Vaastu Shastra: The Vaastu Shastras In The Modern Context

By Sashikala Ananth

The Vaastu Shastras In The Modern Context

The popular abbreviation 'VaastuÕ has somehow come to stay in the social system, particularly in connection with business organisations. With a 15 year background in this field let me try to clarify the subject so that the really mysterious nature of energies and their impact on phenomena on the one hand, and the pseudo mysticism of irrational relationship between cause and event on the other may be better understood.

The relationship of the individuals, to people, to the environment, to the celestial bodies, to knowledge and to spirituality is a set of givens and is always the same whether the individuals inhabited the earth tens of thousands of years ago or now in the 20th century. But in the so called cultured-civilised life style of urbanites, the primary relationship of a person of his / her environment is being either forgotten or totally lost. Increasingly people are turning to the wisdom of the past to understand the primary connections of the individuals with his/her macro system.

The Indian texts are the only ones I am deeply familiar with. This does not mean that they are the only source of wisdom. Wherever people have been sensitive to their environment they have evolved a wisdom suitable for their culture / life style. Hence I see the Vaastu Shastras as a paradigm to examine life with. The treatise has as much value as the folk practice, and both are deeply connected to the physical / emotional, spiritual anchors in each of us and the environment around us. The moment the connection gets broken and we are pushed into an area of speculation the validity of the knowledge must be questioned once again. A Vaastu Shastra that does not enrich or enhance the life of an ordinary person is, in my opinion, a meaningless system of though. Hence the textual principles must have contemporary meaning.

Let me restate the two aspects of traditional knowledge that resonated within me and has been the source of my action in the world outside.

The primacy of the individual relationship with the environment must continue to be real a yardstick for measuring the relevance of a theory or principle. We, each of us must be the persons who can actually test the validity of a theory. What is positive in the NE quarter of a dwelling for one person may be equally so in the SE for another. There has to be contemporary linkage of the theory and practice to the persons.

The examination of a concept or a theory must take place in its entirety. One cannot understand the field of theoretical physics (for example) by reading one chapter on the behaviour of light. A tradition of thought must be examined completely, its assumptions and predictions set out thoroughly before a clear picture can be created. Vaastu speaks of the energies of the earth, but for a person who does not even comprehend the significance of the sunrise and its impact on the earth this talk of energy would seem like nonsense. So you have elitist pronouncements of 'Oh, this is blind rubbishÕ. But when the west becomes interested there is a total turnabout because in the unconscious Indian identity there is a feeling of awe for the superior race of the whites. On the other hand, the multiple natures of the Indian traditions must not be lost in our need to comprehend the traditional wisdom. Over simplification can easily lead to dogma, which is the fate of Vaastu in the hands of a few of the practitioners.

I firmly believe that a deep understanding, a sane and balanced outlook, and a desire to act with the positive energies of our consciousness are a prerequisite for any powerful movements to take place in a society. Vaastu cannot be converted into a commercial toll (or yoga for that matter) and used for unscrupulous ends of power brokers. It must, remain anchored in the fundamental principle that a wisdom for building should be equally valid to the simple and the rich folk, that it must connect the individual to his natural environment and remind him / her of the spiritual nature of things. Without this sublimating quality, mere result orientation cannot stand the test of time.

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