Reincarnation - A Tantra Perspective
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In this episode, Chandresh shares the tantra perspective on reincarnation. The following questions are covered:
Why do we need to discuss reincarnation? What is the purpose of reincarnation from a tantra perspective? Do all beings reincarnate? Are there some that don’t? Those who don’t reincarnate, is it by choice, will, or just a random coincidence? If reincarnation is real, why do we not remember our past lives? What is the role of your Sankalpa and sadhana in the journey of reincarnation? What role does ancestral healing play in reincarnation, the family you are born through, and the lessons you learn in each life by belonging to that family unit? What role do Shiva and Kali play in death + reincarnation? Some people tend to live a highly negative or toxic life when they are alive. Be it drug addiction, criminal activity, or negative situations where they happened to be at the wrong time, such as getting murdered…how does reincarnation take place for them? People will sometimes talk about how they are the reincarnate of spiritual leaders such as Jesus and Buddha. Is there any validity to this, and what does tantra say regarding the reincarnation of significant spiritual teachers? Visit cbmeditates.com to send your questions and learn more about Chandresh's work.
Episode Transcript
Do all beings reincarnate? If reincarnation is real, why do we not remember our past lives? How does law of karma affect reincarnation? What roles does ancestral healing play in the reincarnation, the family you are born through and the lessons you learn in each life by belonging to that family unit?
What role does Goddess Kali and Shiva plays in death and reincarnation? When we reincarnate, do we only reincarnate into the future or is it possible to reincarnate into the past? What about other planets? Are there places we go besides this earth?
All right, I'll stop here. You get the idea. This episode is going to be powerful. So relax, breathe, and be fully prepared to reincarnate.
I am Chandresh Bhardwaj and this is Leela Gurukul.
Namaste everyone, I hope you're feeling relaxed, easy, safe and grounded wherever you are. Those who are listening to this episode right at the time of release, the year is ending and I hope you're finding this year self-reflections, healing, creative, and helping you to connect to the next dots. And those who are listening in the future, hello to you. And those who are listening first time, welcome to the Leela Gurukul Podcast.
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And finally, as I record this, I am working deeply into the Goddess Rising program. It's the kind of program that's dismantling my own layers in such deep ways. If I say I'm excited to record the Goddess Rising, it would be an understatement. I think I'm experiencing high vulnerability, peaks of emotions, but also deep-rooted energy. And I feel the goddesses are running in my background and dancing, watching me, gazing at what I'm talking.
So it's feeling extremely beautiful and uncomfortable for the same reason, because I genuinely feel I'm being watched as I'm recording, but it's not an awkward watch. I feel the goddesses are just lovingly helping me to move forward, and I cannot wait to share this program with you. The plan is to launch it next year in March, but applications will open in January, 2023. So be on the Leela Gurukul email list because you'll get to hear about it first time through the Leela emails.
And now coming to Reincarnation. I'm going to go through the questions that we have prepared to make this reincarnation subject easy to understand and access. So hopefully that will cover all of your doubts, all of your curiosities about reincarnation.
In one line, reincarnation is referred to as the rebirthing of a soul in a new body. So as I'm speaking now, this physical identity, Chandresh, is the reincarnation of the inner soul. In this physical existence, that would be reincarnation.
It sounds simple, but things do go deep and complex. Especially when you start to self-reflect, meditate, explore your traumas, explore the peaks of pains, suffering, also joy, happiness, everything that you go through as a human being. When you start exploring all of that as a seeker, the subject of reincarnation starts to become so much more relevant.
We need to discuss reincarnation because this is one way that you can make the most of this human life. The Eastern traditions, they always mention it takes millions and millions of lifetimes. I believe, if I'm not wrong, 84 million lifetimes. I've mentioned that in my book. Break the Norms, that you have to go through 84 million lifetimes to be born as a human being.
So this is an opportunity. Human life is opportunity to really heal the karmic contracts, to understand the circus, and in my opinion, not come back to the circus. Some people willingly want to come back, some even conscious awakened people also want to come back, and that's not a wrong thing. And if I express I don't want to come back, that's also all right.
