Vish Chatterji: Vedic Astrology, Karma & Spiritual Alignment in Business | Ep51

After a successful career as an engineer, executive and entrepreneur, Vish Chatterji is honoring his soul purpose as an East-meets-West executive coach and Vedic wisdom teacher. He helps people find light through the wisdom of his ancestors, leveraging Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy and Jyotish (Vedic Astrology). His coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights serves clients across the globe, and he serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator for the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

Vish holds a BS in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University, an MBA from the University of Michigan and an executive coaching certificate from UC Berkeley. Vish has studied in traditional Himalayan ashrams and at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing.

Vish is the author of The Business Casual Yogi: Take Charge of Your Body, Mind, and Career, and the newly released Astrology Decoded: The Secret Science of India's Sages published by Mandala.

In this episode of the Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast, Christian sits down with Vish Chatterji—East-meets-West executive coach, Vedic wisdom teacher, and author of Astrology Decoded. With a background spanning engineering, corporate leadership, and Himalayan ashram training, Vish shares how Vedic astrology, spiritual practice, and soul-aligned business can transform the way we lead, serve, and succeed.

If you're craving a path that honors both divine timing and practical impact, this conversation offers a powerful blend of ancient insight and modern strategy—inviting you to align with your true purpose and build a business that flows from the inside out.

Connect with Vish Chatterji:

Follow on Instagram: @vishchatterji
Explore Vish’s work and coaching: https://www.vishchatterji.com/
More links and resources: http://linktr.ee/vishchatterji

Core Themes

• Vedic Astrology vs. Western Astrology
• Soul-Level Business Alignment
• Energetic Blueprints for Entrepreneurs
• Morning Rituals as Marketing
• Redefining Success Spiritually
• Conscious Pricing and Energy Exchange
• Divine Trust and Business Flow
• Karma and Leadership
• Spiritual Discipline in Business
• Serving Without Sacrificing Self

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Transcript

Christian
What's up, beautiful people. This is Christian from the Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast. And today I'm super excited to have Vish Chatterji on the call. He is a successful, after a successful career as an engineer, executive and entrepreneur. He is honoring his sole purpose as an East meets West executive coach and Vedic wisdom teacher. So today we're going to dive a little bit deeper into Vedic astrology and Vedic philosophy. super excited.

He helps people find the light through the wisdom of the ancestors, leveraging yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, and Yotish, which is Vedic astrology. His coaching practice, Head and Heart Insights, serves clients across the globe, and he serves as faculty coach and educator for the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley. holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University and MBA from the University of Michigan and an Executive Coaching Certificate from the UC Berkeley.

Vish has studied in traditional Himalayan ashrams and at the Chopra Center for Well-being. Vish is also the author of the business casual yogi, Take Charge of Your Body Mind Career, and the newly released Astrology Decoded, The Secret Science of India Sages, published by Mandala. Welcome to the show, Vish.

Vish Chatterji
Thank you for having me, Christian. I'm excited to get into our conversation and I appreciate you sharing my background with everyone.

Christian
I know.

Yeah, it's always good to know, you know, where people come from and you know, that way you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining your story and this and that and we can right away get into the details and the goodies. So yeah, I personally think it's super fascinating to have a person on that knows about Vedic astrology just because I find Vedic astrology so much more accurate than Western astrology. Do find that to be true?

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, I think if you'd interviewed me when my book launched, so this is about five months ago, six months ago, I said yes. 100%, Vedic astrology is much more accurate. I don't see the point of Western astrology. It's not even accurate to the actual sky. It's hocus pocus, just use Vedic, it's the truth. But, you know, after saying that on a few podcasts, I had a lot of Western astrologers get very upset with me and saying, you hey, why are you dissing Western astrology? And I thought, wait a minute.

You know, and then, and then clients saying, Hey, I had a bunch of Western astrology readings and they were really good. And so I thought, you know, let me, let me start to understand Western astrology a little bit better. I don't know much about it. And I shouldn't just be this arrogant, dismissive person around a system that I don't really know. And so I tried to understand what is there and what I've come to the conclusion of is Western astrology helps you understand your psychology. Where's your mind today?

And it's a seasonal based system. The horoscope or the zodiac calculation adjusts as the years go on. So, you know, the sky 2000 years ago in Western astrology is different to what they use today. And so it's kind of a map of your psychology and overall superficial attributes of who you are. So when you go to Western astrology, you start to feel like, wow, I got to know myself better. I sort of understand why I think the way I do.

Now Vedic astrology then corrects the math to get accurate planet and star positions accurate to the actual sky. So what you see in a chart is what you see out your window. And that helps understand the truth of who really are. What is the truth of your soul? Who are you really underneath all of your conditioning and, you know, year to year experiences? And Vedic astrology's attempt is to help you correct the truth of your soul. So it's a whole different thing.

Christian
Hmm.

Vish Chatterji
So a lot of times when somebody gets a Vedic astrology reading, it's a bit shocking because it's like, you know, they've deviated. The client is deviated so far from their soul. They don't really know like how far they drifted. And the Vedic astrologer says, well, this is who you really are. And people are like, my gosh, like I kind of knew that, but it's a bit jarring, right? Now somebody is very spiritually attuned. They are a yogi. They practice yoga every day. They do a meditation practice every day. They do

know, deep spiritual practices, they've done a lot of self work, then the Vedic astrology is going to make a lot of sense because they're through all these spiritual practices, they're correcting to the truth of who they are. So in a way it's like, yes, I agree. It's a much more accurate system. It's a much deeper system. It's an understanding of you at a soul level. And what are the real karmic patterns you're facing from a karmic point of view from lifetime to lifetime?

versus Western astrology. It's like, yeah, this is kind of my personality type. This is my psychology. This is where I'm at right now. So they both have use, but in different ways.

