Now Nanak, before concluding, lists the qualifications required of a devotee before he can succeed on the Spiritual Path. He sums up these qualifications as six in number.
The first of these is chastity of thought, speech and deed. This is the first prerequisite for the dawn of Higher Life, and is the foundation on which the superstructure of Spirituality is raised.
Christ has also said:
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
Purity is, verily, the key that unlocks the door of meditation leading to the Mansion of the Lord.
Secondly, one must develop patience, which enables one to bear cheerfully whatever may befall.
Thirdly, one must have control over one’s thoughts and cast away all desires to insure equilibrium of mind.
Fourthly, steady, daily practice of, and holding communion with, the Word with full faith in one’s Master.
Fifthly, one should live in the devout awe of His Presence, stimulating one to untiring effort to achieve ultimate union with Him.
And over all one must love Him with an intensity that burns up all impurities and blazes the way to His door.
Stanza XXXVIII
Make chastity1 your furnace, patience your smithy, the Master’s Word your anvil, and True Knowledge your hammer. Make awe of God your bellows and with it kindle the fire of austerity, and in the crucible of Love, melt the nectar Divine, only in such a mint, can man be cast into the Word. But they alone who are favoured by Him, can take unto this Path, oh Nanak, on whom He looks with Grace, He fills with Everlasting Peace.
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Explanation: 1) Chastity here refers not only to physical purity, but even more to the Spiritual One, of spotless thoughts, words and deeds.