The choices are all right whether you want to come back or not. There's nothing wrong in not coming back or coming back. But the challenge happens when you don't know whether you can come back or not. Or if you don't want to, how do you not come back? That's where the discussion of reincarnation becomes so relevant.
And I want to share something interesting because many people may believe that reincarnation does not exist. And I used to believe that too, that it's just probably a fancy fictional story until I started reading and coming across very interesting news pieces from India, and I'm sure it happens in different countries also. But because I grew up in India, so I would have access to those stories.
Many times it has happened, a random kid in a village would start to mention that, "I keep seeing these dreams, I keep seeing these people. They are my parents from past life." And the parents of this lifetime, they would ignore it. They wouldn't pay attention to it because it feels silly, right?
I bet if a child of 2022 starts to say these things, the first thing we'll do is book their appointment to the nearest therapist, psychiatrist, hospital, and maybe give them some medicine to numb down this thought.
But thankfully, the village people are innocent people. They're not corrupted with the city life. So they would follow this curiosity, and if they continue to build and follow this curiosity, the child will take them to that particular village where he's seeing all these visions, having all those memories, and they would actually land to that child's past life, home and meet their parents.
Now, when I say this, it doesn't happen every week, or maybe it does. But these stories were rare, but consistent. I would read these kind of stories very often, and that started to open my mind. And as I got deeper into the tantra practices, I of course wanted to explore more into reincarnation. Not because I wanted to remember my past life, but only to make sense of how I can liberate myself from the karmic contracts that are continuously repeating and find liberation and freedom from that.
And this is my personal intention with the whole reincarnation subject. You could have your own reasons of exploring the chapter of reincarnation in your life. For me, it's all about understanding the struggles and doubts of this lifetime, understanding why certain kind of experiences keep repeating, and also this longing to expand my creative expression. I want to understand if there is any connection to past lifetime, and if I have fully said goodbye to the old so that the new can step in.
Now, this is how reincarnation started to show up for me. Now, the question is, do all beings reincarnate? Is everyone going through reincarnation? Are there some that don't? And if they don't, is it by choice or is it just a random coincidence, the universe randomly picks someone and won't recycle them?
Now, here's the truth. We will all go through this recycling process. I'm calling green reincarnation recycling because honestly, that's what is happening. While I may think I am such an original human, creative artist, tantra guide and so on. And humans can inflate my ego by adding more to this label, but the truth is I'm simply a recycling product of my own lineage. That's all.
It's a complete package that I have taken on. If I have taken on their gifts, their talents, their creative expression, then I've also taken on their challenges. And again, the goal is how can we be free from all of that package if that's the intention, to be free?
So all beings will continue to reincarnate until you choose not to, until you start to do the work, not to ... When a person dies, they go through a period of confusion, even anger, especially if their death happened unnaturally. So it could be a suicide, murder, accident, a young death. These kind of souls go through a lot of anger and confusion because they don't know what happened.
In those cases, the reincarnation doesn't happen instantly because the soul is so confused, number one. Secondly, the people, the family members who are still grieving over this shocking death, they are probably also confused and angry or certainly sad and depressed. So they don't let go of that person and the person who has died is also stuck in that confusion. So this phase of confusion continues to build until someone in the family either practices a certain religious spiritual ritual to let them go or simply start to give them energy that what has happened was not your fault.
What has happened is also not confusing. It's a cycle of death and birth. Sometimes it happens when we are not expecting it, not prepared for it. But the point is, you are free to move on. You're free to let go of this life and have complete trust that your family behind you will find their peace, but you have to move on to the next realms. You have to move on to the next chapter.
By offering this simple statement of love, acknowledgement, and goodbye. In many cases, the unexpected deaths, they do find a way out. And this is also true for those who die in natural death, which means someone in their old age, dying out of simply the age factor, or they were unwell for too long and the body just needed to release the prana, the life force. So all of these beings will reincarnate.
