Free Will vs. Destiny in Tantra
Conscious texting with CB on +1310-361-5485, available to seekers in the USA and Canada only.
In this episode, Chandresh shares his reflections on the never-ending debate of free will versus destiny. Chandresh shares the tantra perspective on how to not only understand the dynamic between free will and destiny but how to work with and consciously create your destiny and eliminate barriers holding you back to meet your highest potential. Some examples of questions covered in this episode include: What is the relationship between free will choice and destiny in terms of suffering as a human? How does karma relate to destiny and free will choice? Is destiny predetermined? How can it be changed? Are there any healing tools in the tantra system to work deeper with destiny? What chakras help to consciously create destiny? We hope this episode helps you to understand your own relationship with free will choice and destiny.
Have any questions or curiosities about your spiritual journey? Email Chandresh at askcb@leelagurukul.com.
Episode Transcript
How is free will choice involved in being born? What family you're born into and what gender you are born as? Is there a relationship between free will choice and destiny in terms of suffering as a human? How does karma relate to destiny and free will choice? Is destiny predetermined? How can it be changed if it is? This episode is all about karma, free will, destiny and how it is handled in tantra. I am Chandresh Bhardwaj, and this is Leela Gurukul.
Namaste everyone. I hope you are safe, you're doing well, you are feeling grounded wherever you are. I'm excited to talk about free will and destiny, because the last few days, I interacted with many people, many new students for Leela Gurukul. The more I speak to our fellow humans, the more I realize how this work of tantra is becoming more relevant and why it will be relevant for many, many coming years, maybe in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of your kids and their kids, tantra isn't going anywhere, because as science is becoming way more important, way more profound to live a deeper better life.
I hope in this episode, you absorb the lessons, the meanings, and how they apply to your life on a day-to-day basis. The debate on free will and destiny keeps philosophers busy, right? They keep believers busy, they keep non-believers busy. I'm going to share what tantra thinks of free will and destiny. I'll share what my perspective is. But let me address an interesting problem that I see with both free will and destiny believers. The person who says free will is everything, they have the complete choice over their actions. They continue to work hard, they continue to show up every single day to hustle, to really put their energy into it.
Because I spent so much of my time in between New York and LA, and I can tell you in New York, I meet a lot of people who believe in free will and you notice that in the way they work. They wake up really early. They don't take much time off every week. They hustle. They work really hard. They get the results. It sounds good, right? It is good, but the problem happens when they do not get the results they were expecting, then the ego that was pushing them to believe that they control everything, now that ego is telling them you got to work harder. You got to beat the competitors.
You got to really show up as the hero. Now, in the quest to be a hero, they start to affect the physical health, mental health, spiritual health, everything and they start to be reactive to the mind, to the information that their mind is constantly supplying. That's the problem with free will when it becomes unaware, unconscious. Now, let's go to the people who believe in destiny that maybe it's all pre-written, maybe nothing happens by coincidence, maybe the planets, astrology, everything is really calling the shots on you. Maybe there is a God above you noticing, watching your actions and creating rewards and punishments accordingly.
Now, I travel between LA and New York, as I just shared, and I can tell you in LA, I do meet a lot of people who are very much into destiny, into planets, into the new moon, full moon, into the retrogrades, into the psychic readings. Now what happens with someone who's into destiny that it's all there, it's written? Of course, their life is more romantic, it's more poetic and, of course, there is a kind of faith, devotion, love, joy in their heart, because they're believing in some higher power. It sounds good until you start to depend completely and blindly on that destiny.
Because on certain days when you feel lazy to show up for work, there is this full moon taking all your blame. You'll simply say, "It's the full moon. That's why I just punched two people this morning. It's not me, it's the full moon." You could be skipping your office responsibilities for entire week and if your boss, your employer, they check on you, "Is everything okay? I ask you to do this, but it's not done." You'll say, "How unprofessional. It's Mercury retrograde. They don't know. This is all distant. I'm not supposed to be working this week. I'm supposed to be simply enjoying nature and maybe watch six seasons of this Netflix show. But that's so unprofessional of them to actually just micromanage me this way."