Christian
Got it. And you, mean, since you wrote a book about it, I assume you use video strategy more. What do you think like for business in general? I mean, that's my broad question, but what do you say is good, better, or what are the advantages in?

Vish Chatterji
Yeah,

Vedic astrology has a much deeper predictive system. You can predict things in the future. You can see what energies are at play. There's a whole system of planetary periods that are active at different times in somebody's life. so the accuracy and predictive ability is much more powerful. And then layered on that, Vedic astrology has a whole remedial system. How do you remedy something? So it's not that you look at your chart and say, oh my gosh, you have a very difficult sun. You have no leadership capability. Give it up.

It's not like that Vedic astrology. Vedic astrology says, okay, you have something weak in your chart. Here's something you can do about it. Here's a spiritual tool, a lifestyle change, a color that you can use, a branding shift you can make to shift that energy to be more aligned. There's remedies. And for a Vedic astrologer, what I do for my corporate clients is I'll pull up their chart to understand them as a leader, but I'll also pull up a birth chart for their company. When did the business start?

And based on that, we know there's a birthing of the business, there's different planetary periods of the business, there's different trends of the business, there's a different personality of the business, and how do you then attenuate the energies of that business to have it become more successful? What color scheme would you choose? What naming would you choose? What things do you want to activate in the business? What services do you want to offer? What kind of customers do you want to gravitate towards to sort of harmonize with the energy of that particular start date?

Christian
Beautiful. I love that. So in your world, mostly you help executives or who's the audience that you serve most as visual? ⁓

Vish Chatterji
So I almost have like

a mix of buckets, right? So there's one bucket that is, you know, a C level senior level executive CEO of a company, senior vice presidents, vice presidents, like senior level management in fortune 500 companies. And for them, a lot of times it's pure executive coaching. Sometimes they're open to some spiritual things. I might teach them meditation. I might teach them a little bit of yoga. And if they're open, some of them are actually.

then I might bring in Vedic astrology as a tool to help understand themselves better. Then the next bucket are small business owners and solopreneurs, people that are starting their own business, writing their own business. And I'm sort of there, in a way I'm their de facto board of director. I'm helping see from the big picture, what is the business, what's your market, who you're trying to focus on, ⁓ basic, you know, brand positioning, marketing, you know, what's the right customer, what customer is serving you, what customer isn't serving you, ⁓ that basic.

solopreneur, small business owner kind of stuff. And then I have another category that are just spiritual seekers, that are literally people on a very deep spiritual path that are looking for some spiritual guidance. And I'm able to use the chart to help them figure out deeper spiritual practices to do, whether it's from the yoga system, the Ayurveda system, the bhakti, know, worship system, all drawing from the Indian Vedic tradition.

Christian
Yeah, beautiful.

And if somebody in the audience is interested in booking a session with you, why would they book a session with you? guess if somebody doesn't really know too much how you can help them or how even astrology can help them. I mean, you offer a wide palette of tools. ⁓ Yeah, maybe a little summary.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, so ⁓ Vedic Astrology, if somebody is open to Vedic Astrology, that's usually the starting point and people don't really know what it is, right? So it's a chance to really understand, OK, here are the energies at play in your life, in your business. And here's and a lot of times a client will say, my gosh, that's something I've always thought of. Like it's been it's been nagging in my mind, but I but you're helping me articulate it. So a lot of times the Vedic chart is able to help someone articulate something that was intuitive, but not.

manifested in verbal or written expression. I'm also trained as a coach, so I'm able to ask a lot of questions. And rather than just doing a reading, like a typical astrologer would just say, okay, here's a chart, and let me just keep talking and talking, I can stop and say, let me ask a question. I see this energy in your chart. I see this energy in this part of your life. I see some challenge with this particular talent of yours. Let's explore that. Tell me about what's going on.

And in that dialogue where the client really shares about their challenges, their perspectives, I'm able to sort of help them facilitate their own wisdom in solving their challenge or in going the next level. And the great thing about astrology is I can tie an issue in there. Let's say it's a coach, right? Somebody who's a coach and they come to me for, for a session. I'm able to link something that happened in their life when they were eight years old to

how they coach their clients. So you can find a particular leadership or energetic block based on something that happened in a life event. And know, with Vedic astrology, you can really pinpoint, I can say, hey, back in 1997, in June, what happened? Because that's affecting your leadership today. That's affecting the way you interact with clients today. This particular client is bringing up this issue for you. And you know, people are floored because that's, you I've had clients where they're in therapy for years and years and never brought that particular issue up.

So I may not identify the issue, but I can say this was an issue that's showing up today. Sometimes I can identify quite accurately this is what happened, Mom did this or a sibling did this to you or you were a victim of some violence and now it's showing up in the way you coach.

Christian
Yeah, beautiful. I think that's so powerful. in your in your opinion, you know, since I think you are quite the embodiment of the successful spiritual learner, what would you say is your definition of the successful spiritual?

Vish Chatterji
Hmm. So the metrics keep changing, right? Like when I was in the corporate world, the metric was am I getting promoted? Am I making more money? And I rose to a position where I had the title, I had the power, I had the influence and impact and I had the big pay. So when I exited out of that and I went into my own practice, my pay went down tremendously, right? I was probably at a fifth of the income I was at when I left the corporate world, right?

