I would like to give you a gist of my background, to reassure you that I am not a magician, nor a charlatan. Neither am I from a family of palmists or astrologers. I am a doctor’s daughter and I grew up in a household that had three doctors of various specialties from two different generations. My husband is a serious businessman. Until a while ago, I was an equally dull and boring Interior Designer, pretty busy and reasonably successful in my own way.
Then, how did I get here? Is what I am doing "hocus-pocus"?
The answer is pretty straightforward. In the course of my work as an interior designer, I observed a steady pattern – I often observed a complete change in the family’s fortunes and destiny once I had renovated their property. There came a year, when the lives of three of my clients changed completely, post-renovation. Secretly, I began to feel like a bad omen. Then the same year, I shifted, and finally, the reality of the effects of a house change hit home.
A year or two later, I bought a piece of land quite by chance. The moment this happened, my life took a few more giant leaps and my career catapulted forward in a way that I could barely keep pace. I began doing projects that were way beyond my earlier turnover.
This confirmed my doubts and I knew then, there was something more to how a property could affect you. This strange mix of events that I encountered, both good and bad, perplexed me and got me to thinking about the effect of property on one’s life. My quest for an answer to this dilemma had begun. I started looking for somebody who could uncover this mystery for me. At this point, my father gave me one piece of advice:
Before you drink the water, know the source.
This simple line was the best piece of advice that I had ever received.
All my attempts at finding a teacher for Vaastu Shastra, the Indian version of Feng Shui, bore no results. Neither was I able to find a teacher for Classical Chinese Feng Shui. I was looking for a proper institution, not a weekend hobby course, which were available a dime a dozen. All the teachers I spoke to told me they had learnt from books or were unable to reveal a credible source of their knowledge.
Finally, the answer came to me quite through an accident. My husband and I were at the Heathrow airport, returning from a holiday in Scotland when waiting in a queue to buy chocolates I spotted a magazine. It had an orange sofa on the cover that seemed very suitable for one of my clients’ homes. I bought the magazine intending to copy the design once I got back. The magazine got pushed into my bag and forgotten about till I reached home.
It turned out to be a magazine called “Feng Shui for Modern Living” and the center spread had an article that featured a lady who claimed that her life had changed and all her problems were resolved after she met the Chinese gentleman standing next to her in the photograph. All she had done was use her back door instead of her main door.
Instantly, I wished my life could change like that and all my problems could be wiped out by doing Feng Shui. At that point in time, we had shifted to a new house and were facing a continuous, never ending series of problems, not exactly ours, but we were dealing with fire-fighting all the same. At the same time, we were prospering financially and were very happy in our personal space, a strange combination. Hence, not exactly gullible by nature, I intended to find out more about this “wonder solution”.
Turning a few pages, I saw an advertisement for the same teacher’s courses held in Greece of all the places, in the coming ten days.
I just had to go. The problem was, I had no idea what to tell my conservative family. I had never traveled alone in my life. Anyhow, I booked the flight, bit the bullet and told my husband. His reaction to me was “Go, at best it will be an expensive holiday”. To others, all he said was “my wife has hit early menopause, she’s lost it”, “and She’s gone nuts” or something along those lines.
I reached the destination and within the first hour, I was hooked. Everything was relevant and made complete sense. From then on, there was no looking back and finally, I had to give up my Interior Design career for lack of time.
There’s been no looking back. I still study, and hope to continue doing so till the end of my life.
It’s been a great journey, that has brought me many new friends and allowed me to experience many nations and cultures and I love what I do.
I recently read somewhere “If you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life”. And, I live by this adage!
