Play of Life: A Tantra Perspective
In this episode, we delve into the concept of Leela, the play of consciousness, and its profound significance in our lives. We uncover the reasons behind the persistence of suffering, fear, and anxiety while exploring the scattered and fragile nature of our relationship with the divine feminine. Discover practical tips for deepening this sacred bond and accessing the transformative power of the Leela energy. Join us on this captivating journey as we shed light on the unconscious ways we obstruct our own divinity and learn to create from a space of passion, intuition, and flow. Tune in and unlock your creative potential.
Episode Transcript
Lila means play of consciousness. It means life is designed to be a purposeless play of divine forces. If you overanalyze it, you are not living the Leela. If you overthink it, you're not living the Leela. It's designed to be a play, not a competition. It's not designed to be a seriousness. It's designed to be playfulness. If you have to believe that life is Leela, then it's not going to work out because you have to experience. Life is Leela. Believing it or not. Believing it is not going to change anything. Any belief in this process is a limitation in itself. In this episode, I want to go into how life is designed to be lived as Leela. How are we preventing it and why it should matter to you and me to live life as Leela and unleash the inner muse, the inner artist that longs to unleash itself every day in every way. I'm Chandresh Bhardwaj, and this is Leela Gurukul. Namaste, everyone, I hope you are feeling easy, breezy, and grounded.
As I record this, I have to admit and accept I'm not experiencing the total playfulness, and I almost delayed recording this because I'm dealing with a very typical corporate energy
So I've been doing a lot of things that felt uncomfortable, but that's where Leela lives, my friend. It would be so unfair and so wrong to say that Leela is always in the joy in the dance. Leela is also in the divineness. Leela is also in the vulnerability. Leela is also ending the lease early and dealing with the corporate. Leela is also accepting that I trust the process of my success. I trust the process of my growth, my abundance. I'm sitting in between two big events. Few days ago, tantric Navratri ended, which was the nine nights of celebration of the divine feminine, the goddess energy. But this was the tantric Navratri, which means this is very much a confined space for individual seekers to go deeper with their teachers. And also the goddess Kamakyha, who is the goddess that menstruates. I have spoken about her on the Instagram space. I may do a full episode on her soon. But there's a ritual that happens in her temple in India where she menstruates for a few days and the temple is closed and they have a big festival happening outside of the temple, which is called Ambubachi. So while Ambubachi was happening, tantrics, mystics from everywhere show up for their sadhana, for their meditation. And her menstruation cycle also ended a few days ago, actually last day of Navratri, and her cycle, it ended on the same day. And next week, on Monday, July 3rd, 2023, we have Guru Purnima coming up. Guru Purnima is the day when we honor the seekers, teachers, mystics, yogis for centuries, you know, who existed even hundreds and thousands of years before us. And we honor them for their presence, guidance, healing that continues to create some frequency around us. So currently I'm sitting between the ending of Navratri and the beginning of Guru Purnima.
And I can tell you this present moment feels like a period of renewal. It feels like the period of reset, recharge. So those who are experiencing a bit exhaustion, a bit tiredness, be kind to yourself, be compassionate to yourself, and remind yourself that I am invited to a space of renewal and recharge. How can I show up for it? How can I be available to it? On that note, I want to go deeper into what it means to live, live life, the Leela way. And by Leela I don't mean the Leela podcast or the Leela School. I mean the Leela that is talked about in the tantra traditions. In Tantra, we use the word Leela quite often. Many of you know my grandma's name is Leela. I dedicated the school to her. I built it to honor her unconditional love and just everything she gave me. This was my gentle token of her remembrance and the love that I experienced and I continue to experience, you know, with her. But Leela in the Eastern traditions is also a reminder to understand life in its playfulness, which means everything that happens is a play. Everything that happens is designed to be a bit messy, a bit hopeful, a bit loving, a bit deep. There's a story that showed up in my mind, it may not be fully clear, but I'll, I'll still go ahead with it. I read somewhere there was a man sitting with his wife and they had a child who was unwell for months and months.
