“Vastu connects us to our soul. It lets us honor the light of love that exists within us.”
— Kathleen Cox
Good morning! I’m excited to share a fascinating article with you today on the subject of “Vastu Living” by author, speaker, and vastu expert Kathleen Cox.
Vastu is India’s ancient science of design and architecture, and as Kathleen likes to say, “vastu is yoga for the home.”
Kathleen is the author of several books of the subject of vastu, including “Vastu Living: Creating a Home for the Soul” and “The Power of Vastu Living: Welcoming Your Soul into Your Home and Workplace.”
Her article is sure to inspire you to implement the principles of vastu into your home and work environments! Enjoy ♥
“Designing for the Soul with Vastu”
by Kathleen Cox
Vastu, which is India’s ancient science of design and architecture, is the third piece in the Vedic mind-body-soul equation, which also includes yoga and ayurveda. While yoga and ayurveda increase our wellbeing by focusing on our body; vastu focuses on our surrounding environments to achieve this same goal. In a nutshell, I call vastu yoga for the home.
Briefly stated, vastu subscribes to a theory of design that I refer to as spiritual holism in which our goal is the creation of a home that nurtures the soul. We reach this goal by designing with intent—mindfully following three holistic principles. First, we try to set up every room in our home so that the body’s biorhythms are aligned with the universal rhythms that unfold around us. We know what happens when we work at night and try to sleep during the day. Our internal clock slips out of balance; we never feel quite rested. Vastu realizes that our home can unintentionally create this same negative impact on us when its design is out of harmony with the natural forces that surround us. Therefore, vastu asks us to honor (to the best of our ability) the recommended placement of the five basic elements of space or ether, air, fire, water, and earth in our home and within each room. Their assigned location is logical—based on the movement of the sun, the pattern of the wind, and specific parallels to forces and energies that exist within the human body.
The second principle in vastu asks us to draw nature into our home so that we consciously respect our interconnection and interdependence with all that naturally exists in the world. By doing this, we support the environment and also support our holistic relationship to the environment. The third principle in vastu asks us to respect our unique identity and celebrate who we are and what we love—an act that further reinforces the essential truth that exists in all creation. All that exist serves a purpose: it is worthy and divine. In this third principle, we are extending the concept of spiritual holism to include respect for the self.
As we practice vastu, we see how these guidelines manipulate, to our healthy advantage, the power of space. We create personal environments in which the ambience is inviting, loving—we feel at ease inside a vastu home. Such a home whispers its word of welcome to all who enter the space.
The Power of Rhythm
In vastu, we try to align each room in a space so that it observes as much as possible the proper location of each element. Through this alignment, we create powerful rhythms that flow from room to room or around each individual space. This feeling of rhythm mindfully reinforces the cohesion that should exist inside every home—and this rhythm adds a measure of predictability and comfort. Nothing around us is jarring or feels out of place. This intentional creation of rhythm in the home also mirrors the properties of the universe, which is governed by its own predictable set of rhythms—light and dark, hot and cold, wet and dry, the changes of the seasons. These cycles are reflected to a similar degree within our body when it is in a healthy state of balance. Think about the movement of the breath, the cycle of digestion, all the cycles connected to creation, preservation, and destruction that go on within our human form.
In a vastu home, we also intentionally create quiet meditative areas, which I call zones of tranquility that connect to the element of water in the northeast quadrant of each space. And why is the element of water assigned to the northeast? Ancient vastu scholars understood that the period of dawn is the healthiest time of the day—the earliest of the sun’s rays are meditative and restorative. In the past, swamis and yogis always faced northeast at dawn when they meditated or practiced yoga. The element of water also exhibits many of the properties of the sun. Water is calming and soothing to us. Water also serves as a receptacle that can absorb the healing energy of the sun that comes at this time of day. By creating this pattern of quiet focus in the northeast in room after room, we symbolically honor the sustenance that comes from the sun that keeps us alive…
Continue Reading “Designing for the Soul”
Copyright Kathleen Cox. All Rights Reserved.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on Kathleen’s article! Please scroll down and leave your comments below.
Wishing you a beautiful day!!
Soulfully,
Valerie