Now, that's where the problem begins when you start to think that it's all destined and you are simply being directed by these planets and why this happens, this happens when the relationship between you and the cosmos, the relationship between you and your ego, you and that imaginary bubbles you are building around you. Those bubbles get too wide. Those bubbles get too unconscious and they continue to expand until they burst at one point, but it's too late by then. Lot of damage is done by then. The point here is so much of this free will destiny stuff it's fascinating to actually witness.
The more you understand your behavior, your choices, the way you complain, the way you reward yourself, the way you feel you are a victim of something, or the way you feel you are rewarded by universe, it all reveals your relationship with free will and destiny. I come from a culture where free will and destiny, they both play very interesting dynamic. What do I think of it? What does tantra think of it? If I have to really put it in one statement, I'll tell you, there is no one writing your destiny on a day-to-day basis. You are the one who's writing your destiny on a day-to-day basis.
The way you choose to write it, that's how the future actions, circumstances, will show up for you. All right? Now, if you are writing it, why is it that you are not aware of it? Why is it that it doesn't feel like that? Because, we are writing it so unconsciously that we are not even aware that it's me who's writing it. Imagine that you got drunk or you were so tired or you were so much in love or anger and you did something a night before and then you slept. Next morning, when you look at it, what you have done, it starts to come back very slowly, because you see the consequence of that action.
Then you realize, "Oh, now I remember I did that." That's exactly how this destiny starts to work. By the way on a separate note, in case my voice is not fully clear, if there's distraction or even if I sound tired, I'm traveling and I'm not using my current mic and also I'm sitting in eight hours of rituals every day. In case my voice or my energy doesn't feel that usual way, it's because of that. But I can tell you, I'm hanging out in such amazing dimensions in these Navratri rituals that this topic had to be shared in these days. Coming back to the destiny, this is how you created, my friend.
Now I know it's going to start triggering many minds, because now you're thinking of certain things where you feel you had nothing to do with it and yet you became a victim of something that you didn't choose to invite or attract, and I'll come to that. But let's first talk about your day-to-day actions, your day-to-day results that are happening around you. The kind of people you're attracting, the kind of energy you're inviting in. It's all happening by choice and that's where karma steps in. Karma means conscious choice making the right action. With karma, everything you're doing can be either fully damaged or it could be fully reconstructed.
Right now, we are not using karma the way it's designed to be used. We are using it in a very half-baked way, and that's exactly how we are showing up for our joy and mystery. Take a pause for a moment and reflect on, when was the last time you really loved fully, and I mean, unapologetically. You were expressive, you were deep into it, there were no trust issues. You were fully into it. There were no guards. You'll have to think really hard. Most likely, unfortunately, because this is where we are. If we have to express, if we have to love, we hold back, because there is fear of being disappointed.
There is fear of not getting back the same investment that you are putting into that friendship or relationship. To avoid the stress, anxiety you give a little bit, then you step back. You watch the actions of other person and then decide your next move. Very quickly, it becomes an emotional game between two people. Then same thing is happening in families, jobs, friendships, relationships, because we are simply showing up as a half-baked version of ourselves. Now, take a pause and reflect on when was the last time you were angry and I mean, as angry as a little child could be. They're screaming, they're yelling. They're really demanding that candy, because they feel they have full right for it.
You'll notice maybe none of you was really angry, deeply, fully, devotionally angry, I tell this to people all the time. If you are angry, that's okay. You are human you have the right to be angry. But if you have never been angry, you should see a doctor because you are suppressing something then my friend and if you are unconsciously angry all the time and same anger, same script is repeating again and again, then you can skip psychiatrist. You could just speak to me. We'll talk about it. It could be simply releasing that pattern, simply witnessing what's going on. When we work in the Leela Gurukul, the program, we go so deep in to releasing the emotions.