So at that point, am I successful? It feels like I'm one fifth as successful. I have no title, I have no team, I have no organization. I'm just like an individual and I make one fifth of money. So what does that mean? But my spiritual growth accelerated tremendously. I was able to put more time into my practices, more time into my mantra practice, my chanting practices, my yoga practices, my sadhana, my meditation. And I was able also to build a business that became about me.

where I can choose my schedule. I can take a day off when I want. can see a client at the time that makes sense to me. I can spend more time with my family. So initially, I was thinking success is different now because I'm more present for my children. I'm more present for my wife. I'm more present for myself. And I'm also learning and expanding a knowledge that I wouldn't have been able to expand. I wouldn't have been able train that way had I been in that 12-hour-a-day corporate job. So in that way, I was more successful.

Now over time, as you know, I've been in practice for over eight years now, over time I built up a client base. have clients all over the globe. I've been coaching, counseling, I've written a book and then I wrote a second book. So then that became interesting because now I have, I'm published author of some very interesting subjects, yoga and business and then Vedic astrology and how to use that in your day-to-day life. And so the success metric is completely different now. Now the income has come up now, right? Because now

I'm known, I've got a thriving practice, so my income is coming back to something reasonable, not the same as the corporate days, but you know, I'm proud of it. And so how do I measure success, I think is, am I living life on my terms? Am I, you know, do I have a business that fulfills me spiritually and materially? To me, that's a new success metric.

Christian
Hmm.

Yeah, think

it's so important to bring that back into the conversation because everybody, I mean, still today, most people define success through the material and the financial. So yeah, it's...

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, and you know,

if you're a coach and I'm sure a lot of you relate to this, you're probably hit with all sorts of advertising on Facebook and it says, you hey, sign up with us and we'll get you to six figure income per month, you know, $100,000 a month. And it's like, does that really work? And now I've coached some of those people who do that and I've seen what's behind the scenes and it's not real. It's not real. It's not sustainable. So I think it's very important to

Be very careful how you measure what your success is. Don't tie it to some number that was advertised to you. That's the first rule. Don't tie it a number that advertised.

Christian
Yeah.

I think it works. Like you can coach somebody for income for sure, but the amount of work it takes is often underestimated. You know, it's like the promise of like in three months or six months. I mean, I've made one month, which is like, if you believe that you're really delusional. ⁓ But let's say, let's say six months, maybe even a year in year. I'm going to get you from being nine to five now to making a hundred thousand six figures.

Vish Chatterji
Exactly right.

Christian
How? Like you probably have not, you're not that smart at business yet. Like you don't really know how to, like all these things you need to do differently from like nine to five than being an Like create content, getting yourself out there, leadership, organization, self, you know, productivity stuff. You know, it's like, it doesn't happen in a month. I don't think in three months, I'm surprised in six months and I'm still surprised at one year, you know?

Vish Chatterji
Yeah. And even then, what are you willing to compromise in terms of your values? Right. So that's another thing is people start, you know, we have this concept I use with clients called, you know, Icky marketing. Like if you're involved in Icky marketing, you can grow your business. You can become very successful, but what have you given up? What have you given up in terms of your values, your authenticity, authenticity and your integrity? So I am, you know, I'm very proud in what I've created because it's not icky.

Christian
you

Vish Chatterji
I don't do any marketing even.

Christian
How did you create it?

Vish Chatterji
⁓ Well, it's just to my values, right? So I remember even when the book launched, in the book,

Christian
I guess give us a little like, I started this year and now I saw it going that, you know what mean? Like a little timeline of sorts. I think if you...

Vish Chatterji
Yeah,

I mean when I started it was basically, you know, I I charge an hourly fee so I meet a client, they pay me for the hour and that's it. I don't do any sort of, know, you have to commit to this. You have to do this package. You don't have to do like it was very much set in the beginning. It was just session to session so I could know if I'm doing a good job. They're going to reschedule. If I'm not doing a job, they're not going to reschedule. Whereas when when a lot of coaches start out, they start with these package things where you have to do this and you have to commit for this time.

And that way, if the coach is not doing well, the client has no exit. So then the client is trapped, but the coach also doesn't get real feedback because the client's trapped. So I started with a very simple, like, okay, here's my hourly rate. And at the end of every session, you can decide if you want to continue or not. Very, very flexible. And then I started notice certain clients that I was working with, they just kept coming back over and over for years. And I was like, okay, this is working what I'm doing with those clients.

then they would make referrals. They would say, hey, Vish is doing this with me or somebody who noticed their change. So it became very, very organic. I had no online presence, no social media, not even a website. I did an about me page. If you remember what those were a single page and that was it at a business card. And then little by little things started growing and people say, Hey, why don't you do this? And I started a little newsletter, but then I was like, I don't really have time for that. I'm busy. And then, ⁓

Little by little social media. ⁓ I didn't do much on it. Again, I, it's not something that I have a lot of time or cycles for. I just focused on the coaching. So it's been years. So for me to build up to a sustainable practice took two or three years and very basic business approach. I'm, I'm trained as an MBA. I can get very sophisticated in business, but this is something that was just a very simple, like here I am. Here's what I offer. The big work I think was getting clear. And what is it that I do that's unique?

Christian
Hmm.

Vish Chatterji
What makes me unique as a coach and identifying that, I'm trained in yoga for 20 years and I'm trained in business with an MBA and 20 years in the corporate world. Plus I had this coaching experience. If I combine those very unique, this East meets West coach. So, you know, you've got it right. When some people say that's exactly what I need. And some people say, yeah, that's not for me. Then you know, you have it right. That's your positioning, right? Then over time, as the book came out, the book got lots of exposure.

exposure, people start coming in hearing about the book on a podcast or here and there. And the second book on astrology that sort of blew up in a big way. So you know now new clients, I think I'm booked into August or something like that. It's months and months. I just don't have room in the schedule, but again, I haven't done any any tricks. There's no marketing tricks. There's no sort of. You know, like even if you buy my book, there's a referral to website to calculate your birth chart, even if you don't buy the book.

