Therefore you, first of all, governing, mastering, the senses, O bull of the Bharatas, cast off, relinquish, this desire, the sinful one, of sinful conduct, the destroyer of knowledge and discernment. Knowledge is the awareness, from scripture and from a teacher, of the Self and the rest; discernment is the particular, the direct experience, of them; this desire is the destroyer of knowledge and discernment, the two that are the cause of reaching the highest good. Cast it off, relinquish it from yourself. It was said, 'first governing the senses, slay desire the enemy'. Taking refuge in what, then, should one slay desire? He says.

Since for the man who has set out on the discipline of knowledge, which consists in the withdrawal of all the senses from their working, this foe in the form of desire, by turning him toward objects, makes him turned away from the self, therefore you, whose working of the senses is set going by your being joined with matter, must, at the very outset, at the very time of beginning the means to liberation, holding the senses in check within the discipline of action which consists in the working of the senses, slay, destroy, this foe in the form of desire, the sinner, the destroyer of knowledge and discernment: the destroyer of the knowledge that bears on the self's own nature and of the discernment that distinguishes it. The Lord states the chief among the obstructors of knowledge.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Madhva's commentary treats verses 3.40 through 3.41 as a single passage; it is given in full at verse 3.40.