Feng Shui is a technique originally developed by Chinese culture and
practiced for nearly 4,000 years. Its aim is to balance the environment where
man lives or works in such a way as to stimulate in its occupants the
attainment of the three fundamental objectives of all human beings: first,
Health and Longevity; second, Abundance and Prosperity, and third, Harmony and
Love.

How can Feng Shui achieve these objectives?

Feng Shui is a technique with a series of laws, principles and procedures
which, adequately applied, provide the consultant with tools that can create a
balance in what Feng Shui calls environmental energy. The idea is to
balance the environmental energy in a specific space to make it more
harmonious, so that the human who occupies it can carry out a particular
activity with favorable results, be it a relaxed activity in a home setting or
be it a productive activity in a business setting or in any office or
commercial setting. Feng Shui can also be used to improve collective spaces
dedicated to social activities, gymnasiums, public recreational areas,
airports; in short, it can be applied to all human activities.

All
of the elements contained in a given space act to create magnets of attraction
and emitters of energy that are capable of stimulating a human’s hormonal and
nervous systems,
which in turn promote attitudes in people. By acting upon the biochemistry of
humans, it automatically creates biological responses, attitudinal responses,
given that the hormones, antibodies, neurotransmitters, enzymes, in short,
everything that is produced by the body’s biochemistry are the agents that,
when mixed in our blood and distributed throughout our bodies, produce
behavioral responses.

When
we say that someone is a hormonal person, we mean that this person easily
changes their emotional state, their attitude. Any of the elements that exist
within an environment, such as aromas, colors, the presence of light or
darkness, the presence of sonic energy or movement energy, the presence of live
energy (plants or animals), these factors act upon the subconscious mind of the
human that is occupying that space and is involved in some kind of activity.
The combination of these factors generates in that individual an attitude, at
times positive, at times negative, depending on the quality, intensity and the
type of each of these and of the proportion with which they are blended. The
combination or joint action of these make up a “whole” called Environmental
Energy.

To
understand this, let us analyze the effect produced by some of these energy
factors or forms. Let’s analyze odors, for example: Odors can cause an attitude
of rejection or attraction. An unpleasant odor causes an automatic
attitude of rejection, which doesn’t require thought. It is the subconscious
mind that instantly acts in an instinctive manner to produce in us a rejection,
a retreat, from that place which harbors the unpleasant odor. A pleasant
odor draws us automatically toward a place.  We begin to seek out the
origin of the pleasant smell. This happens because pleasant smells in an
environment, such as the perfume aisle in a department store, produce a
pleasurable sensation due simply to the fact that the longitude of the
wavelength of those aromas, upon entering our body, through the perception of
our sense of smell, causes us to recognize it as pleasant, given that they
activate in our hormonal system the secretion of the so-called endorphins,
which are hormonal substances that produce pleasure in us. That’s why we enjoy
a pleasant smell.

Similarly,
when we are walking and see a dark street, through our visual system we capture
a space that we recognize as unsafe, as dangerous, given that the visual
perception of darkness connects us in our subconscious mind with the theme of
the unknown, the dangerous and that automatically creates in us a rejection and
creates fear in us; an attitude of fear that is caused by the lack of light and
the lack of knowledge of what could be happening there. Fear or stress of the
unknown (dark street) activates in our organism the secretion of Catecholamine,
which even though they are known as “The Hormones of Fear,” are really
Neurotransmitters that are associated with high-stress and high-anxiety
situations.

In
the case of sonic energy, we know, for example, that a word, an insult, which
is a stimulation that comes through our auditory system, is a combination of
sounds with a hostile message. The meaning of these words automatically
activates in our subconscious mind a reaction of rejection, an aggressive reaction,
which is a product of the secretion of another chemical, another natural
biochemical of the body which is Adrenaline. We then become aggressive when we
feel insulted, when we feel hurt, when we feel that something is invading the
scope of our rights.

