Akhila Saroha: If you were to describe your book “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life” in a few words without giving any spoilers, what would those words be?

Selvan Srinivasan: A real life story chronicling a journey from seemingly incurable disease conditions to holistic wellness of physical, emotional and mental health. The book not only tells this amazing story in an engaging way but also seeks to handhold the reader through such a journey in their own life as they read and practice with the simple tools to acquire the art of skillful living and enjoy freedom from suffering.

Akhila Saroha: What advice would you give to budding writers who may be planning to write in the same genre as “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life”?

Selvan Srinivasan: Learn to quieten the thinking-mind and shift into your awareness mind to allow the voice of the divine, which is nothing but your own intuitive mind within you to write for you. Intuitive mind shuts off when the mind gets tired. Unfortunately most people are mentally tired almost all the time. Mental tiredness is completely different from physical tiredness, it shows up in different ways. Learn how to find out as soon as the mind starts becoming tired, and learn how to rest the mind. Supposedly leisure activities such as watching movies or listening to talks only engages the mind in something different and exhausts it even more instead of giving it rest. Learn to often rest the mind skilfully before it is exhausted by going through an Awareness Journey. Let Awareness Journey be the prologue for your literary journey.

Akhila Saroha: Do you think you have conveyed all you had in mind through “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life” or do you feel that there is more to come from your pen on the same subject that the book explores? How much research/revisions it took to write the book before you approved the final draft?

Selvan Srinivasan: This is just the first module of Awareness Journey. Awareness Journey is a series of six books covering the six modules of my mentoring program. There are five more books all queued up in my mind and waiting to be written.

Akhila Saroha: The book may become a sensation in the long run. How is the audience responding to the book? Is it close to the expected response?

Selvan Srinivasan: Thanks for the prophecy and I say tatatsu or so be it. Like an innocent and naive child, I expected to publish the book within weeks of writing the first rough draft. I went through a difficult growth process of several months to eventually publish it. Similarly upon publication, I expected thousands of copies to be sold in a jiffy! I am growing up again into the real world of marketing and book promotion. I am told that my expectations were completely childish, so if you ignore those, I am told that my book is in fact doing very well for a first time author. I already have almost five hundred good reviews and a lot of accolades and recognitions. Having grown up now, I expect that over the course of publishing the next five books, at least the last one would achieve the New York Times Best seller rank!

Simultaneously two persons of completely opposing traits seem to be living in my mind. One is the wise mentor who is already feeling fulfilled and writing and working merely to express his inner fulfillment and joy. The other one is a child that keeps wanting appreciation and recognition in the form of higher sales numbers. At any given moment one of these would show up and act out and I am ok with both.

Akhila Saroha: The book contains scenes that make the readers ponder over their situations as they are on the journey of transformation. What were the experiences that taught you the simple techniques to change life on the whole?

Selvan Srinivasan: I always had the quality of contemplating on my life experiences to distill out the most effective way. For example, if I had a severe headache, I would do ten or twelve different remedies to be free from it. These would include grandmother remedies (drinking a decoction or kshayam), ayurveda, acupuncture, nature cure remedies (like salt water gargle, jalanethi), reiki, prayer, pranayama, yoga, meditation, etc. I would not be satisfied that the headache is gone. I would deeply explore which of these or combinations were the most effective. My whole life has been a research lab that resulted in the six month mentoring program - Awareness Journey.

Akhila Saroha: How would you describe your literary endeavors and all that went into your making as a writer before “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life” materialized?

Selvan Srinivasan: I am a highschool dropout and I have been working in the manufacturing industry all my life. The only literary endeavor I can think of is my hobby of reading which started at the age of eight and has been with me all through my life. I have read thousands of books across all genres. I simply used to devour books for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Maybe unknown to me, all these readings have been building up a reservoir of literary talent that came out flooding as if the dam gates were opened after my own life transforming healing experience.

Akhila Saroha: There are so many unique perspectives in “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life.” What was the most challenging thing about writing such complexity in a simpler version?

Selvan Srinivasan: The biggest challenge for me was how to make it interesting and engaging. The next big challenge was how to make it universally acceptable and not end up hurting any specific belief set or way of living. I was born in the boomers generation in an upper caste traditional, dogmatically patriarchal family in India and supposedly belong to the educated, privileged class.The world today is completely different than what it was when I grew up. I am a co-founder of a mental health services providing organization specialized in providing care to the neurodivergent and queer community and I wanted my book to speak to the entire spectrum of society from a level place and not from a holier than thou place. That is why I involved many people across different spectrums of society to read my manuscript and give feedback. Sometimes incorporating a change suggested by someone would seem to me like changing the core meaning of what I want to convey and it would end up in arguments and struggle. Grace, probably some divine grace would prevail and help me through these challenges, and here we are.

