Trafford Publishing: A World Home: Vastu Shastra for a Modern World

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A World Home: Vastu Shastra for a Modern World

by Jacob William Curtis

136 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0062; ISBN 1-55395-699-0; US$33.50, C$39.50, EUR27.50, £19.50

This new interpretation of Vastu Shastra, India's ancient art of home making, is a guide to falling in love with the world, to living in harmony with the earth and achieving a profound experience of oneness with reality.

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About the book      About the author      Table of Contents and Excerpt      Catalogue info

About the Book

This exciting and insightful guide for home making can help you establish a vital relationship with the world and the cosmos. A World Home adapts the ancient wisdom of Vastu Shastra to the demands and opportunities of modern life in an easy step by step process. Vastu Shastra asserts the unity of all things and it embodies a conviction that an intuitive recognition of oneness with the world has an ultimate value. In adapting Vastu Shastra to modern life, A World Home helps you organize your home so that every activity can reinforce your unity with the world.
This guide can be adapted to any home making situation. It is relevant to apartment dwelling, or to living in a rental house, for remodeling a dwelling, or for building a new house. If you are thinking of nothing more than moving a chair in your apartment, this guide can open a door to considerations you should take into account in even minor adjustment living in your home. A World Home is a guide toward determining what you need to know about the physical aspects of your requirements, to assist you in examining your needs, wants, and dreams in creating a home, and to help you develop a living pattern that will support and encourage a profound realization of oneness with the world. The issue in A World Home is home making: the purpose is life fulfillment.
If you are going to build a new house, or substantially change an existing one, or have any other dwelling project that might require a design professional, this guide can give you knowledge and insight that can help you locate the best architect or designer for your particular project. In using this guide, you will have progressed a long way toward knowing the kinds of questions you need to ask, and a long way toward knowing with whom you will want to work. You will understand much that you will need to know in order to be an active participant in creating a home that will be effective in your life.
A World Home is organized around introducing relevant issues, one at a time. You will be prompted to respond in ways that will record, needs, wants, dreams, projections, ambitions, beliefs and feelings related to creating a home that will satisfy your needs, nurture your life, and promote your fulfillment.
The first part of this guide focuses on helping you identify and examine your physical needs, wants and dreams. In the case of a new house, an addition, or even an interior rearrangement, it can also help you record information about the piece of earth you will occupy that will be needed so that your new environment can be intelligently and sensitively created. Satisfying one's physical needs wants and dreams is an important part of living in harmony with the earth. The second and most important part of A World Home focuses on gaining a realization of the world and living in harmony with the spiritual reality of the earth.

About the Author

J. William Curtis is professor emeritus in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, and a sculptor with several shows to his credit. An intense interest in Hinduism and Indian architecture led to a Fulbright scholarship to India in 1963, a master of Art degree in South Asian Languages (Sanskrit) in 1968, and an American Institute of Indian Studies fellowship in 1971. Return trips to India since have augmented formal studies. He has published a book on the relationships between South Indian temples and ritual, and several articles. The author is presently an associate editor in the subject areas of arts and architecture for a worldwide Encyclopedia of Hinduism project (information available at www.eh.sc.edu). He is also a partner in the architectural firm of Curtis and Emmons Architects, in Seattle, Washington, where he and his wife, Patricia K. Emmons, specialize in residential architecture (www.curtisandemmons.com).

Table of Contents and Excerpt

contents

an ancient tradition
   i. introduction 3
   1. an ancient science and art 21

private and public
   2. the method 31
   3. notes for yourself 37
   4. your personal image 45
   5. needs, wants and hopes 47

the world and cosmos
   6. the immediate earth 67
   7. a new approach 93
   8. the geographic earth 101
   9. the cosmological world 103

