About your Sacred Space

By Jose N Garcia, Vedic Astrologer

When a person enters a temple of any tradition or denomination, they maintain, sometimes without realizing it, keep a form of behavior of decorum and respect towards what it means or what happens in that area. In my travels through the Far East I have seen how homes are treated with the same respect with which one enters a temple, since inside each house there is usually a small sanctuary. When we allow our living space to be desecrated and contaminated we can pay the consequences both in our physical and mental health and even in our general well-being. For a person to be invited to the home of a traditional family in India, Tibet, Japan or China, they must have had a previous bond with them so that they can then be taken to the sanctity of the home.

Many prefer to invite someone to a restaurant or some public place until they know who the person is. It also happens when one is invited by a trusted family friend. I have even seen in villages in India that people stay on the balcony or veranda of the house and there they are served, food, drink and interact with the family. That has also happened to me. Many people, however, open the doors of their homes wide to any stranger, understanding that by doing so they are being hospitable. I can write volumes of incidents and consequences of those acts of carelessness. Furthermore, the level of contamination that remains in the home after certain visitors have left or after parties or social gatherings have ended. Let's be careful, because to the extent that we treat our home as a temple we will guarantee a reasonable level of health, happiness and peace.