In plain words
There is a kind of current in man. Just as, when we put current into our houses, we lay a wire called earth down into the ground so that it does not give a shock. In the same way, because there is current in our body, people sit on a piece of wood with a cloth over it and a skin on top, lest its shock come from the earth: that is the root reason for it. Not everyone understands this matter of current. Those who journey on the spiritual path understand it well. There is a certain quality in this current. All of you know it. If someone holds a wire, then even if a lakh of people hold on to him, all the lakh of people get the shock. In the same way, whether good or bad, because people come close to one another it enters into both of them. In these times, at the time of dhyāna, people try to sit without contact with one another, without touching one another. Those who sit up close against one another will not get concentration in meditation, not in this birth, not in a hundred births. This is in accord with the scriptures, and a mark of experience. But the children of today do not believe it. That is why, however long we do it, we stay just where we were. Keeping that aim in mind, Tulasīdās went on grinding the sandal paste, singing of Rāma, without looking towards the children, lest they touch the paste or touch him. Just then the bird on that tree spoke, it seems: "Sir! Tulasīdās, these children who have come are Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa; speak carefully," it said, it seems. This was the very first experience for Tulasīdās. The parrot that spoke was Hanumān. But because some impurity still remained in Tulasīdās, because the impurity of what was past still welled up like this in his heart now and then, he did not have their darśan face to face, in the form of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, in the form of Hanumān. In a clean mirror there is only a clean reflection. In a dirty mirror only a dirty reflection is seen. So though he was a supreme devotee, this past impurity still welled up in his mind now and then. So the darśan that was wanted now, the direct one, appeared to him somewhat altered. Meanwhile, as he was thinking, the moment the doubt arose in him, "Are these little children Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa?", the two of them took up that sandal paste.