[bblost]

Originally Posted by adroit_91

I'm a deep believer and take serious offense at this condescending thread!!

Don't you people realize that there is an urgent need for a Nation-wide Vastu directoves and compliance enforcement policy? The simple cause for all the road accidents, the tendency of otherwise civil people to suddenly be occupied by the spirits that inspire road rage, and so many railway users dying in freak mishaps is that our roads and railways are running in all directions!! They should all be running either North or East! And, if really necessary North-East! For all travels in opposite directions, how difficult is it to circle the globe?

These scientists proposing social as well as safety oriented engineering be damned!!

What an awesome post.

You had me a little confused at first. Had to read it twice and then sit up and read it again.

[indian21r]

Historically there are quite a few things in Vaastu which make logical sense. For example East Facing house is given preference over a West Facing one. This is perfectly logical because morning sun is not too harsh and by the time it is 8 or 9, people tend to go to work. And in the evenings you can sit in shade in front of your house. This is true especially in Villages and houses with Veranda.

We have lost a lot of reasoning behind why something is followed in a particular way. Hence it becomes difficult to believe everything that is shown as Vaastu these days. This is not just the case of vaastu. There are a lot of historical traditions that have been perfected which feel irrational now. We need a renaissance to keep our historical identity impact.

[girishglg]

Recently moved to the newly constructed floor of our exising house. The fully vastu compliant plan was not a very practical option and needed extensive modifications to the existing structure in the ground floor.

Hence we opted out for some basic compliance such as the main door and puja facing East and replanning the toilet placements etc so that it conforms to some extent and also brings in the peace of mind associated with it

[black12rr]

This is as good as asking do you believe in god ? . Those who believe in god and worships , but say vaastu is non sense, need to explain the former .

[zoombiee]

Originally Posted by indian21r

For example East Facing house is given preference over a West Facing one. This is perfectly logical because morning sun is not too harsh and by the time it is 8 or 9, people tend to go to work. And in the evenings you can sit in shade in front of your house. This is true especially in Villages and houses with Veranda.

I think with Vaastu most people seem to forget logic and apply the rules to the T. I recently saw the Godrej E City project. They have east facing door houses. The house itself (windows/balconies) are west facing. The houses with the west facing doors are actually east facing. Guess which ones demanded a premium and were sold out first!

[hdus001]

Originally Posted by an_and

Tell me one thing, you had a stomach ache and went to a doctor. He gave you all sorts of medicines, but after three months of taking medicines nothing works, your stomach ache still persists... so is all medicine wrong and all doctors quacks??? And that there is no science to it?

Yes, but for any medicine to be approved, the manufacturer needs to demonstrate via experiments and statistics that the medicine is beneficial. If you look at claims by manufacturers, they never claim 100% success rate..it can be as low as say 70-75% (ie only 7 out of 10 patients would benefit). However, the difference here is that they have done these studies, gone thru various tests, and have the numbers to back up their claims. Can we say the same about pujas, vaastu, astrology etc?

Originally Posted by an_and

Certain parts of our Vedas have the power to cure a person by just reciting mantras. The catch is that the pronunciation has to be precise.

Again, I'd wager these are unsubstantiated claims. If the poojaris are so confident of all this, why dont they do some studies and publish the results?

Originally Posted by an_and

One of our so called mythological stories ( more so becaus now they have found a stucture connecting rameshwaram to Lanka, but still we call it mythological) kumbhakarna was awarded the power to sleep when he mispronounced Indra asan as nidra asan...

Myths are just that..myths.

Originally Posted by an_and

By the way, nor do I practice vastu nor do I advocate it's use. TO EACH ONE HIS OWN.

Good on you for not falling into this money-making mumbo jumbo.

[an_and]

Originally Posted by hdus001

Yes, but for any medicine to be approved, the manufacturer needs to demonstrate via experiments and statistics that the medicine is beneficial. If you look at claims by manufacturers, they never claim 100% success rate..it can be as low as say 70-75% (ie only 7 out of 10 patients would benefit). However, the difference here is that they have done these studies, gone thru various tests, and have the numbers to back up their claims. Can we say the same about pujas, vaastu, astrology etc?

Again, I'd wager these are unsubstantiated claims. If the poojaris are so confident of all this, why dont they do some studies and publish the results?

An aged gent that I know has won the Indian presidents gold medal in astrology. He proved through study of over 80000 horoscopes (this was 3 years ago) that over 80% of what happens in a persons life is predestined, and he can only try to influence the other 20%. And he has published the results!!

