Sacred Space – Panchangam Bhakti
Like any room in the outside world, the sacred space or the inner room of the heart has a path leading to it. Anyone can enter this room by absorbing him or herself in God, who is present in the room but who is also accessible in this world. Pleased by our absorption, the Lord will open the door for us from within. Like a bridge that connects two banks of a river, the Lord connects the spiritual and material worlds. By truly absorbing our consciousness in Him, we cross from the material to the spiritual dimension and enter the sacred space. It is God who takes us to “the other side.”
The äcäryas (the great spiritual teachers) of the path of bhakti have described various ways to become absorbed in the Lord and enter the temple of the heart. of all of them, these five practices are superior:
sädhu-saìga, näma-kértana, bhägavata-çravaëa
mathurä-väsa, çré-mürtira çraddhäya sevana
One should associate with saintly people, chant the holy name of the Lord, hear the sacred scriptures (like the Çrémad-Bhägavatam), reside at a holy place (i.e. Mathurä), and worship the Deity with faith and veneration.
(Çré Caitanya-caritämåta, Madhya 22.128)
In The Nectar of Devotion (chapter 13) Çréla Prabhupäda promises that these five kinds of devotional service “are so potent that a small attachment for any one of these five items can arouse devotional ecstasy even in a neophyte.”