Subhechcha Ganguly 
Selvan Srinivasan is an author, mentor, and practitioner of energy medicine. He has curated the beautiful book “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module – A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life”. Let us know more about him in this interview.
Q1) How did you understand your calling as an author? What was your first writing experience?
Ans: I first started reading novels when I was eight years old and had read the entire series of Enid Blyton’s children’s novels by the time, I was ten. During this time, I remember going by train from Bombay to Madras with my cousin sister who is the same age as me and our entire joint family. Our parents had promised to buy us books on the way, but we couldn’t find them in any of the stations the train stopped. Disappointed, we both promised each other that we would grow up and become authors and write a lot of books so that there is no shortage of books!
I have been a writer all through my life although not in a professional sense. I used to always be the go-to person to write all important letters and submissions for my extended family and all my colleagues at my workplace.
I experienced life transforming events with respect to my health, relationships, and career during the years 2016 and 2017 on account of my own journey into my Awareness. This inspired me to write articles on my blogpost and answers to questions on Quora during recent years. I have been teaching and mentoring a program called “Awareness Journey” to hundreds of individual participants over the last five years. Last year, I heard a clarion call from within to write this book and took a two-month vacation from my mentoring work, to go on a long drive all through South India, stay in a scenic resort in the hill station Kodaikanal for a month and write my first book.
Q2) How did you decide the plot for “Awareness Journey”. Give us a short brief about the book.
Ans: I had conceived this name for my online mentoring course in the year 2018 when I went to Pondicherry with my wife and daughter specifically to brainstorm the name for my mentoring program.
The secret of disease free, pain free and suffering free life is very simple. Yet it is so elusive because of this simplicity. I have explained this in the introduction of my book itself. But knowing this secret is no use. It is somewhat like knowing that smoking is injurious to health, but this knowledge alone does not help one to quit smoking.
The book guides the reader through simple practical doable daily tools that helps cultivate a habit of coming back to their happy place within and thus heal themselves holistically.
Q3) Nowadays most of the youth is much more focused on social media rather than reading books. What is your view on this topic?
Ans: social media is a good way to be connected and informed. It is a wonderful technology innovation and very useful for the modern times. The problem only arises when it becomes addictive. It has become a filler activity as I have mentioned in my book. This means, people do not have a specific set time for engaging with social media, it happens all the time. It becomes addictive, distracting, and habitual. From a holistic perspective, it causes mental restlessness and energy imbalance. I have suggested certain deeply balancing and calming practice that can replace SM as a filler activity for times when one is waiting or travelling or between doing other things. I have also suggested scheduling certain fixed times during the day for SM.
Book reading on the other hand is a deeply intellectual activity and could be highly rewarding. But this could also cause energy imbalance based on the subject one reads and if one is a compulsive reader using reading as a filler activity just like social media. Any activity, especially mental activity, turns negative or harmful when it turns into a compulsive habit. I recommend the reader to spend just twenty minutes every day to read a few pages of my book and take several weeks to complete the book while practicing all the tools it teaches.
Q4) Kindly attach the link of your book so that the readers can get a grasp on these beautiful reads. Tell us how you manage to pursue your hobbies in your busy schedule.
Amazon Paperback edition link: https://amzn.eu/d/0B49ZPu
Amazon Kindle edition link: https://amzn.eu/d/4358BtF
Ans: I have developed the habit of coming back to my happy place within whenever I find myself getting lost in mental activity. When this happens, life is completely different. Busy schedule means someone gets sort of trapped in doing something and is unable to do other things that provide joy and meaning to life. For me there is no work at all because everything I do brings joy and meaning to my life.
I am currently writing my second book. I also spend time every day to write some articles for my blog post or other spaces or answer questions on Quora. I have a few mentoring and healing sessions and lot of mentoring communications happening over WhatsApp just as it does between Ayushi and Oogway in the book.
Other than this my hobbies include dishwashing, being a tuition teacher to my grandchildren, going on long walks and of course practicing energy movements, yoga, and meditation.
Q5) We know that there is a lot of hard work that goes behind the launching of books. From preparing the final manuscript to writing the first draft till publishing. Tell us how your experience was and to whom would you dedicate your success in this entire process?
Ans: It took me five years of research work to have the book ready inside my mind. After this, I had taken a two-month vacation during April-May 2021 and my first draft of the book was written during this time. I was hoping to return and get it edited and published within a month or two because I assumed that 90% of the work is done. When I shared the first draft with a select set of people to read and give me feedback, it turned out that editing, rewriting, bringing the draft to a publishable shape was one huge task much bigger than the writing itself! This took me six months, but it was a very rewarding and enjoyable work.
Writing the book overview as one more major task as this involved searching for and reading several books in the marketplace that could be termed as competing or similar and finding out what is unique in my book. This was meant to be the USP of my book that I needed to present to the prospective publisher. In the beginning it seemed daunting, but it also turned out to be a very enjoyable activity. I ended up finding and reading fifteen books and understanding how each author has conveyed a basically simple message in beautifully different ways.
I have already acknowledged the names of all the people in the beginning of my book, without whom this book would not have been possible.
