What it does
Keeps love and purity flowing into the family through food.
Where
Kitchen
When
Daily
Explanation and notes
Chauka is the place where four purities are kept: man (mind), vachan (speech), kaya (body) and ahar (food). A cook's feelings for your husband and children cannot equal your own, so at least the serving should carry your own touch and emotion.
Interior work is done to change the mind, because everything follows from the mind. Pictures, colours and objects (chitra) change the state of mind (chitt), so the goal the mind should be led to must be fixed first.
Recap of the main department of each of the eight directions, used to match rooms and activities to zones.
Each direction is the seat of a planet with its own metal; keeping that metal in that direction captures and multiplies the planet's energy there and neutralises negative energy.
Only about 55 percent of the Sun's energy reaches the earth. Of that, trees and plants capture about 95 percent, mirrors 80, pyramids 65, water 60, yantras 60 to 90, metals 45 and stones 35, while plastic and petroleum by-products capture none.
In older vastu practice mirrors were the main tool of dosh nivaran: a mirror can make a cut area look larger or an oversized extension look smaller.
Water absorbs about 60 percent of the Moon's energy; a silver pot of water kept in the Sharad Purnima moonlight becomes a strong medicine for acidity.
A bell or ghanta made of ashtadhatu contains the metals of all nine planets, so ringing it spreads vibrations through the whole house and pacifies the planets.
Planets act most strongly on particular objects: the Moon on white objects and liquids, the Sun and Mars on fire, light and electricity, Mars also on floors and land, Saturn on metal, dug land and machines, Jupiter on temples and the tijori, Venus on luxury objects and Mercury on TV, telephone and electronics.