Episode Transcript

When was the last time you had a fun, impulsive chat with a friend about a mutual friend? When was the last time you secretly enjoyed listening to someone's dark story? Do you often find yourself busy on social media tracking lives of your friends and strangers? Do you consider yourself as someone who enjoys occasional gossip? Or do you tend to judge yourself or others when they gossip?

Today's episode may start with a simple reflection on gossip, but it will end with plenty of spiritual information to help you maintain the emotional maturity and discipline when it comes to gossiping. I am Chandresh Bhardwaj and this is Leela Gurukul.

Namaste, everyone. I hope you're feeling relaxed, happy, playful, grounded, and all that you're craving today. Before I begin the episode, a bunch of important announcements. They're important because each one of them is related to how you and I connect. Number one, the Conscious Texting program is ending. Remember you used to text me on a number, I would reply to that number? That entire service I'm going to be disconnecting because it's only limited to US and Canada. Many of you are based beyond US, beyond Canada. Many of you are in Europe. And this service I was hoping will start sometime soon in Europe, but it's not. And finally, I have to make this decision to end it, but there will be something much better that will help me connect with all of you wherever you are based in the world. And that's Telegram Texting channel.

If you look upon your Telegram Leela Grurukul, you'll see my channel. Or you can go to my Instagram @cbmeditates or Leela's Instagram and on the links, you'll see the link for the channel as well. In addition, in the show notes, the link is there as well. So you can click on it and you can join the channel straight. Those who are unaware, Telegram is a simple, easy texting app that enables free texting all over the world. I was paying almost as much money as I pay for my monthly phone bill for that conscious texting service, and that's why I was a bit disappointed. It limited the texting experience to just the students in US and Canada. And I needed to connect with you guys who don't live in us and Canada. So this is a fun, safe, cozy space that we are cultivating on Telegram. I hope you can join. I think it's going to nurture into something really beautiful and powerful.

Second update is the Conscious Meditation Program is opening up now. The applications are live. And as you apply, we are going to start having the calls with each one of you. Just keep in mind, this is the last cohort for now. I will not be opening the applications after this cohort. Next year hopefully it'll open up again, but we are working on something really special in Leela. So this is the last time Conscious Meditation Program is opening to public for a while. Next year, let's see. Fingers crossed it will open up again next year. But if you have been thinking of joining, this is the right time for it.

And finally, thank you for joining the Seven Day Goddess Rising Meditation experience. Now we have Goddess Rising ebook. If you didn't get it, make sure you are on the Leela email because we will be making it available soon again. And we plan to create a lot of fascinating ancient tantric content available to all of you through of course the Leela podcast, but the deeper content through the Leela school. And this is why I encourage joining the Leela emails or the Telegram channel because that's not controlled through any algorithm. Hopefully, that will continue to be a much more free space for us to stay connected.

And now let's move on to the topic of gossips. Before I share anything about gossips, I hope you don't think that I have never gossip or I don't enjoy them. I have had my relationship with the whole gossip experience. I think most of us do. I even remember there's this page on Facebook called Humans of New York. When that page started, I really saw that page as something extremely healing and heartwarming. And now we have too many of those kind of social media accounts. So now when you read stories of humans on social media pages, it doesn't feel anything unusual. But in those days when Facebook was becoming big, this person, I believe his name is Brandon, he would walk on the streets of New York and take pictures of people and encourage them to express, to talk. And people would end up sharing really vulnerable, beautiful stories about them. It became really a hugely popular page. It became my favorite page.

He also published a book that I have. And this podcast is not sponsored by Humans of New York today, but I wanted to share about Humans of New York because human stories are beautiful. They are inspiring, healing, encouraging, empowering. There was one story on it one day. There were four women sitting in Central Park. I believe all of them were above 80, minimum. They have to be about 80 for sure and because the age was mentioned in the post. I read this post, I don't know, 10 years ago, eight years ago, or maybe even earlier than that. These women were talking to Brandon and they were telling him that, "All four of us, we are friends. We didn't know each other a few years ago, but now we connect and we meet once a week to only gossip. We gossip about our families, our daughter-in-laws, our family members and all that."

That post went viral. It was hilarious, funny, sweet, cute. I remember sharing it on my Facebook page as well because it was just funny. And that's how we look at gossips. They look harmless, they're impulsive. Gossip has a certain cultural element to it. I like to travel quite a bit. I haven't traveled so much in the last two years, but I've always traveled and I like to understand human behavior. And I've noticed it doesn't matter what culture you belong to, gossip is part of almost every culture. And gossips start as fun, harmless and simple normal talk. Sometimes you may start with this impulsiveness to share the news that you know and you can't contain it within yourself. Sometimes you share it to entertain or lighten the vibe around you. Most of the times, your impulse is purely to cultivate a social comforting bond with others.

