अहं हि सर्वयज्ञानां भोक्ता च प्रभुरेव च।न तु मामभिजानन्ति तत्त्वेनातश्च्यवन्ति ते॥
ahaṃ hi sarva-yajñānāṃ bhoktā ca prabhureva cana tu mām abhijānanti tattvenātaś cyavanti te
Word by word
The verse says
For I am the one who receives every sacrifice, and its lord. But they do not know me as I am, and so they slip back.
In plain words
The reason given for falling back is not wrongdoing.
Not wickedness, not insincerity, not the wrong ritual. Na tu mām abhijānanti — they do not know me truly.
Cyavanti — they slip, they fall away. It is the word for something sliding off, not for a punishment.
Where you've felt this · at work
You can post a parcel with the right street name and the wrong town. Everything about it was done carefully — well packed, correct postage, clear handwriting. It still ends up in a depot two hundred miles away, and none of the care you took is what went wrong.
Going deeper
Slipping back is described here as a consequence rather than a sentence, and the word chosen carries no blame at all.
Cyuti is what happens when something does not hold — a grip loosening, a thing sliding from a ledge. Nobody is being thrown down. The verse says these are people who did the sincere thing without knowing where it was going, and so what they gained did not stay.
That is consistent with how this chapter treats everybody outside its own recommendation. They are not condemned. They are described as getting less than was available.
Whether that is kind or patronising is a fair question, and both answers have support. What is not in doubt is that failure here is never moral. It is always about direction, and direction is something a person can change without first becoming a better person.