Episode Transcript

The westernized version of meditation is all about finding a moment of calmness and happiness in chaos. It's all about chasing a certain idea of happiness. Now, that could happen in a guided meditation through an app, in a studio and so on. It's not wrong, but wait until I tell you the eastern perspective of meditation. The Eastern perspective is all about freedom, liberation. The ancient mystics wanted freedom from the suffering. They wanted freedom from the unconscious way of life.

The unfortunate part is it's the same kind of freedom that you and I also need, that you and I are also seeking. It's unfortunate because in these hundreds and thousands of years, we are still trapped in that unconscious way of life. The plot twist is, few minutes of daily meditation can help you attain that liberation, but you got to do it the right way. You got to show up in the right way, and this episode is all about finding the right way, finding your way of discovering that inner freedom.

I'm Chandresh Bhardwaj, and this is Leela Gurukul. Namaste everyone. I hope you're doing well. I hope you're feeling easy, cozy, and safe. I'm excited for this episode because I realized I have not talked about meditation in a long time, haven't talked about only meditation in a long time, and I think the reason is the teachings, the concept of meditation runs in the background in almost every episode. So recording an altogether devoted conversation for just meditation rarely occurred my mind, but I'm glad we are doing this. And the intention of this episode is to help you understand the difference between a Tantra meditation and other meditations, and hopefully that will help you to kickstart and unleash your personal practice as well.

Before we get into this episode, I want to share and invite you for the conscious meditation experience. Many of you may know this is my 12-week signature Tantra based meditation program, and this is first time I'm offering a deep dive and a signature option. You can opt for any depending on your time, energy, availability. And in this cohort, we are going to focus majorly deeply on Tantra creativity, unleashing that courageous, calm, clear, and rebellious voice in you. Every meditation cohort starts with meditation or at least with the idea or hope or expectation of deepening the meditation, but it turns out to be a totally transformational experience for every seeker. Don't take my word for it. Explore the program, read the testimonials, and if you wish to speak to me or any team member, email at info@leelagurukul.com or just drop a message on my Instagram @cbmeditates.

My hope and intention is you take this big step, sacred step to tap into your potential. You deserve it. Don't wait too long. Don't wait until your mind says you are ready now because the mind may never say that. On that note, let's get into this episode, this conversation. Let's begin this episode with Tantra. What is Tantra? Some of you may know Tantra is the science of self-realization. When we call Tantra our science, it brings in formulas, experiments, certain tool kits, certain resources that we extensively use in the practice. My practice, of course, has been Tantra, but I also want to reflect light on some other forms of meditation that you may have heard of or you may be confused with. One of the most frequently asked question to me is what's the difference between a Tantra meditation and a vedic meditation? Or a Tantra meditation versus transcendental meditation? It would be safe to say Tantra is the umbrella of all the Eastern meditations that you know about or you have heard about. I can even say this confidently, even the Western meditations you know about, you heard about, they are taken from Tantra simply because Tantra is one of the most ancient spiritual schools, ancient spiritual practice. Through Tantra, all other practices have come. You may want to know why Tantra wasn't enough to share all the great practices that we do, why there had to be so many branches. One reason that I keep seeing is meditation is tough. Going to a temple or a church sitting there paying your offerings, doing your thing, coming back home in a social gathering. That seems much more easier, that doesn't require a major transformation for you to show up. Meditation is uncomfortable even to this date, some of the most wonderful genius minds I know, they tell me meditating is tough. They can't seem to sit in meditation. I once came across a singer who sings only devotional songs of goddesses. I got to know him through my teacher, and when we sat together, he said, "One of my biggest struggle is to meditate. I can't meditate."

This was many years ago. I was in my mid-20s. So at that time, my mind went to this question that you sing devotional songs, why you haven't meditated? But now I can tell you, you could be writing spiritual bestsellers out there. You could be directing spiritual documentaries or you have written spiritual books and they all are bestsellers. Still, meditation could be tough for you, and that's okay. That's absolutely all right.

To meditate is to face yourself, watch the mirror, and it's not a fun experience for many. This is why sometimes we get into the workspace. It could even be spiritual space. It could be creative space. Sometimes it's just a trauma response. Meditation is not a trauma response. Meditation is watching your trauma one-on-one, asking, get some tough questions, but also listening to it with a lot of love and compassion. Meditation is not chasing happiness, but it's a realization that happiness is here within you, and all you need to do is pause, relax, understand, embrace, and own that seed of happiness within you.

