In plain words
We must do karma. We must bend the body. We must make the heart sacred. Merely to sit eating like idlers is not man's duty. Laziness is rust and dust, they said. Realisation best and rest. So we must realise. We must inquire well into this: 'Who am I? Am I a man or a beast?' That itself is our religion. Religion means, realisation is religion; by inquiry of this kind, the impurity … in us can become clean to some extent.
Now āvaraṇa. What is this āvaraṇa? When a thick cloth is thrown over a mirror, does our reflection show in it? It does not show at all. So because of mala we see man's svarūpa as soiled. Because of vikṣepa we believe it to be restless. We think, 'This restlessness is my nature.' We think, 'I am a human body, so this is natural.' But because of this āvaraṇa we believe, 'My body, and nothing else; my body itself is my own svarūpa.' Students! What we see, what we experience, what we enjoy, all of this is reflection, reaction, resound. There is one reality. We forget that reality. We follow the reaction. We listen to the resound. We look at the reflection. But you must recognise, to some extent, that this has one basis. This mirror is covered over with a thick cloth. What thick cloth is it? It is these six inner enemies: lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride and envy. Not only this. Though these are natural to some degree, the mirror is covered by the eight prides like these: pride of money, pride of learning, pride of caste, pride of riches, pride of beauty, pride of youth and pride of austerity. How long will this strength last? It passes away. Like the water that slips away under your foot, no one can say in which moment it will go. How long does our youth last? Like a flash of lightning, it changes within a single minute. Our pride of learning. What is this pride in learning? How many people of greater learning than you are there not in the world! So if you consider them, what level does your learning stand at beside theirs? If you consider all this, there is no room at all for pride. It is delusion. Illusion.