Feng Shui, the ‘Vasthu sastera’ . . .

I have never been at ease to talk about ‘vasthu sastera’ in the past.Its the tamil equivalent for the Chinese fengshui.  I have read many tamil books about it, but still feel reluctant to write anything on ‘vasthu sastera’ for  I believe strongly that  it’s outdated now, not belittling it but being proud knowing well it had accomplished the purpose of why it was there in the first place.For me, it was our ancient way of putting science and maths in use to carry out our everyday life. 

‘Vasthu sastera’ has thaught us how to make use of water, air and sunlight etc the best possible way. And that is all about ‘vasthu sastera’ for me, as I believe we have already replaced all and everything the olden day ‘vasthu sastera’ was supposed to have done. Therefore, for an average person it  offers very little or none at all at this modern day.

For the Tamils in those days, ‘vasthu sastera’ helped in calculating distances and quantity.  It also provided directions without seeing a compass and by just looking at the sun. It determined where the kitchen was going to be based on the path of the air for back then kerosene and wood were used to cook food.  They depended on sunlight and had to find ways to let the sun in to make the house brighter.  We have electricity now.

I laugh at them when they say 'Vasthu sastera will give you more money or business opportunities.'   I would have believed them if they had said ‘goddess mahalaxmi’ would bless me with prosperity.

And the contradictory reasoning goes on.

Besides all these ‘whys & why donts’  there is an alarming boom of self proclaimed ‘vasthu sastera’ experts  now. Though they don’t practice it for themselves, they are ever ready to preach others. They have formula books, charts and diagrams to show what falls where.  These con artists  are a confused lot. They become ‘vasthu sastera’ experts after reading some books  and advertise themselves as qualified experts.

But are they really?  Why then people flock to them to get their services, for which the charges are considered high ? I have just one reason for this... No one wants to be at the wrong side of ‘vasthu sastera’ when buying a house. Their ignorance in what is best for the new house drives them to ‘sweet talking ‘ vasthu gurus, not really checking their background whether  they are genuine or not.  The sorry thing about these new house buyers is that they never realize that vasthu sastera was not even there when they achieved a remarkable point in their life buying a house. Yet, after being successful this far comes the doubts and deviate them from their original "right" formula and start believing things that they should not be.

The funny side is ‘vasthu sastera gurus’ have agents as well to get their customers and pay them handsomely. Hence, the real purpose of this unique thing by our ancestors is defeated. It now becomes a money making business with lots of lies. Indirect threats like ‘bed on this side will make you lose sleep forever’ or ‘if your kitchen is facing this direction, you will struggle to earn for your meals’  or ‘ your water source should be from this side or else you would have ‘gandam’ in water’ or something like these to scare the people. You know what will happen next… and the ‘vasthu sastera experts’ become rich and famous and add on their assets. ( ‘gandam’ = life threatening situations in water, like boating, swimming, flood or any other activities you have to do with water ).

There are so many versions of ‘vasthu sastera’ in the market now. The Tamil, Chinese and English ways are some of them. However those who mix all these and propagate as something new gets higher marks, I was told. The only way we could overcome these fraudsters is by reading about it thoroughly and understanding what it is all about and if we should really want it.