House grid with sloping roof and open courtyard – a typical design pattern of houses in agraharas or similar in India.

“If you are not living in a proper Vastu, then it will mean that you have not brought electricity in your house, as if you are living in a dark house. Vastu is very, very important; it is absolutely important. And when you are living in Vastu, don’t go anywhere where you have to spend the night in a non-Vastu house; absolutely don’t go. The whole set up of the brain functioning is completely uneven when you live in the non-Vastu houses. When you live in a Vastu house, then, particularly, when you go to a non-Vastu house, in one to two days you will begin to feel like a fish out of water. That coherence, that harmony, that peace, that softness that you feel inside in your Vastu home, it loses its evenness; it loses its bliss. So, try to live in Vastu. You have heard this from me so many times.” - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“There was no mention of Room Vastu or Furniture Vastu, or Toilet Paper Vastu.” Vastu Shastra uses mathematical principles and in Math, there is nothing like 20% correct, 60% correct etc; either the answer is right or wrong. Similarly, in Vastu, the house is fully compliant or not; no half way compromise. See the diagram below for an illustration of fully compliant Vastu model. That’s the memo.

Most of you are an engineer, mathematician or a scientists and learning, sharing, and contributing your knowledge & experience to your company and clients and in turn became an indispensable asset to you organization. Have you ever thought of knowingly provide your company/client a bad design, remain non-compliant to company values and principles, and still see your client or boss happy about what you have done?

Vastu Shastra is a traditional system of architecture and design based on specific directional alignments; it is not a belief system. It is primarily applied for temples, although it covers other applications, including master planned communities, building model villages or some times entire town or city is constructed based on these designs and patterns; for example, Agraharas. The foundation of Vastu is traditionally ascribed to Maya, Viswakarma, Bhoja, Aparajitha or similar sages; examples of fully compliant vastu architecture are Raavana Lanka, Ayodhya, Dwarika, Indraprasth, many Therthas & Kshetras in Indian sub-continent, various temples and architectural wonders in Asia, Russia, and Central America. I don’t mean to divert the topic… These examples are clear evidence of the benefit of fully compliant vastu when applied at the community level; not individual room or furniture level. Drawing some of my personal experiences and based on Maharshi’s quote above, it could be one of the reasons most of us get good feelings when we visit those Therthas & Kshetras across India; not when I change my bed’s head board from one side of the room to other.

The introduction of the idea that Vaastu Shastra is concerned with building architecture should immediately disqualify the idea that it is some form of Indian feng shui. Anyone who makes a study of the authentic vaastu shastras will see that there is no similarity to feng shui. Vastu is a science related to the building arts and not to placing yantras, crystals or moving furniture around. Modern “so called” “overnight” vaastu consultants take a weekend workshop and expect to understand something that takes more than ten years to learn traditionally. In the western world for example, the only traditional form is taught at The American University of Mayonic Science and Technology, which is Indian based but teaches in the US on invitation and also at Maharshi University of Management.

Vastu architecture ensures that a building or community will have nourishing influences on its occupants; not individual rooms or the orientation of a piece of furniture. So, what you believe or not believe has nothing to do Vastu and quoting Vastu to meet individual needs & wants is nothing but cheating oneself. Happiness should come from within; not moving a bed from one side of the room to the other. Happiness is a choice; not a chance; see my blog below (Monday, April 20, 2009). If it is not the case, I can easily influence the President of USA and other country heads to give Tax breaks to every family and hotel to change the direction of each & every head board and let every one in the world to live in harmony and happiness.

Because the individual life is cosmic, everything about individual life should be in full harmony with Cosmic Life. Vedic architecture gives dimensions, formulas, and orientations to the buildings (plural) that will provide cosmic harmony, synchronize with Sun’s path (Sun is the source of every form of life in this world), and support to the individual for his peace, prosperity, and good health — daily life in accord with Natural Law, daily life in the evolutionary (not revolutionary) direction.

While Vastu had long been essentially used to design large communities such as Temples, there has been a revival in India in recent decades, notably under the influence of V. Ganapathi Sthapathi, who has been campaigning for a restoration of the tradition in modern Indian society since the 1960s.

While the fields are related, a brach of Vastu Sashtra explicitly deal with sculpture - forming statues, icons, stone murals etc. Vastu Shastra is concerned primarily with building architecture - building houses, forts, temples, communities etc.

Studying Vastu Sastra has no lesser importance than many a contemporary engineering studies; BTech/MTech/ME etc. It takes at least 6 years to complete the study and several years to apply or gain some exprience. One should be able to discern well qualified engineers and experienced Mason (Maistri). One can provide architecture based on well studied and improvised engineering designs and the other has onsite implementation experience. Good engineer can be a good Maistri but good Maistri cannot be a good engineer. So, moving the furniture around, permanently close door or windows, or implant yantras in the name of Vastu is not the right thing to do. As I used tell my kids, wife, colleagues, and some of my friends “either do it or don’t do, but don’t try”.

Example of the Vastu Mandala (see a layout above): In accordance with the position and directional patterns, guidelines are given for zoning of site and distribution of rooms in a building. Some of these are: North - treasury, Northeast - prayer room, East - bathroom, Southeast - kitchen, South - bedroom, Southwest - armoury or equivalent, West - dining room, Northwest – cowshed or equivalent. Note that one should see this distribution of rooms holistically; not in isolation.

If your house doesn’t comply with this model (see above), then you are not in compliance. Turning the furniture from one of the room or house to other side of the room/house will give you nothing in the grand scheme of things.