In plain words
One may recite the Vedas and the Vedāṅgas by rote; one may put together verse and prose; purity of citta itself is the lifeline of the Śrutis: Śrī Sāī's word is the spring of the Sāmaveda.
Embodiments of the divine Ātma,
What the supreme goal of life is, is not clear to many people in this world. Yet no one is even troubled that they have not understood it. One in a hundred, one in a crore, tries to understand it. This very effort is the first step towards the supreme goal of life. But many people think that if there is food for the belly, sleep to fill the eyes, clothes to cover the body and children to fill the house, this is the meaning of life. This is not the meaning of life. This is merely the furthest goal of living. These too are most necessary for life. But man turns his intellect into outward sight and tries to gain only outward knowledge. He makes no fitting effort to turn inward, to gain Ātma-Jñāna. When you stand on the bank of the causeway and gaze at what lies on the surface, only the waves come into view; the pearls do not. Only the brave one who dives into the sea, goes down to its very bottom and searches out these pearls will find them; others will not. Only when we set aside physical research and examination and make a fitting effort at inner research does this Ātma-Jñāna come to us. Ātma-Jñāna is not so easy. That is why we must inquire a little into the reason why the rulers and the people of Bhārata, who from time without beginning chanted the Vedas in many ways, recited them by rote and remembered them minute by minute, could not receive the fruit due to them.
Great souls, seers of the mantras, have gone on chanting the mantras only on the surface; those who recognise their inner meaning, their mantra power or their sacredness, and live by it, are very few. Yet when we inquire into one great thing in these Vedas, even if the Veda is not understood, the moment the Veda is heard, purities of some kinds grow in us. The sacred power in the Vedic mantras turns into mantra power, takes in its own divine power as well, and in a sacred tone gives others the joy of hearing: this is the great power of the Veda.