Death brings under its sway the person who only gathers flowers, whose mind is attached, still unsatisfied in sensual pleasures.

Atittaṃ yeva kāmesu — still unsatisfied in sensual pleasures. The key to this verse is the word atittaṃ: never satisfied, always hungry. Sensual pleasures (kāma) have the property of feeding desire instead of extinguishing it. One who drinks seawater gets thirstier.

Antako kurute vasaṃ — the End-maker (antaka, another name for death) brings under dominion. Chronic dissatisfaction with pleasures is not simply a psychological problem: it is the door through which death enters. One who can never be satisfied never finds rest, and without rest there is no liberation.

Verses 47 and 48 form a deliberate pair. Verse 47 describes the external aspect: death arrives like a flood to one asleep in pleasures. Verse 48 describes the internal aspect: death’s dominion over one who can never be satisfied. External death and internal dissatisfaction are two faces of the same attachment.

In yogic tradition, vairāgya (detachment) does not mean lack of enjoyment but absence of insatiable hunger. The practitioner can fully taste what presents itself because they do not need it to continue. This freedom from the compulsion of senses is precisely the territory this vagga describes.