Passage 8

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In plain words

Where there is purity, Divinity comes and joins in. So without unity we cannot achieve purity at all. What is that unity? Unity in bhāva, unity in rāga. It must be unity in tāla. This is trikaraṇa śuddhi. By this very trikaraṇa śuddhi we can bring under our sway the form that is the Trimūrti. Trikaraṇa śuddhi can achieve even divinity of every kind. That is why:

Of three guṇas, three-leaved, three-eyed, bearing three weapons, destroying the sins of three births: one bilva leaf, offered to Śiva.

When we offer that heart to God, these three guṇas, three times and three worlds all turn into oneness.

We must give up selfishness. We must bring in the good of others. We must renounce the sense of 'mine'. We must merge in divinity. This is the true essence of nāma-saṅkīrtana. So community bhajan belongs to all. It does not belong to one individual only. Keeping this broad feeling in view, you must set about doing saṅkīrtanas. Take nāma-saṅkīrtana alone as your chief aim. Guṇa-saṅkīrtana may give room for doubts of some kinds. We may say the Name 'the Compassionate One'. For some, doubt may start in that. The doubt may come: 'If God is compassionate, why is He not ending my sorrows?' If He is compassionate, compassion alone must flow, in whatever way it may be, must it not! The doubt may arise, 'In this place of compassion, why should hardness enter?' So in these qualities there are some changes and rearrangements. In these līlās too some changes take place, according to times and occasions. Līlās change according to each one's state, course and outlook. The bhāvas too are just the same. They change according to state, course and outlook. These also keep adjusting to the influences of place, time and circumstance. But in the Name there is no change at all.

So we must install the principle of the Name in our heart, yearn for the Named, and do this saṅkīrtana with divine bhāva. That is why they called it saṃyak kīrtanam. We must do this saṅkīrtana softly, freely, in the way we wish. We must not fix our attention on whether my voice suits that note or not. We must not let the mind go to the tāla, wondering whether it fits the tāla properly or not.