conclusion
   10. even an apartment 133

bibliography 135

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Chapter 7: A New Approach

So far you have recorded your personal perceptions of your property, what you think this piece of earth says to you, and how you react to all of this. This is a necessary part of your living here successfully and building a sense of unity with the world. Now it is time to broaden the theater of discourse and include in your conversation the earth on which you are going to live.
The home you build needs to be grounded on the earth. This is not a precise description of what you should do, but a reminder that your relationship with the earth must be brought to a conscious level. You need to define for yourself what will be effective. You need you need to listen carefully to what the piece of earth where you are going to build has to offer and to demand.
A verse in the Bhagavad Gita suggests how to achieve a positive relationship with the immediate earth where you will live.
The Bhagavad Gita is a small part of the Mahabharata, India's most important epic poem. The Gita, as it is popularly called, is a valuable part of Indian culture, revered universally. Very briefly, the Bhagavad Gita relates an exchange between Arjuna, a warrior ready for battle, and Krishna, his charioteer. Krishna is not only Arjuna's charioteer, He is a reappearance on the earth of Vishnu, the Great Preserver in Hinduism's trinity who appears again and again in different forms to save the earth from catastrophe. Thus He is both Arjuna's charioteer and his Lord.
Arjuna is pledged to fight a battle that is just, yet he is confused about the righteousness of his cause. As His charioteer, Krishna drives Arjuna's chariot to a spot between the two armies who will fight the next day. Behind Arjuna is the army that the next day he will lead into battle. Arjuna is accomplished in the arts of war, perhaps even unequaled in ability, skill, strength and will. The stakes are immense. Kingdom and wealth will fall to the victor, dishonor and bitterness to the vanquished.
Sitting there in his chariot, surveying the two armies, measuring their strengths and weaknesses, he sees relatives and friends on both sides. Tomorrow, many standing there will die, others will be cruelly hurt. Even those who endure until the end of the day physically unmarked will be forever changed inside by the horrible experience.
Arjuna's position should be clear. Yet he is deeply troubled. At the thought of all those who will be killed or maimed, of all those who will come to ruin regardless of which side wins and which loses, Arjuna is seized with despair and dread. His arms and legs begin to tremble, his whole body begins to shake uncontrollably, his hair stands on end and his mouth becomes dry. His mind reels, his skin become parched and burning, and he unable to stand. He lets his bow slip from his hand to fall to the floor of the chariot. He sinks to his seat and announces that he will not fight.
It is tempting to try explain Arjuna's battle as a morality play, but the Gita does not lead us to a speculation of moral rights or wrongs in this situation. Nor is Krishna's counsel to Arjuna that he must fight an exhortation to kill because life is without value. There are many sources that affirm the Hindu view that life is ultimately important. The context of Krishna's response to Arjuna's collapse is the impending battle and Arjuna's long commitment to lead his army through this trial by arms. He knew what he was getting into from the beginning and this is no time to abandon his comrades. The moral context of the war culminating in this great battle has already been resolved. The sons of Dhritarashtra are evil and their cause is immoral. Arjuna is in the right and his cause is just. If there is a moral imperative here, it is that Arjuna must defeat the forces of evil and restore a righteous order in the world.
Krishna sees that he must take the situation firmly in hand. Arjuna has no time for indecision. He upbraids Arjuna. Then, getting him partially reestablished, Lord Krishna instructs Arjuna's in his duties. But Arjuna needs more. He thinks that if only he can have a revelation of Krishna's reality, from this he might gain selfassurance and recover his balance. He seeks a revelation of His reality from the Great One seated before in the humble role of charioteer. Krishna obliges:
"Behold my eightfold form: earth, water, fire, air,
space, the capacity of thought (mind), the capacity
of understanding, and the sense of self (ego)."
(illustrations 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, pages 77, 78, 79)
We may read this passage as if reading an ancient text that pertains to us only as literature, but the opening words of the Gita remind us that this is not so: "Kurukshetre, Dharmakshetre,...", On the field of the Kurus, on the ground of righteousness. On the one hand, the struggle is given an historical context and place, for the battle took place not far from Delhi between two branches of the Kuru clans.
On the other hand, we are reminded that the physical field is only incidental; the actual struggle is between what is right and what is wrong and the actual field of the struggle is one's individual heart and mind. Everyday we are challenged within ourselves to discover, to understand and to act upon what is right. Perhaps there is no time more critical and more difficult than now, when the life of the planet itself hangs in the balance * at least so far as human life and the existence of many other species of life are concerned.
We need not ourselves be in the immediate difficulty that beset Arjuna in order to benefit from Krishna's revelation. It is universally relevant. This gentle pronouncement is revolutionary because it immediately opposes a holistic view of reality based on categories of perception that promote identity against a view based on an observation of abstracted and isolating categories.
You have already involved the last three of these attributes in the self-appraisal you have completed. The capacity of thought, capacity to understand and a sense of self are things that we bring to the problem of establishing a relationship with the earth. It is a part of ourselves that we carry with in every circumstance. Now your work will center on how you can incorporate the five categories of earth, water, fire, air, and space into your environment in a way that will reinforce a positive connection with the earth where you will be living.
7.1 Describe what will be personal, profound and effective in connecting you with this piece of earth. Explore and record your ideas and feelings at some depth. As the design of your house develops, regardless of your property or circumstance, the ideas you develop here can evolve to an effective solution. The important thing is that it will evolve from your thoughts and the demands of this piece of earth. It will make this place special, not necessarily to everyone, but to you. You are not creating a show window, but a place to live in concert with the earth. It will be special to you.
No ideas or example solutions are presented here. My suggestion is to ignore ideas that come from the outside, for the moment at least. Strike out on your own. The products of your own thinking and feelings will be better. At this point do not shy away from suggesting actual solutions, but also do not try to be a house designer. There is a strong temptation to fix on architectural solutions. But you might also consider enlarging the scope of what you are considering. The solution to incorporating these elements may not be architectural. In India, for example, one of the prime symbols of the earth is the cow. For some, a tulsi plant, a variety of basil, is also considered a powerful symbol of the earth.
7.1. THE THING OR SYMBOL, OR
THOSE THINGS AND/OR
THOSE SYMBOLS THAT WILL
BE PERSONAL, PROFOUND
AND THE MOST EFFECTIVE IN
CONNECTING ME WITH THIS
PIECE OF EARTH WHERE I
PLAN TO LIVE IS/ARE:

Hindu tradition also has symbols that are defined substitutes for the five elements of existence to be used in rituals. Earth is associated with the sense of smell. The suggested substitute for earth is perfume. Water is associated with the sense of taste. The prescribed substitute for water is food. Fire (illustration 3) is associated with the sense of sight. The prescribed substitute for fire is a candle. Air (illustration 4) is associated with the sense of touch. The prescribed symbol for air is incense. Space (illustration 5) is associated with the sense of sound. The prescribed symbol for space is music. The things that most powerfully connect you to the piece of earth that you will be living on may include an animal, a plant, or even an event. There may even be a list of things. This is your very personal list.

Catalogue Information