A Room with Vastu

Vedic design brings positive energy home

by KIM DAVIS

Rushing to an afternoon appointment, you hurry down the bustling sidewalk with a mind awash in the banal concerns, lists, and plans that make up your day. Paying minimal attention to your surroundings, you almost miss the simple, elegant doorway sandwiched between busy coffee shops. But something about this place catches your eye, and you step inside. Immediately you feel at ease, your mind begins to clear, and you realize you’ve ventured into a home design showroom. What is it about this place that feels so tranquil and agreeable?

It could be a latent desire to renovate your house—or it could be that the principles of vastu, the ancient Indian precursor to feng shui, are working their invisible magic.

“You can’t quantify it,” says John Wiggers, an Ontario-based furniture designer. “It resonates with you on some level, but for no particular reason.”
Over the years, Wiggers Custom Furniture Ltd. has incorporated the principles of both vastu (sometimes spelled “vaastu”) and feng shui into many of its award-winning designs. Wiggers notes that pieces with proportions more in line with these principles are better received than those without.
“You come across iconic pieces by renowned designers, and certain proportions consistently come to the surface, too frequently to be a fluke,” says Wiggers. “People are not conscious of it, but they respond to it unconsciously.”

Wiggers has noticed a similar phenomenon with buildings. He started applying vastu and feng shui principles to his own shop, and has seen a surprising correlation between areas that have been “harmonized,” and their subsequent improvement in production.

While many Canadians have heard of the ancient Chinese design philosophy feng shui, vastu—or Vedic design—is still relatively new to most of us. While conceptually similar, vastu and feng shui differ considerably in the details, such as the exact directions in which various objects, rooms, and materials should be oriented.

Vastu aims to harmonize the flow of energy, called prana (similar to feng shui’s chi), throughout a building. Vastu combines five elements—earth, ether (Earth’s magnetic energy), air, fire, and water—with several overarching principles to address everything from site selection and building orientation to the character of a home and furniture arrangement. It also promotes the use of natural and environmentally friendly materials, says Salt Spring Island’s Ruth Anne Taves, a coordinator of Maharishi Sthapatya Veda design—considered by its followers to be the purest form of vastu.

“While you don’t read about this in the Vedic texts—because natural materials were all that was available at the time—both for the health and well-being of the individual and the environment, Maharishi Sthapatya Veda encourages and promotes natural products and toxin-free materials.”

The implementation of vastu can vary considerably from one consultant to another. While several experts, including Taves, feel that it’s not typically feasible to apply vastu to an existing building, others believe that even simple changes, such as furniture arrangement and colour selection, can make a positive impact. Here are a few tips to help you foster more harmonious spaces in your home:

• The centre of a space, both of an entire home and each individual room, is considered fragile and sacred. Keeping these areas free of furniture and clutter allows positive energy to radiate outward into the room, providing a sense of peacefulness and integration.
• If you live in a house that is not east- or north-facing (the two most auspicious directions), Taves suggests closing up any south- or west-facing doors, and using east or north entrances instead.
• In order to create openness, and to welcome in the energy of the morning sun, place furniture made of light wood, rattan, and glass in the northeast; put the tallest and heaviest furniture in the southwest.
• When it comes to colour selection, consider these choices based on the different areas of your home:
  • The east represents the sun, so use bright and warm colours such as red, yellow, orange, and gold, in east-facing areas.
  • The northwest represents the moon; try incorporating white, and bright colours such as blue, green, and pink.
    Avoid using dark and gloomy colours in northwest areas, especially grey and black.
• Sleeping in the correct direction is an important aspect of vastu; orient your head so it points east or south.
• One of the key principles governing many Eastern interiors is simplicity. Avoid overly elaborate decoration, and remove any unnecessary possessions. Celebrate your personal style and what you love by displaying only objects and furnishings of true function, beauty, or personal meaning.

Interestingly, Taves says that although many Indian families in Toronto inquire about vastu when looking for a home, it’s Salt Spring Island that currently has the highest concentration of vastu dwellings in Canada. In addition to having several areas that have the proper slope and orientation required by vastu, Taves says, Salt Spring Island is considered one of the five most sattvic (pure) places on Earth, as deemed by the founder of Maharishi Sthapatya Veda design, the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. As a result, many practitioners of Transcendental Meditation build their vastu homes there.

Kim Davis is a freelance researcher, writer, and designer who has a whole new appreciation for her home’s east-facing entrance.

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