From about 4 to 4:30 pm the Sun reaches SW and the energy begins to cool and stabilise the mind; it strengthens relationships and skills, motivates hard work and gives stability to every work. It suits bedroom, drawing room, tijori and heavy items, subject to Rahu-Ketu checks.
The Sun sets in the West but the effect falls on WNW, which brings tears, so Vedic vastu calls it the rudan kaksh (crying room); it is the zone of depression and low mood. It is the ideal place for a septic tank and suits waste and storage uses.
From 4:30 pm until sunset the Sun's rays turn cool and soothe the brain's neurons and glial cells, so WSW is the education zone and is very good for studying children. Most activities are allowed, but no fire, toilet or main door.
Rules to avoid in kitchen design: no south-facing door, no doorless or open kitchen, no central platform, no mirrors or water artifacts, no toilet on any of its six sides and no well, borewell or tank above or below.
A picture changes the mind, so a painting can create a dosh. A painting of a tree, mountain, river, road or pillar facing the main door acts as a dwar vedh, water scenes do not belong on South, West or SW walls, and mountain scenes do not belong on the North wall.
If the sleeping zone cannot be changed, changing the direction of the feet gives about 50 percent of the benefit. Feet towards North is best, West is second, East only for children and early risers, and South never.
Stairs must turn clockwise, have an odd number of risers, include landings and equal risers, arrive facing North or East, and have nothing harmful built beneath them.
Stairs are excellent in SSW (the heavier the better) and good to very good in South, SW, WSW, West, WNW and NW; they must never be in the NE zone, the Brahmasthan, the North or right in front of the main door.
Stairs represent Mercury (Budh), the planet that lifts people up and gives success in business; they join underground energy with cosmic energy. Wrongly placed stairs stall business, obstruct children's education and spoil relations with sisters, daughters and paternal aunts.
Stairs right in front of the main door invite accidents and mishaps, but stairs that start at least twice the door height away (14 feet for a 7 feet door) are not treated as facing the door.
The human body, imagined facing East, is built like the Vastu Purush Mandal, and the position of each body function shows where the matching part of a house belongs.
Four positions are forbidden for a toilet whatever the zone: the Brahmasthan, directly opposite the main door, directly opposite the kitchen and under the staircase.
There are three types of doors: the boundary wall door, the main door and room doors. The pada results apply mainly to the main door, the door through which you actually enter the home.
An exalted planet in the lagna chart of the owner opens his fortune through a door in the direction of that planet, while certain debilitated planets and conjunctions rule a direction out completely.
Each mulank (root number of the birth date) belongs to a planet, and the direction of that planet is the favourable door side: 1 East, 2 North-West, 3 North-East, 4 and 7 South-West, 5 North, 6 South-East, 8 West and 9 South.
Vedic vastu matches the facing of the main door to the rashi of the male house owner. Even in a suitable direction, the door must still stand on a good pada.
Large business doors and shop shutters often span two to four padas. When the favourable pada, for example S4, is fully included and open, the door gives the results of that pada.
A dehleez is essential in the main door and good in every door. Make it of wood for a soft nature or of stone for firmness, keep it above the floor and mount the door on top of it.
A vastu dosh does not trouble a family all the time. Its ill effect appears when the related planet runs its dasha, mahadasha, antardasha or pratyantar dasha.
The shape of a door affects the household: triangular, cart-shaped (shakat), winnow-shaped (supa), bow-shaped, sun-shaped and round doors all bring problems. A door should always be rectangular with a full frame.
Even an N4 door fails if it leans, has holes, stands at a dead end, is reached from the back of the house, or is obstructed by a pit, tree, pillar or T in front. Such defects (dwar dosh and dwar vedh) cancel the good of the pada.
In the East, E3 is the best door with abundant wealth and E4 brings government support and respect, while E5 suits administrators only. E1, E6, E7 and E8 should not hold the main door.
When leaving the house, first move clockwise, to your right, from the main door. A door from which people go out anticlockwise is called heen bahu dwar and gives less of its result.
Make the main door of solid wood such as teak, ideally with a little sandalwood, and carve auspicious symbols, mantras and floral designs on it. Energy takes on the chemistry of the material it passes through, so flush, ply, fibre and glass doors weaken the result.
The main door is the door of fortune: like the two nostrils it draws nature-given positive energy into the whole house and lets negative energy out. Its two shutters stand for ida and pingala, the two breaths that alternate roughly every hour.
