In plain words
This is the body's own nature. Ānanda is the Ātma's own nature. We must follow the nature of the Ātma, not the nature of the body. We must give up the feeling that the body is the self. What is this body like?
A hovel of filth, a servant's basket rotting with diseases, a tuber that has come to move, a thorn-bush that cannot cross the sea of birth, a quiver of arrows: rise and look, and think what in it we can prize: this body, do not trust it to stand firm, O mind! Practise thinking on Hari!
Why think about the body, which is not eternal? Think of God, who is eternal and true. Troubles come and go. This is the mark of pravṛtti. To stay even-minded towards trouble and joy is the mark of nivṛtti. This is not something I only say; I also do it and show it. You know: I pay no heed at all to the pains of the body. However hard it may be, I keep on walking, keep on seeing everyone, keep on talking. If we think we are the body, pains will crush us. This body is yours. You are not the body. When you say, ‘This is my handkerchief,’ the handkerchief is apart from you, is it not! So, whatever is done to the handkerchief, there is no pain to you. In the same way, when you say, “This is my body,” you are one thing and the body another. So the pains that come to the body are the body's, not yours.
The body is made of the five elements; the body must fall, sooner or later; the indweller is free from every ill; consider it well: for the indweller, death and birth, no marks of the fetters of delusion's bondage, if you see the truth; that indweller is the God of gods; consider it in your mind: He is the Ātma in form!
The Ātma alone is your true form. So you must not grieve over the pains that come to the body. You grieve because someone has abused you. If he abuses you, what loss has come to you? If he abuses you aloud, the words mix with the air; if he abuses you under his breath, they stay in his own mind. None of them touches you; none of them comes near you. Then why should you pick a quarrel with him? You must not sink at blame, or swell up at praise. Only when, with a true feeling, you fix your mind on the eternal principle of the Ātma will you become a true human being.