But the idea is that you go to this website, you put in your birth details, and it'll generate a birth chart for you. And my marketing person said, Vish, you should require an email capture. If somebody's gonna get a free chart calculated, at least capture the email and grow your email list. And I was like, no, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that. Like if you come to my website and you wanna generate your chart, do it for free. It's totally available for you. It's my offering, right? I'm not gonna, I say optionally, if you want, enter your email, happy to.

keep you on my list, but it's not forced. Somebody would say the moment you capture an email, send a lead magnet, right? Send this email with this offer and this thing. I'm like, I don't wanna do that. It just doesn't feel aligned with my values, right?

Christian
Yeah.

Yeah, I think

⁓ the market has shifted quite a lot in the sense of you need to feel organic, right? years ago when the funnels came onto the marketplace, everything was just like pushed through this like forced flow of like, you want this? No, you want that? Okay, here. It's like, on. Like, yeah, you can do all these things, but maybe not in such a short array of time. You know what mean? It needs to feel.

Organic just the the sales cycle itself. I feel has gotten a lot slower people want to take their time They want to digest things they want to like just breathe, you know

Vish Chatterji
And they're overloaded with information. Like right now we just have too much coming at us. It's too much clutter. And I don't want to be a contributor to that clutter in people's lives. Right. If people and I think that's the other thing is when you're a spiritual entrepreneur, you're a little bit different. You're doing this because this is something coming deep from your soul. This is not just a business. This is part of your spiritual growth and identity. So you have to take a more spiritual business approach, a more conscious business approach. So

If you're selling a widget, yes, maybe you just find a way to market that widget, push it, advertise it, lead, magnet, all the funnel, the whole thing. But if it's you, then I believe your marketing actually happens in your spiritual practices. And from a Vedic astrology perspective, I believe the work that you do at your altar, you sit at your altar, you work with the divine, the divine sees, wow, Christian, you're being very sincere. You have something to offer.

the divine then says, so-and-so needs Christian's help. I'm going to make that arrangement happen. And the divine hand sort of connects the right person to the right healer. And as a spiritual entrepreneur, you have to understand that concept. You have to work with that concept. You have to work with those energies where your referral source is coming from somewhere else. It's not coming from the material plane. And that's a whole different mindset. And so I find if somebody is spiritually not conscious, then you got to push the marketing angle.

You got to do the posting and the this number of posts a week and make sure has this content and make sure it has this hashtag and make sure you send this email out. That's if you're spiritually a bit closed up. The moment you start to open up spiritual, you realize the marketing is happening in completely different way. The inner work that you do gets recognized by some energy, whether it's divine source, whether it's your spirit guides, whether it's the pit threes in Vedic tradition or devas, you know, they start to see.

and they start to make the connection and they bring the right people to you. And then you just show up and do your work. So turns out the marketing effort is actually your morning spiritual practice.

Christian
Yeah.

That's funny. I like that. I've noticed that in my life too. Sometimes I get little itchy about money here, especially living in the US. The bills are not like, it's it's 2000, 6000, 4000, 5000. No, it's like 10,000 a month if you have a family in the house and a car. It just adds up. Sometimes I think I was like, I don't know. You know what I mean? If I don't know. The minute I start to like, it's always like, when I'm at that point of it, I'm gonna get really itchy. like, oh my gosh.

like, I gotta do something about this. I feel like this and that, you know? I feel like usually the same week something comes, you know? It's like, it's incredible because I'm just like, yeah.

Vish Chatterji
The same week something comes.

So what's the spiritual dynamic happening there?

Christian
Well, I think, you know, I have already like my base of spiritual practice set up very well, right? And I live a life in integrity. that one week or that thought or whatever, when that threshold is reached, that for me is like that accrued karma, I guess, comes back, if you want to call it that. I'm not sure if I completely live by that, but I've noticed very often that when I get to the point of

I don't want to say desperation, but it's like, I'd be nice to have something now. It's usually cool.

Vish Chatterji
panic.

Yeah. So there's a moment of there's a moment of like, what is the universe trying to tell you when

Christian
you're provided for, you're taken care of.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah,

so there's some sort of like trust where you're like, I'm not sure I trust this anymore. At that moment, the universe gives you signal and says, hey, do trust. Right, so that's what's happening is you have a moment of despondency. You have a moment of I'm not sure if it works this way in the universe. OK, here you go. I remember there was a point in my business where I was, you know, you send an email to somebody who's interested and you're waiting to hear back and you send a follow up email and they're not coming back. You're like, that was like.

Christian
Yeah.

Vish Chatterji
you somebody I really want to work with and the, you know, the package is good, like, or the rate's going to be good. This is great thing. I wish it would work, but you're just like working and working and working and just constantly on. And I had this sort of feeling that I'm just working too hard and I need more downtime, more downtime to just do nothing. What is the Italian saying? Il dolce far niente, like the, you know, the, the, beauty of doing nothing, right? The sweetness of doing nothing. So I was like, I need more doing nothing time. And I live by the beach. I live.

Christian
Hmm.

