In plain words
You may master every branch of learning and win over the assembly; you may fight in battle as a hero; you may be born a king of kings and rule a kingdom; you may give gifts of gold and of land; you may count the stars of the sky; you may tell the names of every living creature; you may learn all the eight-limbed sciences; you may make the journey to the sphere of the moon; but holding the body, the senses and the rest in check, steadying the Manas and turning it within, becoming the Ātma, ever unmoving, men cannot stand firm in self-discipline.
Embodiments of Prema! Students!
We take the form in which these four are joined, our body, our senses, our Manas and our Buddhi, to be what we are as human beings. No, no. The Manas is an upādhi we have put on. The senses are an upādhi we have put on. This body is an upādhi. The Buddhi is an upādhi we have put on. There is no sense in saying that the upādhi we have put on is ourselves. Just as we are one thing and the clothes we have put on are another, these upādhis are one thing and we are another. On the day we recognise this yoga of telling the two apart, understand it and try to live by it, on that very day it becomes possible for us to understand our own true nature and our goal. The body: what is this body? When we inquire whether it is simply something endowed with consciousness or something inert, if the body is inert, still growing, wasting away, acting and perishing go on in it! If we inquire how these six changes arise in this inert matter: every day we sweep the hostel. Having swept, each day we carry off some rubbish and throw it into a pit. By the time a month has gone by, the rubbish in that pit has grown into a big heap. Do we call this mound inert? Do we call it conscious? It is simply inert! Just as this mound grew because the rubbish increased and was heaped up every day, so too, because the rubbish called food and drink is thrown every day into this thing called the body, this mound called the body grows too. If this rubbish called food and drink is not added to this mound called the body, this body too wastes away. When all is said, this body too is simply inert and not conscious. ‘Dahyatīti dehaḥ,’ they said. What is burned is the deha. When is it burned? We think it is burned after death. No, no. In our daily life, from the moment the day dawns until we lie down at night, we burn this body with worries. This worry burns the very upādhi that is joined to our life. After death the funeral pyre burns the form of muscle, flesh, bone, skin and the rest. So our body is something that is burned. So it is inert, not conscious.
It is said that another name for it is śarīra. ‘Śīryate iti śarīraḥ,’ they said. What wastes away is the śarīra. Because it is always wearing away, it is the śarīra. When it is born, it is born like a lump of flesh. In childhood it looks very tender. In youth it is attractive. In old age it becomes misshapen. It has taken on a form that is forever wearing away. That is why it is named śarīra. Some others have come to regard it as a kṣetra, saying, ‘The body is called a temple; the jīva is God, the eternal.’ What do we call a kṣetra? We call a divine and sacred place a kṣetra. Then how does this apply to the kṣetra called the body? Because it is the sacred dwelling of the Ātma, they sang the song just now, ‘My body is Your dwelling, my life is worship to You.’ When we think, ‘Your dwelling,’ it becomes clear to us that the dwelling is not His own, but that He is the one who lives in that dwelling. Then, when this body is the dwelling of God, how sacredly we must use this dwelling! On how divine a path must we put it to use? That is why it is the dwelling of God. It is the temple of God. It is a sacred kṣetra. That is why we must set this body on the divine path, the noble path, the sacred path, and try to make use of it on the right path.