Now, important point here to understand is what was their unfulfilled desire or wish before they died? Because if they have a certain unfulfilled goal or a bunch of unfulfilled goals, they are going to come back to try again. If there were performances they couldn't do, they'll come back to the circus. This is why the yogis and domestics keep reminding us, this is all a Leela, a play.
You got to let go. You got to move on because if you are stuck here, if you are so infatuated with this entire play, you'll keep coming back to repeat the same drama, and you won't go anywhere. You won't experience the next chapters of your life because mind will continue to have desires.
If your biggest desire is to own a private jet or the biggest house or a perfect relationship. Once you have it, I guarantee you the mind will jump onto the next desire, and so on. Mind is never satisfied. And whatever frequency of that desire is, you'll keep recreating that blueprint. The body will keep following it. This human existence is a projection of that mind.
So in order to stop reincarnating, you got to transcend the mind. You got to go beyond the mind. Once the mind is transcended, then there's no footprint. Then you are finally meeting the infinity. Then you are finally meeting that cosmos. Otherwise, you'll keep coming back.
The solution, the conclusion is show up for your daily sadhana, show up for your meditation. When you are experiencing something, experience it so fully that you're not leaving any footprints or impressions to keep coming back to it. And this is a practical challenge for everyone.
People who are angry, they're not angry fully, they are angry on a lukewarm level because they have been told anger is not good. So they continue to be angry on a lukewarm level entire life because if they're too much angry, they start to become afraid of their anger, and they don't know what will happen if they're fully angry.
So when the anger comes out, it explodes. And that's rarely a mindful expression because that anger was supposed to come out 30 years ago in a certain quantity, but now the last 30 years of anger is coming in one day. That won't be good. It's like you haven't eaten for five years, and now suddenly you want to eat for the last five years. That cannot be good.
The same thing happens with our sexual energy. We live in a sexually obsessed and suppressed society. So we continue to suppress it and subconsciously be obsessed with it. And we continue to experience it on a lukewarm level throughout the life because lukewarm feels safe, lukewarm feels familiar. And if that's how we choose to live with energy of sex, anger, desires, then these energies follow us. They'll come back next life and we'll continue to be obsessed and suppressed in the same pattern, in the same drama.
I hope that makes sense. So the conclusion here is show up for your emotions, experiences fully. You're not here to live a lukewarm life. Live intensely, live deeply. It's your life. You got this one shot. Do it well.
Next one is if reincarnation is real, why do we not remember our past lives?
We kind of do sometimes. First thing is, you rather not want to remember the past lives, because if you start to remember everything, there's a good chance the mind will go absolutely insane. You'll have to take medications to numb down that intensity.
Now, that's the unconscious side of remembering. The conscious side becomes awakened when you meditate, when you do the sadhana, when you're showing up for the deeper inner work, we start to have visions, experiences. We start to have interesting sensations or we hear sounds or something unknown happens that feels familiar, mystical, and also unknown. And that's simply glimpses of the past life helping us to remember who we are in this life, helping us to bring us home to the source.
So much of my creative expansion, spiritual expansion happened only through the dreams. And when I started connecting the dots, I was filled with huge gratitude and deep emotions. Because those kind of visuals or dreams or sensations were not showing up randomly, but they were showing up either when I was going through a deep period of confusion, doubt, or complete relaxation out of meditation.
So when I'm not trying for it, when I'm somewhere else, that's when these visuals or memories would show up. And one by one over the years, you start to connect the dots and something makes sense and your mind can do any interpretation on it.
So the goal is when you have these kind of visuals or memories or thoughts, step back, no identification. You cannot be attached to the whole story. You cannot be too emotional about the whole story. You have to step back, look at it through a sadhana, which means be a witness, be an observer, be neutral to what you are seeing. Because that's where the healing, the lessons are unfolding for you.
So in case you are experiencing any interesting visuals, thoughts, memories, stop trying too hard to figure out the process, but step back and start to just pay attention. Be a witness to what's showing up, and hopefully it'll help you to take the next step. That's all.
One thing that can help you in doing this is your sankalpa and your sadhana. Sadhana is your disciplined daily meditation. You got to show up for it every day because sadhana helps to calm down the noise of the mind. It helps to fade away the noise of ego and what remains is the voice of your awareness. That's the power of sadhana. And then sankalpa, the intention. It helps you to cultivate that environment where you can bloom, grow, and move forward.