And
just as I have explained through these three of the five senses provided to us
by the Almighty, there is another series of stimulants that immediately sends
information to our subconscious. This information is processed and our brain
gives responses that create behavior patterns in us; this is why through Feng
Shui we can influence our biochemical balance and have more health and
longevity, or have a more harmonious and social attitude; or make us
more productive, more concrete and more achieving of goals. This, in turn,
increases our prosperity.

What is the difference between what has been called Classic Feng Shui
and the Westernized Feng Shui that has spread in the West?

Shifting over to this new topic, we can say that the classic Feng Shui that was
originally developed in China
considers the necessary use of the two fundamental schools that comprise Feng
Shui: the School of the Forms and the School of the Compass.

The
School of the Forms deals with the information provided to us by a tangible
world. When we speak of the forms we are speaking of the forms in our
environment that surround the area where we build a dwelling or a town, or when
we speak of the forms we are speaking of the physical
form of our house. If the house, the construction where we live, has the shape
of an L, it is different from a construction that is square or rectangular, or
maybe the construction where we live has a curved shape to follow the
topographic lines of the land.

In
short, if there is a missing corner in a room, because there is a large column,
or a large entrance, produced by a closet or a bathroom, and we try to describe
it with words, or letters or drawings, we are referring to the “form” of that room or the
“form” of that
house. These concepts that have to do with the forms in the environment we are
using, or even the position of the doors, the Windows, the closets, the
balconies, all of that has to with and refers to the physical form of the
dwelling. This theme is covered by the branch of Feng Shui called the School of
the Forms.

But
there is other information that is less tangible, or definitely not tangible,
information that has a lot to do with the vibration energy that is present in
each space and that intangible part of the analysis of the space is the portion
of the knowledge of Feng Shui that is called the School of the Compass. The
Chinese expression is “School
of Lo Pan.” Lo Pan means
compass.

I
have mentioned a physical, tangible scenario, and another non-physical
scenario, a scenario that is purely energetic, not tangible. This duality when
you are considering a Feng Shui analysis has its analogy in the way we analyze
a human being. The human being has a physical body that represents the person
we know, in other words, we see their physical body and we recognize it, but we
know we have before our eyes not just a physical body, but rather a non-physical entity that
is comprised of their personality, their knowledge, their feelings, etc; that
non-tangible part that you can’t touch but that every person has.

This
intangible body combines with the physical body to constitute the totality of
the person. Similarly, environments have a physical body and an energetic body,
to which would correspond the intangible part of the human being, and it is the
consideration of both bodies of the environment that gives us the energetic
reality of any environment. There have developed other incorrectly called schools, but there really
aren’t any other schools of Feng Shui, there are only the School of Forms
and the School of the Compass. Here in the United Status there has been a
particular circumstance, in the development of a school called the Black Hat
School which has focused fundamentally on the school of the forms, and it does
not consider the energetic information of the environments, nor the energetic
information of the people, a set of information that is transcendental in the
analysis of Feng Shui.

This
Westernized Feng Shui (which in my courses I call “Fast Food Feng Shui”), has easily developed
in the United Status, given that the nature of American people tends to try to
simplify, and make everything simple and fast. This Feng Shui we really cannot
call genuine, given that it eliminates half of the scenario, the half which
many of us authors consider to be even
more important and carries a heavier
weight in the analysis than the physical part, the tangible part of the
environment.

How can we measure, how can we
establish or determine which is the energy of a given space? And how can we
determine what is the energy of people?

The energy of spaces is determined by a house’s Cardinal Orientation. All of
the cardinal points have a distinct energetic emanation. It is prudent to
clarify that when we say an energetic
emanation we are not talking about a metaphysical energy, in other
words, a spiritual consideration, or energies that would transcend the
acceptance of those persons who are incredulous.  No, we are speaking of
energies of the physical plane and not the metaphysical. We mean physical
energies that can even be measured by machines. The electromagnetic vibration
that we receive from the North is totally different from the electromagnetic
vibration we receive from the South. We can say exactly the same about the
electromagnetic vibration that we receive from the East, which is totally
different from the one we receive from the West.