Going back to what is a Tantra meditation, I wish I could explain it in one line. So there will be, I think a few more minutes of diving into various aspects of Tantra meditation, but one thing I can tell you with total clarity, Tantra meditation is all about energy. The Tantra meditation is all about knowing and understanding who you are, who you are in context to your family, social space, religion, culture. You may or may not believe in God. You may or may not believe in your religion. That does not affect a Tantra meditation. Tantra meditation is beyond religion. It taps into certain aspects of your existence. That's all. And if you wish to dive deeper, if you wish to go beyond certain aspects of your existence, that's also there in Tantra. Now, you have heard about Kundalini meditation. You have heard about vedic meditation. You have heard about transcendent meditation, TM, that's the popular name of it. And there's so many others.

In one word, they all are different brands of meditation. That's all different brands. If I was smart enough in marketing, I may have gone to a brand of meditation too, but in all honesty, I was aware of brands of meditation. Even then, I actually studied marketing in business school. Yeah, I used to read plenty of marketing books even then. I think that's what gave me the awareness that what I'm seeing around me is just different brands of meditation. So I think I take back my words.

I knew about the brands. I didn't go for it. Why? Because I think it's a lot more work to take credit for the source, put your label on it, put your twist on it, and start calling it your meditation. That's not my jam and no judgment to those who are doing it. When I created Leela, I didn't have a name for the Conscious meditation program because in my head and heart, this is a Tantra meditation, and I remember the good wonderful team who built the conscious meditation program. They asked me after the recording was done, after I recorded the 30 meditations, they asked me, "What's the name of this program?" And I said, "That's Leela. That's Tantra meditation." And they said, "You have to have a name." And I was like, oh, wow, that's true. And they've heard the word conscious many times from me. So they said, "What about conscious meditation?" I bet in their mind, all they wanted was to have a name because they clearly understood I'm not going for a name and that's me.

To live a life label free is me. And I know that's not the best way to sometimes survive in society, not the best way to thrive in society, and that's okay. So that's how conscious meditation happened. There was not much thought put to the name, but there was a lot of work and a lot of thought, a lot of love that was poured in creating the program. I want to wrap up. I know I'm thinking too many things right now, but I want to wrap up.

Is the Kundalini meditation or vedic meditation also part of Tantra? Yes. Kundalini means the reservoir of energy, the dormant energy. Kunda means reservoir. Kundalini means the energy that's dormant in you, and when the Kundalini rises, it's the dormant energy going upward. For those who have meditated with me, even on Instagram live or through the Leela meditations, you must have noticed I bring your energy on the navel, and then I ask you to raise that awareness, raise that energy. That, my friend, is Kundalini experience.

I don't call it Kundalini because it's energy. Kundalini is energy. I didn't call it Kundalini. Also because the Kundalini brand is so big now and so misunderstood. So I just chose that I'll put my energy in demystifying Tantra and not going into the Kundalini space yet, because if I go there, it might be my mind trying to address too many complications in the spiritual space out there.

But when I talk about Tantra, the Kundalini is explained as a result of it. That's my hope. That's my best hope here. But yeah, Kundalini, vedic, which is more of a religious mantra meditation. They all are part of Tantra. Why Tantra? Why only Tantra was not enough? The one reason I shared with you, meditation in itself is a tough job, and Tantra meditation is even more vulnerable. It's even more direct because if you meditate, it could be a body scan or it could be a TM mantra meditation. You'll notice there are crutches given to you. In many styles of meditation, a mantra becomes a psychological drug or a crutch you hold onto and you are asked to repeat it blindly. Is that mantra meditation? Nope. That's not mantra meditation. You are not supposed to repeat a mantra blindly, repeatedly and hope that this is a mantra meditation.

The right way of doing the mantra is when you are not doing the mantra, but when you're becoming the mantra itself. So all of the modern brands of meditation have done their best job to make it so dumb and so mindless at times that anyone and everyone can join that space. Why? Not because they want to transform their lives, but only because they want to enroll as many students as possible. How else can you enroll a crowd? You have to make it generic and easy for everyone, and that is a very unfortunate thing that has happened with the modern meditation, that they dumb down the authentic spirituality to an extent that anyone without any training, homework, preparation can show up and think they are meditating, but they are not. This is how a bad project is created. A bad movie is a result when everyone wants to make a little money out of it, and they don't care about the script, don't care about the performances, but they're cashing on a certain of brand in it. Hangover part two and three are good examples of it. They only cashed on the part one popularity. So I don't care much about the modern brands only because they know what they're doing. It's not a revolution or controversial. They absolutely know what kind of crowd they're catering to, why they're doing it. What's the end goal? The end goal is to enroll hundreds and thousands of people on a monthly or annual basis.

