The Number Of Believers Has Increased: Vaastu Practitioner

What is the status of vaastu in India today? Is its popularity increasing?
Most of the people today strongly believe in natural sciences, which includes vaastu. From politicians to film stars, from technocrats to bureaucrats, from rich to poor — both young and old — everybody wants to benefit from vaastu.

The population of the country has increased and so has the number of believers. The media — both print and electronic — have made it more popular by commissioning experts to write or speak on the topic. Therefore, it can be safely said that the popularity is increasing. If we take the television channels as a yardstick of increasing popularity we will see that with the proliferation of the number of channels the number of shows on vaastu/ feng shui are also increasing.
 
Are there adequate numbers of good vaastu experts in the country today?
There are a whole lot of people. But the question remains how many of them are competent. What’s there to put up a board declaring that you are an expert and start practising? But do you have the moral right? In fact many approach me with the request of coaching them but I politely turn them down. After 10 years of practice I am still a learner.
 
Where can a vaastu expert find employment?
All the builders and developers engage vaastu experts but mainly in the capacity of a consultant. Even architects retain a lot of vaastu/ feng shui experts, not as full-timers though. They are taken on board on project-to-project basis.

What are the challenges facing the profession today?
There are no formal institutes and no formal training. Add to these the non-professionals or persons, with lack of experience and knowledge, who pass themselves on as professionals… it ruins  people’s faith and brings a bad name to the profession. An inexperienced person may suggest lots of remedies, which may appear impressive and at the same time involve high costs but not prove to be effective for the clients, whereas an experienced person may suggest something simple… like suggest to a writer that he face a certain direction while writing if he wants to produce something good. And it works! Therein lies the importance of experience.

Is there any relationship between vaastu and feng shui?
The literal translation for ‘feng’ is ‘wind’ and ‘shui’ is ‘water’. The purpose of feng shui is to create a sense of harmony in our environment by harnessing the qualities of these two natural elements in a metaphoric sense. The word vaastu means ‘to dwell’. Vaastu vidya is the sacred science related to designing and building houses. Many believe that vaastu is the distant ancestor of feng shui.