PVPF 2024

Interview with Pracchi Parihar Saxenna, Author of 'Happy Soul Work'

on Apr 03, 2022

Pracchi Parihar Saxenna has a management degree from IIM Tiruchirappalli and a gold medal for her Master’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Pharmaceutical Biotechnology) from India’s topmost Pharmaceutical University in New Delhi. However, she firmly believes that true intelligence does not lie in how many degrees you hold, but on how you handle life situations. To understand her spiritual journey more, she is currently pursuing a yearlong Bhakti Shahstri course at the Mayapur University where she is studying various spiritual textbooks including the Bhagwat Gita under the guidance of her spiritual masters. Pracchi resides with her family in Chennai and at the same time heads the portfolio of one of the topmost Dermatology companies in India. She is very happy to contribute through her work to society by bringing new innovative treatment molecules for the health of patients.

She loves writing, reading, traveling, gardening, meditating, reading scriptures, and practicing mindfulness.

1. There are many books available in the market that claim to guide us to reach the path of happiness. How does ‘Happy Soul Work’ distinguish it from other books?

Happy Soul work is not just a book, but a guidebook for the path to unlimited happiness. There are many books in the market to help us to explore the path of happiness. But the path to happiness discovery is not limited to a few days of reading or working on some mental & spiritual considerations. The way we need to maintain our physical health by investing daily in nutritious eating & exercising, similarly we need to invest daily on our spiritual health and wellbeing as well. This book gives us step by step plan to free us from our mental baggage, heal us, and accept ourselves as unique, beautiful, and individual souls. Powerful, modern, life changing tips and techniques are given at the end of each chapter which will lead one to find their inner connection. The book contains personal experiences which will help the readers to become a miracle magnet in their lives. Also, this book focusses not only on mental health but also physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

2. Why is seeking forgiveness from others so important to move on in our life from past incidents?

Forgiveness connects us back to love and love is the basic nature of the soul. Not forgiving a person is like keeping the venom of the snake bite inside your body. Nobody dies of a snake bite but dies because of that venom goes inside the body. Similarly, if you don’t forgive, you carry the venom of that incident inside your body which will harm you ultimately. Forgiveness also releases you of all the negative energy that you carry within yourself related to that incident. It sets you free. Any incident that happens in our lives is a lesson for us to learn and grow. It is a universal assignment for us. Instead of lamenting or wishing that the incident or the person should be otherwise, we should pay attention to what universal teaching that incident/person has given us. This will help us become better version of our own selves and help us live a joyful life without any mental baggage.

3. In everyone’s life, a certain point comes along when you seek mental peace and happiness. How did you start your spiritual journey?

I still remember the day, 14th January 2020 very clearly. Externally all the events in my life were normal and as good as they can be but internally nothing gave me long lasting happiness. I had all the material opulence that one can think of in terms of job, promotion, friends, and family but they all were happy experiences which were just fleeting and flickering. I felt that I am not able to experience the real happiness that I really yearned for.

14 January 2020 was a Makar Sankranti holiday (an Indian festival) and suddenly while writing my journal that late afternoon, sitting in my living room when all were asleep, a soft and loving voice inside me asked, “What gives you real happiness? What gives you true joy?” and an answer from inside automatically came: ‘This journaling into my exploration to the path of spirituality and soul work gives me unbounded joy and happiness’. And here I was, blessed with my IKIGAI which I had been looking for since so many years! As the sun starts its journey northward, I started my journey INWARDS towards finding meaning and joy.

And with this incidence came the birth of my book, Happy Soul Work. In this book I wanted to share my personal journey of travelling WITHIN with all the readers.

4. How can we prevent other people’s thoughts about ourselves from subjugating our minds?

We need to first understand who we are. Too many times we have attached our personality with other people’s opinion. We are not what our parents or our friends or our bosses think about us. But somehow, we have made a mental projection of ourselves, and we try & fit that mental projection into the environment in which we live in. Other people’s thought about us is just a thought. Till the time we are not very clear of our own selves, we will identify ourselves with whatever thought the other person is throwing at us. Therefore, it is very important for us to know ourselves, our true self. Now going on a little higher level of consciousness, we need to understand that we are not this physical body with which we identify ourselves but a spiritual body. We are a human body having a spiritual experience. Too much identification with the physical body gives us a false identify or an ego-based identity. The nature of the EGO is to always feel offended. Therefore, we should not take other people’s thoughts seriously and work towards in letting them Let GO!

5. How can someone who doesn’t have strong beliefs in God seek solace from chanting deities’ mantras?

Chanting or mantra meditation is one kind of process of quieting the mind and reverberating the mind with specific energies or sound vibrations. Every mantra has a specific energy pattern, it releases stress and makes the body relaxed too.

For any activity not only for this mantra chanting exercise if one desires any result, they need to put faith & effort in doing that activity. If a doctor at the start of the operation feels that this operation is not going to be successful, then there are chances that the operation might have some error. Similarly, a student initiating a project needs to have proper belief that the project will be successful even before initiating that project. So, to begin with, one needs to have some amount of faith in chanting any mantra. But having said that, I would say that even if you do not have strong belief in chanting, start with at least one round of chanting or 5 minutes of chanting and slowly give it more time. Am sure that after some time, the person will themselves experience benefits and will start practicing more and for longer durations.

6) Here is a well-known adage, ‘If you’ve intense convictions then you can find god in the rock as well’. Do you agree with this statement?

Of course, God, HIM, Universal power, higher consciousness whatever you would like to address with is everywhere. God & God’s energy is all pervading and even matter represents HIS energy. Its not the material form that we make the idol off, but the bhava or the state with which we look at the idol that matters. The idol can be made of rock, paper, metal, or any form but it’s the consciousness with which you do the activity and not the rules or the way with which you do the activity. So, if you have God consciousness then the object in front of you does not matter but only your consciousness does.