It works for many. I have had many students who have come from that school who have come from that place, and the good thing that has happened there is let's say someone has never meditated, and their first experience of meditation was through these franchisee-based meditation programs or schools. And in those schools they experienced, there is something within them. There is something beyond the mind and body, but they also realize I'm not going to fully tap into what's beyond mind and body.

So they take what's given there and then they move on the next chapter and next chapter could be Leela or a senior teacher or anything, that's amazing, authentic and credible for them. So not to sound pessimistic, those popular franchisee schools haven't really damaged the meditation space. I think I want to say they have also benefited the space to an extent, not a huge benefit. I won't deny. I would expect that if you have so much of power in space, you could impact masses.

But human being has its own ambition and it depends how they channel it, how they want to channel it. Let's come back to the Tantra space and not go into the various brands. I want to talk about how a Tantra meditation is significantly different from the other meditations you may have heard of or practiced. And I know there are countless other meditation practices now, so I may not even know them, but I'll share what the Tantra practice is all about, and hopefully it'll give you some glimpse, some experience into it. Number one, a Tantra meditation focuses on energies, your sensations, your senses. What does it mean? Tantra is all about energy. I'm able to feel your energy when you drop a DM on my Instagram. I'm able to feel energy when a student shows up out of nowhere and they start sharing how the meditation has transformed them. And we all experience energy knowingly, unknowingly, consciously, unconsciously with everyone around us.

Tantra taps into that energy. Tantra is a very inclusive space, which means it does not deny or restrict anger, greed, ego desires out of the meditation room. Tantra says, "Bring all of you in it, come as you are, and when you show up as you are, let's transform it. Let's play with it." Tantra will ask you to reflect on your anger, to witness the root of your anger, to witness every sense you have. The sense of emotions, the sense of touch, the sense of smelling, the sense of tasting, and that makes Tantra almost a very sacred and sensual experience.

Unfortunately, sensuality is so branded and objectified to just lust and sex. But a true sensual experience is when you are in your sensuality, in all its totality, in every moment, in every breath, you experience it. So when you're sitting in a Tantra meditation, you will experience every bit of your energy. You will experience every bit of your breathing, every bit of your senses, and there are various practices that are done to make that happen.

Second point is Tantra integrates the mind and the body. Mind is combination of identity, information, and memory. Your body, as we understand it, says physical existence. Tantra does not deny what's happening in the mind and body, but it will help you, guide you to heal the mind, heal the body, and then go beyond it. Transcending mind and body is the ultimate goal of a Tantra meditation. And you transcend it by defining what's the new role, the new identity I'm playing in. I often take example of the 2.0 analogy. So CB 2.0, how I would transform from Chandresh Bhardwaj to CB 2.0 is my way of transcending the mind and body, which means it will transcend the limiting beliefs.

It will help you to let go, dismantle the narratives, stories, thoughts, experiences that are limiting you, that are stopping you to experience the peak of love, abundance, life, purpose. How does Tantra make it happen? There are specific mantras. There is a physical movement of breath. There is mantra. There is Yantra in it. There are deities that work. I'll come to that part. I'll come to that part. I don't want to cover too many points in one point, but they all are so nicely connected to each other.

So number one was focusing on energy and sensations. Number two, integration of mind and body. Number three and number four are deepening your sensuality and sexuality in the most sacred way. And this is a very interesting point because the topic of sex continues to be such a taboo. Either it's suppressed or it's obsessed with. We still have not been able to normalize it. A Tantra meditation will hold a very kind and safe space for you to express, unleash, and understand your sexual energy. It will first help you to cultivate healing for the sexual energy, then express it and then transcend it. It's a longer experience. It's a wide experience. It doesn't happen in one cohort or in one year. Sometimes it may happen in three months, sometimes in three weeks. There is no template there. It all depends what has been your biggest challenge, whether your sexual energy, if you have always suppressed it, haven't talked about it ever, haven't felt it ever, then of course, it takes time for you to gently understand it, heal the roots of it. So that's the healing part.

