In plain words
The sins the tongue commits are five. Telling lies is one. Carrying tales is another. Reviling others is yet another. Proving, through a certain turn of mind, that the false is Satya is another. Saying a thing and wriggling out of it is yet another. So only when we keep this tongue with great care do we stay clear of these five sins. One minute it says “Beast!”; the next minute it says “Paśupati!” So the sacred Vedas have taught that restraining the tongue is a matter of first importance.
So, teaching and proclaiming that it is most necessary for us to restrain the five senses, made of sound, touch, form, taste and smell, and through them to carry on our journey of life, have come the yajñas, yāgas and rites. Whoever does not control these five senses is the equal of a beast. Even beasts, at times, stay perfectly calm, with no traits at all and no excitement. But man, with no regard for time or occasion, keeps hurting others with animal qualities. On the day we offer up these animal qualities, on that very day we become the master of yajñas, yāgas and rites.
You must be the master, not the servant. The servant knows only the things lying about the house. But the precious jewels: in which box, in which place we have put them away safely, only the master knows. In the same way, the one who knows the impermanent, transient, untrue things of the world is the servant. He who recognises the eternal, pure feelings of Satya as the things of worth, he is the master. Today man lets his Manas enter only into the worldly realm's material objects of delusion, and ponders over them in many ways. So to turn this beast's vision away to some extent and to develop the vision of Paśupati is the right duty for our humanness.
Mere nourishing of the physical body. The comforts and joys of the physical body, the pleasures and riches of the physical body, are not what matters. All these are the chief traits of a leather puppet with nine holes, which topples over in the time it takes to sneeze. These are merely momentary. While it lasts, we must look after it without falling into dependence on others. For what purpose must we look after it? Paropakārārthaṃ idaṃ śarīraṃ: we must nourish the body in order to do good to others and in order to recognise our own good. It is not to fatten the demon called selfishness, not merely to fatten the ghost called Ahaṅkāra. Only when we recognise a Satya like this will we be those who have made holy the culture of the people of Bhārata.
From time without beginning, these have been held sacred in the culture of Bhārata. Satyaṃ vada! Dharmaṃ cara! One must speak Satya. One must live by Dharma: that is what they say. But today it is satyaṃ vadha. Satya is nowhere to be seen, wherever you look. Search where you will, it cannot be found. Today the price of everything in the world has gone up; but because he has lost Satya, man's price has fallen very low.