Bagua: the essence of feng shui

Simply put, feng shui is the ancient Chinese wisdom of how the placement of objects in your home affects the flow of energy, positive or negative. One way that a feng shui master analyses the energy of a space is via the bagua. This octagon-shaped sort of map of a room or house determines the eight directions and their numerical and directional significance in harnessing the right feng shui. This bagua not only defines the numbers for each direction but also indicates the location of each element found on earth. When the correlation between directions, numbers and human needs becomes coherent, the desired energy level can be achieved easily. Besides knowing the location and significance of each element—water, wood, fire, earth, and metal—it is also important to know how to increase or decrease the presence of an element in a particular space.

The constructive and destructive cycle

In feng shui, there are two main ways in which the five elements interact: the constructive cycle and the destructive cycle. In order to strengthen or enhance the energy of an element in a space, you can create a constructive cycle: water in the north [supports] wood in the east and southeast [supports] fire in the south [supports] earth in the northeast and southwest [supports] metal in the west and northwest [supports] water in the north. For example, because water supports wood, you could strengthen wood energy in a space by including more water-related things, like aquariums or the colour deep blue.

The destructive cycle is used to weaken or subdue an element in your home or office. This is what it looks like: water [weakens] fire [weakens] metal [weakens] wood [weakens] earth [weakens] water. Once we learn the importance of these cycles, it becomes easier to design a space in a constructive way.

Understanding and enhancing the bagua’s wealth direction

According to feng shui, the southeast area of a home or office is linked to wealth and prosperity. It is also where the element of wood, which signifies abundance, makes its home in the bagua. So this direction needs to be looked after consciously; start with making sure this area is clutter-free. Here are a few tips on how you can nurture and enhance this space to foster the right wealth-attracting energy.

• A popular, traditional feng shui idol that is used to attract wealth is the golden Laughing Buddha idol. Although it is often exchanged as a gift on auspicious occasions, the Laughing Buddha with golden ingots is famously known to nurture the energy of prosperity. Place the idol on top of desks or shelves in your home or office.
• Plants are also a great way of improving the wood energy in your home or office. You can place pots of vibrant plants, like bamboo and lady palm, in a southeast courtyard or room. However, avoid placing milk-oozing plants like cactus and bonsai, and large-sized trees like peepal or banyan in a southeast location. Additionally, don’t place any plant in the southeast area of a bedroom because plants emit negative energy at night. Scientifically it has been proven that they release carbon dioxide in the air at night due to reverse photosynthesis.
• Although wooden objects, like furniture, are ideal to boost up the energy in the southeast area, avoid decorating with old and used wooden things. Many retailers sell rotting wooden furniture as “antique” pieces. These are often also aesthetically displeasing. Make sure you get fresh and tastefully designed objects for the southeast space of your home or office.
• Wooden wind chimes are also ideal décor accents that can uplift the energy in southeast-facing verandas, balconies or porches. It lends a vibrant touch to the energy of the space.
• The three-legged frog, with money in its mouth, is another feng shui cure that is known to attract wealth and prosperity. Traditionally, it is either placed in the southeast area of a room or at the front entrance of a home or office. However, make sure that the frog faces the inside, rather than facing the door. A golden or multicoloured frog is better to bring in wealth.
• Painting a southeast area in wood element colours, like green and brown, can also increase the level of energy in that space.
• Because the metal element weakens the wood element, avoid placing metallic things in the southeast area in your home or office.
• Feng shui believes that the environment which we live in plays an important role in our life. Therefore creating a positive environment is necessary to attract wealth. You can decorate a southeast corner or room with images that symbolise wealth and prosperity. For example, use photographs of family picnics and outings, luxury yachts or cars, waterfront villas and mansions, and other images of a lavish lifestyle.
• Another great décor item to attract wealth is the feng shui money boat or ship, filled with coins and gold ingots. These ships are easily available in stores that sell feng shui objects. They can be used to decorate or accent office or study desktops or tabletops.
• If you use a chest or box to store money, jewellery, or financial documents, then you could line its insides with mirrors. In feng shui it is believed that doing this creates a feeling of abundance because, as the saying goes, money attracts money.

Feng shui is not a magic potion for money

It is critical to understand that consulting a feng shui master or designing your space according to feng shui principles is not going to shower money in your life. All feng shui does is align your space with the positive vibrations of the five essential elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal. This, in turn, creates an atmosphere of positivity that is able to support your efforts and, perhaps, lead to multiple blessings in your life. Feng shui simply purifies the environment of your home or office and helps to generate constructive ideas for a life filled with good health, harmony, and wealth.