The
reader of this article could easily understand that the energy that is being
received from the East is an energy of unfolding, of ascent, expansion and
growth. The sun rises in the East to ascend to the zenith at the middle of the
day. By contrast, in the West, we have the energy of withdrawal, an energy
which tends toward passivity and not toward activity, as in the East. The
energy of the West is an energy of making things concrete, the end of
processes, given that it is connected to the end of the day, with the
withdrawal of the unfolding energy. Comparing these energies, we can easily
understand how two cardinal points can have completely different energetic
emanations. As such, the direction which the house faces tells us the cardinal
point that is providing the most energy to that home. In this way a house can
be oriented toward any of the points called Cardinals, which are North, South,
East and West, or toward some of the so-called “Ordinals” which are Northeast, Northwest,
Southeast and Southwest. By this we can conclude, on one level, that given
eight different orientation directions, we can have eight different energetic
qualities, and as such, eight different types of houses.

In
regards to the Personal
Energy of each one of us, this is provided by the moment of our
birth. This is also easy to understand, given that it has to do with the way in
which the Celestial Vault was distributed at the moment in which our little
body came out of our mother’s body and received for the first time in a direct
way the environmental energy. The popular phrase in Spanish says “she gave
light to a child;” when we say “gave light,” this means that she exposed you to
the energy; here we are using the word light
for energy; and
what is being expressed is that a boy or girl is being exposed directly to the
environmental energy. But all of us were born at different moments and a week
later, a month later, a year later the Celestial Vault already had a different
configuration, another energetic distribution, which makes it such that each of
us received a different “energy cocktail” at the moment of birth.

We
are not necessarily, with this analysis, referring to the topic of Astrology.
In fact, at this moment, a reader of this article can assume the position that
he or she is not a believer in Astrology, and regardless of this, we could
understand each other, because if we analyze the planets and the solar system,
we realize that the largest planet is Jupiter. This planet is 11.5 times larger
than Planet Earth. Without entering any type of neither holistic nor
metaphysical considerations, but rather entering into considerations that fall
purely within the realm of physics, we know that the gravitational force of

Jupiter is 11.5 times greater that the gravitational force of the Earth. On the
other hand, the second largest planet after Jupiter is Saturn, which is
approximately nine times larger than the Earth. Therefore, these two colossi,
in their cosmic dance (whose course is dictated only by the universal laws,
which are established solely by the Almighty) find themselves in outer space
and reach a proximity that places them in alignment every 60 years. The
Chinese, with their meticulous observations – they had developed astronomical
sciences way before
us here in the West – discovered that Jupiter and Saturn aligned in outer space
every 60 years, and this they referred to as the Sexagenarian Cycle.  And
from there they began to derive a series of cycles that command all of this
knowledge.

The
explanation of the much-greater gravitational force of Jupiter, in conjunction
with the equally strong (nine times greater than Earth) gravitational force of
Saturn, eventually could permit the reader of this article to understand that
when these two colossi are aligned together, the amount of gravitational force
exerted on the plates of the Earth’s geological stratum, could be capable of
creating an imbalance strong enough to generate seismic cycles, that is to say,
cycles in which telluric movements are repeated, such as tremors and
earthquakes. This relationship between the cosmic orbiter and our own solar
system and the passing of time is statistical and has nothing to do with the
field of spirituality or metaphysics, nor does it mean one is trying to be a
fortune-teller, but rather, it is simply similar to the way that today, by
combining diverse sets of information we can create a pattern of what will be
the behavior of the weather, we thus have meteorology. The Chinese thinkers
also created statistics and established several of the cycles that adhere with
the movements of the heavens in the firmament; in addition, they established
the eight specific types of energies to which each of us belongs. They called
these energies “kuas,” and through the use of a simple equation which is based
on our birth dates, they determined to which kua
each person belongs.

To
facilitate their identification, the Chinese thinkers that developed this
knowledge, identified each one of these eight kuas with symbols of three rays which they
called “trigrams”. These are three lines, at times the line is continuous,
other times it is segmented, and the combination of these segmented or
continuous lines, in groups of three, is what creates each one of these eight
symbols which they called trigrams. As such, there exist eight different energy
types and eight trigrams which represent them. The individual trigram of each
person, of each individual, can be calculated simply by applying an equation in
which we use as an input,
as a starting point of information, the date of birth of the person. That is
the way we determine the personal energy and the environmental energies in Feng
Shui, and it is the proper combination of these energies and the balance of the
environment in favor of its occupant, which allows for a house or office to
become your best ally by activating your Health, Harmony and Prosperity.