In every program I've seen by the end of program, everyone is looking lighter, happier, a little more childlike, a little more expressive, because they've released so much of that anger, so much of that suppressed emotion. Usually, I believe, I get to feel that anger when this start to feel triggers and then they express. It's so beautiful to see a grown up adult being so expressive. That's what I'm reminding you here today. If you're constantly choosing half-baked version of yourself, then you are never going to be fully into your destiny creation process, because you're never choosing yourself fully.
When you realize that you have this power, when you realize you can actually choose that emotion and it's complete unapologetic version, it's a different kind of ecstasy. Now, for next days, I want you to simply feel the feelings. That's all. When you feel the feelings, do not blame someone for them, claim responsibility for it. When you claim the responsibility for it, your strength, your clarity, your courage, starts to shift and then you see that, "Okay, there is a choice of being a victim, being angry, being miserable, and getting stuck in that narrative." Then the other choice is being joyful, being creative, being a solution provider there, being a conscious choice maker there.
I can choose either option fully, but the condition is, it should be fully not 50% or 90%, either you are fully in or you're fully out. When you step in with this clarity that either I'll be fully in or fully out, the funny thing that happens, you'll never go fully in into sadness, misery, suffering, because you realize it's not helping you. It's not serving you and then you start to choose joy, creativity, strength, and that's when you start rewriting your destiny on a day-to-day basis. That's when things start to change.
The way you show up for people change. The way they show up for you changes, but it starts with you. I get asked by people plenty of times, if destiny is planned by God and why God is punishing me. Many people, many cultures do believe that. I actually have a personal story with it. When I was younger, in India, probably I was in middle school, I used to hear this a lot. "Goddess Kali is punishing me. Shiva is punishing me." I would be very curious when I would hear that because in my lineage we would honor Shiva and Kali and then I would meet people who would claim that they're being punished by these gods.
But when you go deeper into tantra, when you explore these spiritual traditions, first of all you realize that the breaking news is you are not that special that someone there is punishing you. Someone there is making revenge plans. You know who does that? Humans does that. We create revenge plans. We want to punish others and then we create a god who's very much extension of who we are. This is why I tell students in Leela, and to all of you here, when you look at goddess Kali, when you look at Shiva, Krishna, Buddha, use their image, their picture, as a tiny glimpse into their consciousness, because they are being painted by a human, right?
An artist painted them and they look beautiful. But is that where you should stay? Not at all. It's just one of the glimpses on this deeper journey. We limit our life, our destiny, our joy, by kissing the finger that's pointing to the moon, by start worshiping the finger that's pointing to the moon. That's not how it's designed. That's not how it's supposed to be. For next few days, think of someone that you know and you want to punish them. Think of revenge plans. Maybe you do it already, but do it consciously. Think about it. There's one person. They have done something wrong and you start to create revenge plans, how you want to be punished.
I can tell you when you start to do it consciously, maybe within 30 minutes, maybe within one hour, you'll be emotionally exhausted. You'll be so stressed out and so anxious that your body, your emotions, your heartbeats, it's going to tell you, "Slow down. Stop this nonsense. This is wrong. You're creating such a weird anxious pattern in you. It's going to damage you, and you just started doing it and you'll see the effects of it." Now imagine God divinity, who's trying to punish you. If they are really doing it, then that sounds like a very stressful God to me. Now imagine you are worshiping that stressful God, a stressful human worshiping a stressful God. That's not a good combo and I know many people are doing that.
That's why there is so much confusion, stress, anger, and this cycle of repeated patterns, again and again. When I connect to goddess Kali, I do not ask for anything. I've stopped doing that many time ago. When I close my eyes, I pray. If I'm telling her what I want, it sounds like I'm trying to teach goddess Kali how she should be operating around me. I'm trying to teach divinity how my life should be handled. If I know it so correctly, then why I'm I even I'm going there. The way I connect to these deities is through gratitude, through love, through playfulness. There is no other way I wish to connect them with. That's the only bridge I want to use.
