The Complete Yoga Community

Criticised by many for being a purely superstitious practice, Complete Yoga found that there’s more to the ancient Chinese system of aesthetics known as Feng Shui (pronounced Fung Schway) than just money frogs and love cures…

One could describe it as sheer chance that when home owners Jacqui and Sean Fandam renovated their home and took into consideration certain important Feng Shui factors that their luck and good fortune would improve. Those who understand the subtle influences that help to define our positions in the universe and, as so, the very nature of Feng Shui, will argue that perhaps the personalised ordering of their environment and positive flow of Chi in their household had more to do with it.

“Four years ago when we bought our Parktown North property from Sean’s parents, we wanted to know that we were going to be happy there,” says Jacqui. “Incorporating our business and our home on one property meant that we would be spending most of our time here and therefore needed to know that we were going to be successful and have a healthy creative, work and familial life,” she adds.

Sean and Jacqui called on Feng Shui expert and consultant Christine Park to give their home the “health check” that it needed and found that many of the insights offered made great practical sense to them and has, in the long-term, improved their positions in life.

“Everything just seemed to fall into place for us,” says Sean on the move and renovation. “We were trying for a baby at the time and getting despondent. Christine made the simple suggestion of turning the knobs on our stove to face in the opposite direction, which I easily did myself, and not long after, Jacqui fell pregnant. We were thrilled,” explains Sean.

“There were lots of practical improvements we made – like making a better entrance through the front door and closing off the side entrance we had previously been using. We organised our business space that all our desks were in the optimal positions for the people concerned. We also ensured that the baby’s cot and the direction of her head was facing her best direction. We included moving water at the entrance to enhance the flow of Chi and made use of big glass windows to allow optimal light and energy flow. We balanced the woods and the metals and replanted a tree that was obstructing the flow of Chi at our entrance. Generally the position of the house on the land was positive, providing a solid support for our home. We had a great base to work from within the shape and form of the house and the changes we have made naturally feel better to us which was wonderful to experience,” Sean expounds.

Harmonious Living
Christine Park who has been immersed in the teachings and philosophies of Feng Shui and The I Ching for over 11 years, firmly believes in the transformatory power of Feng Shui and utilises the laws of both heaven and earth to improve the flow of positive Chi for her clients and students to whom she lectures.

Originating in the I Ching, written by the saint Fu Xi thousands of years ago, Christine says, “for all the mystery surrounding it, Feng Shui evolved from the simple observation that we are affected, for good and bad, by our surroundings. It offers us a means of managing and harmonising our environment with our personal energies. Feng Shui, literally “wind – water”, teaches that these forces are responsible for our health, prosperity and good luck and as such, the aim of Feng Shui is to change and harmonise the environment and to improve fortunes.”

It is explained that by understanding the environment and the cycles of nature, together with your own energies and how these relate to the environment, you can tune into nature’s cycle and improve your lifestyle.

GOOD AND BAD SURROUNDINGS
Christine explains that the house is like a body and the entrance is the mouth. For good energy to enter, you must have a clear entrance path. Obstructions to this open path or mouth of the home causes a trapped energy flow. Bad surroundings for your home in terms of the land form includes things like billboards, powerlines, satellite dishes, old buildings and dead trees. The land should slope up and away from the house and should be higher on the left and lower on the right. “When our homes are off balance, we become off balance too,” Christine explains.

One system of Feng Shui explains how the house is like an armchair and, like a good chair, it needs to provide you with the correct support. When you have the right surroundings, it forms a protection that will provide you with ideal opportunities.

The shape of the property and house is also very important, Christine says. “Chi tends to want to settle and it does so in trapped spaces. Regular shaped homes like that of a square or rectangle are good for the flow of Chi whereas irregular shaped homes often are bad for the flow of Chi.” In irregular shaped homes the Chi wants to find the missing section, the section that has been “lost” or “cut off”.

BALANCING THE INTERIORS
“The most important factors to consider concerning the interior of your home is the direction of the entrance door (when facing out); all the room locations; as well as the beds, the stove and the desk,” Christine states.

With Feng Shui, consultants carry an extremely accurate Chinese compass or Luo Pan in order to determine the directions in finding any auspicious sector in a desired location. It requires the calculations of a location’s life force energy/Chi Level as well as the numerical significance of a person including their birth date, birth hour, animal sign and personal Gua number. In addition, an individual’s destiny is calculated using Ba Zi or Chinese Star Astrology, where good luck starts and bad luck stars are based, and a Feng Shui audit is concluded.

The Eight Mansions
This system relates to the eight directions of a compass with four cardinal and four sub cardinal directions. In order to determine your Life Gua number, we work from the year of our births understanding that each year has a specific energy and each energy relates to a specific direction.