What does not constitute Feng Shui?

Feng Shui isn’t any area of thought which has to do with any religious current.
Feng Shui is a technique with a series of procedures, a series of established
parameters and a series of rules that you must comply with so that, with a
professional application, you can obtain changes toward the positive, and
blessed by evident results.

In
my professional opinion, there is no such thing that can be called “intuitive Feng Shui,” given
that the balancing of a space is not something frivolous or superficial, but
rather a delicate procedure that depends highly upon the command of a large
group of variables, whose combinations can result in the well-being or the
failure of an entire family.

Often,
in order to explain the non-connection to religion of the Feng Shui technique,
I ask the following question:
“If you were to undergo an acupuncture session, would you need to be Catholic,
Buddhist, Muslim or Jewish? Really, the answer is an obvious “NO,” it doesn’t
matter to which religion you belong in order to undergo an acupuncture session.
That’s because acupuncture is not connected to any religion. In exactly the
same way, Feng Shui is not connected to any religion. In fact, some authors
call Feng Shui “the Acupuncture of the Earth,” because we Feng Shui consultants
perform a work that is similar to what doctors of traditional Chinese medicine
and acupuncture perform, when they pinpoint the channels by which the energy
travels and through the use of the theory of the Five Elements and the
balancing of the ying and yang polarities, they are able to unblock energies
that are blocked in certain areas.

Feng
Shui is also not related to aspects of divination, magic, spiritism, or any of
that type of activity. Certainly, Feng Shui is a technique and corresponds to
the connection of a series of energetic patterns that lead to, as a result, a
change in the behavior of the human being. It is prudent to clarify that in
Feng Shui what you do have to do is interpret,
adequately, the result
that appears when you combine two types of energies, or various types of
energies, or when you combine energies and archetypes.  We should
understand archetypes as the concept coined by the famous psychiatrist Carl
Gustav Jung, in which he referred to archetypes as those concepts that you
automatically generate mentally. For example, pink is a color that for all
people symbolizes harmony, therefore, pink is an archetype of harmony.

The Fundamental Principles of Feng
Shui

We are now going to study the Fundamental Principles of Feng Shui, which
represent one of the basic pillars of this body of knowledge. The three fundamental principles are:

1. The
   Divine Trilogy
2. The
   Universal Duality, and
3. The
   Five Elements

These
Fundamental Principles, more than being those of Feng Shui, are the Fundamental
Principles of Taoism, the philosophical current to which Feng Shui belongs.

THE DIVINE TRILOGY

The philosophy developed by Chinese culture established the three primary
sources that contribute toward the Environmental Energy of the Earth. They said
that the three sources are the following: one is the Heavens, the other is the
Earth and the other is Human Beings. The Humans are between Heaven and Earth,
but the area between all three sources is comprised of everything that is vital
energy, which is the energy that gives life to all of the manifestations here
on planet Earth.

The Energy of Heaven is the energy of the Cosmos, the energy that comes
from the Celestial Vault, the presence or absence of this or that planet, the
presence or role of this or that constellation. It also includes the four
seasons, the movement of the clouds and the wind over the Earth, the presence
or absence of the Moon, the seasons of summer, winter, spring or fall.  By
contemplating all of this we are taking into consideration all of the energy
that is coming from the sky.

The
Energy of the Earth is the energy generated by the profile of the earth, the
forces of its magnetic fields, the combination of our own surroundings in which we have the
presence of five forces called the Five Elements. In addition, we find the
physical form of the earth that surrounds us, including in this consideration
the constellations created by man, the characteristics of the landscape, if we
have a mountain behind us (or perhaps a tall building); if we have a lake or
river before us (or perhaps a highway); if we live in a flat plain or if our
surrounding is full of hills; if there are forests or if we are near the sea;
all of this is the energy of the Earth, exercising its influence over our
lives.