I do not want love to become this emotional needy transaction. I don't want to sign up for that. I have been there. That's not a fun way to experience love. That becomes lust. It could be spiritual lust, physical lust, sexual lust, but it is a lust, eventually. But when you connect with them through gratitude, through love, that's a different kind of magic and that's where your destiny and free will starts to open up. That's where you start to choose the situation circumstances and how you will connect with them, how you will choose to address them and treat them. The problem is destiny gives you a comfort, the idea, that someone else is doing it for you.
It takes off responsibility from your shoulders. If your psychologists say that you are amazing but your parents were terrible, somewhere you feel good that, "Yes, that just works out well. My parents were wrong, terrible, and that's why I am the way I am." Yes, there might be a lot of truth to it, but also the truth is you are a human consciousness, and consciousness is freedom and in freedom you have complete countless possibility to recreate and revisit the version, the story that you wish to connect with. Then I come across people who like to divide people between lucky people and unlucky, and when they say unlucky, they're referring to themselves.
When they say lucky, they are referring it to others, that probably are in their friend circle or maybe a professional circle and they want to be like them and they feel they are there because they have this good luck and I don't have it. Let me tell you, if you pick five people that you consider lucky, study their life, go deeper into them, and you'll realize luck has very little to do with where they are. I'm not talking about Instagram influencer, popularity luck, I'm talking about people who have been doing incredible life altering work. Even if we take an Instagram influencer, who's actually doing some genuine work, you'll study them. It's not a lazy job.
You'll have to show up. You'll have to do the right karma. You'll have to choose the right action, right intention, right energy and you'll see that a luck wasn't really a huge factor. If it was, it might be a very tiny factor. I have studied horoscopes of people who were destined to be majorly successful, but they were not, because they were lazy. They didn't choose to trust the process. They didn't choose to trust the unknown. They didn't make the choices that could have helped them to actually claim that success. I come across students every day, every day, where I see a huge potential and I tell them, "This is what you should be doing."
Many of them do not do it for their own reasons. Sometimes, they feel it's too much work. Most common responses, "I'm not ready right now." Sometimes they feel, "Oh, is he trying to pitch me to join his program, to join his sessions or something?" If you know me, you will know that it's very recently I've actually started inviting openly for my spiritual work and even for that, I'm so specific. I do not want the crowd. I want curious, ambitious, hungry seekers. I'll never give you a sales pitch. I'm a terrible salesperson, so I'll never even go there. But what I'm telling you is something I've been doing for years, more than 10 years.
Telling people, trying to push them to do the right thing, because I see that spark. I see that potential. If they stay there, then I've seen, eventually, their life changes. Eventually, they bloom. I'm not some perfect, amazing guru or psychic reader to say that. It's just what I do. If I was a gardener when I look at the seeds I know what seeds will work and what won't work. It just happens through experience. It breaks my heart when I see people who could be blooming, who could be shining, who could be changing their life and the lives of people around them, but it's not happening because of some silly ego trap or some fear that's holding them back.
Reminding you to study the people you considered lucky and you'll notice, luck didn't play anything in it. It was their karma. It was their choices, their actions. For me, in the spiritual realm, my father, my grandfather, but also teaches like Buddha, Muhammad Prophet, Christ, Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and many more, they are my heroes. I look up to their teachings. There was a point I used to think how beautiful, how God gifted this is. I wish I could just open my third eye. But when I got to know the stories, it gives me goosebumps and I feel so small in this grand scheme of universe, but I also feel so privileged to even know these stories and to have an action plan that could help me to help the people who count on me.
Now, we'll talk specifics about how you could actually work with this dynamic of free will and destiny. Let me tell you when you're born, you are born as a pure consciousness, which means you can create anything. You can be part of anything, but unfortunately, you are surrounded with adults who are operating with fear. They have gone through their traumas. They have gone through their drama in life. They're going through their drama as they're having you. As you start to come back to your senses, as you start to understand your physical existence, you will, of course, start to receive energy from them. Yes, you are born in certain planets and those planets are also affecting you and that also dictates you're behavior, your mood, your choices.