So quick example from my journey, hopefully that will help you resonate and relate to the experience. When I started having certain kind of dreams where I would see ancient teachers. Ancient means really ancient, like the clothes, their body type, their appearance extremely different. And I would either wake up feeling extremely emotional or going through the emotions in the dream and then different images, figures showing up in their dreams.
I could not avoid those dreams beyond a point, and that was also the time I was questioning my purpose. By that time, I had left Wall Street and I was in the spiritual space, but within the spiritual space, I was avoiding a lot of roles. Because I didn't feel ready, I didn't feel I can show up for it. It felt a lot of love that that needed to take place within me and around me for that, and I needed to be ready to give that love and receive that love.
So when these dreams, memories, sensations kept on showing up, I knew I have to connect. I have to become available to this. And I started reflecting what's lacking, why I'm not connecting? And I realize maybe it's the lack of courage, maybe too much noise within or outside of me. So lack of calmness. And of course lack of clarity. There is confusion.
So I started planting the intention of calmness, clarity, and courage in my intention, and started showing up for my sadhana. And that really became a founding energy, a deep fundamental space to unleash the next chapters of my journey. And I'm sharing the same with you today.
Look at the obstacles that are showing up. Because if these glimpses are showing up from either past life or certain unexplained memories are showing up, they're trying to not even tell you something, but they're showing up because you are not getting in touch with them in this lifetime. And two specific deities that can help in this are Shiva and Kali.
The mantra for Shiva is om namaha shiva. And if there are women or humans who relate to the feminine energy very strongly, who feel there's strong feminine within, the mantra for you would be shivaya namaha. Okay, I repeat shivaya namaha. The mantra for the feminine. And the other deity and this is goddess Kali, shakti namaha. That's the mantra for her.
These deities help us to eliminate any toxic, heavy, unwanted energy in the process because both the deities have element of Kali. The name itself has the sound of Kal in it, and one of Shiva's name is also Mahakal. Kal here means the energy of time and space. The deity of birth and death, the energy of creation and destruction.
So these two deities, they help to facilitate the process. They help to facilitate the ease with which we can show up fully in this lifetime. And if there is any unwanted energy or a stuck energy from previous lifetimes, that becomes much more open. And of course, if we continue to show up for the sadhana in this lifetime, then the next lifetime becomes much more easy and flowing.
When you do this work, you are also connecting to your ancestors, because unfortunately or fortunately, they are also stuck where you are stuck. So while you may share a strong connection to the ancestral lineage, or you may not like them or you may have zero connection with them, they are there. You got to connect to them. You got to understand how they're showing up for you. You got to understand what stories they were stuck in, what stories they were trying to fix in their life, what goals they were trying to understand for their existence.
All of those stories, all of those goals will help to release them wherever they are stuck and to help in unleashing your purpose in this lifetime. Because reincarnation only happens when you are stuck, confused, and ignorant about why am I here.
And I don't mean you've got to exactly figure out why you are here because life, remember, life does not have a purpose. Life is a purpose. So if you're confused and ignorant about these things, you'll chase something that doesn't belong to you. And the deities like Shiva and Kali, the ancestral ancestors, the law of karma is reminding you to come back home, to come back to your energy.
And one trusting question I want to address here is, and we are experiencing a lot of it lately, that some people tend to live a highly negative or toxic life when they are alive. Be it their drug addiction and the damage they bring to the family, or be it their criminal activity when they were alive. Or negative situations where they just happened to be at the wrong time. How does reincarnation take place for them?
So this particular element of human existence is the most painful one. Because when someone has lived a life where they caused a lot of pain, a lot of damage, emotional damage or even worse kind of damage to others around them. So they could be criminals, they could be into deep drug addiction and they have caused a lot of hurtful damage to the family. Their reincarnation is stuck for a long time because there is a lot of anger that they leave behind to deal with. People are angry with them, they are confused with themselves.
