Hindu Lifestyle in the Digital Age and Superstitions.

We all must have played the game of telephone in High School or at least experienced a version of it. Person A whispers something to Person B, Person B is then asked to whisper the same thing to Person C, so on and so forth and the chain is played until the last person, Person Z is whispered into. When the message is checked, Person Z gets a vastly different message than what was first whispered by Person A. In real life, this does not have to play on a linear time scale. It can happen from one generation to another. This is exactly what I see happening in a few aspects of Indian culture. Dogma is reinforced and when decisions are not based on rationale principles, it leads to superstition.
Mahurat (or Muhurtas) and Jyotish: Jyotish began as a way of time keeping. Ancient Vedic scholars observed the solar and lunar cycles, position of celestial objects, seasons etc. and recorded them. They wanted to observe patterns and needed a way to predict some of the seasonal events. The prediction was meant to be within this reasonable framework and never meant to be drawn out for prediction of life events of a person.
A classical example from history I could think of is Hitler’s campaign on Russia. He started the war in July and by the time they were deep in the campaign, the onset of winter and severe weather, deeply impacted their war operations and eventually led to their defeat. (I am oversimplifying and am glad the Nazis lost, just using it as an example).
Similarly, a Chola King ruling from outskirts of Madurai in South India, if launching a war against the Deccan rulers up north, would want to time his war campaign as beneficial as possible with greater chances of winning. He would consult the scholars who then would study the weather during the journey, the monsoons, the vegetation to feed his army etc. and thus would probably advise him on the best time to wage such a war. They obviously are not going to start a war in the midst of a heavy monsoon and potentially expose the army to wet and disease borne conditions. (The importance of Uttarayana and Dakshinayana, which are time intervals between winter and summer solstice likely evolved from such practice, but I digress.) Alexander’s troops falling sick on the banks of river Beas, is possibly another example to look at.
Let’s look at how this could apply to common peasants. Indian civilization was agrarian and hence almost all life events (except events like death which are beyond human control) are planned around sowing and harvesting seasons. Marriages were avoided during peak harvest seasons while newly married brides would time their visits to their maiden homes around those cycles. Extending this reasoning to construction of new dwellings, one needs to work around those cycles wherein either the peasants built those dwellings themselves, or the rich depended on peasant labor who often doubled as construction workers. So would then Housewarming also be sequenced or scheduled on the same thought process.
Currently, where most of us work in a digital economy or service sector, do these practices have any logical foundation? I firmly believe the answer is No. What about Indians who live in Western Countries like USA. Let’s take the state of Michigan for example. Michigan unofficially has two seasons, winter and construction. All activity happens in Summer while construction is shut down in winter. It would be silly, if not dangerous, for an Indian Hindu Priest to pull out a Ground-Breaking or Housewarming Mahurat simply based on Hindu Calendar. To add to it, these rules do not apply for an existing dwelling (resale) anyways. To summarize, the practice of looking up Mahurats for life and celebratory events has highly veered towards superstition and needs a serious reset in our thought process and understanding of how the first principles impact our lives.

Vaasthu: Diving straight into this topic:
Maxim-One: “A kitchen should be placed in the “Agneyam” Corner of a Dwelling”. “Agneyam” is the South-East corner of the house, the word itself evolved from the root-word “Agni” meaning fire. Let’s take a moment to understand South Indian landscape: climate and geography. Monsoon winds blow from South/South-West to North-East. We all know that wind fans fire. It stands to reason that, if God forbid there was a fire-accident in the kitchen, this design would be the most optimum to cause the least damage to the rest of the dwelling. Would this tenet then apply to homes in the USA, especially in a city like Chicago which is described as a windy city or in Los Angeles which has a history of raging wildfires due to dry heat and various other reasons (not an expert in LA fires and beside the point). It is not only silly but outright dangerous to apply that logic. Holds no water in a city like Atlanta, with its fire codes.
Maxim -Two: “Source of water in Eeshanyam should not be in line with the entrance of dwelling”. “Eeshanyam” is the North-East corner of a dwelling and has been identified as position of water (topic for another day). Wells to draw water are often dug in this corner. In the olden days when bullock-carts were the modes of transportation (they still are in some rural parts), when a bullock-cart is entering the compound of a home, if the animal pulling the cart were to go berserk or the cart lost control, it would head straight and fall into the large dug-out well potentially causing a mishap. Hence, this tenet makes sense not to have a draw-well and a gate or entrance in line with each other. The positioning of an entrance was thus dictated on such restrictions. Let’s ask ourselves if the layout of an entrance to any dwelling in USA runs into any such similar conditions. The answer is firm No. (The equivalent, I could think of is not to have a steep driveway, avoiding any car-brake mishaps).
Maxim-three: “East facing Houses are always Auspicious”. The City of Bangalore in India is on 13* N latitude while the City of Seattle, Washington in USA is on 47°N latitude (these appx numbers are for the sake of this conversation and beside the point). With the earth’s tilt, while the Sun will almost always rise in the east in Bangalore within those 13 degrees (a narrow “V”), the sunrise in Seattle can happen anywhere between North-East to South-East Corners in the Horizon, in a year. Not to mention, the time difference between daylight between summer and winter months in Hyderabad would be a couple of hours, while in Seattle would be close to 8 hours, which is a third of a day. Carrying this belief in every part of the USA is just beyond silly and could actually interfere with one’s mental wellbeing.
To summarize, while it is not meant to say Vastu-Shastra has evolved in vacuum or is insignificant, applying it blindly to our modern lives or decision making in USA, without aligning with the basics, is just futile and is ripe with superstition. The spirit of ancient wisdom should prevail over the letter.

Disclaimer: It is not my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings or beliefs but to promote rational thinking. A difference of opinion based on objectivity and rationale thinking is always welcome.