But at the same time, there is this consciousness, there is this beautiful energy creativity that's flowing through you and for you. The more playful you become, the more joyful you become. The more you drop that seriousness and calculations, the more you become available to that power, to that strength. How can that happen? Meditation is one of the most powerful way that I know to actually work with your destiny versus free will path. As you meditate, the scattered energies, the effect of others energies on you, the effects of planets, everything starts to diminish. It starts to fade away and you start to meet yourself more and more every day.
I'm not talking about the spa-based meditations where you simply relax. They're good to relax. No, I'm not against it, but if you are listening to this episode so far, I can tell maybe you're not so interested in simply relaxing. Maybe you want something more. If you want something more, raise your standards of meditation. Do not settle down with some 10 minute of guided meditation. It's not going to help you. It's going to make you feel good. I've always said it. It will make you feel good and if feeling good is why you're doing it, that's excellent. But usually people who come to me, aren't interested in just feeling good, they want something more. If that's you, raise your standard.
There are some advanced medications on my podcast, they will help you. Once you start to do that, you'll understand what it means and hopefully, you can find more. In Leela Gurukul, I work with students who are genuinely interested in deepening this practice. We have advanced tantra meditations in Leela for the same reason, but meditation your dhyan, your Sadhana, will always be number one factor in revisiting, rewriting your story. Now, two chakras that will immensely help you are navel and third eye. Navel is where you started to receive information. That's your creativity, playfulness. That's your root, your foundation.
That will be the first chakra you'll need to work with. Once you become immensely strong and good there, with the help of a right teacher, you start to work with third eye. Do not work on third eye on your own. It doesn't work out really well. All right? Definitely a helpful advice, not to working with third eye on your own. Navel is good to work gently and slowly in the beginning, but you need consistent guidance there. I do have podcast on the Navel centers. All right? You could look up for it.
Finally, two important concepts that will help you to finally really build a deeper, powerful connection on destiny versus free will is sankalpa, your intention and karma. All right? Karma, as I've explained, is your choice making process every single day. Every single moment, you have a choice how to respond, how to perceive the experiences, situations, people. When you start to shift your mindset, you'll start to shift many things in your life. When you respond to life with calmness, clarity and courage, you will shift how everything is moving up for you.
Last but not the least, your intention, your sankalpa, which is the conscious desire of your soul. It's through the sankalpa, through intention, that this entire concept of free will destiny it's irrelevant, because you really understand the seeds you plant are the fruits you're going to see. Remember, fruit is the last thing you'll see on the tree. Making sure the soil is good, planting the seed, taking care of the seed. It becomes a plant, it becomes a tree. It's a long process filled with patience. If you are into a non-GMO farming, God bless you. I'm glad you're doing it.
If you are into that, if you already have the patience, you'll see that. If you don't put any crazy stuff in it and let the nature take care of the tree, then, yeah, it's going to happen. It takes time, but it will happen and there is no rush. If you let go of the comparison, competition and analyzing the entire stuff, then this will happen. Sankalpa will lead to some powerful stuff for you. Now, I'll let you take a few moments to absorb everything I've shared. Take notes. Ask questions. If my work helps you, do share this episode. Do write the reviews on iTunes. This is the only way you can support this sponsor-free podcast.
Those who are willing to go deeper in tantra, in meditation and the work that I shared on podcast, do apply for the programs in Leela Gurukul. Right now, we have the tantra-based conscious meditation program. The wait list will be active by the time you listen to this episode. Do sign up for it and when the time comes, you and I will talk. Hopefully, the fear, the anxiety, the unconscious patterns, won't hold you back to do the right work. Be safe, be well and I'll speak to you soon. 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 path.
Useful Links
Find Your Source of Happiness - 21 Day Challenge
Private Guidance Program with Chandresh
