The meaning of this mantra is apavitraḥ pavitro vā. Apavitraḥ means unclean, and pavitra means clean. So anyone who may be unclean or clean, it doesn't matter. Apavitraḥ pavitro vā sarvāvasthāṁ gato 'pi vā.
Sarva means all; avastha means condition. "In whatever condition one may be, either unclean or clean," yaḥ, "anyone who," smaret, "remembers," puṇḍarīkākṣam . . . puṇḍarīkākṣam means Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's another name is puṇḍarīkākṣam.
Yaḥ smaret puṇḍarīkākṣam sa: "That person," bahya, "externally," abhyantaram, "internally," śuciḥ, "becomes at once purified." Śrī-viṣṇu, śrī-viṣṇu, śrī-viṣṇu. Puṇḍarīkākṣam, Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu. So this is the remembrance. Śrī-viṣṇu, namaḥ śrī-viṣṇu śrī-viṣṇu.
So this initiation means purification. In this material world we are all impure. Because we are impure, therefore death, disease, old age and pangs of birth overcome us. Just like in diseased condition—we have experience—there are so many painful conditions, similarly, in this materialistic way of life these symptoms, birth, death, disease and old age, they are different kinds of miseries. The rascals, materialist, they are thinking that they're making advance, but they have no solution for these things.
The solution is by tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily accepting some rules and regulation to purify myself. That is called tapasya. Just like in diseased condition, one has to voluntarily accept the rules and regulation enforced by the physician, "You should not eat this. You should not do this. You should not go out. You should take rest." You should not, should not, should not, so many. Similarly, if we want to purify ourselves, then four principles of purificatory process, namely illicit sex life and intoxication, meat-eating and gambling, these four things must be . . .
These four things are paraphernalia of your civilization. In the Western . . . not only Western; Eastern, everywhere. The Kali-yuga is spreading very rapidly, and wherever the Kali-yuga is very prominent, these four items are very prominent: unrestricted sex life, gambling and meat-eating and intoxication. When people become practiced to all this nonsense, they think, "Oh, what is wrong there?" But it is the most abominable part of human civilization. Anyone who are indulging in these four things, they cannot imagine when and how he will be free from this conditional life. So this is the purificatory process.