How to Create a Positive Environment in Your Home With Vastu

Our homes, carefully oriented, have the power to give us comfort and security and to be one of our best investments. We spend a great deal of time and money to accomplish this. However, many of us do not know if we are creating a positive and life-supporting place to live and work. Many people have reported health and financial problems after they had moved into a home or have done home improvements. Unknowingly, we may be doing more harm than good! Vastu Shastra, the architectural science with roots in ancient India, takes into account environmental factors that we may be unaware of yet influence the quality of our lives.

Vastu is the oldest and most complete system of architecture known to man. It involves assessing all environmental influences that affect us, such as geopathic stress, the five elements (earth, water, fire, air and space), the sun, moon and the planets in our solar system. It considers building orientation, placement of rooms, proportions and measurements, slope and shape of the land, location of bodies of water and other environmental and geopathic influences.

According to Vastu Shastra, the sun creates different qualities of energy on its path from east to west. These different energies influence and enhance specific functions and activities that correspond with specific areas of your home. Where you enter a house or room, where you prepare and cook your food, where you sit while eating, the direction in which you sleep, where you face while studying, the placement of bathrooms and areas for socializing and meditating are more optimally supported in specific parts of your home than in others.

Vastu not only takes into consideration the environment in which we live, but how our environment affects the health of our bodies and our ability to create in the world. The earth is a magnetic force and is composed of the five elements, as is our brain. The thalamus is the relay center for all sensory and motor signals (except smell) in the brain. Neurological research has shown that firing patterns of neurons in the thalamus of the brain function differently depending on which direction one is facing. Our mind then is the interactive result of the affect of the magnetic field in our brain cells. By placing our bodies and environments in alignment with the magnetic axis, we can think and act more in tune with nature, which can benefit us in the most amazing ways. Our actions and decisions will be successfully supported by the forces of nature, much like swimming with the current of a stream is easier than swimming against it. We all know or can imagine what it is like to swim up-stream, meeting with resistance to our success!

We live on this earth, but we also live in a sea of electromagnetic and cosmic influences. Our actions are affected by every shift in the cosmic atmosphere. Every particle of energy in the universe is linked to the next. Designing using the principles of Vastu Shastra, creates environments that are more open to life supporting influences and more protective against influences that are harmful. Unfortunately, most present day architecture is based on function alone. Even so-called green architecture may only take into account forces of the sun, wind, water and climate. It does not, in most instances, account for that which affects us such as planetary, geomagnetic and geopathic forces. Homes and offices that have been designed or corrected using the principles of Vastu Shastra are not intended to “conquer” the environment but to obey the forces of nature.

When we plant a seed it takes all five elements to be in harmony for the seed to sprout, grow and be healthy. The proportion of too much or too little of any element, whether it is the quality of earth (soil ph), the amount of water, wind (air) or sun, will inhibit its growth. Just as the balance of the five elements affects success in nature, the balance inherent in our environment affects our success in the world. Vastu takes into account all influences to create an environment in harmony with nature that supports our quality of life, including our success.