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A child’s room should be internally and externally aligned so that it is always filled with a healthy ambiance. Inculcating Feng shui to set up your child’s room helps to promote sound sleep and increase their overall health. As parents, you have to initiate measures to ensure positive Feng shui and teach your children how to maintain their rooms so that they can enjoy the benefits of perpetual good energy. Here, I share a few Feng shui fundamentals that can be easily applied to your child’s room.

Have a systematic layout

As per the first fundamental law of Feng shui, your child’s room should be vibrant with no clutter inside or outside. Use boxes, stylish bags and storage devices to keep the room orderly.

A person’s room is a reflection of their mindset; clutter causes lethargy and pessimistic thoughts. Therefore, you should ensure that the bed sheet, pillows, show pieces, books, shoes and other belongings are always in their respective and predetermined places. Remember, a systematic approach brings with it an orderly lifestyle; it encourages positive thinking and a creative mindset. A well-arranged room causes energy to flow. In addition, for practical reasons, if the room is systematically arranged, you save time locating objects, making life hassle-free. Encouraging your children to maintain an organised bedroom helps them to be organised in other aspects of their life.

Cleanliness is of the utmost importance

There should be no dust, waste-paper, cracked glasses, broken toys or food stuff in the room. Disarray generates chaotic energy and tends to make a room claustrophobic. Make it a point to keep the room dust-free, as dust creates sluggish energy. Rearrange things, wipe the floor, clean the bed, study table, chairs and other items to get energy free-flowing. If you can, create free space around the bed, chair, study-table and corner lamps to allow the energy to move around the room.

Face the north for a good career

As per Feng shui fundamentals, the north is the direction to enable good career prospects. Therefore, if possible, place your child’s study-table in such a way that he faces the north while studying. Facing north while making career decisions or when planning for the future increases the likelihood of making better career choices. At the same time, you should ensure that no ‘fire elements’ like red bulbs, candle-stands, gadgets and magazines are placed to the north of your child’s room or even in the north of other areas of your house, since this impedes career prospects.

Feng shui for the bed

Your child’s bed should be aligned so that his head points towards the west. If that is not possible, then the east is the second best option. There should be no open cabinets or cupboards in the room. Every storage unit should be shut and things should be properly placed in their storage space. The bed sheet should be in soothing colours like pink, purple, light orange, light blue and preferably with nursery prints. Avoid bed-sheets with prints like snakes and ladders, ludo and other games, jungle prints, horrifying designs and shades like black and dark brown. As children grow up, their choices will change too, but encourage them to use bed linen that has calming prints as this promotes good Feng shui and has a relaxing effect.

Promote proper air circulation

Fresh air in the room rejuvenates the life energy, called Yang-Chi in Feng shui. Opening all the doors and windows of the room is very good for circulating affirmative vibrations. If your apartment has a balcony, use it to place plants with aesthetically pleasing seasonal or perennial flowers. The blossoming flowers help to enliven your child’s frame of mind.

To reduce mustiness in the room and to enable your child to be mentally alert, use rose, lavender, sandalwood, jasmine, lemongrass or eucalyptus scented fresheners, because they boost mood and memory.

Outside the room

Besides the room, the passage should also be free from clutter. There should be no obstacles in the way from the room to the lobby. There should be pleasing sceneries on the walls, preferably those of smiling children, playgrounds, or eminent personalities. Having pictures of famous personalities near the entrance and on the adjoining walls always bodes well and they become role models for the child to emulate. Avoid the use of pictures that could have negative connotations, like wild animals, war scenes, weeping faces and abstract paintings in this area.

Colours play a significant role

Paint you child’s room in vibrant colours and as per his choice. If you notice that your child prefers very dull colours and is more inclined towards black, gently guide him to choose bright colours. Off-white brings calmness, blue increases career prospects, purple balances energy and green encourages positive thinking. Red, maroon and orange may make him excessively hot-tempered; so if he is very keen on any of these colours, use it only on the wall in the south direction. If you want to use colours to balance the entire room with positive Feng shui, then use red on the southern wall, green on the east, blue on the north and light grey or golden or silver on the western wall. The northern wall of the room should not be painted with red colour, as this increases the fire element.

Study table

A properly placed and organised study table boosts your child’s academic progress. As mentioned previously, the study table should be clutter-free. There shouldn’t be any broken pens, unsharpened pencils, unusable books, old magazines, used rough-papers, garments, utensils and unhealthy literature on the study table. If they are there, get rid of them and clean the table.