Vish Chatterji
You know, you're in Florida, I'm in California. I live a mile and half from the beach, 10 minute ride. But I don't go to the beach, I just work and work and work and work. So it's like, what's the point of living by the beach if you never go to it? So one day I said, you know, let me just take four hours and just go to the beach and read a book, read a spiritual book, stare at the waves for a while, jump in the ocean, just do nothing for a few hours on a workday, not on a weekend. I'm in the middle of a workday. So let's see what happens. I go play at the beach, bike there.

bicycle back, come back to my desk, all cleaned up, open my email box, and there's the email I've been waiting for. It showed up in those hours. And I'm like, I've been waiting for weeks for this. I'm like, what does that mean? So I was like, you know, maybe it's a sign, maybe it's a sign that the universe wants me to kind of connect with nature more. But I'm like, maybe it's a coincidence. So I tried again, another week. Same thing happens.

Christian
Yeah.

Vish Chatterji
I tried this experiment three times on three random days across a month. And each time I came back, there was something I'd been waiting for for weeks that showed up. And I was like, okay, now it's not a coincidence anymore. Now the data is showing that there's something going on beyond my understanding. But I do need to learn to work with that energy, work with that trust and really understand the universe. You know, I'm trained as an engineer. So I'm always like, you know, it's not obvious to me. Like many of your listeners, you're like,

Christian
Wow.

I know.

Vish Chatterji
Come on, Vish, this is obvious. This is how the universe works. But for me, I had to kind of experiment and try it out and now I'm like, yeah, it does work.

Christian
Yeah, yeah, I think it's beautiful to get a reminder like yourself or like myself of that trust because oftentimes you forget you forget you about you know, you forget about your connection to source the universe and you think obviously, you know it better and you got to play God in your life all the time and you forget about that trust and then you're not going to experience it if you always forget about it, right? You're to come back to that place of letting go, ease, trust.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah. And so that morning practice is one of the most important things that I've come up with this idea of a morning ritual. What is your morning ritual? And, you you spend, especially as a spiritual entrepreneur, as a solo, as you're working, you are constantly dealing with people's stuff. Like, you know, just now the street sweeper went by to clean the street. So these are, are omens, right? Like if I'm tuned in, I've done my morning practice, I can say, oh, a street sweeper went by. What does that mean? Well,

the streets get dirty over time. You as a spiritual entrepreneur, when you're working with people, you're starting taking on some of their dirt. You're taking on some of their karma. You're getting deep conversations with the client. You're understanding their karma. You may not call it karma, but you're understanding their challenges. Some of that gets peppered on you, and that needs a regular cleansing. So every morning when you sit in the morning and you do your practices, when you do yoga practice, you do yoga practice, you meditate.

You do some kind of chanting, you light some incense, all that is cleaning up, cleaning up, street sweeping, ready for the next day. And then you show up again. And that daily routine of daily ritual cleansing is very, important. You're cleaning up your channels. The second thing that happens when you have a daily morning practice is you're making a connection to the divine. In Sanskrit, we call this sadhana. Sadhana is a daily connection to the divine of your choosing, whatever method you use.

And that is what influences your work. So if all you're doing is working, working, working, going to bed, getting up, working, working again, you're missing the point. Like you might as well get a corporate job and make way more money. When you do this, you're aligning spiritually. So you need as a spiritual entrepreneur, as a solopreneur, you have to have some kind of a morning cleansing practice, divine connection practice. Throughout the day, you need to keep reminding yourself that connection to divine.

And the evening you have to have some kind of ritual that cleanses and readies you for for the evening. Right becomes very important markers.

Christian
Hmm.

Love that.

Yeah, I think it's so essential to get back into the habit of clearing, cleansing, self-care. You know, I think when you're a solopreneur, you tend to just like, as you say, take on a lot of stuff throughout the day, whether it's client stuff for your own or in your family stuff, you start helping family members, you know, solving their problems, helping them with their business instead of your own. There's a lot of stuff, you know, so I think it's very crucial, as you say, to

to really master that regular morning practice. yes, during the day, if you can do something, fantastic. And evening also. It's beautiful.

Vish Chatterji
So what

happens when a family member comes and says, hey, Christian, help me out? What do do?

Christian
Yeah, okay. First response is, you want to people, please, you know, you want to help these people. ⁓ And I feel, you know, I mean, for me, it's a little bit easier because most of my family members are in Germany, right? I only have like my immediate family, wife and child here here in Florida. So, yeah, for them, it's like, yeah, of course I help you. And it's usually like immediate, right? Because when somebody requests it, you do it immediately. But a lot of times another time would be better.

for yourself because you just came off a client call or some long work hour or work session, right? So you carry that with you into that, whatever it is you're doing for them.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah.

Yeah. How many times do you get somebody saying, hey, can you give me a friend's discount?

Christian
Yeah, people who know me, always ask for discounts for sure.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah. And shouldn't

our friends be the ones that support us the most? Right? Like my income depends on my work. And now you're asking me because you're my friend that I should get less income to help a friend. That doesn't make sense. Like, you know, if you have a day job, and I think this was my mindset, I had a day job. If somebody asked me for help on the side, of course I'm happy to help because I'm already getting paid by a company. I have a salary. Of course I'll help as much as I want to help people.

But the moment I've left that day job and this is my job, every time somebody asks me for help, I'm taking my energy, my time and giving it and foregoing income. And when I give a discount, it's even less. Like, so I've always wondered. when I work with people and they say, hey, Vish, you're my friend, I'm going to give you a deal. I say, no, I'm your friend. I'm going to pay you full price. If I'm your friend, I should support you the most. So if I'm your friend, I'm paying full price.

