FENG SHUI

FENG SHUI FOR HOME
Feng Shui is about organizing your house and work space in such a way that it affects you in a positive manner. Feng Shui has many uses-  it can help you create a happy and harmonious home, an efficient, productive office and a beautiful home garden.

Clean the clutter

Too much of clutter in a home tends to invite or trap  a lot of negative energy. So get rid of the trash. Also, never keep broken or damaged instruments and items at your home, like watches, telephones, mixer, electronic items, ball pens, cassettes etc. Get rid of this junk, and you will see how light and clean your home's aura feels. 

So get rid of your clutter, clear out your closets, your basement, your garage, and once these areas are clean, do not accumulate more clutter.  Give away the clothes that you no longer wear and need to those who need them. Good Feng Shui energy expresses itself in a clean space, fresh air and good lighting. 

The Main Doorway
The entryway to your house is very important as it attracts good energy into your home. Hang a wind chime outside the front door. A wind chime creates a relaxing sound and calls in the good energy. The sound of a pleasant sounding metal wind chime hung in the front area of your home or office, gets you more help from the people around you. And as the wind chime sings, it draws attention to the space, inviting more opportunities into your life.

Make your entryway inviting.  Use mats, wreaths etc in harmonious colors to design an entry for the front door. Add a fresh door mat, and colorful pots of flowers , green plants etc. on the sides of the door, clean the cob webs and maintain the front doors auspiciousness. A few nice potted green plants placed near the front door attract good energy into your home.

Creating a beautiful garden, no matter how small, will help attract beneficial Feng Shui energy to your house. Living plants invite positive energy to your home.  If you are blessed with a beautiful backyard, make it an integral part of the visual of your house by using plants in a small backyard garden. 

Indoor plants, herbs, hanging gardens
Potted plants and little herbs on the home office desks can instantly lift the mood. From a scientific standpoint too, the advantages of greenery in any setting are pretty well known by now. Bring in Nature. Nature realigns our energy field and makes us feel whole. Therefore, it would make sense that our living spaces will make us truly feel at home when we bring nature in. 

According to Chinese tradition, plants represent growth, prosperity, and good luck. If you are looking to grow a business try a small bamboo plant or any other plant with beautiful flowers on the desk for a boost in the right direction. Don't keep cacti indoors though.

Fresh flowers and plants keep energy alive and moving.  Bringing just a little green into your home will connect you to nature. It's also a great idea to put some plants in a corner of a room; this technique is said to keep energy flowing in typically stagnant and dark spots. 

Live plants have their own chi and will draw good chi to them.The best places for plants are in the kitchen, in the dining room, and in the family room to promote health, abundance and life.

FENG SHUI FOR THE BEDROOM
A properly placed bed is believed to offer security, better sleep. When in bed, you should have a clear view of the room and door, and have your head against something solid, preferably a wall. Opt for a sturdy headboard to add a greater sense of security.

Your bed should always have a solid wall behind you. This is important if you wish to have a good rest. A solid wall simply means that you can go into deeper sleep and therefore enabling you to have good rest so that when you wake up in the morning, you will feel fresh and well rested. This also allows you to be able to concentrate on your work better. And when it comes to overall peace and stability, chose to color the walls in the bedroom in earthy tones like browns, blues and other pastel shades.

You shouldn't store anything under the bed. The bedroom is a private space, and it's important to honor that. You need to protect your bed.  There should be no mirrors opposite your bed or at the side of your bed. 

Always open your bedroom windows at least once 30 minutes a day to allow fresh chi to come in, we do this so that it allows fresh new chi from outside to come into your bedroom, to bring in more good fortune.

Bedrooms are for relaxation. Not work. Treat yourself with soft, luxurious fabrics and surround yourself with potpourri and fragrances that you love. Your bedroom is not a place for catching up on TV or hanging out on your computer. 

                              

When you enter your bedroom, you should have a calming experience. Limiting your activities in the bedroom will make it way more intimate. Make sure your bed is in a commanding position.  You want to make sure you're facing the door when you're in bed. It can be placed across the room with your headboard against the wall, or even diagonally, but you want to have a feeling of peace and safety in your bed. This alignment will help you achieve that.

Electronics, big and small, can emit currents capable of disrupting sleep. When in doubt, move as many gadgets away from the bedroom as possible blue might create a more harmonious space.