But you would notice if you are this person who tends to share this news, who tends to indulge in that gossip vibe, it becomes a habit. And then that habit is a bit tough to break. Just like those wonderful women I saw in Humans of New York, they said, "We meet once a week and we only gossip" and I can tell you, I personally know people who meet, have phone calls, Zoom calls to only gossip. It becomes fun to them. It becomes impulsive. But there is a dark side to gossips. And as always, I feel a bit terrible when I share these kind of informations because people tell me that, "When we listen to your podcast or when we attend your public talks, you share information that kind of ruins our vibe, our mood sometimes because we have been doing that behavior, indulging in it for so long. And when you share it, it makes us think and then we want to change it because we start to realize this is not right."

But the truth is, I go through that discomfort. I test and try everything I share with you. And when I start to see unimaginable level of change and shift, then I feel this impulse to share it with you here because I know you are playing this episode to improve your life, to elevate your consciousness, to be on a certain level of awareness. So my apology for taking away that impulsive fun, but I hope you'll benefit much more as you let go of this gossiping. Because in this episode, I'm going to be sharing some very fascinating and trusting pieces of information which will give you hopefully the effortless encouragement, the motivation you need to let go of it finally.

Number one, gossip on a psychological level is a habit impulsiveness, but on a spiritual level, it's indulging all of your chakras, okay? I have been part of gossip circles. I have indulged in gossip with my school buddies. My birthday was a few days ago so I had a good chat with many old school buddies. We haven't spoken for a few months. And I remember now the conversation was much more centered around life, but these are the buddies that have always also had just random mindless, impulsive chat about every business happening out there. And that's a gossip. And I realized with these friends now we don't indulge in it because we started channeling our energies into very different directions. Also, that affected the friend circle. Because the friend circle who's still indulging in gossip, that's not serving the vision, the intention that you are hoping to manifest for you. So I have been through that path. Of course, I'm sure once in a while I relapse and go into that path again. But a reminder to not focus on the outer and focus on the inner, that's very important. And that's just pure tantra.

Tantra says don't focus on the outer because every time you focus on the external, you'll invite anxiety, you'll invite in energies of others. You'll also strengthen your ego because imagine if you and I, we are having this impulsive chat about a friend or about a stranger on social media and we are finding a fault with them, we are judging their love life, their business, their writing, their behavior, it's going to strengthen your ego because ego is going to say, "Look at you. You are so much better than them. And look at them. They don't even know how to do this." And if you have a buddy who likes to empower you when you are on that ego ride, then it's going to strengthen ego for both of you but it unfortunately doesn't lead to anything. And then it leads to anger, jealousy, wanting to control everything within you, around you. And it all starts with this very harmless looking habit of gossip.

The first set of chakras that's affected with gossip is your lower chakras, the root chakras, especially the naval center, which is the center of your belongingness, the center of your safety, center of your creative courage. Now, we are energy beings. We are connected to each other through energy. We are constantly having an energy exchange. And as you start to become more meditative, you become very sensitive to the energies of others. And you would notice one thing, if you are gossiping about someone and you're doing it consistently, your relationship with that person is going to change. You cannot control it. It's just fundamental truth. And if someone is gossiping about you, you would notice your relationship with that person would change eventually. And maybe one day you do get to know that they were, all this time, they were gossiping about you.

There is something about the energy of gossip that affects the lower chakras because the lower chakras are very physical. The chakras above the heart, they start to connect with the non-physical energy, the other dimensions. But the lower three chakras are very much rooted in your physical existence. Your sense of safety, love, affection, belongingness, it's all in the root chakras. By the way, the root chakras are the lower three. I call them root because I just connect all three together collectively as one.

So whenever you are gossiping about someone, the energy from your root is leaking. It's going to a certain person, to a certain place, and that's not a creative energy. That's energy of judgment, gossip, calculating their behavior, analyzing what they're doing. And then with gossip comes control, with gossip comes ego, with gossip comes how you would like to change that scenario in your mind. And gossip doesn't have any logic. It's just gossip, right? The more you gossip, the more you're going to leak the energy in your lower centers, because we are energy beings.

The energy exchange is happening constantly. And now what is happening is the social media is a big gossip place. You are sending stories to each other. You are tracking lives of strangers and friends. You are analyzing why they haven't posted a picture with their wife in a while, why they are not looking too happy in the picture, why this person looks sad, he looked happy in the last picture. So there's constant judgment happening in your mind. And that energy is going to a direction which is, in my opinion, silly, irrelevant, and not needed. You rather choose a much better creative outlet for your energy than actually looking at life of someone on social media and then putting your judgment on it.