Lastly,
we have the Energy of Man, where we take into consideration the behavior, the
social interaction between human beings that populate the Earth; the energy of
intention, which is the energy we give to one another, the human beings. This
is the most important, the strongest of the three sources: The energy of the
human beings. Man is a son of God, man has the capacity to create, it can
create more life, create children, create projects, can create buildings,
create objects, can manifest in the world anything it imagines, and this
creative capacity makes the human’s energy the most potent of the those three
energies, which, in conjunction, are interacting to create the vital
energy.  The Energy of Man creates balance or imbalance between the Energy
of Heaven and the Energy of the Earth.

This
is the concept of the Divine Trilogy, which is present in many aspects of the
lives of human beings. The Divine Trilogy is present in the three kingdoms in
which life unfolds, which are the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. But
it is also present in our three dimensional world – we live in a world of three
dimensions: height, width and depth. On the other hand, we human beings are
comprised of three bodies: the physical, the mental and the spiritual: physical
body, mental body and spiritual body. That’s the Divine Trilogy. Additionally,
we know that our lives unfold between night and day through the interaction of
the three most important heavenly bodies: the Sun, the Earth and the Moon.
There we have the Divine Trilogy.  There are three protagonists in the
propagation of our species, that is to say, this scenario requires a father, a
mother and a child. Also, in many religious currents that have manifested in
humanity, you always find this Divine Trilogy. In the Catholic religion, for
example, you find the concept of the Holy Trinity, which are the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit. In this manner, we could continue mentioning numerous
aspects of our lives where we find the presence of the concept of the Divine
Trilogy.

This
first concept is transcendental in Chinese philosophy and is represented
through symbolism, which we have already mentioned in the Trigrams, in which
the line above represents the Energy of Heaven, the line in the middle
represents the Energy of Man and the line below represents the Energy of the
Earth.

THE UNIVERSAL DUALITY

The second aspect of the Universal Duality is represented graphically in the
oriental philosophy by the lines in yin and yang, which symbolize the two
polarities between which all of the phenomena of our lives manifest themselves.
A yang line is a straight line, and yin line is a broken line. The concept of
the Universal Duality establishes that, the displacement of the energetic
forces that sustain life, occurs thanks to the fluctuation of the energy
between these two polarities, or opposite locations, which are the yin and the
yang.

To
illustrate this, let us remember that our lives, biologically speaking, occur
through the interaction between the Anabolism and the Catabolism. The Anabolism
is the process which occurs in our body during the condition of rest during our
hours of sleep, at night. The Anabolism is the process of restoration of our
tissues, whereas Catabolism is the process which occurs during the day while we
are active, while we are working, while we are practicing some sport, which is
the wearing of
our tissues. The Anabolism would be the YIN part of our lives, and the
Catabolism would be the yang part, which is the wearing of our tissues. And
these, in conjunction, Anabolism and Catabolism, comprise and constitute our Metabolism. When you
doctor tells you “your metabolism is out of balance,” it’s because there isn’t
an adequate proportion of these two poles.

But
this concept of the yin and yang, which is the fluctuation of the energy
between these two poles, is an underlying concept in all of life’s
manifestations. God made the world this way, in a yin and yang manner. In other
words, God made the world between the masculine principle and the feminine
principle. If we write in a column the concepts of yang on the left and the
concepts of yin on the right, and we were to place the masculine under yang and
the feminine under yin; under yang you’ll find activity, and in the yin
passivity; under yang we can place movement; under yin, we can place
immobility; under yang is heat; under yin is cold; under yang the exterior;
under yin, the interior; yang would be an outer direction, yin would be an
inner direction; yang is the high; yin is the low; yang is the light; and yin
is the darkness; yang is dryness; yin is humidity; yang is hardness, yin is
softness; we can also say that yang is odd numbers; yin are the even pairs;
yang is the summer; yin is the winter; yang is to increase; yin is to decrease.

