. Who are your monkeys? Those monkeys could be the old buddies, those monkeys could be a cat, a dog, that you have not hugged for a while. Or those monkeys could be your parents, your siblings, who knows. What are your monkeys? Find out your monkeys. Let them know you have not forgotten them, let them know the adulthood was a little complicated to deal with, but now you are back and now you're going to redefine your relationship with your monkeys because that's where you are rooted, my friend. That's your root, no matter how tall a tree becomes, it has to always stay connected to the roots. Sometimes the roots are rotten, sometimes the roots become a little tough to handle, but they're still the roots, and you have to heal them, you have to work on them. There's no other way to bloom, to thrive. The blooming requires you to connect with your roots. The blooming requires you to know your monkeys, find them, let them know you have not forgotten them.
I know so many of you lately have been expressing that you have headaches, stomach aches, sleepless nights, and just stress, insomnia, anxiety, building up every day. One of the reason is, there's too much collective anxiety out there, and another reason is, we have forgotten our connection with our strength, the monkeys, right? We have forgotten our connection with those elements in our life, which used to bring us just effortless joy, effortless happiness. It's time to revisit those places where your true, authentic, unconditional, happiness is stored, it's still there, I promise you. You don't have to chase it, it's there, you're not just seeing it, you need to turn your head, you need to shift from head to the heart, and then you'll see it, you'll feel it, and you'll taste it. Many people on Instagram, and even some of you guys who listen to me on podcast, you have been sending me different articles, blogs, videos, of certain spiritual teachers who are giving a very different perspective on the quarantine period, on the pandemic.
They are sharing their own view of it, and I've received so many videos, but I want to answer the problem in these videos that I've been receiving. I'll pick just one video because they're too many, but they're all carry the same flavor, the flavor of toxic spirituality. This particular video was sent to me a few days ago, and in this video, a young boy gets up and ask this spiritual teacher, who's hugely popular spiritual teacher, and this boy ask this teacher, that I'm feeling fear, I'm feeling anxiety, I'm afraid of death. Can you enlighten me? Can you help me find out? Can you help me find my strength, my calmness, because I'm losing it? This teacher gives him a 20-minute lecture preaching and plainly bully him, and this teacher keeps telling him that I am so ashamed of you that you are a meditator, you are a seeker, and this is how you're behaving.
You're not supposed to feel anxiety and pain because you are, not only a meditator, but you are a young person. You should be going out with all strength, you should be doing this and that, and this is so shameful you're behaving this way, it's embarrassing. It went on for 10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes, and after he was done, this teacher's students, they started applauding the teacher, and the teacher smiled that, yep, I just put this young man in his place, and there are many other such videos from different teachers. The students who were sending me these videos, they wanted to know my opinion, and one of them asked, what would you have done? What would you answer to this young boy? I don't think I need to be a spiritual teacher to give my answer to this young boy. The truth is everyone right now is feeling the fear and anxiety, irrespective of what the age is.
Everyone is feeling vulnerable and fear is very interesting, right? I cannot compare my fear with your fear. Someone could be living in a billion-dollar mansion and still feeling afraid of their existence, and someone could be sleeping on the streets and feeling the fear of their existence. They both have the fear, the variation is different, the attachments are different, the stories running in their head are different, but they both are afraid. They both are afraid that they might die, that they may not live. When we start to judge someone's fear and vulnerability, that's where we break the oath of spirituality, because what we call spirituality is oneness with the universe. The Sanskrit word for spirituality is Adhyatma, which means you become one with your Atman, with your soul, you become one with universe. It's impossible to judge anyone in that space.
When you study the lives of Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Shiva, you will know they never judged anyone. Not because they didn't want to, simply because it was not programmed in their head anymore. The point of sharing this message is that it's all right not to feel all right, it's okay not to be supremely productive in these days. It's all right to just feel your feelings, and for those who are feeling the fear of losing the job, or losing the money, or having the fear of the next paycheck. My friend, the truth is, no pandemic can take away your skills, no pandemic can take away your strength, no pandemic can take away the good heart you carry within. This is the time that you show reverence, you show love to that heart. This is the time that you revisit your strength, revisit how you connect with your awareness. The challenges that we are trained to always go out for everything. If I mention relationship, God, healing, love, or any of the similar words, we never think of the internal expression.
We never go within, we always go out. Our energy tends to flow out when we think about relationships, when you think about success, failure, it's all external. But our awareness demands us to go within, and this is the time to go within. This is not the time to flow out, but this is the time to bore the strength within yourself. It's not the time to say that my spiritual technique is better than yours, or if you are a meditator, how dare you feel this pain? This has happened with me, in my life, and this is the reason, one of the reasons, I changed certain things in my lifestyle because I have many examples. But one of them I'll share with you, I fell ill few years ago, my grandfather passed away, he was in India, and I was there to do the final rituals for him.
I fell ill, I was traveling within India, I was not eating the right food, and I lost my voice for a while, I was not able to speak. But, every other person, 95% of people, pointed out flaws in my spirituality because I was unwell. They all said, oh, you meditate, how come you are unwell? I would explain them because I was traveling, I was not eating healthy food, I was eating street food, probably emotional eating was happening, and of course, I'm unwell, but they attack spirituality. I witnessed that when I was 15 year old when my sister passed away. A lot of people pointed out, or almost judged, the spiritual potential, spiritual strength, spiritual wisdom of the lineage that, how come their own daughter passed away? How come they could not save their own daughter? I realized no matter what, people will find a certain way to attack whatever they want to attack.
You need to cultivate your relationship with awareness, it should not depend on external factors. The success, the failure, the joy, the criticism, it all has to be cultivated within. No one on the external should have button to turn you on or turn you off. That's what the journey of spirituality really is, and this is the time to let go of that human control, to let go of that demand and expectation that you put on yourself and come back to your home, come back to your roots. Before I end the podcast, I want to remind you of that monkey story. I promise you, you all have your monkeys, you just got to reconnect with them. You need to find out and define, who are my monkeys? When you find them out, let them know how incredibly grateful you are for them, and that you will always find ways to reconnect with them, because this world is going to get crazier.
Once this is over, it will not be over, and what I mean by that, the virus may go away, the vaccines may come, but the fear, the trauma, the distance, that we all already had between the humans, it will only grow further because the fear of social distancing will remain in the head and heart of many people, because everyone will be afraid that I don't know when that will pop up again. If you are hanging out with your monkeys, you have nothing to fear because they'll protect you, they'll always have your back. I'm actually curious to know when you find out who are your monkeys. Tag me in your Intsa story, let me know who are your monkeys, and let me know what you think of this podcast. I had zero clue what I was going to talk about, but I hope you enjoyed it. I literally felt I'm sitting with all of you and just having this chat. I genuinely love all of you, take very good care of yourself and we'll meet in the next episode.
May the teachings of tantra continue to guide you and heal you. I hope Leela Gurukul 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 ride.
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