Akhila Saroha: Even though “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life” comes from a personal experience with a personal touch, it still keeps you as the narrator uninvolved with the text. How as a writer, did you keep that detachment?

Selvan Srinivasan: That’s a deeply insightful observation and question, thanks for asking this. I think I not only keep this detachment as a writer but with everything I do, my entire life. This I think is the outcome of my own deep journey into Awareness. I saw the entire story from Ayushi’s point of view. I wrote it while wearing her shoes. I switched and read it and corrected it while wearing Oogway’s shoes. In my book I teach a process called “Creative Visualisation” and I explain how this is different from imagination or fantasy or wishful thinking. I could visualize the scenes in vivid detail before writing it. I did not want to keep any specific degree of detachment or attachment, it just turned out this way.

Akhila Saroha: “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life” is an attractive, easy-to-remember, and catchy title. How did you come up with it?

Selvan Srinivasan: ”Awareness Journey” was already the name of my six month online mentoring program. How I landed on this name for my course is another interesting story that happened in October 2018 when I went with my younger daughter to Pondicherry for a few days with a specific goal of brainstorming and coming up with a name for the mentoring course that I had just created over two years starting in 2017. We went deep sea diving when it became too intense. I don’t even know swimming and my daughter inspired me to do it and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. To make the long story short, we finally came up with the name “Awareness Journey” during those three days. Before this happened, the course was already up and running and I had several students doing it but it was just called the SelvanS Mentoring course.

The Happy Place Module is the first module of this course. Each month is one module and focuses on a specific aspect of the journey within. Happy place is not the same as the emotion of happiness. I have defined what the Happy Place is in the book itself. It is a state of mind. When we use the tools described in the book and connect with the frequency of the electromagnetic energy field of the earth, we experience an aware state of mind and I call this the Happy Place. A Journey into the deepest aspects of life is how I used to describe my course on the website since the beginning. In other words, the title of the book existed long before the book itself took birth and claimed it!

Akhila Saroha:  I hope that the book breaks records and reaches more readers. I wish you luck with the book.

Selvan Srinivasan: Thank you very much, I do need all the luck that I could muster and I do wish the book reaches all the deserving readers out there.

Akhila Saroha: What were the situations that led you to take the pen and explore your capabilities as an Author? Or how has your journey as an author been?

Selvan Srinivasan: My journey as an author has been amazing, engaging and fulfilling. “Awareness Journey | The Happy Place Module - A Journey into the Deepest Aspects of Life” is my first ever writing experience as a professional writer or author. I have always had a flair with the written word to communicate effectively, eloquently and succinctly but until this book, my writing talents have been used only for writing personal communications. I have been the go to person to everyone in my family, my business and friends circle for drafting an appropriate letter or submission since my teenage years.

Having gone through the writing, revising, editing and publishing of my book, I can see that my writing has started changing into something more beautiful and expressive. But this happens only when I am in my happy place. Even now after all these years of experience, I often find myself slipping out of my happy place, in other words becoming mentally tired but continuing to write. It becomes evident when I read it or when someone reads it and gives me feedback.  

Writing has become a daily routine now and it takes a few hours to several hours of my day depending on the flow. I have started writing short articles, posts and answers in several spaces and platforms now. It keeps me engaged and joyfully active.

Akhila Saroha: If not a writer, do you see yourself engaging in any other forms of creative streams? Which would it be?

Selvan Srinivasan: In my younger days, I have been a flamboyant speaker usually addressing my colleagues and industry peers. I have started teaching a course titled “Alternative Therapies” to post graduate students in a college in Hyderabad after publishing my book. I can speak and hold the attention of an audience for a considerable amount of time if the topic is about healing, transformation and self development. But I am an introvert and prefer sitting at home quietly and writing instead of going out and speaking. I have never tried my hand in any other expressive arts such as painting or singing or dancing although I love all of these. Right now I can’t think of being engaged in anything other than writing.  

Akhila Saroha: We all have personal favorite authors who even influence our writings. Which ones are yours?

Selvan Srinivasan: This is a very difficult question and each time you ask me I might come up with a different answer because I can list hundreds of names and each one would be no less than the other in influencing me in some way. Here is a short list that comes to mind right now; Enid Blyton, James Redfield, Stephan Covey, Eckhart Tolle, Louise Hay, Barbara Ann Brenon, Dan Brown, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Amish Tripathi, Marshall Rosenberg, Paulo Coelho, Arianna Huffington, Christopher McDoughall.

Akhila Saroha: Apart from writing, what are the other activities you are involved in as a person?