Before social media existed, we had the magazines, the gossip blogs where you will just read stories of celebrities and put your judgment on them. Gossip can start anytime, anywhere, especially when you're tired, bored, lonely. And all of these are so connected to the lower centers. If you do not correct your gossip habits, then the energy will affect the heart center. The heart chakra is called Anahata. That's the chakra of empathy, emotional healing, emotional depth, maturity, compassion. So this is the chakra that's very often used to send out good energy through prayers, thoughts, intentions. And gossip becomes an energy field that actually sends out toxic energy to others. So when we feel that we are exposed to a certain external vibe, we are exposed to an unhealthy vibe, that's really someone's judgmental energy affecting us.

Now, we cannot control if others are judging us or gossiping about us, but we can absolutely manage how we perceive others, how we judge others, and whether we are indulging in any kind of gossiping. The heart chakra is such a sacred space. When we start to enjoy gossip about someone, we are actually corrupting the energy of the heart. We are corrupting the purity of the heart center because that's as pure of a place as a temple. When in that particular space, you are indulging in conversations or even starting to enjoy someone's misery, that is not a good energy exchange. It doesn't matter if you know that person or not, because you are corrupting your source. You are corrupting your channels, your mediums.

And those who constantly indulge in gossip through texting, through chatting, through talking, that my friend affects the throat, the Vishuddha chakra. Vishuddha is the filter. It filters the energy. Everything below the throat is very much connected to your physical existence. But divinity has designed the throat chakra in a way that when you start to meditate, when you start to raise and elevate your energy, the throat becomes that gentle filter. And beyond the throat is a very non-physical dimension.

So if you have maximum of, let's say, positive, divine, sacred, creative, playful energy, then the throat chakra will only polish it. It will only make it better and then raise it upward. And that happens through intentional energies, mantras, breathing exercises. There's plenty of ways I've shared in my podcast.But when you are indulging in any talk or a thought, then you are throat chakra receives a very interesting message that, "This is the energy that I'm going to be inviting in. This is the energy I'm nurturing, I'm planting seeds for it." And that's the kind of energy that just becomes much more stronger aspect of you.

Now, the person who is constantly indulging in gossiping, you cannot expect that your intentions or your goals or visions will come to fruit, will come to manifestation because you have your self set the ground in a way that it's not holding much space for the higher thoughts.

I don't use this word very often, but today I'm going to use it. The lower energy versus the higher energy, the lower vibe versus the higher vibe. Gossip is a very low energy work. So if I'm indulging in low energy work, if I'm indulging in gossips, then I'm cultivating the ground in a way that it will only support the seeds that are low vibe. So if once in a while I'm using the same ground to plant any other fertile seed, it may not get the strength because I have programmed the ground in a certain way that it's only good for a lower vibration stuff and not the higher sacred vibration. And by the time it reaches the throat, things have become serious. What has started as fun and impulsive is now suddenly becoming much more serious. It's affecting your abundance, your creativity. It's affecting areas of your life that you may not even be aware of.

And finally, the third eye. Third eye is your willpower, your higher consciousness, your intuition. Third eye has very simple rule. Whatever you plant on it, it's going to multiply it. So this is why when an angry person starts to meditate and they meditate in a very haphazard way, their anger multiplies. But if they stick to it, if they have the right guidance, then anger eventually dissolves. It fades away.

The job of third eye is, whatever is heavy for you, it'll first blend it, then transcend it and transmute it, okay? But it does that only when you consciously guide it, if you work on it. And it's the highest chakra. It's the most advanced most powerful chakra to work on. Even now when I still meditate on my third eye chakra and if I'm using it for a very specific purpose, I take advice of my teachers. I do not experiment too much with it because third eye is sensitive. And if by the time your habit of gossiping is building up consistently and it has started to reach third eye, then it's only going to invite a very wrong tribe in your life. You may end up attracting terrible relationships, over-dramatic moments. It doesn't matter how much you try, the success, especially the financial success, stays away. Relationships are a mess and you don't know what's happening.

I want you to witness what are the things that are contributing to the lower vibrational stuff. Are you indulging too much in social media? Have you become a keyboard warrior, constantly fighting, battling things on social media but in reality, things are very different for you? I would say start shifting your entire way of showing up for life. I'm not saying if you're into gossips, that makes you a terrible person. We are humans. Every once in a while we are going to indulge in some junk food, right? Gossip is the junk food of communication. You can indulge in it if that's really important to you, if that's something you really enjoy. But just remember, if you start indulging in it consistently, impulsively, randomly, it's not going to truly impact your intentions. It's not going to lead you into the life that you always desired.

