For the object of each sense, in the sound and the other objects of all the senses, there is passion toward the liked and aversion toward the disliked; so, for each sense-object, passion and aversion are bound to arise. Here is stated the scope of human effort and of the meaning of scripture: one who has set out on the meaning of scripture should not, from the very first, fall under the sway of passion and aversion. For the nature of a man, led by passion and aversion, sets him to its own work, and then there is the abandonment of his own duty and the taking up of another's. But when one governs passion and aversion by their opposites, then the man becomes one whose vision is governed by scripture, not one under the sway of nature. Therefore one should not come under the sway of these two, for they are this man's waylayers, the makers of obstacles on the road of the highest good, like robbers on a path. Now, one impelled by passion and aversion thinks 'even the meaning of scripture is otherwise; another's duty too, being a duty, is to be carried out'. That is wrong.

In regard to the object of a sense of knowing, the ear and the rest, namely sound and the rest, and in regard to the object of an organ of action, speech and the rest, namely speaking and the rest, there stands fixed an unavoidable passion, in the form of the wish to experience them, born of the earlier impression; and when that experience is checked, there stands fixed an unavoidable aversion. These two, having brought under their sway the man striving for the discipline of knowledge, all his senses restrained, forcibly set him to their own tasks; and thereby he, turned away from the experience of the self's own nature, is ruined. Let one not come under the sway of those two: by setting out on the discipline of knowledge, let one not come under the sway of passion and aversion and be ruined. For those two, passion and aversion, are this man's foes, hard to conquer, warding off the practice of knowledge of the self.

Even so, restraint is to be done to the measure of one's power. With the thought that, even where restraint brings no immediate result, it does come about through utmost effort, Krishna speaks with 'of the sense'. So it is said, 'this formative tendency is strong, and Brahma and the rest too are in its power; yet it can be made otherwise through utmost effort'.