Once the table is clean, place books that are currently in use upon the table and inside the drawers. Keeping heaps of old literature, toys, pictures and video games tends to hinder the free flow of positive Feng shui in and around the study area, while a dormant space may bring stagnation in your child’s life. Placing a symbol of the ‘Education tower’ or a miniature crystal globe on the study table helps to increase your child’s focus and fills the room with calming vibrations.

At the outset, it is you as a parent who will have to kick-start the process of boosting Feng shui in your child’s room. But once he sees the effects that a positive environment brings, he will enjoy maintaining it himself.

This was first published in the December 2014 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Remove clutter from your bedroom

Your bedroom should be a calm place where you can unwind. Clutter congests the energy of the area and a messy bedroom does not help to create a romantic atmosphere. If you want to get married or attract the right partner, prepare by getting rid of unnecessary items in your bedroom. At a symbolic level, this is indicative of you making space in your life for your partner. If you are already married, you and your partner should make sure that the space that you exclusively share [the bedroom] is neat and organised. This ensures order in your relationship as well.

Bed feng shui

Ensure that there is equal space between the bed and the walls on both sides of the bed. This allows the chi to circulate in the area. Avoid placing the bed in the corner of the room adjoining the walls. Beds with storage drawers underneath them are bad feng shui as they do not allow the chi to flow. Avoid having a single night stand; have two night stands and place them on either side of the bed as this helps to ground and balance the energy.

Colours of love

Pink is the colour of romance in feng shui. However that doesn’t mean that you need to drown your home in shades of pink. While painting the walls with pink does increase the love energy, if it’s not your colour, you can use it in lesser amounts like for accent pieces, carpets or cushions. Yellow, purple, red and white will also work to boost the chi of the place.

Avoid dark-coloured furniture and linen in the bedroom. Excess black, brown and other dull shades bring negativity to the room, hence they should be avoided.

Light the spark

A well-lit room exudes positive energy. Create ample lighting with a mix of yellow and white light. Light is the physical manifestation of the sun and its energy, so you need to maintain a balance with the lighting in your home. A room that is too dark can be depressing, but avoid having excessively lit bedroom as too much brightness will impede your relaxation.

Love stone

A rose quartz is a pink-coloured natural stone [also called the love stone] and is thought to augment the effects of love energy. It is used in feng shui to find and keep a partner. The energy of a rose quartz is said to heal one’s heart from pain.

Hang them near the windows, on the night stand or on the entrance door of the bedroom. To keep your relationship strong, use a glass bowl with two rose quartz balls touching each other.

Wearing a pendant, a ring or a bracelet made with rose quartz will make your partner more desirable to you and vice versa.

Flowers

In feng shui it is not the rose that is the symbol of romance, but the peony. It is used to keep infidelity away. To keep your marriage strong, place a picture of peonies on the wall just in front of your bed. Red flowers also revitalise your love energy.

Symbols of romance

To heighten your love chi, use a pair of Mandarin Ducks. These must be kept facing in the same direction and preferably near the head of the bed. Mandarin ducks mate for life, so they are used in feng shui to depict commitment.

Besides Mandarin ducks, showpieces of birds like swans, turtle-doves, love birds or eagles can be used since they too mate for life. Always keep these showpieces in pairs as this is symbolic of your devotion to you partner.

The endless knot is another feng shui cure that can be used near the bed. In Buddhism, the endless knot is one of the eight auspicious objects. This symbol implies there is no beginning and no end and it represents the harmonious flow of energy with no setbacks, misfortunes and accidents.

Heart shaped pillows, showpieces and flower vases are good for the flow of chi when used in the bedroom and surroundings.

Artwork

Decorate the bedroom, lobby and drawing room with photographs or paintings of dancers, musicians or couples. Avoid pictures of single people, desolate landscapes or any artwork that is melancholic.

The phoenix is the Chinese symbol of celebration; wearing an ornament with a phoenix or putting up a small painting of a phoenix increases chi. But if you use this type of painting, it should be red-oriented and hung on the southern wall.

Gifts

Never exchange gifts like scissors, blades, knives, tonics, kerchiefs or tragic novels as these are symbolic of negative energy.

Subtle feng shui

Attending marriage ceremonies, functions and festivals also increases love energy since they all symbolise happiness. The energy of these events then spreads into our lives.

One of the best feng shui cures to activate your love energy is the ‘Visualising Exercise’. In this exercise, visualise what you desire as if it is taking place genuinely. People may call it day-dreaming, but concentrating on a particular desire may also activate luck in that area of your life and often yields the desired results.

This was first published in the November 2014 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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