Colors
In general, yellow and orange can optimize liveliness and cheerfulness, whereas blues and lavender can help soothe stress. 

Desk 
Position the desk such that you can see the door through which people come in to the room. This gives a commanding view of the room, allowing you to see and think clearly. Also avoid having your back to the door or against a large window to avoid distractions.

Lighting
For rooms lacking natural light,  consider investing in a warm colored desk lamp and a floor lamp to increase ambient light. Light represents yang energy, which promotes feelings of happiness and inspiration. 

Windows
Choose soft curtains or fabric shades instead of wood, metal or plastic blinds to create a more comforting environment.

Living room
The sofa should be against a solid wall-ideally, with a clear view of the door. Leave a few inches of breathing room between the sofa and the wall. Furniture should be close but not jammed together. And each seat needs a surface on which to rest a drink or a book. That makes it more welcoming. Don't use a red sofa set according to fengshui as it can cause turbulence in your life, stick to pastels and earthy shades.

A square or rectangular table may not feel as good as a circular or oval one, which lets energy move around more easily.

Mirrors
Mirrors are significant in fengshui as they can recirculate energy and enhance natural light. They draw attention to what they reflect, so place the mirrors in such a way that they will reflect harmony.

FENG SHUI TIPS
Air and Water
A good house is nourished by fresh, clear and freely flowing energy. Have good quality air flow and good lighting (preferably natural) in your house. These two elements are essential for good fengshui energy Chi in your home. Open the windows often, introduce  air purifying plants or use an air purifier. Allow as much natural light as possible into your home, and consider using full-spectrum lights.

Research shows that viewing nature reduces anger and anxiety and enhances feelings of pleasure. So flood your home with natural light, open windows and doors to let fresh air inside, and bring plants indoors. 

Decorate with bamboo, wood, or wicker, and use stones and rocks to add texture. You can also adorn the walls with paintings of nature and its serenity. 

The term fengshui literally translates as 'wind-water' in English.  Wind brings the positive energy (chi) into the home, and water makes it stay. 

Let the light shine. There should be enough light sources to illuminate all areas of a living space as needed.  Natural light is ideal, but all types of light are considered energy-activating, and when space is left in the dark it's thought to represent neglected areas of your life.

Music and sound
A few wind chimes which play soothing music whenever the wind touched them will be a good addition to the house. Add them around your house to create a harmonious space.Much like nature, music has an ability to heal, and bring people together.

FENG SHUI FOR WEALTH AND CAREER

Fountains are by nature of Yang energy. They are used in Feng Shui to activate wealth luck in specific sectors, such as the South-East (wealth), the East (prosperity & health) and the North (career/work). Place a wooden fountain in the South-East or the East , and a metal fountain in the North. 

Fountains are considered as wealth activators in Feng Shui. When properly located, they can enhance the wealth luck quite dramatically.

BAMBOO FENGSHUI
The bamboo water fountain is one of the most popular applications in home decor and combines two auspicious elements bamboo and water.

Bamboo is considered to be one of the most auspicious elements in traditional Asian cultures. Symbolically, it stands for longevity and friendship. In Japanese culture,  it is believed that the plant's sacredness keeps evil spirits away.

FENG SHUI BAMBOO WATER FOUNTAINS
Place an indoor water fountain in your home, position in a favorable area to attract whatever you want in your life. Having water and bamboo in just one combined focal point, such as with a Feng Shui fountain makes it a very powerful fengshui element for your indoors or your garden. 

In a classic fengshui sense, moving water represents chi- the life force energy. When bamboo is synergized with water, an abundance of chi is created. Such a water fountain unleashes your creativity and passion by unblocking the chi centers of your indoor spaces.

Trickling sounds of water creates a relaxing sensory experience, thereby soothing your auditory senses.

Spouts create natural visual appeal with warmth. A combination that includes flowing water creates a miniature natural stream, enhancing your sense of serenity.

Adding a plant and a few pebbles to your water fountain represents life and growth. A green plant by your desk adds a personal touch to your desk along with a green soothing sight.

An indoor fountain makes an excellent indoor home decor element as well as powerful fengshui focal point. According to fengshui principles, a water fountain will bring balance to your life, help make you more aware of little things in life, opens up doors in meeting new people, opens up a new world (a fresh respective on life), invites rewards of prosperity and success and gives a beautiful aesthetic appeal to your home.

