Have you ever considered the quality of your relationship with your home and how it influences your relationships with others? What barriers for love might you have built around and within your home that prevent you living your love story? A loving renovation or redesign of your abode using the ancient practice of vastu shastra can release barriers to love towards self and others and help you to live in love.

A loving home

If love is a spiritual quest that awakens love consciousness within, you want your home to be your safe house, a living environment where love can be nurtured, expressed, honoured and explored. According to the principles of vastu shastra, incorrect structure and design are leading causes in fracturing love.

According to the principles of vastu shastra, incorrect structure and design are leading causes in fracturing love.

Whether you are single and yearn for love, or you want to ensure long-term success in your relationship, or you just want to feel more love in your life, you can benefit from the wisdom of vastu shastra. If a relationship has ended, reuniting with love of the self is imperative, but this can prove difficult when your home is not primed for love to flourish.

What is vastu shastra?

Like yoga and Ayurveda, vastu shastra is an ancient vedic science from India. Vastu means abode, shastra means knowledge. It considers living out of harmony with your home, surroundings and the five elements to be the primary causes of relationship difficulties. Anthony Ashworth, of the School of Sacred Space (schoolofsacredplace.com), explains that when you engage consciously with all the energies of the universe to support you in your home, love of oneness can infiltrate and awaken within you.

Sattvic love

Ashworth recommends that you aim for the highest, purest, sattvic love energy in your home. The qualities of sattva are selflessness, generosity, non-greed, non-covertness, contentment, clarity, cleanliness and non-criticism. It is joyful, unconditional, peaceful and uncontaminated by negativity, and it permeates everything.

Ashworth feels that modern design interpretations such as modernised Zen and wabi sabi (a Japanese aesthetic choice) are dominated by a strong, masculine force that discards the spiritual softness of these philosophies. For a balanced home, Ashworth recommends two-thirds feminine and one-third masculine energies. Feminine energy confers stability with reflective and intuitive qualities that make your home a nurturing and loving environment.

North-east: the Gateway to the Gods

To embrace or start new love, clean your space and clear away excess to improve the flow of prana, or positive energy. First, focus on the north-east corner, where the feminine energy enters. Water is the element for the north-east, so Ashworth suggests placing a cup, chalice or grail of fresh, clean water there for pure, white light to enter and energise the entire home. Second, remove any barriers in the north-east that could be blocking the light and fresh air, especially around windowsills. Third, anchor this positive energy with the earth energy of the south-west quadrant.

South-west: the main bedroom

The south-west is the place for the main bedroom. Sleeping there increases the loving bond of couples, says vastu shastra. This area of the home has a slow, heavy, tamasic energy that brings calm and restfulness to you.

The qualities of sattva are selflessness, generosity, non-greed, non-covertness, contentment, clarity, cleanliness and non-criticism.

Author and travelling consultant Dr T Selva (vasthusastra.com) explains that, in homes where marriages fail or are difficult, it is usually found that the couple were sleeping in an inauspicious location of the house. Couples sleeping in the south-east quadrant, for instance, are likely to be in constant conflict because they occupy the fire corner.

Single & looking

Dr Selva advises those seeking their life partners to sleep in the north-west quadrant of the home, the air corner. He asserts that you will find your match within six months if you do.

If you are single and living alone in a large house with redundant rooms, your home will feel lonely and lacking in love and energy. Ashworth suggests you celebrate your home with dinner parties and events that bring people into the space regularly. Invite friends with young families: when happy children run and play throughout the house they energise and uplift the space. Consider engaging a flatmate to increase vibrant energy in your home.

Parent love

If you want to create harmony among siblings, Ashworth advises prioritising the parental relationship first. Place the parents’ bedroom in the south-west. Once the love of the parents is affirmed, the children will become more harmonious, feeling the stable energy of their parents’ love for each other. Loving design changes can bring this stabilising, grounding force to single-parent families too.

Many children’s bedrooms are filled with busy, bright colours, which disturb sleep patterns. Ashworth suggests colouring the children’s bedrooms with earth tones to ensure restful sleep.

Size does matter

Bedrooms should not be large, according to vastu shastra. Ashworth says you need to feel the safety of being held and contained in the bedroom space for loving energy to bloom. Earth energy needs to be in the bedroom. Ashworth notes that modern bedrooms are overly large, with a tendency towards masculine, busy and fiery rajasic energy, making deep sleep difficult.

If your bedroom is too big to feel nurturing, create a room within the room through a canopy over the bed

Modern styles are often too open and exposed, including the use of wall-to-floor windows. If your bedroom is too big to feel nurturing, create a room within the room through a canopy over the bed. This allows for safe, stable energy in your relationship, improves communication and can help prevent relationship breakdown, assures Ashworth.

Sleeping position

Dr Selva says you should never sleep under a structural beam as the vibrations from the beam can cause health problems and create a negative impact on your mind. In accordance with vastu shastra, Dr Selva recommends sleeping with your head towards the east and feet towards the west. Never sleep with the head towards the north because the magnetic field of the Earth lies in a north–south direction and the energy levels can be thrown out of balance by this strong field, which can sometimes cause difficulties in having children.

