Since 1986, there have been “Feng Shui” books in English about hanging wind chimes and mirrors. These objects serve to remind us of our goals in health, relationships, money, etc. They help us to keep up an optimistic expectation. It is true that nothing is stronger than your mind. Whatever you confidently expect over a period of time will usually come your way. The “wind chime and mirror” method, however, amounts to using your energy to lift the energy of the house.

Classical Feng Shui employs the energy of the house to lift you. In the modern world of the twenty-first century, you have enough obligations calling upon your energy without being called upon to spend your energy to energize your house or apartment. When you have a house, the house should energize you, not you energizing the house. Hence the “wind chime and mirror” method is not a true school of Feng Shui. Many popular books mention the “Form School” as opposed to the “Compass School.” I have yet to encounter a school of traditional Feng Shui — or a school of traditional Vaastu — that does not use both. If you don’t read the surroundings, how do you know what kind of energy is coming in the doors and windows? You might have a state- of-the-art car with a state-of-the-art engine, but without gasoline, the state-of-the-art car will just sit there. “Form School” might refer to “San He” and “Compass School” might refer to “San Yuan”. “San He” means “The Three Harmonies’ and can be used for designing houses in the country or where there are real landforms — hills and streams.

“The Three Harmonies” are triangles that we use to place buildings and objects in relation to surrounding landforms. “Compass School” might refer to “San Yuan” which means “The Three Periods”. The ancient Chinese divided time, not into centuries, but into three “Yuan” or periods of sixty years. The energies in the air that nourish the different organs of the human body have always waxed and waned according to the time period. “San Yuan” factors in the energy of the time period to read both the buildings and the people in them.

People — with their differing physical body types — are one third of the energy of a house or office. Put a different family in the same house, even another very nice family, and it is a different house. The ancients had more sophisticated ways of measuring biorhythms than we chart today with our computers. The rhythms of energy in the air interact with the rhythms of energy in the earth. I have a very good friend who practices Vaastu — for real — and before he met me, he had only met “Feng Shui” people who hang wind chimes. I wanted to let him know in a brief way that I am also a traditional practitioner — a real one. So I said, “The ancient people found that the earth has stale energies filtering through. Like a pimple in the skin, these stale energies come close to the surface near the foundations of buildings and houses. There are several different currants of stale energy that circulate according to different patterns. We try to avoid digging in those directions of the compass. This prevents a lot of sickness.” My friend’s mouth fell open and he shook his head. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I said, “Well, that is what the ancient people of China thought.” His wife said, “You should tell him.” My friend said, “I didn’t think anyone outside of India knew this. And among the people who profess to practice Vaastu, only one in fifty knows it.” I said, “Well, thanks to the books on wind chimes and mirrors, we probably have fewer than one in fifty.” But how many ways are there to read the house, and how can one know which to use?

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