If you like it or not, the solution is you got to let them go. You got to offer your acknowledgement, you got to offer your final goodbye to them. Forgiveness becomes so important, so essential in these situations because if you're not forgiving them, then you're also not releasing yourself from that entire cycle.
When you forgive them, you forgive yourself also. You release them and you release yourself also. Because the truth is they'll be stuck in this cycle for a long time, but that will affect you also, that will affect your cycles too of reincarnation.
Next one is when we reincarnate, do we only reincarnate into the future or can we reincarnate into the past? What about other planets? Do we go to other places besides this Earth reality?
I want to mention a book here called Yoga Vasishta. You don't need to read the book, it's a heavy text. It's written by teacher Vasishta, and on his name. The title of the book is Yoga Vasishta. The English translation is on Amazon. The book talks about the multi-dimensions, and I know there are many modern books also that do talk about the multi-dimensional beings we are.
So according to Yoga Vasishta and similar wisdom traditions, all of us are doing all the things in this same very moment through different labels. So I'm speaking to you right now. Let's say a listener, Denise, is listening to me as well. So Chandresh is in multiple dimensions, going through all waves of emotions, cycle of birth, death, and the listener, Denise, is also going through various experiences of life in her own multi-dimensions.
The labels will be different. So Chandresh is only Chandresh here and Denise is only Denise in LA. But we are also present in many more realities all over the place. It's all happening at the same time. The birth, the death, the marriage, the kids, the divorce, the separation, being with family, running away from family. All the emotions, all the experiences are happening at the same time.
And what's the purpose of this drama? That's exactly the purpose. It is drama. Why do you think I call it circus? I don't call it circus because I have some disrespectful attitude toward life. I call it circus because I don't know how else to describe what we are going through.
One day, you adore someone. You tell them you are in deep love with them. Next day when they don't live up to your expectations, you hate them, and third day you start to write all the negative stories about them on social media. And six months later, again, you reunite with them. If this is not a beautiful example of circus, then I don't know what is.
One day I feel I want to create revolution in tantra. I want to explore mantras that can cure aids in the world. And next day, I don't want to do anything. I feel even this tantra work is irrelevant to me. I don't know any if anyone is actually going through a transformation.
But third day, again, I'm back on the fire. So this is circus my friend. This is absolute circus. And you've got to understand it from a non-serious lens. You have to understand it from a playful lens. You have to understand. You are taking this existence too seriously.
The divinity is constantly inviting you to let go of the control. Play in the blooming field, but you have your own battles with your own mind. And there are people building up bigger battles and they are brainwashed to be in those battles, lose their lives, and come back to the world again to repeat the drama. And I know we cannot change them, we cannot fight for everyone, but at least we can stand up for our own existence. We can stand up for our own reincarnation.
So if you are present everywhere, doing everything all at once, at least let's do it playfully. Let's stop being so serious about it. And I'm going to conclude the episode with two questions, but they both are so powerful, I don't want to skip them.
This first question is that people sometimes talk about how they are the reincarnation of spiritual leaders such as Jesus, Buddha, even goddess Kali, Lord Krishna, Lord Shiva. Is there any validity to this and what does tantra say regarding reincarnation of significant spiritual teachers?
If you truly understand the Christ consciousness, the Buddha consciousness, the Kali consciousness, this question will never show up. Because if there's one thing that these beings truly understood was the drama. So when they made the transition, they were released from that form fully. But they continue to exist in the collective consciousness.
That's why I relate to them as consciousness. I rarely use the words like Buddha, Jesus or Kali. I always relate to their energy as Kali consciousness, Buddha consciousness, Christ consciousness, because I feel they do exist in that form. So they have no desire or a goal to come back in a human form and fix things because we are given the strength and the power to transform our existence. And even if they do come, trust me, I don't think anyone will be willing to listen to what they have to say because their message is so clear and simple.
It's rooted in love and compassion and I don't think the world is in mood for any love or compassion. And I know all these scriptures, including the Hindu traditions, Catholic traditions, other traditions, they all talk about that eventually there will be a reincarnation of some godly giant spiritual leader and will change the world.