When the healing starts to happen, then you gently move on to expressing it. An expression of your sensuality and sexuality could be more than physical, and that's what Tantra is all about. If you think the experience of sex is only limited to a physical pleasure, welcome to the Tantra world because it's going to show you sex may start with physical. But it escalates to non-physical pretty quickly if you know what you're doing there. And luckily, you don't have to master a Kama Sutra book or something out of world scripture. All you need to understand is how to manage your breathing, how to hold space for your vulnerability, how to make it a play and not a performance. Coming back to healing of your sexual energy, expressing it, and then finally transcending it. Transcending of sexuality is a big topic in itself. What happens when you transcend or transmute the sexual energy? Your craving for a sexual experience transforms into your craving for a spiritual experience. It transforms into a creative expression. If you go deep into learning more about the leaders, the visionaries, the great artists, you will notice most of them have always been very sexual or "overly sexual" at times. Some of them were able to transmute that energy. Some of them were not. But the point is that a rush of sexual energy is a rush of creative energy. Sexual urge is creative urge. It's an urge to expand. It's an urge to be more than who you are. For most people, that urge to be more than what you are only turns into making more babies or just self-pleasure, experiencing more orgasms. It's not wrong, but there's a world that's waiting for you beyond making babies, having orgasms. And after you are done doing that, move on to the next step because you'll be playing with the same toy for all your life. That's not a healthy thing, and that's what Tantra teaches you when it says, explore, heal, and now transcend it.

The next point in the Tantra meditation is expansion of your consciousness. There is a Tantra scripture called Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra. That is the foundation of conscious meditation program. Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra means the science of going beyond consciousness. So as I shared in the beginning, you work with your mind, you work with your body, you work with your senses in the Tantra practice, and that my friend is all the chakras under the throat, right?

And yeah, that points out to the chakra episode. If you haven't listened to it, listen to it right now because that covers a lot of fascinating stuff about chakras. So all the energy below the throat chakra is physical energy. And Tantra has breathing work, mantra work, deities to work on those parts. But above the throat is the non-physical part. That's where you start to access higher consciousness in every breath.

And that's a vast mystical space. How do you handle it? We take help of advanced mantras. We take help of certain deities such as Goddess Kali and her other whole force of Avengers, the Dus Mahavidya, the 10 prime goddesses. There are energies connected to Shiva. Shiva is considered the first teacher of Tantra. All of his work is all about that mental, physical healing and then taking you beyond it. The mantras of Shiva, the mantras of Kali form, the foundation of Tantra, and of course, all of these mantras, the chakra work, it helps to not only understand your consciousness, but expand it and tap into it. And now the fun part of Tantra meditation is it's designed for a modern seeker. Even in the good old days, Tantra was not restricted to monks, to the people who have renounced everything, people who are only looking for a moment of bliss and calm. Tantra meditation, since the ancient times was designed for visionaries, leaders, creative seekers. This is why many seekers who didn't know what they want, where they're going, who didn't have that fire or ambition, they never felt inclined to a Tantra meditation.

But the seekers who were ambitious, seekers who were creative seekers, who had a certain spiritual aspiration, they felt very drawn to the Tantra experience. They felt very attracted to the mystical world of Tantra. And Tantra then and now remains the signs of spirituality for creatives, artists, visionaries, and leaders. And this is why it's no-brainer for a creative seeker to tap into Tantra. Now, 95% or even more of my personal one-on-one clients are all visionaries, artists, storytellers, leaders, because to go beyond where they are now, they need something like Tantra and ordinary, regular guided meditation will not help. The essential goal of Tantra is the alchemy of transformation, total transformation of your senses, transformation of your mind, transformation of the stories that defined you at one moment, but now it's time to let it all go. And one major element of Tantra practice is the use of mantras. Mantra is the instrument of the mind. Using and choosing the right mantra is game changer, because the right mantra can help you to shift the frequency. It can help you to shift the noise of the mind from chaos to calm, from confusion to clarity, from scattered space to creative space. While you may want wealth and you think Goddess Lakshmi is the mantra for wealth, but no, there are mantras for every possible ambition or desire or challenge you may be experiencing as a human.

If you listen to my first videos, you will see significant difference between how I used to describe Tantra back then and now. I have not read a single book that has helped me to change my definition of Tantra, but you know what I give full credit to? The right mantras. Now, it doesn't mean I would depend on a mantra to even know certain specific tangible things. For example, you can't become a surgeon by doing mantra, but if you have studied surgery and you are a meditator, you will become one of the best surgeons out there. You can't learn acting or scriptwriting through a mantra or meditation, but if that's your passion, if that's what you've studied and want to explore, you will become one of the greatest storytellers out there. That's what meditation does.

So while I was still talking about human darkness and the healing, the exploration of the human consciousness, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I give credit to the right mantras that opened up my expression, that opened up my vulnerability, that helped me heal my own self so that I could show up in a much more creative, easy, effortless space. I hope that makes sense. The power and purpose of mantra is to not only shift your frequency, but to give food fuel to your intention. An intention with the right mantra is a strong possibility of transformation, but an intention with no mantra is going to be more of a psychological work than a spiritual transformation. Choosing the suitable mantra for meditation is a fun experience because I get to know you better when you are working on a mantra. Choosing a mantra involves getting to know your intention, your life story, your aura, your mind challenges, your big picture ambition, your big vision, and of course, the current energetic contracts.

