In plain words
But not so that it should go beyond the limit in every way and enter a path that knows no bounds. This is the Satya that this principle of mātra has been teaching us. When we use these senses beyond the limit within which God gave them to us, we become those who have broken God's command. Today, since we cannot recognise the rule of limit for any of the senses God has granted us, we follow the way of misusing them. A small example. There is the nose. Through it we draw in the breath and judge what smells foul and what smells sweet. But! Not content with doing that, we snuff up snuff. This is one misuse we make of the nose. In the same way, God gave us the tongue to taste sāttvic food and to speak sweet words. God gave us this mouth so that we might converse softly and sweetly. Instead of that, eating rājasic and tāmasic food, taking intoxicating things: by these, we should understand, we have misused it. In this same way God has granted every sense with a set judgement, a limit, a boundary fixed for each. We use these senses beyond all measure. It can be shown that using them in this way is itself the root cause of some sorrows. So that we might recognise this secret, the senses were given the name ‘mātraḥ’.
The principle made up of these senses and the body is inert. In short, if we recognise its secret clearly, the body is inert. This very body, inert as it is, grows and wanes, does it not? This principle that grows and wanes is a principle of consciousness, not something inert. So we might suppose. You must not suppose for a moment that what is inert cannot grow. If every day we sweep the house, carry off a heap of rubbish and throw it in one place, it grows into a mound. In the same way, if day after day we keep throwing on such rubbish as coffee, tiffin, snacks, meals and dinner, this mound too goes on growing. On the day we stop throwing on this rubbish, that day the mound too stops growing. So if we understand this secret clearly, it is merely inert; it has no consciousness.
Then the third, Manas. ‘Manananāntu manaḥ’: Manas is what does manana. ‘Saṅkalpa-vikalpātmakamu manaḥ.’ Manas is that which is made up of thoughts and counter-thoughts. This Manas cannot stay without thoughts even for a moment. Right up until sleep comes at night, this Manas goes on making one thought or another. Even when it is alone, Manas keeps creating thoughts for itself. So these thoughts at times reach a state of frenzy. Then this Manas loses its bearings. Unable to bear this agitation, it follows a disordered course of some kind. Through the speed of these thoughts, people even turn into madmen of a sort.