I am the savour of the waters, the essence that is their savour; in Me, who am that savour, the waters are strung. So everywhere: as I am the savour in the waters, so I am the light in the moon and the sun, the syllable Om in all the Vedas, in which, who am that praṇava, all the Vedas are strung; the essence that is sound in ether, in which the ether is strung; and the manliness in men, manliness being the state of being a man, that from which the notion of 'man' arises among men, in which the men are strung.

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

All these distinct states of being have arisen from Me alone, are subordinate to Me, and, as My body, abide in Me alone; therefore it is I alone who abide, having them for My mode.

'This' is the knowledge. 'I am the taste' and the like is the discernment (vijnana). The waters and the rest too are from Him alone. Even so, He alone is the regulator, in a special way, of the natural properties such as taste, and of the elements with their qualities, both in their being natural properties and in their being the essence; it is not that taste and the rest, and their being the essence and so on, are bound by some rule of the waters and the rest. This Krishna shows by the particular words, 'the taste in waters' and the like. And He is so spoken of because enjoyment, in particular, is of taste and the rest, and for the sake of worship. So the Gita-kalpa says, 'He is, in a special way, the cause of taste and the rest being taste and the rest, of their being natural properties, and of their being the essence among all the qualities; and since everywhere He is the enjoyer of the essence, He is the Lord of the world. In the body of those who identify with taste and the rest He is established everywhere; the waters and the rest are His attendants. He, Hari, is to be meditated on by the men of knowledge, while for others Vasudeva, the Lord of the world, is to be meditated on through the wealth of taste and the rest'; and 'the natural property is the living being itself'; and 'every natural property is fixed by Him alone, how much more anything else'; and 'there is no being, moving or unmoving, that exists apart from Me'. The phrases 'not opposed to dharma' and 'free of desire and passion' are for the sake of worship. So the Gita-kalpa says, 'He is to be worshipped, in desire that is not opposed to dharma, by one who wishes for desire, and in strength free of desire and passion by one who wishes for strength; but to those who, meditating on Him there, wish for nothing, He gives knowledge itself', and so on. 'The pure scent' is said with regard to enjoyment, for the scripture says, 'merit alone goes to him; sin does not go to the gods' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.5.20), 'the two who drink the right in the world of the well-done' (Katha Upanishad 3.1), and the like. And 'the right' (rita) is merit, as the lexicon has it, 'the right, the true, dharma and the well-done are so named', and 'the right is the dharma of the mind, the true is what lies in the joining of word and deed'. Nor is there a conflict with 'the other, not eating, looks on' (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.6; Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1; Rigveda 2.3.17.5) and 'the other, though without food, is greater by strength', since what is denied there is the gross eating; and He speaks of a subtle eating, 'one becomes, as it were, of more secluded fare than this embodied self'. It is not the living being that is meant here, since a difference is stated by the words 'than the embodied self'. The dream-state and the rest belong to the embodied one, as the Garuda says, 'the embodied one is divided threefold by its standing in the waking state and the rest'. The word 'than this' is for the setting-apart of the Lord. The Naradiya says, 'those two embodied ones are to be known, the living being and the one named the Lord; the one is in beginningless bondage, the other ever free', and there is the scripture of difference. When another course is available, only a difference of persons is to be assumed, not a difference of states. And the Gita-kalpa says, 'because the supreme Person is the enjoyer of more secluded fare than this embodied self, He is therefore both a non-enjoyer and an enjoyer, He alone, by reason of the gross non-enjoyment'. By 'but I am not in them' their not being His support is stated; so the Gita-kalpa says, 'the whole world rests on Him, but He rests nowhere at all'.