In plain words
Meanwhile, when this opium eater came near: ‘My son, once you have ruined your health, how will you do the work you have to do in this world? So look after your health first of all. The body itself is health. “Dharmārtha kāma mokṣānāṃ ārogyaṃ mūlamuttamam”: only when health is sound, surely, can we achieve these puruṣārthas called Dharma, artha, kāma and Mokṣa,’ and giving him many teachings of this kind, he told him to make a proper effort to cut down the opium. ‘Swāmī, it is beyond me. You yourself, please, give me an instruction, bless me and tell me how I should practise; I will surely follow it,’ he pleaded. Then this guru asked, ‘How much opium do you eat every day?’ He said, ‘Some days I eat more, some days less.’ ‘You could put the measure at about this much,’ he said, and named a size. Very well: he had a piece of chalk of just that size brought. ‘My son, eat this much every day,’ he said. At this the man was overjoyed. ‘He did not tell me to give it up; he told me to eat it, after all!’ ‘Swāmī, I will eat this much every day,’ he agreed. The moment he agreed, the great soul said: ‘When you take it, take this much. With this very chalk write Om three times, and keep it safe. Every day eat only as much as this piece of chalk,’ the guru instructed him. So, as he took his measure and wrote Om three times, the chalk grew smaller and smaller day by day. In this way the piece of chalk vanished altogether. The illness stopped completely. Those of us who smoke ten, twelve, twenty cigarettes in a single day: one a day, then two, and little by little they sit chain smoking day and night. This habit grew little by little. Then we must cut it down little by little and get free of it. In just this way we keep on growing many kinds of bad qualities, little by little.