You can discount somebody else, but not for me, because I'm your friend. And so that's one thing to remember as a spiritual entrepreneur is you should ask your friends to help you by paying your full rates. That's one. The other is how many freebies do you give out? Like at some point ⁓ it gets exhausting, right? Like I could literally spend, I could have a full time job right now only helping people that claim to be my friends and family. I could work a full month, 40 hours a week.

just helping the people that are asking me for free help and not provide for myself, right? So it starts to get like, you know, it starts to get a little out of control. Now in astrology, we understand the concept of karma. Everything is karma. And so if somebody comes to me and I do some work for them and I don't charge them, I just got a big credit for helping someone and they just got a big debit for taking free energy. That's not good for them.

That's not going to help them. So you start to realize that in a way, put the money aside, put the income needs aside. If I don't charge for my work, that person will actually suffer because they're getting some free benefit without having energetically exchange for it. And I'm getting this increase in credit, but that's a bit selfish in the karmic credit realm. So in a way you have to charge in order for the karmic to get the karmas to get balanced.

You have to charge for your work in order for there to be an equal balance so that they get benefit from that advice. So even it's a family member, if they ask me to look at their chart, I say I will, but you have to pay for it. And I don't need the money. I'm happy to help you go make a donation somewhere, but it has to be this amount because this is the value of that service. You know, we, we in this day and age don't seem to understand this concept of energy exchange. You know, when, and I talked about this in my book, you go to restaurant, you eat a meal.

Why do you have to pay that high price? ⁓ this plate's too expensive. But you're paying for the server, you're paying for the chef, the cook, the short order person, the delivery driver who brought the supplies to the restaurant, the landlord, rent that has to be paid for that restaurant. All of that is baked into that price and people don't think about that. You have to fairly compensate all of these different factors involved in that particular thing, in that particular meal. As a solo entrepreneur, as spiritual entrepreneur,

All those courses you took all that training you did all those certifications you paid out of your pocket for that And now somebody's coming and say hey you did all that knowledge and now condense it down for me in this 30 minutes And give me some advice. It's like You did all the work that the reason you're able to provide that is because of all the expenses you made All those hotel stays all those flights all those trainings all those zoom calls all that time you spent you should get compensated for that All right. So so think about it, you know, I urge everyone to think about

this sort of holistic view of what you're offering. You're not a nobody. You're bringing something to the table you should get compensated for, just like a corporation would compensate someone for their services.

Christian
Hmm.

Yeah, I think it's a very important conversation of worthiness, you know, that it comes down to, right? Especially since we live in a day and age where it's so easy to find something similar for free somewhere else in like a matter of seconds. You know, if you know how to look for it, it's very likely you're going to find a free coaching session for an hour on YouTube, right?

Vish Chatterji
Yeah. And there's no karmic energetic exchange happening there. Right. So it actually doesn't work out for you. So that that's the thing. And I think about myself, you know, somebody's asking me for some free time and I'm not giving that time to my son who needs advice from me. Right. So, you know, there's always a trade off with your time, your self care routines, your wind down rituals, your morning rituals, the obligations you have to your children.

the obligation you have your spouse, that all takes time. And so every bit of your time is precious. And of course you should give freely to those that your immediate family, your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings, you kind of have to do that. That is part of your responsibility as being a part of a family. But when somebody who's outside of that says, give me a free, then it's like, I'll give it to you, but then I'm sacrificing that for my wife or my son or my own care or whatever it is. So I think it's very important as spiritual entrepreneur to really be clear about.

boundaries. Just because you're spiritual doesn't mean that it's all love and give and give. There has to be some, because people don't understand this energetic principle, you have to enforce it on people because they won't understand it otherwise.

Christian
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I think it's a really healthy perspective to hone in on, you know. So thanks for, thanks for reminding us of that.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, you know, when we started the conversation, well, I didn't know we would go here, right? Like why, why is the compensation money thing coming up? Well, the moment we started, ⁓ in my, where I am, the sign, the Zodiac constellation of cancer is rising and in it and cancer is emotions, emotions. And in it is the planet Mars at the moment. Mars is in the sign of cancer per astronomy. And so on my Eastern horizon, the planet Mars is rising in cancer.

And when Mars is in cancer, it's debilitated, which means it doesn't give its full power. And Mars is the planet that's the warrior that stands up for principles and stands up for what is right. And when it's debilitated in cancer, it's unable to stand up for what's right. So the conversation we're having is energetically a, my emotions don't allow me to stand up for what is right. And so for all of you listening, because there's the energy at play at this moment when we're recording,

You have to think what emotions are preventing you from standing up for what's right. Why are you not standing up for what you're worth?

Christian
Beautiful. That's a good question to journal on.

Vish Chatterji
Thank

Yeah, a great journey homework from today's conversation.

Christian
Beautiful. So we're coming up towards the end of the episode and I would want to dive a little bit more into your, you know, more personal question in terms of who or what inspires you the most currently in your spiritual and entrepreneurial journey.

Vish Chatterji
Hmm. would say this, relationship I'm developing with the divine is inspiring. You know, I grew up in a Hindu family and we had a lot of rituals. We went to temple, we did all these things, but they're all very routine. There's no meaning behind this. Like you're supposed to do this. So you do it, do this, say this mantra, pray to this God. Okay. But I didn't understand what's going on. Like many religions, you just do it because you're told to do it, but you don't really understand what's happening. And over time,

When I went to my coaching training, I met ⁓ this man who was a coach who became a coach to me. His name is Don and he's one of the coaches at Berkeley Executive Institute and he's a very deeply religious man. He's Catholic and deeply religious. It's almost like wherever he goes, like God is following him around and whenever he speaks is as if God is speaking through his mouth. And I just felt like, how do I be like that? How do I have that? You know, is it?

Christian
Yeah.

