In plain words
The infatuation with the body is itself the great bondage. We must cast off the feeling 'I am the body'. Only then does the thing called Mokṣa come. So what does release from bondage mean? It is to let go of the infatuation with the body and join in the infatuation with the Ātma. Detachment from the body, attachment to God: in the close bond of these two alone, release from bondage and the attainment of Mokṣa both come about. Then how are we to let go of the infatuation with the body? The infatuation with the body does not mean renouncing food and drink, renouncing the ways of keeping it well, and simply wasting away into a skeleton and dying. Take the food and the recreation the body needs, in good order. There is nothing wrong in that. But cast off the feeling 'the body is I'. I am not the body. It is an upādhi. Body, senses, Manas and Buddhi: all these are my upādhis. They are dresses I have put on. Just as we change these dresses, just as we cast them off, in that very way we must cast off this infatuation with the body. Follow the right way of nourishing this body. Bhikṣānnaṃ deharakṣārthaṃ vastraṃ śītala nivāraṇaṃ. To keep the cold from the body, we must wear the clothes that need to be worn. We must keep properly to the rules that concern this hunger and thirst. In the debate the other day they said, 'I am hungry, I eat: this is freedom.' 'I am thirsty, I drink water,' he said; 'this is freedom,' he said. This is not freedom. You eat, you drink, only under a kind of compulsion. It is only because there is hunger that you eat food. You eat food only to put an end to your hunger; how can this be freedom? Only because you have thirst do you take water to quench it. These are, to a certain extent, rules that belong to the world. Law of nature. So none of these has to do with freedom. What has to do with freedom is the Ānanda of the Ātma alone.
How do we gain this Ānanda? Is it gained through the body? No. Is it gained through Manas? No. This joy, gained through body and Manas, is only a passing joy. Man was not created for joy of this kind. Man has himself taken on his form in order to experience lasting Ānanda.