And the father, he was sitting there who was a deep spiritual seeker, he was praying for the child to get better and while praying, he slept. And the moment he woke up, his wife was crying because the child passed away. And when he opened his eyes, he started smiling. So the wife got worried. Did something happened to my husband? Is he in shock? Is he in denial because his child just died? But he's laughing what's going on? And she gets a bit upset and angry and she shakes him and she says, are you all right? Are you out of your mind? Your child just died and you are laughing, you're smiling. And he said, no, I'm very much in my senses. In fact, I am experiencing my senses in ways like never before. He said, the last few weeks and months I spent in suffering, praying for my child to get better. And just now while praying, I slept. I had a dream. And in the dream I saw my son laughing, playing out in the fields. And both of us are having a great time together. So that gave me so much happiness. But the moment you woke me up, I saw him not having any life at all on the bed. So in my mind I started questioning, is this the dream or is the dream that I just had? Which one is reality? Which one is illusion? Which one is dream? And he said, I just at the Leela of life, the play of life, that in one dimension life is showing me my son who just left his soul. And in another dimension, I'm playing with my child out in the fields and my friends, this is Leela. This is why I said I didn't want to wait for an exciting, joyful moment to record this episode.
And I was like, I'd rather record it. Now when I'm dealing with this interesting transition energy, because ultimately all of this is nothing but an interesting drama. You can be a bit sad about it, you can be a bit angry also, you know, you are allowed to feel all the feelings. But I feel among all the feelings, suffering shouldn't be one of the feelings because suffering will show up when you are not able to understand what the heck is going on. Suffering happens when you get so strong in your character that you forget this is all a play. This is all designed to be this interesting senseless force or purposeless force. The way I like to describe Leela, many of you ask me, what's the difference between Leela and Maya? Maya means illusion. Leela means play on the surface level. Somewhere they both feel similar.
Everything is an illusion and everything is a play. But on a deeper level, you start to experience the playfulness in everything, the nature, the human emotions, the relationships we indulge in. If you watch a great drama, a movie, a show, web series, whatever, would you like to watch a show where there are just flat emotions? There's no thrill, no suspense, no plot twist happening, you won't enjoy it, right? So the way divine has created and shaped our life, it's filled with plot twist. It's filled with interesting, exciting, dramatic moments where you continue to see one plot twist after another. If you don't join the play of life, nothing happens to life. Life will continue to find its expression, but your current existence will find stagnant energy. I'll repeat. If you do not believe the play of life, if you do not indulge in the play of life, if you don't cooperate with play of the energy of life will continue to be what it is. But in that process, you start to suffer. You start to feel stagnant. So when people tell me they don't think life is play, you may continue to believe that, but you will limit your freedom, Your clarity of expression, your courage. And above all, you'll miss out on this opportunity to experience life in its totality, to experience life the way it's designed to be. I want to share few interesting elements of the Leela way of life, and hopefully it'll give you an interesting, hopeful context and guideline to live life. The Leela way. Number one, the beauty in impermanance, this is my favorite because we come alone in this world. When you were born, you were born as this unique pure consciousness and you were by yourself. When you will leave this world, when this body is no more, guess what, you will leave by yourself too. However, in this gap between birth and death, we indulge in countless things only to accomplish one aspect. And that aspect is how do I become permanent? I can think of the times a hundred years ago, present times 50 years ago. You will find plenty of examples where the human mind is constantly longing to be permanent, longing to be more than what it is. And in this process, we forget how to be because we are so busy in becoming something else. With the AI technology becoming so big each week, and it's still in its very emerging stage, I can guarantee you there will be politicians, actors, spiritual teachers, and of course everyone in between.
They are going to do their best to find a way to live even 500 years from today. I saw a clip a few days ago, the clip was from Godfather movie, but the original cast and crew of Godfather was missing. Instead, they had actors from Indian cinema playing the roles in the movie, their face when they were younger. The expression like no one can tell this is actually fixed by ai. It looked perfectly, you know, amazing to see that. And that gave me a very interesting insight into the future that I know there are currently plenty of humans who are working on this technology to make sure that their existence continues to exist even a hundred years from today. Why do we get married? Why do we keep creating children even though we feel we are not ready for them? Why do we keep putting our name on everything out there? Why do we fight for land property? Why do we possess people we love? I can come up with plenty of more things, but it all leads to one thing your mind tells you. This is all permanent, and here are a few more ways to make it permanent. But the awareness is reminding you, nothing is permanent. You Roses, mountains hate, love, nothing is permanent. It's evolving, changing, dissolving every moment. If you let go of your attachment to permanence and
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Finding curious ways to enjoy this impermanence life could take you into a very fascinating direction. I hope that makes sense. Number two, finding calm in the chaos. The reason we are not able to find calmness in the chaos is because we want to control everything. I don't deny the fact you, I everyone, we want things to happen our way, right? We want life to move our way. We all have a script in our mind, and we want, it should move this way. But how many times living through chaos has served you? It doesn't serve us.