A main door must not face a T-junction or a temple, must not open straight onto an open courtyard and must not have another door above it. All doors should be at one level, and the main door needs a porch and decoration.
The main door should be rectangular, its height twice its width, with a four-piece wooden chaukhat. When the 1:2 ratio cannot be kept, size it by aay (length times width divided by 8) to get a 1 or 3 aay door.
In the North, N3 brings sons and wealth, N4 (Bhallat) is the best of all 32 doors with windfall wealth, and N5 gives wealth with dharma and fame. N1, N2, N6, N7 and N8 bring suffering, enemies, family stress, faults in women and poverty.
In the South only S4 (Grihakshat) gives happiness, peace, prosperity and business profit. S2, S3, S5, S6, S7 (the debt door) and S8 bring lack of children, servitude, suffering, selfishness, debt and disease.
E3, N4 and W4 are the three vipul sampada (abundant-wealth) doors. Virtual doors marked on these padas are heavily promoted, but they give only a tiny fraction of the result of an actually opened door.
In a new flat handed over by the builder the toilet seat is already fitted but is not level. How can it be corrected?
Get the seat removed and refitted perfectly level, because health matters more than the cost. Many people found with kidney, heart and cancer problems, and especially stomach problems, had toilet seats that were not at water level. The main door too must be in plumb, leaning neither in nor out, and level where it stands.
In some apartments the main door is level but is built askew in the wall section. Is that acceptable?
No, such a door is not considered right, and the occupants usually face sudden obstacles in work or sudden health issues. Get the door made straight; treatments for cases where that cannot be done are taught later.
When several people live in a house, whose horoscope decides the facing and the main door, and how long does a house affect the family?
The griha swami's (house owner's) horoscope is used; the method is taught in the astro Vastu classes. The effect of a house carries on for up to three generations.
When zoning a factory, how are the boundary wall gate and the main factory door each checked?
For the boundary wall door, zone the whole plot; for the main door, zone the constructed area. The main door is the one through which you actually enter the house or factory building, not the boundary wall gate through which a vehicle enters, and both should fall on good pads, the main door above all.
For a plot of, say, 33 x 70 that is not fully built, do we take the whole plot or only the constructed part?
Take the constructed area. For the boundary wall gate the centre of the whole plot is used, and for the main door the centre of the constructed area; this is taught in planning.
A house has its entry in the Agni kon (South-East), an underground water tank in the South-East with the stairs over it, and the slope running to the South. The family fights constantly. What is the remedy?
Either leave the house or treat it: close the South-East underground water tank immediately and correct the slope. The staircase can stay. An overhead tank in the South-East is acceptable.
Do we need to know the facing of the house to take its degree?
No. The facing is the side of the main door, opening or road, and using it is only one easy way to read the degree. What matters is to find where North lies; once one direction is known, the rest follow at 90 degree steps.
In villas, kothis and farmhouses with a boundary wall and open land, is the centre taken of the constructed area or of the whole plot?
Both, for different purposes. The whole plot inside the boundary wall is used for the boundary gate and for placing parking, servant quarters, pet shelters and guard rooms, while the house is zoned on its constructed area alone, which decides its main door and rooms. If the house is built almost up to the boundary, leaving about 3 ft, take the whole plot; if 15 to 20 ft is left around a 30 by 50 ft house, zone the 30 by 50 ft area for the house, otherwise half of its zones are lost.
When does a main door built on a correct pad still not give proper results?
When the route to the boundary gate is heen bahu (anti-clockwise) or prishth bhang (circling the house), when there is any dwar vedh in front such as a T-point, shool vedh, pole, tree, pit or garbage, when the house faces a cremation ground, or when the door is out of plumb and leans inward or outward. In any of these cases even doors on N3, N4, E3, E4, S4 or W4 do not give their results.
A family with an N4 door has had only boys across generations. What can be done for a girl child?
N4, like N3 and W4, is a door that brings sons. Open an E2 door, which brings the birth of daughters. A home without a daughter is not a complete home.
My main door is on E4, yet since moving into this house I have had many money problems. Why?
First check whether the door is in plumb and level with a plumb line and water level, and whether a wall or another door stands in front of it. In this case the entrance was fine; the real cause was a full basement in the South and West portion, together with a problem in the North-East.