Furthermore, to keep the relationship in harmony, Dr Selva recommends women sleep on the left of their partners. Chirag Jani of Om Consultants (vastufengshui.com.au) says a wooden bed is an important addition to a bedroom for binding love within a couple’s relationship.

Colours of love

For love to grow, look at the colours of your interiors and use these to create a pleasant and tranquil atmosphere. Selva says the best colours for the walls of your home are light tones, with the exception of blues and greys, as these don’t generate positive energy. A pink rose quartz crystal in the bedroom emits the energy of love and compassion and consciously brings an intent for love into the space.

Use earthy colours in the south-west quadrant, even in multi-level homes. Floral sheets with gentle colouring and pastels help to promote love. Ashworth suggests energising the south-east corner of the main bedroom with red and bright pink colours to spark the fire in your sex life.

Bless your home

To bring a fresh start for your home, Ashworth recommends performing a space clearing. This removes any negative thoughts and sadness that may have become embedded in the home from the intrusion of media and have prevented the flow of love. Ashworth warns that unfulfilled dreams can become negative, remaining in a home even after its previous residents have left. To counter these, fill your home with beautiful, positive intentions.

Work with a vastu shastra consultant to create even more opportunities for love to flow within your home and your life, and harmony and love will result.

Perform a blessing ceremony that invites positivity into your home and includes a gratitude practice for the home you live in. Ashworth uses a sand or rice-flour mandala at the front door as an offering to the spirit of the home. Candles, flowers or salt can also be used as loving offerings. Afterwards, leave the offerings outside and feel the energy of nature at play and in harmony with the expressions of the home.

Decor of love

To encourage love in your life, bring conscious intention into your home design and decor. Jani recounts how one of his female clients seeking love had single women portraits and statues all around her bedroom, preventing her from choosing a partner. He removed these things and energised the space with vastu directional changes and his client found new love almost immediately, he says.

Remove any harsh or violent images on the walls, regardless of artistry, and reduce the amount of negativity coming in through the television. Selva notes that when you decorate the walls, tabletops, bedroom, living room and even toilet spaces with loving memories, this constantly reminds couples of the unshakable closeness they enjoy. You can decorate lovingly if single to bring love to yourself as well.

Selva suggestions include:

• Burn a red-coloured scented candle in the living room, bedroom or toilet area to vibrate the energy of love.
• Create the mood of bonding by colouring the bedroom wall with light maroon shades and placing a maroon carpet on the floor.
• Write positive affirmations and messages and stick them on the walls at eye level for couples.
• Consider what you hang on the walls, avoiding images depicting violence in any form because they create anger.
• Display images of loving, happy moments like your wedding photos, family portraits and fun occasions within the family unit.
• Hang pictures of full moons, waterfalls and natural scenery such as forests that have meaning for you.

Jani suggests decorating your home and bedroom with crystals to attract light and illuminate your relationship. He suggests using aromatic candles and fresh flowers, and to ensure your bedroom is dust and clutter free so love can flow. Sharp edges on the furniture can block love, he says.

For love in the Garden area, Jani’s suggestions include:

• Put water features in the north or east direction to create a romantic atmosphere.
• Use wooden benches in the garden.
• Plant colourful flowers.
• Remove sharp-edged plants.

The Brahma centre

The middle of your home is the spiritual centre so should be free of furniture, where possible. Ashworth refers to a home’s centre as the Great Mother energy, the potential from which everything else comes. This area relates to the heart and the potential for change and expansion of consciousness. Ashworth says that keeping the centre of the home clear is a powerful invitation for love to enter in abundance.

South-east: the kitchen

Ideally, Selva explains, the kitchen should be in the south-east quadrant of the house to decrease conflict. You can effectively nurture love through sattvic food choices and preparing loving meals more successfully if placed in this area. According to Jani, water and fire should not be near each other in the kitchen as this can cause significant friction in the family. If this is difficult, bless the space for now and focus on other positive vastu changes you can make to support yourself in all areas of love.

A love renovation

If you share the intention of love with all involved in a home renovation, love will be contained and imbued in the building as you go along, Ashworth explains. He chose a gentle builder for his own bathroom and asked, “Will you renovate my home with love?” He asked the plumber, “Are you prepared to plumb my bathroom with love?” He said the underfloor of his bathroom felt like a jeweller had been at work, putting more love into his home. The tiler was a craftsman who used limestone lovingly, and so it continued.

Ashworth gave each person responsibility for adding more love with their own suggestions, as well as his intentions, and radically changed the space. People became moved by his bathroom. They could feel something quite extraordinary and special in the renovation that touched them positively just by being in the space.

So build with love, renovate with love and decorate with love using the suggestions outlined here. Work with a vastu shastra consultant to create even more opportunities for love to flow within your home and your life, and harmony and love will result. Where will improving the relationship with your home take your life’s love story? Om prema (Om love).