How To Elevate The Chi In Your Home? Feng Shui vs. Vastu

Feng Shui

Feng Shui comes from China and has been around for over 6,000 years. It is widely known even in the western home decorations.

Feng (風) loosely translates to “wind” and Shui (水) “water.” These two are connected with good health in Chinese culture.

Good feng shui means good fortune, while bad feng shui means misfortune or bad luck. It is a prehistoric method of building and optimizing houses and business structures to bring about abundance, happiness, and harmony.

Feng shui includes architecture, interior design, urban planning, and garden design.
It is about placing the objects in your space in relation to the flow of natural energy or qi(氣). The philosophy includes also the framework layout, materials, as well as colors of buildings.

The Origin Of Feng Shui

In ancient Chinese civilization, villages and farms were auspiciously placed in the confines of the protective folds of hills and mountains, which served as shields against harmful winds and supported by gentle, meandering streams. The communities that observed this philosophy prospered agriculturally and trade-wise as well as grow powerful and strong.

Over time, the principle of identifying the safe place to settled begun to be used to site locations, government structures, and public monuments.

Feng Shui Tips For Different Areas Of Your Home

There is an eight point-guide you can follow for a feng shui home. Each location in your home is connected to an aspect of your life.

Here are feng shui tips of different spots in your home, based on Feng Shui Bagua Map.

Money Spot

This is usually the left corner of your room if you are standing with your back facing the entrance. Place a jade plant or fresh flowers in this spot, as well as your valuables and cash.

Reputation

This is where you showcase your achievements and accolades. Get a good luck symbol such as a four-leaf clover and place in this place.

Relationships

The relationship area of your home should have pairs of lovebirds, cranes, or butterflies or an image of two intertwined trees. If this spot is in your living room, consider decorating it with a love seat, two matching chairs, or a pair of pillows.

Friends And Travel

Here you should place some nice, funny, or playful photos, a map of your favorite destination, or artwork made by your pals.

Children

Decorate this area with a craft, bulletin board, or a sewing machine. If you don’t have any children, use this spot to get in touch with your inner child by placing chalkboard paint or wallpaper.

Knowledge

Set a spot in your house for conversation or reading. It can also be a place where you meditate.

Career

This is arguably one of the most important rooms or spots in your home. It should have enough lighting, and it should be near your main entry. Hang a bright chandelier or pendant over this spot. Decorate it with things that relate to your career or hobbies.

Family And Heath

This location should be clean. Hang photos of your family on the walls of this room.

Feng Shui Items For Positive Energy

Feng shui items and things to place at your home to boost positive energy.

Mirrors

Mirrors are a usually valuable thing to have in your home and one of the most common home décor items. While mirrors are used in virtually any room, in feng shui, there are rules that one has to observe in order to bring positive energy into your room.

In feng shui, mirrors are supposed to be displayed in the east, north, and southeast areas of the house. However, you should avoid large mirrors in the bedroom and south area of your home.

Candles

Candles come in different shapes and sizes. The popular items of home decorating, and are also recommended in feng shui.

Candles bring the potency and vitality of the element of feng shui in a space. You can deploy small candles anywhere you feel in your room, there are no restrictions.

But if you want bigger candles with fire elements like red, purple, pink, orange, or yellow, it is recommended you follow the feng shui rules.

Big candles are preferred in the northeast, south, and southwest areas of your space. You can also deploy a candle at the center of your home. A few small candles in your bedroom can create an excellent feng shui.

Plants

Live plants in space bring joy and vitality. In feng shui, plants symbolize the element of wood, which is connected to harmony, vibrant growth, and health.

Plants are excellent in the south, southeast, and east areas of your space. According to feng shui principle, it is good to avoid many plants in the southwest, north, and the center of your house.

For a bedroom decoration, having plants is not advisable unless your room is huge in which case, the plant should be placed further away from the bed. Of course, this rule is only applicable in the case of big plants.

If you are decorating your space with small plants, the rules are not very strict.
However, you need to be keen on the planters’ colors, material, and textures. In feng shui, every small detail matters.

Art

Art can either nature or neglect the energy map of your house, depending on the kind. There are two things to consider before decorating your home with art.

First, the energy it expresses, and second, the colors and shapes as expressions of specific elements.

This means that you need to be aware of the underlying message that art carries before deploying it in your home.

Art pieces with purple and bright red colors can create a great feng shui as long as they are showcased in the south area of your living space. But when displayed on the east wall of the house, the same art can bring bad feng shui.

If you don’t feel reinvigorated when you look at art on your wall, it might be best to discard it altogether.
Avoid decorating your spaces with arts portraying a sad or lonely person as this could create that energy into your room and your life.

Sculptures Or Buddha Image

Any Buddha image or sculpture will bring the element of calm and peace into your space, provided it is authentic. This means that there are no many restrictions when it comes to decorating with Buddha.

However, it is important that you be respectful of the energy that comes from the Buddha. You need to ensure it is clean all the time and it does not rest on the bare floor, for example where people leave their shoes.

Different areas in your home require different specific Buddha statue for an excellent feng shui.
A laughing Buddha is suitable in your wealth or money spot, while the medicine Buddha will be an excellent decorating item for your family and health area.

Just as in any other feng shui item, you need to pay attention to tiny details of the statue, including the color and material. A metal Buddha depicts the metal element of feng shui and is best in the north, west, or northwest areas of your house.

But is it made of clay? which is the earth element of feng shui, then it is perfect for the northeast area of your house to create an excellent feng shui energy.

Vastu

Vastu is an old Indian architectural and building science that helps in making a genial space or a place to work and live, taking the advantages of nature and its elements as well as energy fields to enhance the health, wealth, happiness, and prosperity of people.

Vastu combines art, science, astronomy, and astrology, and can also be defined as a pre-historic mystic science for constructing and building houses or structures.

Vastu philosophy works on the premise that everything in the universe possesses a certain level of energy linked to them. For this reason, it is safe to conclude that all buildings and space on which the building is constructed has vibrations of energy connected with it.

Unlike other interior designing concepts, Vastu has not received much attention for many centuries, making it less known to modern architectures.

The Origin Of Vastu

According to legends, the philosophy developed in the period between 6000 BC and 3000 BC, but it was purely a technical subject at that time. The concept was confined only to certain members of the society and was passed to them down from their ancestors by word of mouth or monographs written on scrolls.

Lord Brahma is the Hindu god that created the universe. After creating the universe, Lord Brahman decided to create a creature that can inhabit the universe; therefore he created a creature known as Vastu Purusha. However, Vastu Purusha grew bigger and bigger as time passed that it almost covered the whole earth. It also ate everything that crossed its path.

Shiva And Vishnu

The other gods, Shiva and Vishnu, grew worried about the creature and asked Brahma to act before the creature destroys everything on earth. Brahma realized he made a mistake creating Vastu, and therefore, called the gods of the eight cardinal directions Astha Dikapalakas.

Together, they pinned the monster against the earth with Brahma in the middle while 40 other gods holding various parts of the creature to the ground. The monster then cried: “You created me like this. So why am I being punished for what you made me?” Brahma then decided to comprise and made Vastu immortal and that he would be worshiped by all mortals that build a house on earth.

Vastu Tips For Different Areas Of Your Home

As we have seen now, in Vastu, every home comes with its kind of energy vibrations, which will affect your well-being. There are ways you can include Vastu in your home and have that positive energy exuding from every corner.

The Main Entrance

A beautiful and well-organized doorway attracts good energy. So, keeping your entrance neat, tidy and sufficiently lit you will be welcoming in positive energy. In Vastu, the door is recommended to have a solid wood.
Declutter your entrance by removing unnecessary objects like shoe rack so that nothing blocks positive energy from entering your house.

Vastu philosophy recommends that your door should face north, east, or northeast. The main entrance should be constructed in a manner that when you step out, you face east, north, or northeast.

Avoid having the bathroom near your main entrance, as well as painting your door black, placing animal figurines or statues, and the door should open in clockwise.

Living Room

The living room should be clutter-free all the time.

It is better to be designed to face east, north, northeast, or northwest. The dominant furniture should be arranged facing the southwest or west side of the living room. The mirror should be placed on the north wall of the living room, and electronics should be installed in the southeast of the room.

Courtyard

The courtyard is considered the most powerful and holiest area of your house, and the center of your residence. The courtyard should be clutter-free and spotless.

Avoid including bathroom, kitchen, or a beam or pillar because they attract unfavorable energy that could affect yours and family’s health.

Bedroom

The bedroom should face the southwest direction to bring prosperity and good health. A bedroom in the northeast of the house can cause health issues, while southeast can lead to quarrels between couples.

Avoid television or a mirror in front of your bed. According to Vastu, seeing your reflection in bed can cause fights as well as other domestic problems.

Avoid painting the walls of your bedroom black.

Burn some aromatic oils accompanied by mood lighting to generate that oasis of calm.
Avoid paintings portraying a fountain or water, or a temple in your bedroom as they may result in an emotional breakdown.

Meditation Room

Your house needs to have a designated room for meditation or prayers to boost your personal growth. It is healthy for you to introspect and connect to the higher divine.

The meditation or prayer or yoga room should be located east or northeast of your home. Facing eastwards while meditating will enhance positivity.

You can color the room white, green, light yellow, or beige.

Vastu Items For Positive Energy

Here are a number of items you can decorate your home with to bring Vastu good luck.

Buddha Statue At The Main Door

This is a divine way to decorate your space and will safeguard your home from negative energy. The statue should be kept facing east.

Ensure that you get an authentic statue, and keep it clean all the time.

Vastu Paintings

There are rooms in your house that should not contain any painting, but there are some paintings in Vastu that brings positive energy.

You can have a painting of a waterfall, seven running horses, flowing river, and goldfish to attract wealth. To attract good opportunities like better jobs; hang paintings of endless straight roads and paths.

Windchimes

Not only will wind chimes add beauty to your house, but it will also bring positive energy that will lead to peace and happiness.

Fish Aquariums

Fish aquariums will bring life to your living room. It is one way of rectifying Doshas and also they tend to reduce fatigue, stress, high blood pressure as well as anxiety.