What is Feng Shui?

Among the multitude of stylistic and technological choices that have become available in recent years, Traditional Feng Shui or the Chinese Science of Placement, has become one of today’s most fashionable trends for home and business owners. But what truly lies behind this popular, yet mysterious practice?

Properly applied, Feng Shui can help balance the energy flow in our environment. It can enable us to take advantage of favorable environments in positively energetic, healthy and harmonious houses and/or work places.

Feng Shui is a personalized science; a Feng Shui expert has to first identify a person’s energy type and then match it to their living and working environment. From landscape design to architectural and interior design features such as colors, lighting and furniture layout, home and business owners can use this ancient secret while they are in the process of building a new house or transforming an old one.

The objective is to transform a house into a dream house, and a work place into a productive and successful environment.

Feng Shui’s Origins and Goals

The roots of Traditional Yang Sang Feng Shui are very ancient; its basic principles are the same as those of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture. It is a natural science that treats the environment as an integral part of the art of living.

Because of its power and effectiveness, Feng Shui knowledge was traditionally a guarded secret, one that was not accessible to the general population. The teachings were transmitted orally from Masters to a limited number of students; confidentiality was strictly required.

These ancient scholars are the equivalent of today's scientists. They saw the world as a uniqum in which 'life-force energy', or Qi, was the main component. They believed that most illnesses could be prevented and that people’s well being could be preserved and reinforced by applying Traditional Feng Shui to ensure a proper flow of Qi in the environment, and Tai Qi, Qi Gong, Shiatsu Massage and Acupuncture to ensure a proper flow of Qi in the body. Like those ancient scholars, today’s Feng Shui masters understand the pattern of this energy flow; they understood that any living creature could benefit from this technique, especially humankind.

Seasonal cycles, locations, orientations and weather conditions could, however, create imbalances. The ancient scholars therefore created formulas that continue to be applied today to understand the forces of nature by analyzing the Qi frequencies and the combination of elements or the lack of elements that make up our environment. They acknowledged that every element in the physical world, each with its unique energy type, is constituted of the 'life force', or Qi. According to them these energy types correspond to materials that exist in nature, such as Earth, Fire, Metal, Water and Wood and there is a color scheme that corresponds to each energy type.

Human beings were also analyzed in terms of their elemental energy groups; these analyses determined their compatibility with the surrounding environment and the results were usually subtle or very obvious, direct or indirect. In order to counteract imbalances in the environment and restore harmony to our human-environmental interaction, the ancients applied corrective prescriptions based on elaborate formulae they created.

In the 20th century, the discovery of Quantum Physics validated the ancient idea of a global energetic connection among every element of the physical world. According to this theory, all matter is made out of the same energy, but since this energy vibrates at varying frequencies, we are given the illusion of a material world that is perceivable through the five senses. The variety of the intensity of these vibrations is expressed through the different colors of the electromagnetic spectrum. Never created and never destroyed, but constantly transforming, the energy connection between an atom's components, though it may appear weak and invisible, is very strong. For example, should you break the connection of a uranium atom, you could cause an atomic explosion; imagine such an effect on human physiology.

More recently, studies conducted on geopathological stress (an illness caused by exposure to adverse earth 'emissions' such as radon or gamma rays) have shown evidence of the relationship between people’s well being and the natural energies. While negative energy can adversely affect the nervous system, the genetic code and the immune system, positive energy can sustain our well being, enhance our ability to counteract stressful situations and increase our potential to succeed.

Properly applied, Feng Shui can help balance the energy flow in our environment, which in turn can enable us to take advantage of energetic, healthy and harmonious houses. As mentioned earlier the objective of Feng Shui is to turn a house into a dream house, or an office into the most productive workspace, by maximizing the health and happiness of the inhabitants inside.

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