A friend recently purchased a plot and approached me to design it. He was having many aspirations about his future home and was very enthusiastic about starting his house construction. Having several ideas in his mind, he started discussing with me the planning possibilities he felt in every room of his proposed house. He had done his background studies rather well & as the planning got underway. But slowly, as we went ahead with plan alternatives, he became a bit dejected. He was not ready for any compromises in Vaastu of home. According to him plan alternatives were not complying with the principles of Vaastu. So, ultimately, he posed me the question. “Does Vaastu really work for Home?”
What is Vaastu?
Let us see, what is Vaastu? Well, Vaastu is the ancient science of designing our houses in accordance with some principles. Basically, it is the guideline of some fundamentals of building planning. Let us be very clear, that this is no magic wand which will do something extraordinary in our life. Vaastu lays down a system of building planning and we should hold our expectations in the domain in which it exerts its influence. Most of the principles set by Vaastu are in response to our climatic conditions & if we work with that, we are, in fact, making our house more sustainable environmentally. We have to understand that Vaastu enumerated principles were largely in response to the climatic conditions & the availability of energy sources at that time.
My Experience as an Architect
Let me tell you frankly, this was not the first time, I have faced this question many times in my career spanning almost three decades. For an answer to this, I must look back to the time I started my practicing as an Architect. This was in the early 1990’s & not many architects were practicing at that time. Most of the Architects were employed in government sector & they usually used to design houses for their acquaintances. Most of the people did not have awareness of the role of Architects in house construction & also,had no accessibility to Architects.
At that time people were not even knowing about the ancient science of “Vaastu”. Lots of alternate plans were designed with all kinds of options to place rooms in any directions as per choice or convenience. But all this, without any consideration of Vaastu for home. But as time went by, the concept of Vaastu, started getting acceptance in the society. Now the times have changed so much that no building gets designed without Vaastu compliance – for both home and office. The people & all the persons connected with the building industry have fairly good knowledge of Vaastu.
The drawbacks are visible in less creative planning options. But creativity is not the topic of discussion here. Coming back to our question “Does Vaastu really work?”- the answer is linked to the details in the question.
What are we expecting?
Are we expecting that if our house is as per Vaastu than we will not have any hard time in our life? Many of my clients have held this thought when I interacted with them. This is clearly a case of having too many expectations.
According to my experiences of designing buildings for people, Vaastu does not work in isolation. It works and gives us better results in terms of improvement in quality of life, if it is supported by our sound practical sense and our efforts in other important aspects of life too. By sound practical sense, I mean that we work within the limitations set by Vaastu but not be tightly bound by them. It is no use to spoil the practicality of a space due to limitations set up by Vaastu. No system can work in isolation. Vaastu works best if we understand the limitations of our plot, requirements, byelaws etc. & these limitations and our efforts at other important things in life work in tandem with Vaastu.
Another important aspect is the social acceptability of Vaastu for home and Vaastu for Office. Following Vaastu gives a peaceful feeling & we know; mental peace is important for the wellbeing of inhabitants. So, in a nutshell, Vaastu works, by aligning our home to the environment & by providing you peace of mind. But if you expect the Vaastu to work & perform miracles for you then I bet you might be hoping for too much. To have a progressive future, Vaastu will work, provided, if you are willing to work on all the other important aspects of life also.
Conclusion
So, what happens to the people who got their house constructed when Vaastu was not in vogue. Well, there are so many people who are doing good without Vaastu. And so are the people who got their houses constructed when Vaastu was the guiding light. Same goes for people who are not doing good living in both kinds of houses. What does this tell us about the working of Vaastu? I understand that all things in life will not be going smooth all the time, some issues will always bog you down and some will push you forward. The important thing is to have a positive attitude and go through the ups and downs of life and not link everything to Vaastu. There is already too much burden on the poor chap!
Finally, the answer, according to me is “Yes, it works, but you got to work too.”
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