And
in this way we can analyze for hours the different polarities in which all
aspects of our lives manifest themselves. Simply stated, the Chinese philosophy
reached the conclusion that God created the world with the interaction of these
polarities. That is another one of the fundamental principles of Feng Shui, in
which we establish that for a good Feng Shui to exist, there must be an
adequate balance of Yin – Yang, and by an adequate balance we shouldn’t think
of an equal quantity,
but rather, we should think that depending upon the activity that the human
being wishes to carry out in a given space, there should be a greater amount of
yang, or a greater amount of yin, and that balance, which is the proper
proportion, is what maintains a good Feng Shui.

For
example, in a gymnasium where people practice yoga, or in a church, the
adequate balance requires that there be a higher amount of yin energy, but a
factory or manufacturing plant, or a barracks, requires a higher amount of yang
energy.

THE FIVE ELEMENTS

The third concept is the interaction that results in the energy of the Earth,
through the combination or interaction between the Five Elements present in
nature, which represent, each one of them, a different manifestation of the
energy.

In
our philosophy here in the Western world, we say that there exist only four
elements. This was Aristotle who promulgated there in Ancient Greece, the
theory of the four elements. We say here in the West that there exists water,
land, wind and fire.  Chinese philosophy goes to another, slightly farther
level, when it says that there aren’t four elements, but rather that nature has
five elements and that each one of them is a manifestation which evolved from
the other. The Five Elements are as follows, and in this order: Water, Wood,
Fire, Earth and Metals. For the Chinese people or in the Chinese cultural tradition,
the world that surrounds us manifests itself through the presence and
interaction of these five energies. Let’s not understand it as five materials.
In fact, neither water nor fire are materials. But let us say that they are
five distinct manifestations of the Earth.

Energy
first manifests itself with a vibratory rate, with the vibratory wavelength of Water. Water is capable of
producing Wood. We
spread water so as to produce the vegetable world, so as to produce a plant,
and plants represent the element of Wood. Later, the Wood can evolve; it
can transmute, to convert itself into Fire. Then, firewood is capable
of producing Fire.
Later, the energy in the form of Fire
can transmute and evolve, to convert itself into Earth. Then today we walk over what in a
previous era was molten lava. Or after a fire we are left with ashes, which are
Earth.
Later, the energy under that manifestation, that vibration form, such as the Earth, can evolve and
turn into Metals. It is in the Earth’s bosom where Metals are produced.
And this closes the cycle, because Metals
and minerals are capable of generating Water.
The minerals are present in the Water, and these two basic elements, hydrogen
and oxygen, are what constitute water, and can produce physical manifestations
in water, through condensation.  During the condensation process, it is
the metals that have the easiest capacity to produce such manifestations. This
is why in the morning, when we leave our homes at 6 a.m., we see on the roofs
of our cars a great number of water drops which have manifested there through
the phenomenon of condensation.

According
to Taoism and for that matter, Feng Shui, in every environment you should have
the manifest presence of these five elements. If any of them are absent, you
won’t have an adequate balance.

In what proportion should the Five
Elements be present?

As with the yin and yang, each of the five elements does not necessarily need
to be present in the same exact amount. The study of the laws of the Theory of
the Five Elements will already give us one of Feng Shui’s most useful angles,
more useful for our lives,
because in relation to the proportion which we place on each of those five
elements, we can create a stimulus for our personal energy, given that each one
of us, as per our birth date, we will calculate which is our characteristic
type of energy, in our lives, and that type of energy is connected specifically
to one of those Five Elements. In other words, there is one element that
predominates in you, and I say predominates,
because it’s not that that is the only element that you have, no, it’s the one
that predominates,
the one that has the most to do with your present life in this reincarnation
that you are living at the moment.

Therefore,
we will be studying, in the future, the use and control of the laws of the Five
Elements to determine which is the element to which we belong, which is the
element that gives us
more energy, which is not the same as the element to which we belong, but
rather, is our mother element; which is our daughter element, which is the
element to which we give
more energy; which is the element that we can dominate and which is the element
that dominates us or destroys us. We will discuss this topic in more detail in
the future.