In Kali-yuga, chanting the holy name of Krishna is the only universal means of spiritual realization accessible to all.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
] Prabhupāda: The first prescription is how to sit and where to sit. Sitting posture. You have to select a place where you shall sit down and practice yoga. That is the first prescription. Go on. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Purport: " 'Sacred place' refers to places of pilgrimage.
In India the yogīs, the transcendentalists or the devotees all leave home and reside in sacred places such as Prayāga, Mathurā, Vṛndāvana, Hṛṣīkeśa, Hardwar, and practice yoga there." Prabhupāda: Now, suppose you have to find out a sacred place. In this age, how many people is prepared to find out a sacred place? For his livelihood he has to live in a congested city. Where is the question of sacred place?
So if you don't find a sacred place, then how you can practice yoga? That is the first prescription. Therefore this bhakti-yoga system is the sacred place is this temple. You live here, it is nirguṇa, it is transcendental. The Vedic injunction is that the city is the place of passion, and the forest is the place of goodness, and the temple is transcendental.
If you live in a city or a town, that is a passionate place. And if you don't want to live in a passionate place, you go to a forest. That is place of goodness. But a temple, a God's temple, is above this passion and goodness. Therefore temple is the only secluded place for this age.
You cannot go in a secluded place in a forest. It is impossible. And if you make a show of yoga practice in a so-called class and indulge in all kinds of nonsense things, that is not yoga practice. Here is the prescription how to practice yoga. Go on. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "A sacred place is where the sacred rivers like the Yamunā and the Ganges flow.
Any bank on the river Ganges or Yamunā naturally sacred. One should select a place which is secluded and undisturbed. The so-called yoga societies in big cities may be successful in earning material benefit but these are not at all suitable for the actual practice of yoga. One who is not self-controlled and whose mind is not undisturbed cannot practice meditation.
Therefore... Prabhupāda: The Bṛhan-Nāradīya Purāṇa. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Therefore in the Bṛhan-Nāradīya Purāṇa it is said that in the Kali-yuga [the present yuga or age], when people in general are short-living, slow in spiritual realization and always disturbed by various anxieties, the best means of spiritual realization is to chant the holy name of the Lord. In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy the only means of deliverance is to chant the holy name of the Lord. There is no other way to success.” Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the prescription in the Bṛhan-Nāradīya Purāṇa: harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā [Cc. Ādi 17.21] [“’In this Age of Kali there is no other means, no other means, no other means for self-realization than chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name of Lord Hari.’] Harer nāma, simply chant the holy name of the Lord, and that is the only process of self-realization or concentration or meditation.