In plain words
Only after that must we plough it, till it and sow the seed fit for the crop we mean to raise. Only then can we reap the crop and the fruit we hoped for. In the same way, only after we have given up the feelings we must give up can we sow the seeds needed for what we must worship. That is why in our daily life we must give up niṣiddha karmas.
The fourth: these are what must be done purely in expiation. Knowingly or unknowingly we have committed many kinds of faults and sins. So there are some karmas we must perform in expiation of these sins. For these there are certain paths that all the maharṣis of Bhārata experienced, practised and delighted in themselves, and left to the world. Striving and searching through many sādhanas, they taught the paths men need. These very ones are the pilgrimages to holy places and the baths in holy rivers: for the expiation of these sins they went on laying down certain rules. Darśanaṃ pāpanāśanam. Sambhāṣaṇam saṅkaṭanāśanam, sparśanam karmavimocanam: holding to these three paths, we must from time to time make some kinds of pilgrimage too, for Śānti of mind, for purity of mind. If you ask in what spirit these pilgrimages should be: we must make them with purity of citta, with unwavering Bhakti, with no desire for the fruit. Some people's vows, too, are somewhat strange. "O Lord Veṅkaṭaramaṇa! My affairs, my children's wedding; if my sons pass well, I shall come and have my sons offer their hair," they vow. Further, today, under the sway of Kali, they take up a still stranger way. It comes in the paper. There is a lottery of ten lakhs. "Swami, if those ten lakhs come to me, I will pay You a hundred rupees," they say. We must consider how they think of God in vows like these. Is God waiting there for your hundred rupees? To God, who is all-knowing, all-pervading and all-powerful, what are the hundred rupees you give? Caught up in his own desires, he cannot give thought to that Viveka. O God, make these ten lakhs come to me. Who is the doer? God alone. When He Himself is handing him ten lakhs, what is this, his giving a hundred rupees to God? How foolish this is!