Feng Shui takes the approach that your surroundings affect
not just your level of material comfort but also the physical and mental
health, your relationships, and your worldly success.
Feng Shui examines how the placement of things and objects,
such as crystals feng shui, gemstone feng shui and other feng shui products affect
the energy flow in your living environment, and how these objects interact with
and influence your personal energy flow. Your personal energy flow affects how
you think and act, which in turn affects how well you perform and succeed in
your personal and professional life. Feng Shui affects you every moment of the
day — whether you're aware of it or not.
The last few decades have witnessed Western culture
welcome and practice more holistic, intuitive, and healing practices than ever
before. Yet there remains a deep distrust of anything that appears irrational.
As practitioners and students of feng shui, at some point along the journey we
will meet skeptics who claim that it's superstitious. How should we answer this
claim?
Superstition is defined as "any blindly accepted
belief or notion." Thus people who
think that feng shui is
superstitious would say that we believe in it regardless
of any reason or logic. Is this
the case? Is it true that feng shui is just a belief? Is its analysis without
reason or a theoretical framework?
Feng Shui is not superstitious.
Feng Shui is not just a belief. We do not need to have
faith for feng shui to work. If we live in an environment with challenging feng
shui, sooner or later it will affect us. We may not be aware that it is feng
shui at work; we may just feel uncomfortable or unsettled for some reason, but
can't put words to it. Feng Shui offers a paradigm and a terminology to
describe this unbalanced state of being.
Feng Shui operates on a profound theoretical framework
rooted in Chinese metaphysics. Through its long evolution and practice – 3,000
years of collective observation and understanding of nature and of the
interactions of yin and yang forces in our environment.
On the other hand...
Consequently, to say that feng shui is completely devoid
of superstition is not true either. The history of feng shui includes many
examples of superstitions disguising as good practice. Will a wind chime near
your door frighten away evil spirits? Will you die in your sleep if the foot of
your bed is pointed towards the door? Will displaying feng shui products such
crystal feng shui, feng shui gemstones and many others bring you good fortunes,
prosperity and health?
This gross misinterpretation of the metaphysics, along
with many others, was severely criticized and subsequently dropped out of feng
shui practice. Such cases might leave feng shui open to criticism. However the
more challenging aspect for the "rational" Western mind to grasp is
that irrationality, intuition and subjectivity are necessary parts of feng shui
practice.
Feng Shui is both an art as well as a science. A large
part of feng shui analysis requires a personal, intuitive and subjective
interpretation of the given data. Dowsing and divination play a role. Chi
(energy) itself is invisible to the rational mind. Subjectivity, spirit and
heart, balance objective facts and observations in order to produce the best
results. Perhaps this part of the discipline is not superstition, but it
certainly is non-rational and unquantifiable.
Feng Shui is unique...
Feng shui is unique in that it fearlessly faces life's
complexity and works with opposing forces of nature (complimentary opposites).
It seeks balance and harmony, both inside our mind and in the environment.
Ultimately it looks at the interactions between human beings and their
environment. And since we are human beings, and by nature we are part rational
and part irrational, feng shui must also be part scientific and part intuitive.
To dismiss feng shui as mere superstition is to throw away
a valuable resource from the Chinese culture, and possibly part of ourselves
too.
