In plain words
How we should honour those who come to our home. How one should be before God. The principle that shows discernment in this way, fitting the moment, is the essence of the Sāma Veda.
These four are man's principal lifebreaths. Humility and obedience, the power to hold firm, discernment: what harmonises these four is the principle of Prema. In this Jñāna, Prema grows in us without measure. These three Vedas alone brought forth these five lifebreaths. The men of old, the seers of the mantras, named these three Vedas Trayī. Trayī means three. Man's qualities too are only three. The guṇas sattva, rajas and tamas. The parts of man's body are only three. Head, belly, feet. So it has shown forth the real form of God in the principle of these three. Those who do Śiva pūjā take these three as their basis. There is the bilva leaf.
Triguṇaṃ tridaḷākāraṃ trinetrañca triyāyudhaṃ trijanmapāpasaṃhāraṃ ekabilvaṃ śivārpaṇam
they said. Past, present and future: we must make these three times holy. What is the cause of the unrest that has spread over the country today? We are forgetting the present now. All the old keep brooding on the past. "At my wedding it was like this, in my service days it was like this, those times were good": so they go on describing the time gone by.