In the conscious meditation program, every student gets their personalized mantra after the program is over because we spent 12 weeks together. That's a solid time for me to understand what they need, what will help them to tap into their next version. Beware of any school that promises you a mantra simply based on your date of birth, time of birth, and that kind of information because that mantra you are getting is through a software, like a literal computer software.

Not fun. It can harm you. It can create irritation, annoying energy, and I have plenty of messages in my emails and Instagram and my live conversations with students who have experienced it. And I won't be surprised if any week, any month now, AI, artificial intelligence will create an app where you get your mantra right away within 10 seconds. It might be already happening. I may not be aware of it, but that's where we are heading.

Good thing is there are still other options for you to tap into. It takes work. Do not expect things to change in a month, two-month, or three-month. Meditation is uncomfortable, but such an essential and relevant experience. When you start to show up in meditation, it's what we call the Tapasya means a disciplined devoted practice. That's why we call it Sadhana, which also means a disciplined systematic practice of self-awareness. And nowhere in the eastern traditions or in Tantra practices, meditation is defined as anything and everything.

I could be talking to you right now, that's meditative experience, but it's not meditation because I know what I have to talk. I can't take longer pauses with you. I can't start talking about some random thing and then come back in 50 minutes. I can't just pause and reflect in my own awareness. That would be meditation. And people have been calling, the modern marketing has been calling everything and anything meditation. That's not how it's supposed to work. Okay? Now, choosing a mantra is important, and then sticking to it, not getting bored with it is even more important. I want to talk about the technique of using the mantra. For example, I've used Soham in many meditations. I've used Appa Deepo Bhava, Shivaya Namah, Namah Shivaya and I know there's a very popular meditation in the podcast where I've used 11 goddess mantras. Those mantras are safe bija mantras, seed mantras. Anyone can do it. Anyone who feels curious to explore that kind of energy can do it. But I want to share when in the meditation, you should do it.

The first thing is starting the meditation with a calming, effortless, mindful breathing. All right? After you practice first few moments of that conscious, inhaling, exhaling, you get into your heart center where you are only feeling the heartbeats. You're slowly, gently letting go of that heaviness in the head and heart, and then you would notice there is an opening happening. There is a little more, if not too much, a little more openness, a little more receptivity. That my friend is your moment of mantra. That's where I would recommend you start to feel the mantra and not blindly repeat it.

How does it sound like when you mindfully repeat a mantra? Taking a deep breath and feeling this mantra. Soham. Pause and again. Soham. Pause. One more time. Soham and pause. It's like knocking a door and then waiting to hear back. It's not like this, constantly knocking the door. That's not how it works. You have to send out the frequency and then receive it. I always say after a point, you're not doing the mantra. You are the mantra. There is a meditation in the conscious meditation program where I'm not saying any mantra, and in that meditation, I'm taking the seeker to a certain space, to a certain open energy, and then telling them to just receive the mantra, receive the frequency. That's an advanced practice, of course. That's a practice where you would start to hear mystical sounds, energy, intuition, healing, and so much powerful stuff. But one breath at a time, one layer at a time.

I hope this conversation on mantra and meditation was helpful. The point is, the conclusion of this episode is there are too many brands out there of meditation, and those brands will continue to expand. They'll continue to scale what they're doing. And if any of those brands work for you, great, go for it. Stick to one brand, stick to one practice, and then dive into it. If you have been exploring various options and they have not worked out for you, I highly encourage for you to take this bold and sacred step. Explore this conscious meditation program. If it feels overwhelming, drop a DM on my Instagram. If it feels challenging, uneasy to join, let me know what's the challenge because I may not be repeating these programs too often.

I'm still reflecting when, how, and where I'll be sharing these kind of experiences in the future. So if you have been thinking for a long time, this might be a great opportunity for you to step in and join and see how that feels for you. My DMs are open. My emails are open for you, and as always, thank you for supporting the Leela Gurukul Podcast. The reason we have not taken any single sponsor, even after 150-plus episodes is because you supported by joining the Leela programs. You supported by sharing it with others. Keep doing that. Keep showing your love, your interest in the Leela episodes, and next week, I'll see you again. Be safe. Be well.

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Visit cbmeditates.com to send your questions and to know more about Chandresh's work.