Honor the Pauses
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In this episode, Chandresh shares how everyone out there is struggling, hustling, and running unconsciously around their schedule. As a result, we are less productive, way less creative, and more frustrated and anxious than ever. Honoring the pauses is something Chandresh has been cultivating, learning, and responding to in a frequent way and it works. We invite the listeners to honor your pauses. To go deeper into this episode, and reflect on what area and direction the need to honor the pauses is arising and how gracefully you are showing up for it.
Have any questions or curiosities about your spiritual journey? Email Chandresh at askcb@leelagurukul.com.
Episode Transcript
A few days ago, I decided to take a pause from recording the podcast. There was a voice in my head telling me not to do it because people may not come back to listen to your podcast again. And if you are in the social media space creating some sort of stuff, you know this is true. People don't come back. But there was also a voice of my awareness that was telling me to pause, to reset so that I don't get into manufacturing and assembling the pieces of my podcast. And that made me realize this is what creative courage requires from us often. It requires us to honor the grand scheme of cosmos and never ever to get into the trap of fear, insecurity, and comparisons. Thank you for coming back to listening. Thank you for being here. I am Chandresh Bhardwaj and this is Leela Gurukul.
Namaste, everyone. I hope you are feeling relaxed, connected, grounded today. Have you ever wondered, why do we keep going? Why do we keep running? Sometimes we are running toward something and sometimes we are running away from something. We need some sort of chase, some sort of constant going. And if you want to pause, if you want to slow down, the mind won't let you slow down because the narrative of mind is the narrative of fear, anxiety, insecurity. And the society, family, school, everybody around us, they train us to keep going at a speed set by them. And this speed has no logic. The speed is only based on fear. It's based on unhealthy competition. It's based on irrelevant comparison. And I feel every comparison is irrelevant really. In order to understand our existence, in order to feel accepted by others, we simply accept the laws of society.
We accept the script handed over to us and we keep going at a rapid speed until the body tells you that now you cannot go anymore. And then the mind says, "That's what happens to everybody. You wake up. You work eight hours a day for five days a week minimum. You take a two day break where you are depressed. You get drunk. You do things that are not nurturing you." And then you, again, repeat the same thing to pay the bills. And one day, when the body tells you, "I cannot keep going anymore," you accept your conclusion just like that. We wait for big disasters to happen before we pause, before we reset, and if that disaster is happening after a certain age, then it is too late to reset anything because the body says, "I don't even have any more fuel to keep going."
And as I shared that when I was thinking of pausing the podcast, the voice in my head told me, "People may not come back." And this voice in head comes from many voices around me. I meet people who are very much active, present in social media spaces. Way more bigger accounts than me. Way more followers than me. Everything much more multiplied than what I do, how I do. And they all tell me that if you pause, you'll be forgotten. And the ego will amplify this voice that you will be forgotten. Let me break this truth to you. You'll be forgotten anyhow. If you feel that you'll be remembered forever or for at least some good years, you are living in a sweet bubble and the sweet bubble can give you this coziness, this comfort for the moment, but it cannot delete the reality that, no matter what, people will forget you. And they're not being harsh or tough. That's just how society's wired.
Think about your favorite artist who's no more. How many people remember that artist? There will always be a few people who will think about them on and off, but eventually a human being has so much drama, so much chase, so much chaos in their mind that there is no time, energy, or space to remember anyone. And it's the need of our ego to be remembered and to make it happen we do crazy things. We engrave our name on buildings. We donate and then we want our names to be printed there. Many people I know. They have kids because they want to stay alive in some form. And they tell me, "Even if I'll be gone, there will be an extension of me at least in some form." The ego can make you do things unconsciously. The ego can make you do things to control life. And life cannot be controlled. Nothing that's alive is designed to be controlled and if you keep surrendering to that voice of fear, you'll keep multiplying your anxiety.
The truth is, the cosmic, the divinity, the universe, the godliness, they're constantly trying to speak to us, but we are too busy. We are too busy in doing things that are silly, idiotic, driven by ego. And we are also too afraid to listen because somewhere there is a fear that if I listen I'll need to take this action and that action will involve demolition, that action will involve destruction. And we are afraid to demolish certain things because our belief systems will be destroyed, our illusions will be destroyed. And this is why to pause becomes a fearful thing for the human mind. This reminds me of this story of a meditation teacher who was coming back from a talk in the mountains and he slipped from the mountain and he was hanging onto the tree and he kept on screaming, "Please save me! Anyone can hear me? Can you save?" And nobody was there. It was just a very quiet mountain space.
And out of fear, he kept on screaming, in anger, in fear, in doubt. And then he thought, "I'm a meditation teacher. People look up to me as their spiritual guide. Maybe I need to breathe, relax, and invite some sort of divine help." And he did that and the voice showed up in his head, "Let go of the branch." And he was like, "That's my fear talking. I cannot let go of this branch because it's this branch of the tree that's saving me right now. So I won't let it go." And again, he did his mantra. He did the mindful breathing. Again, the voice came, "Let go of the branch." And he didn't let it go. A few hours later, he woke up in hospital, half of his body paralyzed. And the doctors just told him that your body's paralyzed because of fear and shock to the system.
And he said, "It must be paralyzed because I fell high from the mountain." And the people who picked him up from there, they were in the room. They said, "We didn't think you fell from any high mountain because there is no body injury." And he said, "No, I don't believe you." Long story short, a few days later when he felt a little better, he went to that space and he realized that he was hanging onto the branch and he was only on feet above the ground while he was hanging onto the branch. And the voice in his head was absolutely right to let go of the branch, because he's pretty much on the ground, just one feet above. And I feel we all are hanging on to some sort of branch in our life because we are not ready to be alone with ourselves. We are not ready to be in solitude. We are not ready to pause. And this is why we don't accept the voices that tell us, "Let go of the branch."
You have to pause and ask yourself, what branch am I holding onto? Because your mind is telling you constantly to jump in the future, to keep being played by some sort of past memory and imagination of the future. But if you don't pause, you'll never reset your software. Even our phones need a software update at least once or twice a year, and sometimes a software update happens and if your phone is too old, it will slow down. And that's a reminder, maybe you need to change your phone. And this is exact what needs to happen as you meditate, as you make the decision to pause, as you receive this new software update, your awareness will tell you that if you don't step into your new power, if you don't step into the upgraded version of you, you'll slow down, my friend. And if you don't wish to slow down, embrace your power, embrace your new strength, new truth, new awareness.
When you pause, invite the awareness to lead with conscious choices, to lead with calmness and clarity. When you pause, make it intentional. Don't let it be a random accidental thing that you do. Invite a certain sacred intention to pause, to reset. And above all, when you pause, offer reverence to the life energy. Offer reverence to your existence. Each time you pause, you're offering a certain respect, a certain love to your existence, and then you'll see how the magic starts to happen. That's all for today. Be safe, be well, and I'll connect with you next week. May the teachings of tantra continue to guide you and heal you. And 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
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