Although for the embodied one who fasts, who does not feed his senses on objects, who, foolish though he be, holds to a hard austerity, the objects, that is, the senses named by their objects, turn away, the savour does not: 'savour' here is the passion toward objects. The word 'rasa' is well known in the sense of passion, as in the usages 'he acted with his own relish', 'a man of relish', 'a knower of relish'. That savour too, a subtle thing in the form of a colouring, of this ascetic turns away when he has seen, has perceived, the supreme reality, Brahman, and dwells in the awareness 'I myself am that'; then the perception of objects becomes seedless. Without the right vision the savour is not uprooted. Therefore the firmness of the insight whose nature is right vision is to be brought about. For one who wishes to make firm the insight whose mark is right vision, the senses are first to be set under his own control, and so He states the fault in not so setting them.

The food of the senses is the objects. For an embodied being who fasts from them, whose senses are withdrawn from the objects, the objects turn away, but the taste does not turn away. 'Taste' is passion; the meaning is that passion for the objects does not turn away. And passion too turns away when one has seen the self's own nature, far more delightful than the objects.

Nor does this mark, knowledge, come about without effort, Krishna says with the following verses. Through taking no food there comes only an absence of the power to enjoy objects, or an absence of longing for other objects; the longing for relish and the rest does not turn away, and that turns away only through direct knowledge, as Krishna says with 'objects'. As the Bhagavata says, 'the wise who take no food swiftly conquer the senses, all but the tongue; for in one who shuns the rest, the relish itself grows stronger' (Bhagavata 11.8.20), and because the word 'relish' (rasa) here denotes attachment.