According to feng shui expert and world's best selling feng shui writer Lillian Too, there are 3 dimensions to feng shui. They are, as mentioned in Part 1, the Space dimension, the Time dimension and the Spiritual dimension.
Spiritual Feng Shui is all about engaging the beings of the cosmic realms. Who and what are these beings? This is what we are going to delve into in this post.
Basically, there are SIX different realms of existence. We are in the HUMAN realm. We are somewhere in the middle as there are higher and lower realms than us.
The Upper Realms are made up of the God realm and The Asura realm. These consists mostly of the Protectors and Guardians like Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and wisdom beings.
The Lower Realms are made up of the Ghost realm, the Animal realm and the Hell realm.
Within the spirits realm, they have their own different levels and hierarchies. Even the Protectors and Guardians have different ranks of their own. Those of the lower levels are afraid of those from the higher levels, or to put it more nicely, the lower level beings respect those that are of higher levels than them.
According to Lillian Too, the HUMAN realm is the best realm to be born in. It is only in the human realm that one can have the potential to achieve enlightenment, meaning a state where you can truly understand everything about the true nature of your existence, so that there is no more learning.
Also, in the human realm, one can appease and control the spirits, which makes one's life smoother and happier.
It will be most unfortunate if you were to be born into the Animal realm as animals do not have the intellect to understand such profound wisdoms or to achieve enlightenment. And even worse, is to descend into the Hell realm, for you will be one of those hungry ghosts that are only allowed to roam the earth during the Hungry Ghost month!
A hungry ghost image source
As such, the Human realm is seen to be very precious. Lillian therefore advised us against taking our own lives. She even said that people who harm themselves are stupid beyond words! The message here is to take good care of our lives for as humans, for we are indeed very precious and at an advantage compared to the others.
Now there are billions and billions of spirit beings! And they are not just of this world, but of other worlds too, in fact, the whole Universe. So who really are these ghosts and spirits?
According to Lillian, ghosts and spirits are beings that are trapped in the BARDO. What is the Bardo? The Bardo is the in-between world between realms!
This is how it works. When we die, we spend 49 days in the Bardo. That's exactly 7 weeks! This is also why the Buddhists and Taoists pray for 49 days for people who have passed away.
3 things can happen when you are in the Bardo ...
1) You get reborn (either into human, animal or hell realm)
2) You stay trapped in the Bardo
3) You become enlightened and go on to the higher realms
Most spirits get reborn, but some get trapped in the Bardo. How does one get trapped in the Bardo?
Well, when you are too attached to life on earth, you will get trapped in the Bardo. When everyone cries and mourns your death, you may find that you are not able to let go. So it is important to say good bye and not cling to your past life when you die.
If not, you will be a slave to the King of Bardo. But what is worse since you are so attached to life on earth, is that the King of Bardo will tell you to pull in another relative. That's one reason why you notice that sometimes when a person dies, 2 or 3 weeks later, his close relative or family member also dies. This is also why a lot of prayers are needed for the dead so that they do not stay trapped in the Bardo.
Wandering in the Bardo image source
How did Lillian know about all these? You are probably thinking she invented it all right? Well, according to Lillian, she got all these knowledge through lots of research and by learning from the Tibetan lamas and also from reading the sutras, which are the direct teachings of the Buddha.
Personally, I think it's way more complex than what Lillian explained to us during the seminar. But then, I think she did a great job in simplifying and making it easy to digest for the layman.
Lillian's advice is to live in such a way that when you die, you know HOW to die. But in the meantime, those of us still alive have a life to live. We all want a happy, smoother life and one way to achieve that is to have good feng shui. Besides good feng shui, we also need to have good Spiritual feng shui, in other words, we need to appease the spirits around us.
The Diamond Sutra image source
Now every space has its own local spirits. They are neither good nor evil. KL has its own local spirits, Mid Valley (Lillian mentioned this since we were having the Spiritual Feng Shui seminar at The Gardens next to Mid Valley mall) has its own local spirits, and your house has its own local spirits too. Lillian said her house is a paradise to her because she always keep her local spirits happy.
In Part 3, I will share with you what kind of harm and obstacles these local spirits can do to you, and how you can actually appease them so that instead of harming you, they turn around to protect you from harm!
Possibly also in Part 3 (if the post is not too long), I will share some of these interesting stories like...
- how Lillian's guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche changed the direction of the fire raging through the forests of California (is it magic?)
- why the Indonesian haze plaguing Malaysia may be spiritually related...
- how Lillian created the rain to wash away the haze! (magic again?) and...
- all about black magic, and which country has the deadliest black magic of them all! Can you guess?
Don't miss all these and more, in Part 3 coming soon! : )