If You choose to live with calmness in the midst of chaos, you know what that does? It gives a clear message to your mind, body awareness, and universe that I am aware and mature enough to handle life in this exciting, aware way. I'm not controlled by the chaos. I'm not controlled by this plot twist. And it's very human to react to the chaos in the moment. But if you can watch your reaction, and pause yourself at this in this moment, I'm too angry in this moment. I'm too reactive. So maybe I should step back. I should stay quiet and come back to this when I have a little more calmness, a little more awareness. Because I have been opening up many transitions in the past few months. Finding calmness in the chaos has been a very interesting exercise because the mind stays, react, appear, right? You should be seen as the right person. You should be seen as someone who knows what he's doing. But I think the truth is I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, and it felt liberating to accept I don't know what I'm doing all the time. That opened up opportunity to find more support system. Even with this example of ending the lease early and you know, making a choice whether I leave now or leave two years later, how do I handle this? I spoke to a lawyer who is my neighbor, and she gave me a very clear example of what you will lose. What's the fight that could look like? And it's a silly fight to begin with. This is not a matter of thousands of dollars. It's a matter of some money that matters to me, but not the kind of money that I can just, you know, put that into that battle just to appear, right? The point is, life will not move in the direction you want, but in the direction it is going in. If you choose to respond with calmness, then life will give you 10 new options to multiply that calmness. Life will give you a new way to add more into the calmness.
I hope that makes sense. I hope that is clear. Third way to blend Leela in your way of life is honoring and understanding the flow of Shakti, the flow of goddess energy. This is for all humans, irrespective of what gender you are. Goddess energy is the shakti energy. Shakti means the flow. Shakti means courage. Shakti means strength. So when we honor the Shakti in us, it means we are ready to embrace the flow. We are willing to support the flow. What does that flow look like? That flow looks like a bit of fierceness, a bit of passion, a bit of sensuality, a bit of devotion. Wherever Shakti will show up, there will be some movement When a river is stagnant, that is not example of Shakti, but when it is flowing, that is Shakti. And when the river is flowing, it can move into a fast stream, a slower stream, a gentle stream, or a rough stream, or it could also be a flood. But all of those movements have Shakti in them. So if you are a breathing alive human being, the Shakti would want to experience life through you. That means you will go through all the movements. That means the conscious self-expression in you is so hungry to be out. It's so hungry to express itself. It's so hungry to be more than what it's, How do you handle it? Meditate on that inner goddess. Meditate on that inner muse and see where it takes you and see where it find its outlet. This inner Shakti, this inner goddess energy does not have a template, doesn't have a box, doesn't have a tamed energy to it. She wants to be expressive, playful, abundant. She's reminding you that in my world, conditional love does not exist in my world. No conditions exist. This is why that Shakti energy will not do well when you try to tame it or control it. You know, today I had to put my ducks in their home because the backyard needed to be sprayed for any harmful bugs, insects, and you know, other stuff that could hurt the ducks or the plants or the fruits or just the grass. Because this season, the summer season brings a lot of interesting and crazy bugs. Anyway, the bug guy came and he said, for two hours, put the ducks in their home. And I said, sure. And he said, will that be a problem? And I responded very confidently that I know what I'm doing. I'll put them in their house and then began the process at 7:00 AM in the morning to put the ducks in their home. I don't know if I should be proud or embarrassed, but I could not put my little duck in her house. Her name is Devi, the OG duck Paro.