 

SUFI SAYINGS

• Knock, And He'll open the door.

• Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun.

• Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.

• Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there.

• Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

• A donkey with a load of holy books is still a donkey.

• Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

• Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation. 

• Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

• Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

• The sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.'  Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky.

• Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need.

• When The Mirror of The Heart Becomes Pure and Clear, Impressions of The Other World Will Become Manifest. The Image and The Image-Maker Will Become Visible.

• Salih always told his students, “If you constantly knock at the door, one day it will be opened to you.” Rabia heard him say this and remarked, “Salih, how much longer do you intend to preach this in the future tense, saying ‘will be opened?’ Was the door ever closed?” Salih bowed in acknowledgement.

• The secret of life is balance, and the absence of balance is life’s destruction.

• Be overflowing with peace and joy, and scatter them wherever you are and wherever you go.

• Be a blazing fire of truth, be a beauteous blossom of love and be a soothing balm of peace.

SUFISM

Sufism is the inner mystical dimension of Islam. To the Sufi, it is the transmission of divine light from the teacher's heart to the heart of the student, rather than worldly knowledge. Sufism is a mystical Islamic belief and practice in which people seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. 

The Sufi considers God as his/ her beloved (loved one.)

SUFI SONGS

"Why is it that the yearning for the Loved One  is especially strong today?
Why is my heart sadder today than even before? 
Why does longing penetrate every tissue of mine? 
And why are the eyes shedding tears like a shower of rain?"

"This face  emerged from the Faceless One 
The Faceless One manifests Himself through this face. The Colorless has been revealing itself through this image, Ever since Unity exploded into Diversity."


RABIA-AL-BASRI  (SUFI POETRY)

"If I adore You out of fear of Hell,
Burn me in Hell!
If I adore you out of desire for Paradise,
Lock me out of Paradise.
But if I adore you for Yourself alone,
Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty."

"In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel.
Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.
Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is illumined nothing,
where ecstasy gets poured into itself and becomes lost, where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or body?"

"In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church that dissolve, that 
dissolve in God. Your prayers are your light;Your devotion is your strength;
Sleep is the enemy of both.Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.
If you ignore it, if you waste it,You will only turn to dust."

"In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows; the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?"


RUMI QUOTES AND POEMS

"A bird is flying high; its shadow speeds over the earth like an actual bird: a fool starts to chase the shadow, running so far that he exhausts himself, not knowing that it is but the reflection of that bird in the air, not knowing where the origin of the shadow is.

He shoots arrows at the shadow and the quiver is emptied-his life is wasted by what he seeks. But when the shadow of God tends to him, it saves him from every illusion."

"Don't go to sleep this night 
One night is worth a hundred thousand souls
The night is generous it can give you a gift of the full moon.
It can bless your soul with endless treasure
Wake up, wake up this night is gone 
Wake up!"

"Abandon abandon 
even your dear self.
Abandon."

"There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.
There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. 
O traveler, if you are in search of That.
Don't look outside, look inside yourself and seek That."

"This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.
This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth.
To be one with the truth for just a moment,
Is worth more than the world and life itself."

"No I am not roaming aimlessly around the streets and bazaar,
I am a lover searching for his beloved.
God have mercy on me I am walking around troubled.
I have done wrong and sinned and am walking around wounded.
I have drunk the wine of desire and am strolling around beloved.
Though I may seem drunk I am quite sober."

"As salt dissolved in the ocean
I was swallowed in God’s sea,
Past faith, past unbelieving,
Past doubt, past certainty."

"Suddenly in my bosom
A star shone clear and bright;
All the suns of heaven
Vanished in that star’s light."

KABIR

KABIR DOHE (SUFI POEMS)

• If you don't break your ropes while you're alive do you think ghosts will do it after?

• I do not quote from the scriptures; I simply see what I see.

• Look at you, you madman!  Screaming you are thirsty and dying in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water!

• Do not go to the garden of flowers! O friend! go not there;In your body is the garden of flowers.Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the infinite beauty.

• There is nothing but water in the holy pools. I know, I have been swimming there. All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can’t say a word. I know, I have been crying out to them. The Sacred Books are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true.

• Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.

• I said to my longing heart, what is this river you want to cross? There are no travelers before you, there is no road. Do you see anyone moving or resting on that bank?

• Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way.

• The purpose of labor is to learn; when you know it, the labor is over.

• Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,and stand firm in that which you are.

• The musk is inside the deer, but the deer does not look for it, it wanders around looking for grass.

• There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman. There is not even a rope to tow the boat, and no one to pull it. There is no earth, no sky, no time, no thing, no shore, no ford!

• I went looking for Him and lost myself; The drop merged with the Sea -Who can find it now? Looking and looking for Him I lost myself; The Sea merged with the drop -Who can find it now ?

• Are you looking for me ? I(God) am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrines, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: nor in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly.

• Hey brother, why do you want me to talk? Talk and talk and the real things get lost. Talk and talk and things get out of hand. Why not stop talking and think? If you meet someone good, listen a little, speak; If you meet someone bad, clench up like a fist. Talking with a wise man is a great reward. Talking with a fool? A waste. Kabir says,- A pot makes noise if it's half full, But fill it to the brim -no sound.

• So long as man clamors for the "I" and the"Mine", his works are as naught: When all love of the "I" and the "Mine" is dead, then the work of the Lord is done.

• I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don't grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house and so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look! Kabir will tell you the truth: go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet; if you can't find where your soul is hidden, for you the world will never be real!

• Kabira in the market place, wishes welfare of all, Neither friendship nor enmity with anyone at all.

• Eons have passed whirling rosary, restless remains the mind.  Give up the beads of rosary and rotate the beads of mind - When "I" was then Hari was not, Now Hari "is" and "I" am not. All the darkness mitigated, When I saw the light within. 

• Music without words means leaving behind the mind.  And leaving behind the mind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound.    

• Look! Here am I right within you. Not in a temple, nor in a mosque, not in Kaaba nor Kailas, But here, right within you am I.

• O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death? It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body; If He is found now, He is found then, If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.

• Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain.

• The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it; the moon is within me, and so is the sun. The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears cannot hear it.

• The river and its waves are one surf: where is the difference between the river and its waves? When the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is the same water again. Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction? Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be considered as water?

• A drop Melting into the sea, Everyone can see. But the sea absorbed In a drop - A rare one can follow! 

• A piece of salt entered the ocean to find its depth. It dissolved and turned into salty water; who will return to tell the depth.

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

H2G2 (THE HITCH HIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY) QUOTES

• For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man- for precisely the same reasons.

• Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. 

• He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.

• Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. 

• If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

The answer to everything-

"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."

"Yes..!"

"Of Life, the Universe and Everything..." said Deep Thought.
"Yes...!"
"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.
"Yes...!"
"Is..."
"Yes...!!!...?"
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?" , "I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.”

• Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.

What's up?" asked Ford.
I don't know," said Marvin, "I've never been there.”

• One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right?  At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behavior. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

• In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

I like the cover," he said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.”

• His planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

• And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

• All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was."No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.” 

"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water!"

• Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.” 

• The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the effect of which is like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

• Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity -distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless.

• Marvin- "You think you've got problems. What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't even bother answering. I'm 50,000 times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer." 

• Marvin was humming ironically because he hated humans so much.

• I didn't ask to be made: no one consulted me or considered my feelings in the matter. I don't think it even occurred to them that I might have feelings. After I was made, I was left in a dark room for six months... and me with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side. I called for succor in my loneliness, but did anyone come? Did they help?

Marvin: I've been talking to the main computer.
Arthur: And?
Marvin: It hates me.

• Marvin: Not that anyone cares what I say, but the restaurant is at the other end of the Universe. 

• Marvin on being left in a parking lot for 500 million years , "The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million: they were the worst, too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that, I went into a bit of a decline." 

Zaphod Beeblebrox: There's a whole new life stretching out in front of you.
Marvin: Oh, not another one.



Marvin: "I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number."
Zem: "Er, five."
Marvin: "Wrong. You see?"

Arthur: "Marvin, any ideas?"
Marvin: "I have a million ideas. They all point to certain death."Trillian: "that's just fine, really... just part of life"
Marvin: "Life. Don't talk to me about life."

• “Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.

• Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life.” 

• “Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.” 

• I could calculate your chance of survival, but you won't like it.

• Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans.

• “There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?” 

• If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

• The President of the Universe holds no real power. His sole purpose is to take attention away from where the power truly exists.