Selvan Srinivasan: Dish washing and cleaning the kitchen is my favorite pastime. My wife is a wonderful cook, especially of South Indian vegetarian cuisine which involves the use of hundreds of utensils. Washing dishes after every meal is therapeutic for me. Brewing coffee, making soy milk, cashew milk and almond milk and innovative evening snacks are also my favorite daily activities. I go for long walks in the evenings. I am the tuition teacher of math and science for my grandchildren aged ten and twelve. We also enjoy a couple of hours of watching TV every afternoon, usually Netflix or Prime video.

Akhila Saroha: If you were to sum up your writing journey in one sentence, what would it be?

Selvan Srinivasan: Writing for me is an opportunity to express my inner joy, gratitude and fulfillment, therefore it is playtime for me not work.

Akhila Saroha: How do you see the future of reading and writing since it has gone through tremendous changes from past to present?

Selvan Srinivasan: Humans invented the spoken word and then went on to invent the written word. This is irreversible. We are social animals that thrive on communicating with each other and the written word is the biggest avenue for this. I do not see any change in this basic fact, not in the past and neither in the future. So what if a book now gets split into a thousand tweets or whatsapp messages or instagram posts? It is still reading and writing is it not? Humans will always keep writing and reading, it will never change.

Akhila Saroha: In your busy schedule, how do you devote time to writing? Do you allocate a certain number of hours every day? Or how do you manage?

Selvan Srinivasan: I do not have a busy schedule because I do not work at all. Like my grandchild who is ten years old and too busy the whole day on their wave board or bicycle or minecraft or youtube shorts. They don’t plan or allocate time for each of these activities but they religiously do all of it every day! I am also engaged with playing throughout the day and all my different activities seamlessly fit in my day without having to plan or even think about.

If I look back, typically I would have spent any time between one hour to four hours every day engaged with writing. It happens any time during the day but most often in the early mornings and afternoons.  

Akhila Saroha: Writer’s Block is an ordinary happening in the writer’s world. How do you overcome it, or what do you do when you are going through it?

Selvan Srinivasan:I have had a writers block for over forty years from the time I wanted to be an author as a preteen child. It melted away with a tsunami of words flowing from the intuitive mind onto paper last year. Ever since, I have not experienced writer's block until now. Maybe the simple practice of switching off the thinking-mind and resting in awareness does the trick. Maybe writer’s block is just an exhausted mind shutting down. I would like to invite whoever is facing a writer’s block to come and experiment with the Awareness Journey with me to see if my hypothesis works for them.

Akhila Saroha: What are some of the dos and don'ts you follow as a writer?

Selvan Srinivasan: Whenever writing starts to feel like it's an effort, just stop and switch off the mind. For example, as I was writing my response to these questions yesterday, I got stuck at question number four and five and different words and sentences and ideas were forming but not flowing out. I switched off and went for a bath and did not return back to writing until this morning after the rituals of energy movements, meditation and coffee brewing. I did not have to think at all, the replies just flew off my fingertips into the laptop screen!

There is only one rule. The ideas do not come out of the thinking-mind. Do not push the thinking-mind to create anything. Once it is created, the thinking mind is a wonderful tool to rearrange the words, check and correct grammar, check how it would look like from different perspectives. But creating needs to instantly flow from the intuitive mind. The intuitive mind does not use words to think. I don’t know how it works, it actually does not even use images or symbols or smells or sounds or any ‘thing’ at all to think. It is a different realm altogether and therefore millions of words can be compressed in one nanosecond of intuitive thought. If what you need to say doesn’t flow into the screen (or paper) at lightning speed, stop writing. That is my rule.

 Akhila Saroha: How was the book publication journey as an experience for you? Are there any guidelines you would like to share for aspiring writers?

Selvan Srinivasan: At risk of sounding repetitive, I would suggest aspiring writers to let Awareness Journey be the prologue to your Writing journey. Like any other creative endeavor, publishing a book is a mix of intuitive mind activity and thinking mind activity. Intuitive mind activity is play, you cannot plan it or organize it or force it to happen it either happens or it doesn’t. When we force the mind to do something creative, the thinking mind steps in and pretends to be the intuitive mind and does it. This is probably the difference between an actor and a star, a Sachin Tendulkar and a normal professional batsman.

You can learn everything about each step of the way in publishing a book on the internet. Today there is no scarcity of information, I too did it the same way. But in doing so, are you able to feel joyful, playful, grateful and peaceful throughout the process? Or are you getting more and more stressful and unwell and using pills or medication and stimulants to push through the process?  

The end point of being recognised as a published author is indeed rewarding but if you lose yourself to stress and illness on the way, I would say that it is pointless. How to stop working and start playing? How to allow your work to be your play? This is a skill and it can be learnt and it is called Awareness Journey. Use this skill to enjoy each moment of your life, not just the end point when the book is published.