Vish Chatterji
Is it religion? Is it something else? Like what is it? He seems to be the most God-connected person. I feel like he's a walking living God-connected human. And I started to wonder with this inspiration in a human form, how do I have that in my life? And as I've been doing my rituals and my practices from the yoga tradition and the yoga tradition is connected to the Vedic tradition, very Indian tradition, I started doing things out of faith.

because that's what you're supposed to do, I believe it. But I also understand the science behind it, but little by little things have been shifting in my life. And I really am starting to feel this divinity around me all the time. And then as it happens, because I'm an engineer, I'm like, am I believing it or is it real? I happen to meet a few psychics. I have psychics that are my clients, I have mediums that are my clients, and when they sometimes come and I do a ritual, they'll be like, yeah, so this deity has appeared.

Like they know it, they feel it, they can sense it, they can see it. So what to me is a belief and a scientific practice, it's turning out actually is really happening energetically. That these deities start to show up, they start to energetically show up in the space you're in. Ancestors, spirit guides start to show up in the space. I can call on a spirit guide, I can offer something to a spirit guide, but I can't feel if they're really there.

But when I have a psychic around, they're like, yeah, it worked. You called and they're there. They're actually around you. I'm like, wow, really? So I hope that on my journey, I'll start to have that sensitivity. But for now, I'm starting to get a real logical understanding that this stuff is not made up.

Christian
Yeah, I love that too. Yeah, always some ascended masters I guess I would connect with on a regular basis is I've been like have a picture of them in front of me on my wall is Jesus, Saint Germain, Saint Francis, know, his freedom and his just like playfulness, like no material. He's just like playing like a kid, you know.

Vish Chatterji
That's incredible.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Christian
And then Saint Germain because of the material. He was a very... He was a noble man, you know? And also very spiritual, intellectual. Kind like the archetype of the tarot card, the magician. He could manifest anything out of the ether, you know?

Vish Chatterji
So there's sort of, depending on your level of consciousness, at a minimum level you say, okay, it's an archetype. It's an archetype and I feel called to that archetype. I think of that archetype and that's one energetic thing. The next layer is I feel that archetype and it's actually activating that archetype in me. And so that archetype energy is activating in me and I'm doing more of that. The next level is,

the faith and dedication that archetype is actually a real being on a different plane and that being's interacting with me and helping things in my life. The next level is you actually feel and see and interact with that being literally like you're doing. So there's just different phases depending where you are in the journey. You know, it can just be an archetype. can be an archetype activates in you. It can be a faith based thing or it can actually become very real, very tangible, right?

Christian
Yeah, I think it's so fascinating the concept of spirit worlds and I mean it's an interesting experience as a human being you know it feels very unlimited and limited at the same time.

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, but what I found is the Indian system, the Vedic system. So this is the system that yoga comes from Ayurvedic mind body medicine comes from Jyotish comes from Vedanta all these ancient 8,000 year old practices. These people from ancient India already understood all this. There's no question about it. There was no searching. There's no questioning. There was no confusion. They just knew this is the system. This is the way the universe works right now.

Western culture where getting bits and pieces. yeah, there's this thing and there's this thing, but this is already known in the ancient Indian tradition. And so a lot of times people are like, I'm surprised that I'm learning this, but it's like, it was already known. It's already a system and it's very integrated and the yogic process, the meditation. And I'm not talking about gymnastics yoga. It's not like do, you know, some kind of twisting thing on your mat, the full yoga system and it's holistic form with the eight limbs.

the ashtanga, understanding the philosophies, as you practice these systems, you start to develop these abilities. You start to open up that consciousness. You start to connect to these things. And then you're like, well, yeah, it's obvious. That is just the way the universe works. It's not surprising, right?

Christian
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting to see how the world, you know, also goes in cycles of forgetting and remembering that, right? Like Asian civilizations before us were probably much smarter, right? We just forgot, came from that, you know, it's like, I don't know.

Vish Chatterji
Hmm.

They didn't have these dumbing down devices. is the

reduction of intelligence device.

Christian
I

love how they call it the smart phones, you know?

Vish Chatterji
It's so

smart, takes all the smarts away from you. It's a smart magnet, it just pulls it out of you and then you're not smart anymore.

Christian
I know.

It's funny, I was living with a shaman in Bali before I came to the United States and ⁓ started my family here. ⁓ And he said, know, humans, we already can do everything that we want to. We just like, the mass consciousness just wants it to, I guess, be manifested, right? And like, whatever we think we can, it needs to be like, met tangible for them. And then I guess, integrated back in a way, like currently in the stage of

consciousness that we're at. So for example, the smart phone, we can actually already like telepathically communicate. We just don't want to or have been educated to being able to, right? ⁓ So that's why the smart phone was invented and such a huge success.

Vish Chatterji
I mean, there's research that measures IQ levels if your smartphone is on the table with the screen up versus the screen down versus not in the room. And they get three different IQ scores in a randomized, like actual medical study. They're like, wow, if the phone is even in the room, your intelligence goes down. And if the screen is up, intelligence goes down even more. So at a minimum, whenever you're anywhere, turn your smartphone so the screen is down.

Christian
I And then the iPhone recently, got the feature, I think iOS 15 or something, now we're on 18. ⁓ They got the feature of like always on, right? So you could have had it up. do it, always dumb, exactly. You could have it up and black. That's how it used to be before iOS 15. But now it's like always on. This thing is always on? This is so annoying. So I turned this off immediately. was nuts.