Personally, I am not waiting for it. I don't think it will happen. And if it happens, great. If it doesn't happen, totally okay because I genuinely feel we are our destruction and we are our creation. So I'm given the power to either self-destruct or self-evolve. It's a matter of what direction I choose to be, and I'm given the tools. If I don't use it, it's my loss. As simple as that. And question of certain spiritual teachers claiming that they are the reincarnation of Kali, Jesus or Buddha, Shiva, it's just a glorified branding. That's all. There's nothing more to it.
Maybe their branding teachers lacked creativity and they said, "You know what? How about we brand you as the reincarnation of the great goddess Kali, or reincarnate you as the great Lord Shiva, how about that?" And they agreed. And people out there are so badly looking for a hero that they just accepted them as the Kali and Shiva incarnation.
Look at our loneliness. Look at how deeply hungry we are that we are accepting a glorified branding as a reincarnation of the the deities. This is the darkest joke of our generation right now, that even educated people, even the most amazing seekers are accepting certain, quote unquote, "spiritual teachers" as the reincarnation of deities.
It's a dark joke. It's leading to a lot of destruction and damage, and that's all I can say about it on a podcast, that few people will listen and fewer people will follow. But those who do, I'm grateful because you are the one encouraging me every week to make my podcast.
And now the final question, and this is so good. One definition of reincarnation is a new version of something from the past. And if we reflect on this definition, does reincarnation only occur by dying and being reborn into a new body or can the principle be applied to this physical life? For example, trees and plants are in a way reborn each springtime. Can humans be reborn or create a new version of themselves while they are alive without starting over in a new body?
So credit has to be given to Alexius for creating all of these wonderful questions. Because yeah, I tell her all the time, all I need is a good question. Give me a good question and that will take care of my podcast. And she really comes up with solid questions, right?
So is it possible to reincarnate within this life? Absolutely, yes. And what if I tell you every seven years, your human existence gives you an opportunity to reincarnate? We call it cycle of seven in tantra traditions, and Vedic astrology believes it, Hindu traditions believe it. Those who study the science of body universe, my guess is even they believe it because it's there. The results are there.
So what happens in cycle of seven? Every seven years, we go through a breakthrough shift. The younger you are, the more subtle that shift is. And as we start to age, that calling continues to become stronger. And I've noticed when students apply for Leela Gurukul, a majority of them are going through cycle of seven. So that cycle of seven means the multiples of seven. So the age of 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, and so on.
There have been many students in my retreats programs, even one-on-one work when they say, "Oh, I was starting 49, so I thought of giving myself this gift, or I was starting 28, I decided to leave this long-term relationship and my job and move into this career. Or I was turning 36 and I finally took the step."
I'm no more surprised that when people are feeling the urge to do something or to create something, but they don't do it until the cycle of seven shows up because it pushes them to do it. And when they don't do it at the cycle of seven, then the urge calms down a bit and again starts to build up. And in many cases, it shows up slightly before you touch the age of that multiple of seven and slightly after you complete that. So it could be 33 through 36 and not exactly 35. It could be 26 to 29 and not exactly 28.
But your human existence, your chakras, your energy, it's constantly working with you. And the beauty is if you have slept with wrong people, if you have been in terrible relationships, if you have gone through terrible trauma in your life, if you have made the worst mistakes or been in a job where you are not rewarded or valued, the universe says, "I'm here to recycle it all. I'm willing to reincarnate you if you are open and available to it."
That's why I tell you all the time, stop forcing and join the flow. Because once you go through a traumatic experience in a job or relationship or a spiritual path, you build the guard so strongly, or you become even more impulsive or go in the revenge mode, that you limit the possibilities. But the goal is that you disconnect the noise, go within, show up for the inner work, and make the most of that extra power, extra energy showing up for you in these cycles of seven.
On that note, I'm going to end this podcast. Do share it with everyone who could use this lesson in teaching and show up for your reincarnation within this lifetime, because that's an opportunity that we get as humans. Be safe, be well, and enjoy the last few days of 2022.
Useful Links
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