I will give you a small anecdote, when I bought my first car, I never consulted any astrologer, etc. But my parents generally consult a known astrologer and I was about to change jobs soon after I bought my car, and they consulted him regarding it, without my knowledge ofcourse.this guy reads my horoscope and says "your son has bought a car - silver in color" and when they asked in jest why is he saying silver - he says that is what it says here. Silver is the color that he will always have. I had bought a silver palio then.

Seven years and some 200k kms on the palio later, I bought a used Innova (great deal) guess the color - Silver. My office run was now a 100 km run a day, and I am not so keen about drivers. I was getting tired driving a manual and was hoping that if i could get even the base model of USED Octavia Auto for my needs, i will be fine. One fine day, after telling the guy who services my car my wish, he calls me and says that he has a beautiful octi, run just 38 kms, rider AT, VIP No, etc at a great price and that I should buy it. I told him to go ahead with it. I was out of the country when this happend. Two weeks later when I take delivery - guess the color "Silver" ..

Now, just 10 months into driving this automatic - its so comfortable - I now have the itch to buy a new car, probably a Cruze AT or maybe a brio AT first for my wife and then the cruze for me. If I am able to actualize this plan then I am going to ensure that both of them are not silver.

Originally Posted by hdus001

Again, I'd wager these are unsubstantiated claims. If the poojaris are so confident of all this, why dont they do some studies and publish the results?

Again the problem is that there are so many pseudo jyotishis and pujaris, that one does not know what to believe and what not to. I have come across both these kinds. I have met people who have duped a lot of people and I have met people to who have actually experienced this and experience "miracleS"

About one interesting case, I met the parents and the child and heard this story from the parents. Looking at the child I could not say that it was so severly ill five months back.

The incident or the story as you chose to look took place in a famoushospital in bandra(I am not naming this on purpose). The doctors gave up after treating a child for a long period of three months (all its internal organs were failing) and then asked the parents to take the child home, saying there is no hope of saving. The hospitals returned the money (I have neither verified this nor disbelieved this - the couple in question were very poor) when the saw the same child hale and hearty walk in to the hospital after a month. I have met the "person" who made this possible, have had similar experiences when I shared cases that I came across to him. Neither once have I seen him ask for any favors or money for his help.

I have been fortunate or unfortunate to have come in contact with these mystics and thus hold a more neutral view of whats possible or not possible. But i do agree that its very difficult to believe who is genuine and who is not. Even genuine people - once you get close to them as the saying goes "Familiarty breeds contempt", you start feeling cmon whats so special about him/her, and that has also made me sadly veer away from them.

I do believe that its quite possible that there are various energies that are around us, also kind of believe about 2d, 3d, 4d, etc and that there are various ways to them as well. Till we do not know how to scientifically prove what is what, we call it myth, magic, etc. Once scientifically done then its no longer magic. Imagine in the 10th century, you saying that we can harness energy out of water / coal to build power plants that can power the nation - people would have laughed., but today its a reality.

Originally Posted by hdus001

Myths are just that..myths.

Try searching BBC on Krishna, Pyramids etc and they are now beginning to believe a lot of these myths...

Originally Posted by hdus001

Good on you for not falling into this money-making mumbo jumbo.

I agree that I have somehow managed to come in touch and then veer away, equally confused about whats what.

I would also like to apologize for this long note. I do not wish to be drawn into any discussions with reference to what has been posted, its just my experience that I thought might give you an view into what might also be a possibility. Lets not..

[AlphaKilo]

Let me share my part of "vaastu" effect. We wanted to construct first floor and were looking for some designs. Basically, I was tasked with the job of coming up with a economical yet spacious design. A very generic requirement from Mom.

1. I plotted my ideas using Autodesk inventor and even developed 3D models with it. All set and done, time to look for engineers to do the actual construction.

a. A engineer comes to survey the place, says, "sir, the ground floor house is not according to vastu that's the reason its not letting you live there." I was , mate, I called you to survey the area for a first floor and not comment on what is already there. He was so insistent on demolishing the ground floor and starting from scratch saying he will make it 100% vastu compatible and completely ignored my design. Hence, I personally rejected him straight away!

b. Comes a Mason, with his son, a civil engineer. He was ok with the "first floor only" construction. He brought in his design, which was sort related to what my idea was, albeit the fact that I learned his so-called engineer son does'nt understand engineering drawing.

c. But, the funny thing is, he was not letting me have/ready to construct the rooms and windows at the place I wanted them to be, stating obviously "Vaastu". At the end of the day, it was really a tussle between me and our Mason and literally forced him to put the windows and doors, where I wanted them.
He was more or less all the time cribing against me to his workers and to all my relatives who came to see the construction work. To top it all, his engineer son, was hell-bent on constructing the house based on vaastu only and not based on structural calculations.

