We see many devotees taking the art of living being based on Feng Shui and Vastu very seriously.Is it important?

How important Feng Shui and Vastu is can be easily recognized by trying to find out how many times Srila Prabhupada mentioned it. The number of quotes is……… 0.

It is indeed amazing how devotees are ready to modify their lives in terms of eating, sleeping, mating and defending with such a great sincerity. Just recently I got to know that in one ISKCON farm project known to me devotees butchered several large trees which provided shadow and shelter for guests and residents only for the purpose of being "vastu-correct".

That the environmental arrangements can influence our consciousness is not big news. Naturally a devotee will strive to live in an atmosphere dominated by mode of goodness. But such a rise of consciousness should naturally occur by chanting of the Holy Name and not by butchering trees, rearranging doors and windows and digging up landscapes in search for "harmony with nature".

By chanting of the Holy Name one should become "naturally natural" and by preaching the Holy Name even the most inauspicious place becomes most auspicious. This is what Srila Prabhupada taught us.

The occasionally fanatical faith into Feng Shui and Vastu carries a sinister undertone. It establishes that by first setting things right materially, spiritual progress becomes possible. In other words spiritual life is no more ahaituki apratihata, entirely transcendental to material circumstances, but it is indeed based on material arrangements. This couldn’t be more wrong.

But even such often voidistic appearing Feng Shui dwellings can be ecstatic when populated by those who chant the Holy Name. To dedicate so much of ones precious energy and money to establish an environment where Krsna is hardly remembered is worthless and misleading. To dedicate ones life to propagate "the art of living in this material world", is a perfect way to forget the mission of Srila Prabhupada based on absolute dedication to the Holy Name, distribution of His books and his prasadam.

One day our Feng Shui an Vastu fanatics may stand in front of their bombed out and burned down residences or dying in their homes which were spared of such an onslaught of material nature, only to find out that it is only one principle which can make their lives auspicious: "Always remember Krsna and never forget Him. " After all, material nature will force us to leave our bodies, regardless the circumstances. Loosing the essence of Krsna consciousness may lead us to other living forms where we may not have the problem to discuss the art of living in this material world anymore while being covered birth after birth by non-human bodies.