Our guest on today’s podcast is Arul Dev – an Author, Radiant Universal Leader coach ^TM and Integral Educator, has been in the field of leadership, education and human resources consulting for the last 23 years. He is the author of the new book Into Great Depth of Being. An engineer from BITS Pilani, he founded People First Consultants, a human resources consultancy in Chennai, India in 1995, where he plays the role of Founder CEO.

Arul Dev is a specialized Radiant Universal Leader Coach with an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) certification from the International Coach Federation. He coaches select hand picked Radiant Universal Leaders who are a) nearing a state of Universe Centeredness, b) aspiring to create purpose & value centered organizations/ communities that can create some global contribution to humanity through their work and c) intending to accomplish this agenda through transformation of collective culture at micro and macro level. The prerequisite to begin this coaching journey with Arul is that the leader is already at a good degree of competency in their personal mastery and self-awareness.

He is the author of the book ‘Into Great Depth of your Being’, which facilitates an inner experience and exploration in Self Awareness and Integral Development. A visionary himself, Arul Dev is committed to inspiring the purpose and seed potential for visionaries he comes across.

Transcript:

Nitesh Batra: Hello and welcome to the new episode of The Mindful Initiative podcast. Today we are very privileged to have amongst us Mr. Arul Dev, who is the Founder and CEO of People First. He graduated back in ‘94 with a Chemical Engineering Degree from BITS Pilani and he switched over into a new domain and he has come up with a new book which was published last year. And we will talk about all that. Welcome, welcome to the show, Arul.

Arul Dev: Thank you, thank you for the opportunity. Look forward.

Nitesh Batra: I think it’s an interesting journey; I have gone through most of the book. I have read it. And we will talk about your book in a while. But about your journey. You were a Chemical Engineer and you decided to go in a different space. So, can you give is a little bit about your background, your history, what prompted you to go to BITS and how come you have landed to the place where you are.

Arul Dev: Ok, so, till my 12^th, I was,….you could practically call me a bookworm, really exploring into books, books, books. That was my world and I figured out that anything I read I could get interested and I could get deeper into that. College was more getting away from home, from a comfortable space into something very new. So, I just went to BITS and in the second year I realized that I actually didn’t like my subject which was Chemical Engineering. So I did study well because of the fact that have been there but it was not a joy. And towards the 3rd or 4th year we were doing a project in Chennai and I happened to go into couple of firms which were doing training. I liked some of the work, I was volunteering. Suddenly one day, the trainer didn’t come in for a program. They were looking for somebody who could just talk to the audience. So, I put up my hand and I figured out that training was coming very natural. I was good at it and I was enjoying it. So even before I finished my last semester, I had practically decided that I am going to switch over to training. So that’s exactly what happened. Took about six months to be really sure on the decision, jumped and started the firm in 1995, 6 months later. That was the transition.  I feel I was being guided right from that time. I don’t want to get into the details of it but several things that was happening was kind of moving me this direction.

Nitesh Batra: I think that’s very interesting because back in the ‘90s, it wasn’t that easy to leave the kind of work or the studying that you were doing. And jump completely into a different field. And now it’s becoming a norm but that point, what was the guiding force? What is that inside thing that you were talking about that led you to make that decision?

Arul Dev: Ok so first thing. To put another context into the background, I think I absorbed a lot of, you could call it, something inner, from my grandfather. I did not necessarily have anything like an inner guidance or intuitive in the beginning. I was just a normal, good student but I always used to figure out that something, I was a different human being around my grandfather and, at a young age I mean. When I say young, 8th standard / 9th standard– I practically used to go behind him everywhere. So later on, when even the application of college was coming in, I started noticing that at points of key decisions I used to go inner and I used to pray. And I used to wait upon a time till all that confusion—this, that or the other settles it. Suddenly, there will be a clarity and alignment of will. This inner language was familiar to me from 1990 onwards and one way or the other I always used to wait for it and only with its synch, I used to move forward. So, the same thing happened with this training. The moment I did that, finished, just about 15-20 minutes, brief thing, inside I felt very different. Inside I felt very fulfilled. So that language from 1994 onwards is always been my guiding path. I just follow it.

Nitesh Batra:  That’s amazing. So, you were connected to yourself right, from the very beginning, it seems. And your grandfather maybe, he maybe an influence or may have been someone you looked up to. Was there anyone else in the family or outside that that made you feel that I should be listening to myself, my voice?

Arul Dev: Yes, I think two factors here and in fact very interestingly speaking, around that time there was a book called Celestine Prophecy was very popular around that time. And there was an exercise that said, look on your mother, look on your father. Take whatever is the highest and deepest both are holding and try and see where it converges together. That’s the exercise I did when I was my doing my project which got me the clarity. So, I picked up the essence of spirituality from my mother, very deep rooted in faith and I picked the aspect of excelling in anything from my father and I kind of thought that my whole life was an alchemy of the two. So I think that also, that moment of clarity –that the highest of my father and mother– from my mother it is spirituality and my father it is the material excellence and that marriage of it constantly was another movement where the light of what my life should be, became clear.

Nitesh Batra: Got it. That explains a lot of how and what helped you move in that direction. The sad story in India I feel, is that once you have picked a direction, you unfortunately, have to go into it. After 10^th, if you pick Science or Commerce or Arts, you are almost stuck with it. It is like a hierarchy thing. The best is science and I don’t agree with it but that’s the hierarchy. And now you say in 2nd year you had consciously at least thought that Chemical Engineering is something that you don’t want to pursue, or you don’t want to pursue life in that direction. And you spent another 3 years at the college after that. Do you remember those 3 years? What went through your mind during those 3 years that you had to study or was it wasted. In a certain way, it may have been a waste of time as well. But what are your thoughts about those three years that when you know this is something I don’t want to do and nowadays you do coaching and some sort of counselling as well, probably. So how do you relate the 2?

Arul Dev: So here’s a good question. Because I always have an insight that if you are in a successful space, it easier to connect to your inner and be guided. It is a hypothesis or an insight that I am carrying. For example, in the first year I didn’t have to study much. Ok? And I just sailed through because I had already prepared for IIT and I could sail through. 2nd year: since the reality struck me hard that I did not like it, I slipped in my grades from practically say, it is a 10-point scale. From 7.5 or close to 8, to 4.55 –it was that bad. Lost complete interest. In the 3^rd year, it was more like you know, I know the difficulty my parents were going through to put the money in there. So I said no matter what, I am going study really well and I literally slogged it out in the third year. Interest, no interest, good grades. I again came back above 7. That’s when I feel a shift. That means, inside there is this disturbance where this is not the right thing. So first I hit frustration. But then I say but that’s not ok. No matter what you succeed at but I did not lose that thing that something is wrong. Something is wrong. So I let that flame be there. Somehow I feel that that is what would have made me apply to this particular ….and interestingly you know, I was doing a project in a company in Chennai itself. A four and a half month project. In the first few days we realized t