Kurt Teske - Feng Shui for Success: Simple Principles for a Healthy Home and Prosperous Business

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Mention the Chinese words feng shui among friends these days, and theres a good chance at least a few have heard of it. Some might even claim to know what it is, something like moving the sofa or placing a funny-shaped mirror on the wall so the universe will then put a Mercedes-Benz on their doorstep. However, its much moreits a proven and practical way to enhance life by creating harmony, balance, and vitality in our surroundings. It is a practical application of Taoism, one of the oldest and most long-lasting spiritual traditions on earth.

Tao (pronounced dow) is often translated as way or path. In one sentence, Tao is the intuitive search for reality, as well as that ultimate reality itself, and is distinguished by finding harmony in what appear to be opposites. China, with one of the worlds oldest and most stable cultures, provided fertile ground for this path to evolve over many thousands of years. (The Chinese have had the time and peace to develop a thorough system, but just about every other native tradition has its own system of environmental energetics, oras feng shui is often called in Europegeomancy.) Feng shui is one of Taoisms most useful practices, with the power to invigorate the outer world in the same way that other Taoist work, such as acupuncture, tai chi, and shiatsu, can help the inner world. And because feng shuis principles are ageless, they adapt to any culture. This helps explain why it has recently gained a strong following in Europe and North America. Moreover, it meets the most important criterion of any healthful environmental practice: It works.

Feng shui can create environmental harmony with versatility, depth, and creativity, and affect our lives in many useful ways. We may use feng shui to realize any number of personal and communal goals, from the most mundane to the most universal, including:

Beyond these specific achievements, feng shui can help us navigate our complete life path harmoniously and wisely. As Wen-Tzu, one of the early Taoist masters, wrote, Personal success has nothing to do with ordering others, but is a matter of ordering oneself. Nobility has nothing to do with power and rank, but is a matter of self-realization. Attain self-realization and the whole world is found in the self. Happiness has nothing to do with outward wealth and status, but is a matter of inner harmony (Wen-Tzu, Verse 4). So can feng shui really help us find this harmony at the root of success? Absolutely! Even though feng shui may seem to be only a branch of Taoism, it is a path where the part can lead to the benefits of the whole. While some of our goals will be reached in such an organic, easy way that the process will seem like magic, a real payment must be made through disciplined practice and focused hard work. At the same time, our own efforts arent enough; we must be open to what the world gives usand that interaction can be truly mind-changing. This movement and rest is yet another aspect of Tao. For those of us with an accepting attitude toward the world, finding harmony with Tao is a fine goal for ones life. Others of us may ask, Isnt there more to it than that? Then why not consider a marvelous question posed by Charles Dickens, once the worlds most popular storyteller, in his own favorite novel, David Copperfield: What is necessary for you to become the hero of your own life? What better way to ask what it would take for our noblest goals and aspirations to become reality! Since many of us, and probably most when fully honest, do desire many of the material pleasures of life, lets look a bit more into the connection between inner harmony and outward comfort.

Can we, and should we, use what began as a spiritual discipline to gain prosperity? Yes, if we sincerely grapple with three questions: What does prosperity mean for me? What do I owe in return for my prosperity? Where does money fit into all this? These are highly personal questions in which coming up with an answer is not as important as engaging in real self-reflection. Practicing feng shui is a two-way street; by working with our environment we also work on ourselves. We shouldnt mechanically follow this or that rule just because someone once said it was a rule. Rather, when we learn how our surroundings are interwoven with our lives, and discover what outer change can and cannot do, we also realize the state of our inner life and where we wish to go. The following short meditations can help us answer these three questions at the necessary level, that of our true self or essential being: