Savoring Taste Into Fullness (Verse 72, Dhāraṇā 49)¶
1. Exercise Title & Verse¶
Savoring Taste Into Fullness (Verse 72, Dhāraṇā 49)
2. Sanskrit (IAST)¶
jagdhi-pāna-kṛtollāsa-rasānanda-vijṛmbhaṇāt | bhāvayed bharitāvasthāṃ mahānandas tato bhavet || 72 ||
3. English (Literal)¶
From the blossoming of the joy of savor-delight arising from eating and drinking, one should contemplate the state of fullness; from that, great bliss comes to be.
4. Main Commentary (Bhāṣya)¶
Padārtha. Jagdhi means eating, here specifically the taking of something relishable. Pāna is drinking. Kṛtollāsa means produced exhilaration or delight. Rasānanda is the joy of savor, the delight native to taste itself, not yet a philosophy about bliss. Vijṛmbhaṇāt means from its unfolding, expansion, or blooming forth. Bhāvayet means one should actively contemplate, feel into, or sustain in awareness. Bharitāvasthām is the decisive term: the state of fullness, plenitude, completeness, the opposite of lack. Mahānanda is great bliss, not merely a more intense flavor-pleasure but a shift into a deeper register of joy.
Anvaya. In plain order the sentence says: when the joy of savor blooms forth through eating and drinking, one should contemplate the state of fullness present there; from that contemplative move, great bliss arises.
Tatparya. Verse 72 makes a precise contribution in the delight-sequence. Verse 71 worked with sudden joy, especially the surge felt in reunion or other great delight. Verse 72 narrows the doorway to taste. But it does more than that: it adds the key instruction of bharitāvasthā, fullness. The point is not simply to notice that tasting something pleasant brings joy. Nor is it to turn eating into spirituality by enthusiasm alone. The verse teaches that the tasted delight briefly suspends the usual sense of incompleteness. In that opening, if attention shifts from the object tasted to the fullness revealed in the tasting, the ordinary pleasure becomes a doorway to great bliss. This is why the verse must not be confused either with Verse 73, where the hinge is aesthetic or musical absorption, or with Verse 74, where the doorway widens to any peaceful satisfaction. Here the hinge is specifically gustatory savor becoming plenitude.
Sādhana. Use a small amount of food or drink you genuinely find delicious. Do not begin in greed and do not use a whole meal as the practice-field. Take one bite or sip slowly. Notice the exact moment the taste flowers on the tongue, palate, and throat, and the quiet pleasure begins to spread. Then make the turn demanded by the verse: stop leaning outward toward the object and feel the inner state of fullness that has opened. Let the body-mind register, even briefly, nothing is missing right now. Stay with that felt plenitude without rushing toward the next bite. If attention stabilizes there, the taste has already done its work; now the practice is to remain with fullness until it deepens beyond sensory pleasure into a subtler bliss. The object starts the opening, but the fullness is the meditation.
5. Jaideva Singh — The Logical¶
The grammar presses the practice into clarity. Jagdhi-pāna-kṛtollāsa-rasānanda-vijṛmbhaṇāt is an ablative compound: from the unfolding of the joy of savor caused by the exhilaration born of eating and drinking. The object of bhāvayet is not the food and not even the taste as such, but bharitāvasthām, the state of fullness. Tataḥ matters. Great bliss comes from that contemplative turn, not from consumption alone. Singh's note is exact on the doctrinal point: even the joy arising from the satisfaction of physical needs has its source in divine spanda. Therefore the aspirant must leave aside the sensory medium and trace the joy back to its spiritual source. Singh explicitly classifies the dhāraṇā as śāktopāya.
6. Swami Lakshmanjoo — The Lineage¶
The hidden cue is blunt and practical. Take what is actually delicious to you. While eating or drinking, when you are full of that blissful taste and merged in it, do not continue as an individual eater. Bhāvayed bharitāvasthām means: consider yourself all-full, all-round full. Lakshmanjoo sharpens this further as pūrṇā avasthā: imagine yourself established in the complete state of Lord Śiva. That is the hinge. Awareness is not left on the sweet dish or sweet drink. Awareness is shifted into fullness itself. If that shift does not happen, the verse has been reduced to refined enjoyment. He explicitly calls the practice śāktopāya.
7. Mark Dyczkowski & Christopher Wallis — Context & Philology¶
Direct public evidence is translation support rather than extended commentary, and it should be treated that way. In his official concordance, Wallis titles Verse 72 The Pleasure of Food and Drink and translates it as meditating on the state of fullness that expands from the delight of savoring while eating and drinking. That supports the strong reading of bhāvayet as a real contemplative turn into fullness rather than mere appreciation of taste. See: https://hareesh.org/blog/2023/9/27/vijaana-bhairava-tantra-translation-concordance
Dyczkowski's official PDF gives close support from another angle. He renders bharitāvasthā as state (of spiritual) plenitude and makes mahānanda the fruit of contemplation, not of eating by itself. His public source located for this pass does not provide fuller prose commentary on the verse. See: https://www.anuttaratrikakula.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Vijnaanabhairava.pdf
Indirect context: Hareesh's official essays from 2016 and 2022 explicitly place verse 72 among the VBT's rare daily-life sensory dhāraṇās and warn against reading such verses as self-indulgence. He stresses that the practice turns on absorption in the inner feeling of delight rather than fixation on the external stimulus. That is not a verse-72 commentary proper, but it is useful and source-honest guidance for practice. Sources: https://hareesh.org/blog/2016/10/6/will-the-real-vijaana-bhairava-please-stand-up ; https://hareesh.org/blog/2022/5/30/vbt-intro-and-verse-one
8. Daniel Odier — The Somatic Grounding¶
Keep the verse in the mouth and the body's response to taste. A bite or sip lands on the tongue, then opens through palate, throat, chest, and belly as a soft expansion. Do not hurry past that opening. Let the savor spread until the body feels rounded and full from within. Odier's rendering is useful precisely there: be total in the delight, then let it become more than delight. The bodily sign is not excitation but plenitude.
9. Paul Reps — The "Sudden Hit"¶
When eating or drinking, become the taste of the food or drink, and be filled.
10. Upāya Type¶
Śāktopāya. Singh explicitly classifies the dhāraṇā this way, and Lakshmanjoo also directly identifies it as śāktopāya.
11. Resonance Check (Adhikāra)¶
This suits the practitioner who can notice a subtle satisfaction without immediately converting it into more wanting. It helps to be sensorially awake, but even more to be capable of shifting from taste to the inward fact of fullness.
12. The "What Else?" — The Pitfall¶
The trap is reaching straight for the next bite or sip. Then attention stays hooked on repetition of pleasure, and the brief opening into fullness is missed every time.
13. Verse-Specific Glossary¶
rasānanda: the joy of savor; here specifically the delight disclosed in tasting, not generalized happiness.vijṛmbhaṇa: blooming forth, unfolding, expansion; the way taste-delight opens into something larger than the initial sensation.bharitāvasthā: the state of fullness or plenitude; here the felt condition of no lack that must become the actual object of meditation.mahānanda: great bliss; the deepened joy that arises when fullness is recognized at its source rather than chased in the sensory object.