So, quickly I'm going to share a bunch of ways. Number one, silence. Maun. I have a podcast episode that's titled Self-realization Through Silence. Don't ask me what episode number is that. When you browse it, you should be able to find it. It's one of my longest episodes. It was very detailed in depth explanation of silence and how it is so honored in the tantra traditions. Start practicing silence on a day to day basis. Start being with yourself on a day to day basis. One of the reasons why you enjoy gossiping is because you need an escape. You have such a tough time being with yourself that it's much easier to be in someone else's space and talk about them, make comments, judgments about them. So come back to your solitude. Come back to your silence. It's so easy to gossip, it's so easy to pass on judgments. But those consistent days of silence, they're going to reveal so much fascinating stuff about your existence that you may not even need therapy. You may not even need a guru to guide you because you become your guru, you become your guide after that.

Number two, please be very mindful of your social media consumption. I think day by day it's becoming very clear that social media is a global gossip space. These apps are designed to keep us busy, overly engaging. They quickly figure out what kind of stuff keeps you distracted on these apps so they keep presenting you the same kind of stuff. I know there's a documentary on Netflix about social media, but there's so many on every platform right now. We are still not learning. That's such an interesting human tendency. There is stuff on Instagram that will tell you why Instagram is not good for you and yet we are consuming Instagram all the time. Because somewhere we have become such a slave to our habits.

There's a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. I highly recommend you read it or even browse it. Just pick up the book, open up any chapter and start reading, because changing a habit involves a certain science. And if you can figure out that part for yourself, then life is going to be so different. So please be mindful of how you consume social media because everything you consume affects your lower chakras. And social media is such a big consumption for us right now.

Number three, what's your friend circle all about? Who are your friends? What are their philosophies? Visions? What are their goals? Are they mindful? Are they compassionate? Do they have empathy? Do they want you to win? Do you want them to win? You know in school they used to say it's better to be alone than in a bad company? I think it becomes even more relevant when you become adult. Everyone I know who had a huge friend circle and after they got into deeper meditations, inner work, spiritual lifestyle, the friend circle started becoming very narrow. Not shallow, but narrow. It became much more about quality than quantity.

So feel free to let go of certain friends who are always there when they need you and start empowering the friends circle. Who's there for you when you need that support and you are there for them when they need the support? Make your friendship philosophy very clear that this is the kind of friendships I'm looking for. And leave no room for gossip. When I started observing my gossip patterns, I started observing the energy in my body. And I would sense that I feel annoyed, irritated, almost depleted if I'm listening to a gossip or contributing to it. And only to honor my own energy, I started responding to what should I be doing to not be part of this space. And I started noticing, I started walking out of those rooms wherever the gossip existed.

Now actually a friend reminded me that it's so funny. Whenever we start talking random stuff, you walk out. And at this point, nobody sees it as an act of arrogance or "I'm too pure for you, holier than thou." They just know that I have a limited energy space and I will walk out eventually when things get bit noisy for me. And you have to figure out your way. If your body's telling you go inside a room, listen to music, breathe deeply or walk out and don't go back to the room, whatever is it that your body's telling you, listen to it, honor it, because if you don't, then you are going to feel the effects of it. And when I know that there's a certain space where only gossips happen, I'll happily refuse to be part of it.

I'm not doing it because I'm so spiritual or sacred and all that stuff, I'm only doing it because our time is so limited. I feel I end up wasting time here and there anyway. So if I'm conscious and aware that there's one particular thing that's just going to be energy exhausting, I rather refuse it from first minute. Your friend circle plays a huge part in it. Believe me, when your good friends know that this is what you value, they'll support you, they'll become part of your tribe. And then you are creating a very collective conscious space.

And finally, the last point is be clear with your intentions. Be clear about your vision. So I didn't know how to handle it until I became very clear with my vision. Because if my vision and intention was to go deeper in tantra, to help the seekers who reach out to me, who count on me, I started noticing what's the obstacle. What are the things that are an obstacle right now that are limiting me to go deeper into tantra work? So I started noticing that bunch of things and I have to cut down on all of those things. I have to make certain important decisions, that some decisions that were easy, some were not so easy and I'm still working on them. But there had to be a clear why, a clear intention that would drive my decisions of staying away from certain behavior patterns.

There's some patterns that will be tough to leave, but we can keep working on it. And there are some patterns that are just random mindless habits. They'll be easier to leave because if they stay or they don't stay, they don't matter to your life in any way. And hopefully you can leave them as soon as you discover them.

All right. That's all for today. I hope this episode inspires you to reflect on how we are indulging with the information, energy, friendships, relationships around us and within us. I'll see you in two weeks. And do apply for the Conscious Meditation Program if that resonates with you. And then I'll see you on the Zoom calls and eventually in the Conscious Meditation Cohort. Be well. Be safe.

Useful Links

Chandresh's YouTube Channel

Find Your Source of Happiness - 21 Day Challenge

Private Guidance Program with Chandresh

Buy the book - Break the Norms

Instagram: @cbmeditates