Vish Chatterji
And if you can, put it in another room.

always dumb ⁓

But I have

mine always on, but I put pictures of me with my family at the temple. So I always see that. So that's a positive thing. And then it shows me the star constellation active at the moment. So it shows me the moon star constellation that's in and the moon phase. So in a way you can trick it a little bit and make it less dumb. If you have to. So if I forget to turn it upside down, at least I'm seeing something that's, you know, a little bit more conscious.

Christian
Yeah,

some subconscious reprogramming while you're subconsciously looking at it your left eye or the corner of your left eye like that. Well, I'd love to know what your vision for the new Earth is, however you define that, you know.

Vish Chatterji
Yes.

Well, I would say I'm a bit America centric because I live in America and you know, to be fair, the US does influence the way the whole earth functions. And so whatever is happening, America seems to then transcend and hit the whole world. And America, if I pull a birth chart for America is in a very, very difficult period at the moment. It's a time of reckoning, you could say. And so this is a time when everything gets torn down to the ground and we decide who are we really.

and we decide which direction we want to go, and that decision is happening now. It's happening in next two, three years. So as if I extrapolate that to the planet Earth, the Earth is going through a period right now deciding which way do we want to go. Do we want to go the route of darkness or the right route of light? That's literally the decision ahead of us. And I know there's this split Earth theory that I've heard about where there'll sort of be these two parallel worlds, one of darkness, one of light.

I don't know if I understand that or necessarily agree with that, but there is some wisdom there that right now is a chance for us to accelerate consciousness or accelerate unconsciousness. It's up to each one of us to decide what we want to do in this time. Do we want to join the unconsciousness or join the consciousness? You decide. And whatever you decide, that's okay. It's your choice, right?

⁓ So I believe this time coming for us, at least in the US and I think in the world, next two, three years you have to decide, are you treading towards light or darkness? Make that choice and then honor it and see what happens.

Christian
I think, mean,

obviously everybody's biased, I'm biased, you know, I can only speak from my experience, but I see that collectively that a lot of people are choosing for the right.

just from my experience.

Vish Chatterji
And you can

easily say a lot of people are choosing for not light as well. It's both there, right? And you know, we're all on a karmic journey and karma, kar means to do, act. Karma is a consequences that are result of your actions. So in the Vedic system, there's no judgment. There's just accounting, pure accounting. Things that are good, you get rewarded for. Things that you do that are not good.

Christian
Probably, yeah.

Vish Chatterji
you get punished for. That's just how it goes. So whatever choices you make, you will have the consequences happen of those choices. If you choose to move towards the divine, you choose towards consciousness, you choose towards kindness, you choose towards compassion, you choose towards stillness, the rewards come for those things. You choose towards violence, you choose towards aggression, you choose towards non-compassion, you'll suffer for those.

and everybody's on their journey to receive the karma for whatever choices they make, right? And who is best to decide what the right choice is for you? It's you. You know deep down inside. You don't need anyone to tell you. If you're relying on somebody to tell you what's right and wrong, then you're missing the point. You have to come back to you and decide what's right and wrong. And any of the world's religious systems or spiritual systems, they all say the same thing. Be kind, be compassionate.

Have a good heart.

Consider the divine in everything you do. Honor your responsibilities. All these things are the basic tenants of any system. So when you're not doing that, you will suffer. Right? So if somebody in your life is choosing things that you don't agree with, let them do it. That's fine. That's on them. They'll pay the price. You don't have to be the enforcer of it.

Christian
Yeah, beautiful. Well, it's been a beautiful time we spent, 15 minutes. And yeah, I love the perspective you bring to life, to a world, you know, it's very neutral, which is always great, you know, to see things from a vantage point of, we're here.

You can go this, you can go that, you can... You know, it's a very wise perspective, because in truth we can do anything we want, you know?

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, and no matter the circumstance, always have control over your spiritual evolution. No matter what's happening in the world around you, you have every ability to look up at the sky and feel the divine presence. It's always there.

Christian
Yeah, to take the power back and the responsibility, know, it's ultimately within us. ⁓

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, exactly.

Whatever somebody else is doing, it shouldn't be of concern to you.

Christian
Beautiful. I love that. Especially in regards to politics, which we won't talk about, but it's such a big topic always, especially with astrology. People always want to the future. Trump and Elon, they're all looking at all the things. It just doesn't really matter.

Vish Chatterji
And their karma is due. They'll have their karmic thing. mean, everybody, like everybody, everybody has a karmic reckoning at some point. It always catches up. No deed goes unnoticed in the universe.

Christian
Beautiful. Well with that ⁓ we end our today's episode and thank you so much for being here. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, your heart, your energy, your integrity and everything you put out into the world.

Vish Chatterji
Thank you, Christian. I'm so happy you reached out to me. I'm glad we made this connection. I'm glad we had this conversation. I've been on so many podcasts lately, but none of them have got to this type of conversation which you were able to bring out. So you are a remarkable interviewer, a remarkable soul. You have such a great presence and you really bring out some very deep wisdom. And so keep doing what you're doing and keep spreading the joy through your podcast and through your work.

It's amazing to have a light like you in the world.

Christian
Thank you. Yeah, I feel ⁓ it's always nice to be seen, of course. And I feel why not have a deeper conversation when they allow for it, you know? And, you know, these questions that we sometimes send to our interviewees are just placeholders, right? Like what wants to come up, what wants to be seen, what wants to be talked about, you know? I feel the conversation is getting... ⁓

a lot more fluid in this time and age where it's just like, do A to Z, you know, not, no, it's like you will find your way in the A to Z, you know?

Vish Chatterji
Yeah, yeah, great. All right, Christian, we'll have a good rest of your day. Thank you again for the interview and I'm sure we'll be in

Christian
Likewise, thanks for being on.