Alexandra Alter

My challenge was to find the vocabulary that allowed people to connect to what I was talking about,” she said, adding that at first, she had to beg people to come to her lectures. That’s no longer the case, said Cox.

“People are hungry to reaffirm their spirituality, and there’s something about Vastu that resonates with that,” she said. There’s evidence that the trend is catching on. In 2000, when Cox wrote “Vastu Living: Creating a Home for Your Soul”, it was the first book of its kind in the United States. Two years later, when she completed “The Power of Vastu Living,” there were 27 other works on Vastu, and today, there are more than 500 books on Vastu listed on Amazon.com. Vastu in America is taking on a flavour of its own.

Jet Magat, 29, discovered Vastu when his fiance asked him to redecorate the house. Magat, a spa promoter who lives near Palm Springs, California, found Cox’s book while browsing through feng shui books, a similar Chinese philosophy used to balance and harness competing energy forces. Following the book’s advice, he relocated his bed and desk and created a tranquil northeast zone.

“My life has really changed since I moved my furniture,” he said. “Everything I was doing in the house was a chore — there was no joy in it. Now I see my house as an extension of myself.” Magat is now spreading the word among his friends.

As a cousin, and, some believe, an ancestor, to the Chinese art of feng shui, Vastu

is thought to date back more than 3,000 years to Vedic civilisation and provides guidelines for the structure of houses, temples and even whole cities. — Beliefnet.com