I personally don't believe in pseudo-science and "vaastu" in my opinion is a fallacy. But, I don't comment on people who believe it or follow it, as long as it is not forced on me or onto my house.

-Yes, I do have chimes hanging in my house, why? because I like the mild tone they make when wind passes over them and nothing to do with any (chinese) vaastu associated with it.

-We do have an "East" facing entrance and bedroom window, why? I like to see the sun-rise every morning.

-Thirdly, we have windows in a straight line in N-S direction. why? That's the direction in which wind blows for most parts of the year in my locality! Being in Chennai, summers are way too hot and humid, given the recent power shortage, its really a boon to have N-S facing windows, aids air circulation inside the house.

[yikes6633]

30 years of my life I was against vaastu and did not even want to believe in it. It all started when I was about 20 years old, when I noticed that my father followed Vaastu blindly and did whatever different learned vaastu experts told him to do. This attitude of his started irritating me extensively.

It was difficult for me to question my father, however each time any vaastu expert came (as my father kept inviting different vaastu experts), I questioned them and tried to reason out their suggestions (as I couldn't do it with my father).

This went on for sometime and most of the vaastu pundits started complaining to my father that I (his son) does not believe in vaastu and derails their thought process and their willingness to suggest changes for the benefit of my father and his family.

Things never seemed to go as they ideally should and there was one trouble after another. This went on for sometime. Finally my father had multiple heart attacks one after the other. We had to sell some of our business to manage tough times.

We also lost some property which lead to closure of our flourishing business. All these bad times inspite of making changes in our offices and at home to comply with vaastu.

These occurrences rang a bell within me and I started wondering if vaastu was just a joke or a means of these learned pundits corning innocent and god fearing people. I had to understand this and therefore decided to learn Vaastu myself to better understand its implications. I also wanted to validate the changes advised by the pundits to my father because he was flying high and with his growing beliefs in vaastu was grounded with his wings cut off.

I took a deep plunge in vaastu, I started buying fat detailed books on vaastu so much so, that I had to take a peep into how its linked with astrology, with numerology, with karma, with lifestyles, with the geography and layout of the region etc. then I felt I had mastered the so called science and understand it from its roots/branches/trunk.

I have never gone ever and also consistently prevented my father/mother from calling or visiting any vaastu expert over the last 10 years. Today, I am very learned about vaastu and understand all of its principles in great detail and its affects. I do not practice vaastu neither do I step into any belief that people have about it.

On reading this thread and looking through some of the comments that the fellow team bhpians have shared, I would like to tell you that the prime contributor of all events in your life (good or bad) are a result of Karma. The role of vaastu in ones life is very different. It sure is a science of directions, but why, how, to what extent and when its followed may be people or circumstance specific.

When you climb a steep mountain whilst trekking, it would be difficult to climb without some harness or support, may be a stick to ease the pressure on your legs, however the climb up has to be accomplished by you and your legs and body are going to hurt once you've completed the trek up. The stick or the harness is vaastu in our lives - something that supports. If you are climbing up and if you have vaastu it does not mean that you will fly up, you still need to climb up to reach the top.

Lets say your head is hurting. One option would be to walk into your balcony, take a deep breath and continue to do so for about 45 mins until the head ache subsides (normal course of suffering is 45mins). On the other hand when your head is hurting, you pop in a pain reliever and the head ache disappears in 5mins instead of the usual 45mins, now this pain reliever is similar to Vaastu, it did not ensure that you will not get a headache, however it only reduced the duration of your suffering.

So Vaastu will never work to ensure that you have no sufferings in your life, however it works to ensure that when your suffering comes, its time span is minimized or the magnitude of the ill effects is minimized. If there is something positive or something good in your life, then vaastu works to prolong the positive effect or increase its magnitude.

Lets say you are badly hurt in the leg and have broken your leg. You are lying on the floor with no support near you. Probably you wouldn't even be able to stand or get up or move until some one comes and lifts you (may be after several hours). In a similar situation lets say you have a walking stick fallen near you and your leg is broken. You would be able to get up and call for help rather than just wait for help to come (may be within an hour or so). The stick in this scenario is vaastu - something that aids you in time of distress.

I have a lot of gyaan on vaastu and am very knowledgeable about its principles, its scientific theory and its applications in life/dwellings etc. It is only a means of support and can never avert any harm/good/evil/bad/prosperity that you are destined for, however it does have a strong bearing on the duration, level of impact and the magnitude of the effects your karma has strategized for you.

I only know, what needs to be done using the science of vaastu to ensure the ill effects are minimized and the good effects are maximized. I do not know how vaastu can be used to ensure nothing bad will ever happen or how only good things will consistently happen.

Its your KARMA.