She's a little puppy. I pick her up and I, I, I put her in the house. But Devi, which means goddess, she of course didn't want to be in the house. And they both hate being in the house. They want to stay open and are fully supported. So what started today with a playful and white to they be that let's take you into the house, you know, let the gentleman do his spray thing and you don't want to be in his way because it might hurt you. It is a plant-based spray. And yet it might hurt you because who knows, you know what's in these sprays. What if you are allergic to it? 30 minutes later, I'm still running behind her. She doesn't want to come into my arms because she's a free bird. She's Devi. So after 30 minutes when I was sweaty, I told this gentleman, I said, you know, as you can see, I'm trying my best, but she doesn't want to go into the house and let it be. Just make sure you don't spray too much around the house. And I admit, I was exhausted. I was also a bit grumpy because it was morning time. I didn't have my coffee, didn't have my breakfast, and I was, my t-shirt was all sweaty. And after 30 minutes, I said, you know, she's Devi. She loves freedom. I get it. I want her to be safe. But a spirit who wants freedom doesn't care for safety. Devi was willing to sacrifice her safety for her freedom. I've seen it many times in her. She loves her freedom so much that she's willing to sit around the spray. And then my mind says, what if that hurts her? What if that affects her health? Of course it can affect her health. But that is what freedom puts us in. If you have ever grieved for freedom or hustled for freedom, this is the challenge that shows up the challenge that what if this could hurt me, but what if this could infuse more confidence, more wild energy and more fierceness in you? And I got a very clear message from the unknown this morning. She's Devi, she's willing to put freedom on top, stop interfering in the process she survived before she showed up at your house. And she will continue to survive. Who are you to overthink her process? Who are you to overanalyze her process? Let her play in freedom? And that's what I did. And I hope you find your Shakti. You find your flow in whatever, however it unfolds for you. And the last point in the Leela way of life is understanding the co-creation with the cosmos. What does it mean? It means you are not alone. It means when you show up with your total vulnerability, presence and energy, that divine is listening to you. Somehow we are brainwashed to believe that we need to do a lot of work to be received with love. We always have to earn love.
We always have to hustle, struggle to be loved, to be seen, to be celebrated. And I felt that in my life. And I also experienced a different love. And that's where Leela comes in. My grandmother absolutely created a space around me that I became very spoiled, that I truly felt that if it's not unconditional, it is not love. I still believe that. But I've also had some wise teachers in my life who reminded me, you are not going to find that unconditional love everywhere. So you have to stop. You know, stop feeling that resentment that society is so conditional. It is conditional, but you cannot let that create suffering in you. You have to find some acceptance, some playfulness in this various dimensions of love available out there. But what that experience taught me, that there is a relationship we have with the cosmic, we may not able to find that unconditional love and acceptance with our humans because every human is ultimately looking to satisfy some of their loneliness, vacuum or need.
But if there's one energy that doesn't need anything from you, but willing to give you their total love, safety, warmth, and protection, that is the cosmic energy, that is what I call the goddess Kali energy. Kali means that nothingness the infinity. And if infinity can't accept you, then what way? If infinity cannot hold that unconditional space for you, then what will, when you show up to trust the co-creation process, you realize you are constantly supported. You are under the care of the goddess. You realize creativity, freedom is not something you should be chasing or earning. It is your right. It is what you should be living and breathing every single day. The truth is, I can speak forever on what it means to live in the Leela way. But I hope this random sharing today opened up some part of your heart, opened up something that could elevate your experience of Lila.
And I would also like to take this moment to share with you, Leela Gurukul is fully moving into the membership experience where there will be self-paced courses, meditations, monthly talks, live meditations, live discussions, everything at a super affordable, a reasonable price for everyone. I wanted Leela to be the most accessible inclusive space, but at the same time having its own, you know, self-sufficient financial growth. And I realized while it is inviting curious seekers from all over the world, it's also limiting those who want more but can't access all of it. And I also realized I have been teaching two specific programs for the last three years in the Leela, and I want to share more. I want to create more experiences. So that's where Leela membership will step in. Will there be group coaching in the future? There will be, I'm not sure if it would be advanced Tantra Mastery Group coaching or something else. But of course, group coaching will continue to happen within Leela or outside Leela through the CB space. We'll see where it goes. But I do want to take this moment to thank you for receiving, supporting and hearing Leela because it's only because of that. We are arriving at the next chapter of Leela. And to conclude this episode, I do want to share if there is a voice within you, an artist within you, an expression within you. Do not overthink, do not overanalyze, do not overcalculate it. Show up for it. Be messy with it, and start to enjoy that process without feeling the need to please the gallery to please the crowd. Because when you show up as who you are, they will accept you and celebrate you. Doesn't matter what voice you are speaking, what expression you're giving out, as long as it's your authentic expression, the world will celebrate you and receive you. Be safe. Be well. And I'll see you in another two weeks. 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
CB's Instagram Tantra Mastery Channel
Visit cbmeditates.com to send your questions and to know more about Chandresh's work.
