In plain words
It was for this very reason that the elders proclaimed that food brings health, health a taste for the spiritual, that taste sādhana, sādhana resolve, and resolve the winning of the fruit.
But today, from impure food, impure minds are multiplying! Whatever the power of these times may be, people have given up cleanliness and the like, they feed on filth, suffer themselves with impure minds and bring suffering to others; they have even given up cleaning their teeth and bathing. The mouth is the very main gate of the body! If that main gate itself is dirty, what will become of those who live there? Such people must be called nothing but uneducated. Rather than keep company with those who have fallen into impure speech, impure habits, impure conduct and impure thoughts, it is best simply to stay far away from them. Even if they are millionaires in wealth, in character they are no better than paupers without a meal; go near them, and your health will suffer and your good sense will be spoiled.
As important as food is for health, so important, too, is cleanliness of the body. In olden times the ṛṣis and yogīs lived as great renunciants, with no thought of the body, and practised tapas with their senses held in check, and so their health and their length of life grew; not understanding this, some sādhakas imitate them and go about paying no heed to the cleanliness of the body. But even to imitate, you must be fit for it. For the weak-hearted, imitation brings danger; it is good if you first win a lasting sama-citta and then set out to follow the ṛṣis; but to set your heart on selfish ends and say, “What is wrong in my doing it? Did they not do it? Did these not do it?” To talk like this shows nothing but madness. If, without testing the rights and wrongs of your own understanding, you too drink poison because Īśvara drank poison, the result is well known. Ordinary people have to win the victory through the sādhana of dhyāna alone. To neglect the body, too, is a great mistake. Once the river is crossed you may burn the raft, but until you reach the bank you must give it its due worth. The jīva has come for God alone, not for the doctors! Instead of becoming a slave to the doctors and leaning on them, you must have the resolve to stay healthy and live in joy. The body is the skin on the fruit; the pulp within is the mind; impurity is the seed you throw away because it cannot be eaten; and the juice of the fruit is Ānanda itself! The outside, too, must be attractive. We see the colour and then want the fruit. We think of the taste, and then we want it; you must keep the body beautiful with good deeds. You must keep the mind beautiful with good feelings and good thoughts. Karma in the world, feeling in the Lord of the world: the Paramātma watches with a thousand eyes to see whether man is carrying on his daily journey of life in this way.
In former days people guarded their health with medicines from nature, with treatment and relief, and with these alone! Today medicines, pills, injections and operations have grown many.