In plain words
What is it we have to gain? Freedom. What does free mean? We think it means wandering about as we please. Freedom means to be without bonds. We must have no bondage of any kind. Do all actions, but do not have attachment to them. That is the true positive. Do actions. But do not have attachment.
The true attachment today is to take God's command upon one's head. People do all their actions out of man's true duty. They will not set about the smallest work without attachment. In every matter they keep some attachment in view and want that. Look at a small example. If you ask him, "What will you do after the tenth class?" he says, "I must study engineering, so I have kept mathematics in view." He says, "I must become a doctor, so I have taken bioscience." That is, he decides his whole future today itself and falls into bondage. Study to be a doctor; there is nothing wrong in it. Take bioscience and pass as a doctor. But as a doctor, stand as a helper to all. Then it is not bondage. There is nothing wrong in studying to be a doctor. Here, this is the whole secret of fault and faultlessness. This is the whole relation of the positive and the negative. You need not give up anything. Enter into everything. But live without the sense of mine. Do not dedicate your life to the fruit of it. Only when you take it this way does it become positive. People do service. How do they do social service? There too they do service keeping their desires in view. That too turns out negative. Where the negative has come, there neither happiness nor comfort is to be had at all. The negative gives joy for the moment. But it does not give lasting Ānanda. That is why Śaṅkara said: "Do not be proud of wealth, of people or of youth." It gives joy only for the moment; it cannot give lasting Ānanda. If you want to gain what lasts, do all actions, but do not think you have any connection with them at all. "The body is indeed the first means of Dharma." The body came to do actions.