UNVEILING THE ENIGMATIC PASTS OF THE MYSTICAL SELVES

Author Interview: Minal Arora

Minal Arora is a Serenity Surrender Therapist and Past Life Regression Therapist, who in her other life was also the CEO of an IT Company. She is also the published author of three books, and has recently come out with the book “The Veil”, which contains eight stories that are inspired by the past lives revealed by Minal’s clients in their PLRT sessions. The book also features soulful poetry by Kirti Dixit Narang. In a candid chat with Chirdeep Malhotra, she talks about her latest book, her writing journey and for the benefit of our readers, also gives details about Serenity Surrender Therapy and Past Life Regression Therapy.



Please tell us more about Minal Arora as a person.

As a person I have now become very accepting and comfortable with myself. I like to read and write and these two activities consume most of my time, other than conducting healing sessions or workshops. I feel immense gratitude for my family, especially my son Sanat and my parents who have really stood by me, thus supporting my purpose and life both. Serenity Surrender (SS) has guided me to be accepting of myself and it is now an integral part of me. My sisters Shilpi & Sheetal have not felt the need to share my perspective to life by practicing SS, yet they have been there for me all through and lovingly so.



Has writing always been a part of your life? Or did you chance upon it later on and then instantly fell in love with it?

Writing has been an integral part of my expression since a decade. I wouldn’t say I used to write when I was a kid. I have mostly been a very vocal person and never refrained from putting my point across but it’s only from 2010 onwards that I realised writing my thoughts not only brought me clarity but could also help others facing similar conflicts as mine. My writing debut was with “Maaya” in 2014 and the journey continued with my second book “INFiNITY” in 2018 and “The Veil” in 2019.



Please tell us more about your book “The Veil”.

“The Veil” is a powerful piece of writing which is intended to debunk our denials with regards to our life and relationships. Most people think they are building their life and relationships using their conscious mind and hence they are in control of their lives. Others, who cannot seem to control it, feel helpless and are looked down upon. The recognition that the ‘mind’ is overrated unless the ‘sub-conscious’ aspect of the mind is integrated needs to arrive. It’s time we recognise that all the baggage we carry as our memories, both from our childhood to our past lives and beyond, makes us respond to our life in a certain way. It’s time to lift the Veil from our unawareness that our past plays an integral role in who we are today and only by healing that past can we let it free us in this moment- to be fully present in the here and now.
Veil is an attempt to do this UnVeiling through a collection of 8 stories inspired by past lives of my clients whom I had regressed to resolve the issues they were facing in the current life. These stories reveal love, betrayal, abandonment, chase, slavery, responsibility, acceptance and bliss weaved such that the reader can relate to them as their own lives and see their own relationships and situations in a new light.



How did you get started with Serenity Surrender Therapy?

I was a practicing Past Life Regression therapist when I met Shivi Dua, the Originator of SS in 2010. I was keen to learn self healing since regression doesn’t really involve healing the self. When I discovered that she could heal herself using SS, I was excited because I knew I could continue to help anyone if I was able to help myself first. That’s how I became a part of the SS modality.



Can you tell us more about Past Life Regression Therapy, particularly for readers who don’t know much about it?

Past Life Regression is a technique by which the therapist can induce a light level of trance into the client mostly through hypnosis for them to be relaxed and in surrender. The client then can be taken back in time to experience their memories from their childhood, when they were in the womb of their mother all the way to their past lives. A lot of people write to me saying they want to know who they were in their past life. I want to clarify this here that we have lived thousands of lives in various life forms. Thus, you cannot traverse these memories based on inquisitiveness. The memories that one carries are only those which have unresolved experiences, which were saved so far only because there is learning to be taken from them that one is yet to do. I used to practice Past Life Regression Therapy which is aimed at releasing stuck memories from past lives to remove negativities coming into one’s life and situations from them.
It’s very common for us to feel that ‘I never did anything wrong to anyone but why is this happening to me’ or ‘I don’t deserve this betrayal’ or ‘Why can’t he / she love me enough’. The answer to these questions lies in the karmic deposit one is carrying that needs to be resolved.



How did the idea of writing this book emerge, and how did the collaboration with Kirti Dixit Narang, who has written mellifluous poetry for this book, happen?

Believe it or not Chirdeep, I had finished the writing and editing of my next Fiction, which will be a sequel to my first book Maaya. Right before sending that to the publisher, while looking for a file on my laptop, I stumbled upon the first story in Veil, which when I re-read after so many years of writing it, touched me deeply. I immediately sent it to Kirti to read. She was so moved by the story that she ended up writing a poem on it. When she sent me the poem, her poignant expression impressed me so much that I requested her to write a poem for the next story too. One after the other, just sheer love for the stories and the excitement of their poetic expression made us finish writing the book in a span of barely three weeks. I thus put my other book on the back burner and just went ahead with The Veil.



Which books are you reading currently? Can you recommend five books from any genre, for our readers to add to their reading lists, that you particularly cherish?

I am currently reading two books for the monthly reads of a Book Lovers Club that I run on Facebook. They are “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle and “Nirvana in a Corporate Suit” by Runjhun Noopur.
My favourites are “Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak, “Many Lives Many Masters” by Dr. Brian Weiss, “Waiting for Autumn” by Scott Blum, “Missing Rose” by Serdar Ozkan, and “Journey of Souls” by Dr. Micheal Newton.



Can you share with our readers a motivational quote that keeps you going?

Gratitude is not an act but an attitude. True gratitude begins in the pit of the stomach, travels through the heart and gets revealed in one’s eyes. - Minal Arora