South-West (SW) Zone: The Corner of Relationships, Skills & Stability in Life

South-West (SW) - Relationships and Excellence

What does ‘skill’ mean? It means making optimum use of an element or thing which is necessary to execute a job or process and then taking it back at the right time. Different people are skilled at different things.

In Vishwakarma Prakash, It is recommended as the place to keep shastra (weapons or tools) in. In the olden days, weapons mainly meant guns, bows and arrows and so on.

These days, apart from the weapons, it includes the medium through which a person practises his knowledge or uses his skills. It could be weapons (soldier), pen-holder (writer), reference books dictionary, thesaurus (scholar), or stethoscope (doctor) or computer.

This South-West corner governs another area - ancestors (pitra). In India, ancestors (pitra) have been considered as the dev or bestower of a skill. The father is considered the first teacher in the old Indian tradition of guru-shishya tradition. The Guru (master) teaches certain skills to his shishya (disciple) or a father to his son. 

To attain any skill, the ancestors’ blessings are required. So, this zone becomes their place, also. Whatever manifests in the physical world, whatever we receive or gain, the dev provides the vision, but the pitra ensures that it is received by us. The dev, diagonally opposite (at 180 degree from here), on the North-East corner grants us wisdom, vision, idea. 

So, no ancestor’s photographs should be kept and worshiped in the devasthan (North-East zone). Likewise, there should never be any devsthan in the South-West zone. If so, attention remains focused only on skill, but it may be difficult to actually attain it. 

An example of this is: there will be the skill to coach, but not of actual performance. Both players and coaches are important, but what is more important is, what do we wish to become - a player or a coach? You are a player and a coach in the game of life.

So, all those symbols or forms, who are body less, and those who never possessed a body (god), can only be in the East or North-East directions. Those who had a body, be they ancestors or teachers should ideally be placed in the South-West zone, but not in the East.

If we observe carefully, all the dev puja is performed facing East. Worship of those who dwelt in bodies (Jesus Christ, or any other guru), who were later considered as the God, is done facing West direction.

So, when we feel as though our skill is not working effectively, it is related to this zone, the South-West corner - the corner of skill. Added to this, is an interesting facet; this is also the corner of relationships. Relationships require great skill; these cannot be taken for granted.

All relationships have to be earned, just like you work to attain skills. Relationships are also bestowed by ancestors, leading to success in the world. We also need skills and ability to implement these skills - these are governed by this zone.

As I said earlier, in the gurukul tradition, the purpose is of seeing or observing, and then being skilled. The emphasis is on observation, then, practise, and then knowledge.

Consider the example of riding a bicycle. To ride it, he must first see it, practise riding it balance and move if forward (skill). What makes all this happen (friction inertia, balance and the physics behind it) can follow later.

In fact, we do not require knowledge to live life. If we want a healthy body, take medicine. That medicine will prove effective only when you gain complete knowledge of medical science - it does not work like this. 

Medicine had its own effects. However, to become a doctor, we need to understand the complete science. When we give that knowledge to someone , when we work as an authority in that field, then, it is imperative for us to thoroughly know what we teach - the whole subject.

Coming back to relationships - all relationships, be it father - son, husband-wife, and so on, are related to the South-West zone. Now, the first relationship is that with our ancestors. If the connection is weak, then our connections with the world are also weak.

If this zone is disturbed (e.g., because of the presence of a toilet in this zone), then neither our skill nor the connection with the ancestors will serve their purpose. If child-birth takes place in such a house, then as per jyotish shastra (astrology), pitra-dosh reflects in the child’s natal chart (horoscope).

Whatever the principles of pita-dosha, these appear merely because of the presence of a toilet in the South-West zone. Due to this toilet, the husband-wife relationship will be stressed, rather, disposed of - all connections removed.

Each relationship is related to this South-West corner, which repeatedly says that you have to make efforts to develop or maintain relations. Developing relations is a skill and it has only two rules.

To clarify, the zonal areas (each to the right and left of any zone), are deeply inter-connected, so that when the zone expands, these give us complete knowledge on how it will further affect us.

There are only two ways to develop, strengthen and maintain relationships (and also the skill to do so):

 (1) contemporary knowledge

(2) the ability and knowledge to ‘let go’ involved in it; you overlook his or her mistakes and her or she overlooks what error you make.

Wherever and whenever we let go, the relationship gets stronger and deeper. Where this is absent, the relationship gets weaker, day by day. Why? There is ‘disposal’ on one side of South-West (South-South-West) and ‘knowledge’ (West-South-West), on the other.

Whenever you are to strengthen an energy zone or impart skill to a corner, then you will have to also select the activities, pertaining to the two zones on the side. If a person comes to you and says: “I have stress in my relationship”, then only two ways by which to analyse it:

1. How these in my relationships were developed, and (2) how these are maintained.

So, one has to comprehend what knowledge is required to develop relationships and what to go of (in order to maintain them) - then, the stress in relationships should disappear and you and you learn to earn relationships.

The same applies to any skill: knowledge nurtures skill and removing the unwanted parts from skill makes it sharper, more acute. If we know what to remove and what to add, it becomes easy (especially as these are intermixed), to have effective and strong relationships.

Stability in life depends on these two things. If a businessman has a good relationship with his customers, then success will definitely follow. If there is stability in relationships within a family the home environment will be happy and productive, and family life will be successful.

If our skill is stable in whatever we do, it is because it is nurtured with knowledge and whatever unnecessary has been removed. Then, with knowledge and whatever unnecessary has been removed. Then, we will excel in whichever field we are in. So, these 16 zones not only control each activity of life but also reveal a clear picture of the kind of life the resident of a particular house will lead.