WORKING OUT YOUR GUA NUMBER
We all fall under one of two groups – the East Group and West Group. Each group has four good directions and four bad directions.
Birth Year
Take the last two digits of your birth year and add them together. If it’s a double digit you further add those numbers together. If however, you are born before the fourth of February in a specific year, you revert to the previous year.
Example: Feb 3rd 1977 (revert to 1976)
7 + 6 = 13; 1+3 = 4

For males you subtract 10
For females you add 5

Example: Males 10 – 4 = Gua 6
Females 5 +4 = Gua 9

If your personal Gua number is a 5, for men it becomes 2 and for women it becomes 8.

The 2000 Formula
In the year 2000 the energy patterns changed and so anyone born in the year 2000 or thereafter, please follow the below instruction:

Girls add 6; Boys subtract 9

Example: 3rd March 2003
0+3 = 3

Girls: 6 + 3 = Gua 9
Boys: 9 – 3 = Gua 6

East Group numbers include those of 1, 3, 4 and 9 and West Group numbers include those of 2, 6, 7 and 8. Each group has their own energies and you can find out a lot about yourself and what is good for you based on this number system. As a general rule, people who are in the same group have more harmonious relationships.

Good and Bad Directions
Our personal Gua numbers have both good directions and bad directions. Once you have worked out your Gua number, check the below boxes to find your best directions. The optimal direction for a number is determined by +90 and the second best direction by +80 and so forth. The worst direction according to the Bad Direction table is represented by -90, the second worst by -80 and so forth.

These directions are important for determining the positions you should stand, sleep, work, eat etc. to gain maximum luck and opportunity. Very important, says Christine, is the direction the top of your head faces when you sleep at night. People who have problems sleeping should check the direction their head faces and ensure optimal positioning. In addition, the direction each room faces is important as well as those directions of the entrance door (when looking out), knobs of the stove (represents your fire and health) and desk (career). Over long periods of time, should your directions be off balance, you will likely encounter sickness and/or bad events and happenings.

The year 2008 is a great year for Gua 8 people and therefore they are in a powerful position this year.

There are remedies and cures for all badly aligned positions, so should you find yourself in an unfavourable position or surrounded by negative Chi, says Christine, there are guides to fixing most problems and turning negative Chi back to positive Chi.

LUCK LEVELS
There are three levels of luck in Feng Shui:
1.  Heaven Luck (Tien Chai) – the level of luck you are born with, consisting of the destiny which cannot be changed or altered, such as one’s destiny, Ba Zi stars, gender, birth hour, birth day, animal sign and personal Gua number.
2. Earth Luck (Ti Chai) – is your Feng Shui luck i.e. the luck you acquire through applying Feng Shui principles into your life through your home and environment.
3. Man’s Luck (Ren Chai) – the luck that is by one’s own personal efforts such as what you decide to do with your life and how you choose to live your life.
All three types of luck should be taken into consideration when calculating correct Feng Shui.

YIN AND YANG
Polarity is expressed in Feng Shui as Yin and Yang theory, i.e. one energy creating an exertion (Yang/active energy) and one receiving the exertion (Yin/passive energy). The five elements of Feng Shui (water, wood, fire, earth, and metal) are made of Yin and Yang in equal amounts. While the goal of Chinese medicine is to balance the Yin and Yang of the body, so the goal of Feng Shui is to balance the Ying and Yang of the house and environment to the people living in the house and environment. This creates better luck and opportunity and greater balance and harmony for the individual.

BA GUA (EIGHT SYMBOLS)
The Ba Gua translated means “eight directions” and are used to represent a range of interrelated concepts. It’s derived from the I Ching and it is from here that we get the understanding of Yin and Yang. The Ba Gua therefore represents the Yin and Yang of our homes and can be useful in ascertaining what the good and bad areas of the house are for the individual. For discerning Feng Shui practitioners, the Ba Gua is at the heart of Feng Shui practice.

In the simplified diagram above, the recommended use of the Ba Gua is to apply this from the direction of the front door of the home.

THE BENEFITS
Feng Shui speaks to the profound role of magic, mystery and order in our lives. “By putting conscious intention into our environment, and letting go of things that no longer enhance our lives, we open the space to tremendous amounts of energy to flow through our physical surroundings and into our lives,” says Christine. We then understand that when we work with the principles of Chi that says that all things in the physical world are endowed with living energy and that Chi connects every physical thing and, how further, that with Chi, everything is constantly changing. Once understood, we are better able to create living environments that are comfortable, organized and in harmony with our inner being.

The truth is that we have both good and bad Feng Shui and that it’s not about getting it 100 per cent right. Christine says that the balance should be slightly higher on the side of Yang. You need not worry though, only 60% needs to be good and 40% can be bad for this balance to exist and for you to feel comfortable, happy and healthy.

Most us already practice Feng Shui naturally. We know intuitively when an environment feels balanced and harmonious and we are naturally drawn to places that are not too bright, not too dark, not too big and not too small – places that are “just right”.