Lacking discernment, they torment the assembly of elements within the body, that is, the whole group of organs. And in tormenting them they torment Me as well, for I dwell within the body as Narayana, the witness of every act and thought; to disregard My command is itself to do Me violence. Know such people to have a demonic resolve, and know this so that you may keep clear of them. Now food is shown to fall into three classes, the savoury, the oily, and so on, each dear respectively to people of sattva, of rajas, and of tamas. By noticing which foods one is drawn to with excess of pleasure, one can recognise one's own quality as sattvic, rajasic, or tamasic, and so reject the foods marked by rajas and tamas and take up those marked by sattva. In the same way sacrifice and the rest are shown to be threefold by the difference of these qualities, so that, recognising the rajasic and tamasic kinds, one may somehow abandon them and practise only the sattvic.

Those people who practise austerity not sanctioned by scripture, even exceedingly terrible austerity, this being by way of indication, those who do unscriptural sacrifice and the rest of much toil; they, joined with pretence and egotism, driven by the force of desire and passion, withering the assembly of elements, earth and the rest, present in the body, and withering also the soul, a portion of Mine, present within the body; those who practise such austerity and do such sacrifice and the rest, know to be of demonic resolve. The resolve of demons is demonic resolve; for demons are doers of what is contrary to My command, and, by their doing what is contrary to My command, no connection with even a particle of happiness is theirs; rather, they fall into the brood of calamity, as was said before, 'they fall into an impure hell'. Now the Lord unfolds the topic itself, the difference by quality among scriptural sacrifices and the rest; and there, since the growth of sattva and the rest has food for its root, the threefoldness of food is told first. For it is heard, 'the mind, dear one, is made of food', 'on purity of food, purity of being'.

The 'tormenting' of the Lord is just a slight vision of Him, as the Anabhimlana scripture says, 'he who is no seer of the great supreme Person in this way is a tormentor, an exceeding sinner'. 'Those whose resolve is asuric' are those who have a demonic resolve, as the Agniveshya scripture says, 'the gods are declared sattvic, the Daityas rajasic and tamasic'.