Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Verse 70 is one of the most powerful and memorable verses in the entire scripture. It concludes Krishna's description of the sthitaprajna (person of steady wisdom) with a magnificent analogy that has inspired seekers for millennia.
This verse appears at the culmination of Krishna's teaching on the characteristics of an enlightened being. After Arjuna asks in verse 2.54 how to recognize a person of steady wisdom, Krishna provides an extended description. Verse 2.70 offers the final, crowning image - the peaceful ocean as the model for human consciousness.
Each Sanskrit word in this verse carries profound meaning. Understanding them deepens our appreciation of Krishna's teaching:
The compound "achala-pratishtham" (unmoving and established) describes the ocean's fundamental nature. Despite the constant influx of water, the ocean's level, depth, and essential character remain unchanged. This stability comes from the ocean's vastness - it has the capacity to receive without being disturbed. Similarly, self-realized souls have such expansive awareness that desires cannot shake their fundamental peace.
Chapter 2 (Sankhya Yoga) is the philosophical foundation of the entire Gita. After Arjuna's breakdown and refusal to fight, Krishna begins His teaching by addressing the nature of the soul and the proper understanding of action.
Verses 2.54-2.72 form a self-contained section describing the person of steady wisdom (sthitaprajna). Arjuna's question sparks this teaching:
"What are the characteristics of one whose wisdom is firmly established? How does such a person speak? How does he sit? How does he walk?"
Krishna responds with a systematic description:
Verse 2.70 serves as the grand summary, offering a single powerful image that encapsulates the entire teaching on mental equanimity.
Krishna's choice of the ocean as a metaphor for the enlightened mind is extraordinarily apt. Consider these parallels:
1. Vastness Absorbs Without Disturbance
The ocean's sheer size means that even the mightiest rivers - the Ganga, the Amazon, the Nile - make no perceptible difference to its level. Similarly, a consciousness expanded through meditation and self-knowledge has such vastness that individual desires, however intense, cannot disturb its fundamental nature.
2. Continuous Receiving Without Overflowing
Rivers flow into the ocean constantly, yet the ocean never overflows. It maintains perfect balance through evaporation and circulation. The wise person similarly maintains equilibrium - experiences come and go, but inner balance persists.
3. Depth Beneath Surface Movement
While ocean surfaces may have waves and storms, the depths remain calm. Similarly, the sthitaprajna may interact with the world and experience surface-level responses, but their core remains undisturbed.
4. No Rejection, Only Acceptance
The ocean doesn't resist or reject rivers - it receives all waters equally. This isn't suppression but absorption. The wise don't fight desires; they simply aren't moved by them because their identity doesn't depend on fulfilling them.
Many spiritual teachings advocate suppressing or eliminating desires. Krishna's teaching is subtly different:
The verse contrasts two types: one who achieves peace despite desires entering (sa shantim apnoti) and one who desires desires (kama-kami). The first person's peace is independent of whether desires are fulfilled. The second's peace is forever hostage to desire-fulfillment - a chase that never ends.
This verse reveals something profound about consciousness. Like the ocean, awareness is naturally vast, stable, and peaceful. It's only our identification with the small self - the body, mind, desires - that creates disturbance. Self-realization restores us to our natural ocean-like state.
Krishna doesn't condemn desires as evil or demand their elimination. He treats them as natural phenomena - like rivers, they simply flow. The question isn't whether desires arise but how we relate to them. The sthitaprajna has changed their relationship to desire, not eliminated desire itself.
True peace (shanti) is defined here as independence - being "achala-pratishtham" (unmoving and established). This peace doesn't depend on circumstances, achievements, or desire-fulfillment. It's the natural state of expanded consciousness.
"The ocean is not troubled by the rivers, nor made poor by giving its waters as rain. Similarly, the wise are neither elated by gains nor depressed by losses."
- Traditional Commentary
This verse connects to several other Gita teachings:
To fully grasp this verse, we must understand what the Gita means by "kama" (desire):
1. Physical Desires: For food, comfort, sensory pleasure
2. Emotional Desires: For love, recognition, security
3. Mental Desires: For knowledge, achievement, success
4. Spiritual Desires: For liberation, enlightenment, union with God
Interestingly, even spiritual desires are included in "kama." The sthitaprajna has transcended even the desire for liberation - they simply ARE free, without desiring freedom.
Desire operates through a predictable chain described in verses 2.62-63:
Verse 2.70 offers an alternative: desires still arise (pravisanti - they enter), but the person remains unmoved. The chain is broken not at the beginning but at the reaction stage.
The compound "kama-kami" (one who desires desires) describes someone caught in an endless loop. They desire something, achieve it, then desire the next thing. Fulfillment of one desire breeds more desires. This person never attains peace because peace is always conditional on the next fulfillment.
Modern psychology calls this the "hedonic treadmill" - we adapt to pleasures and achievements, requiring ever more to maintain the same level of satisfaction. The Gita recognized this 5,000 years ago. The solution isn't more desire-fulfillment but becoming like the ocean - so vast that desires make no difference.
What is the "shanti" (peace) this verse promises? It has specific characteristics:
This peace doesn't depend on external circumstances. Whether praised or blamed, successful or failing, healthy or ill - the ocean remains the ocean. Such peace comes from knowing one's true nature as atman (eternal consciousness), not from life going according to plan.
This isn't the peace of inertia or withdrawal. The ocean is dynamic - currents flow, tides move, life teems within it. Similarly, the wise person engages fully with life while maintaining inner stillness. This is the peace of karma yoga - action without attachment.
The ocean doesn't work at being stable - stability is its nature. Similarly, this peace isn't achieved through effort but revealed through understanding. The effort lies in removing what obscures our natural peaceful state, not in constructing peace artificially.
Following this verse, Krishna provides the concluding summary:
"One who gives up all desires and moves about free from longing, without the sense of 'mine' and without ego, attains peace."
Modern advertising is designed to create "kama-kami" - people who perpetually desire. Each product promises fulfillment, yet fulfillment leads to the next desire. The ocean teaching offers an alternative: not rejecting material things but being unmoved by their presence or absence.
Career ambitions, promotions, recognition - these desires continuously flow. A professional with ocean-like stability performs excellently without being psychologically dependent on outcomes. They're equally stable whether promoted or passed over.
Relationships often suffer from desire-based dynamics - wanting the other to be a certain way, needing validation, fearing abandonment. Ocean-like stability allows one to love without need, give without expectation, and remain peaceful regardless of the other's behavior.
Social media creates endless micro-desires - for likes, comments, followers, entertainment. The constant scroll mirrors the endless pursuit of "kama-kami." Developing ocean-consciousness allows engagement without addiction, presence without compulsion.
Anxiety often stems from fear of unfulfilled desires or loss of what we have. Depression often relates to desires consistently unmet. The ocean teaching offers a fundamental reframe: identity based not on desire-fulfillment but on innate vastness and stability.
When overwhelmed by desires or disturbances, try this visualization: Imagine your awareness as a vast ocean. Whatever arises - thoughts, emotions, desires - are merely rivers flowing in. They don't change the ocean. You remain vast, deep, stable. Let all rivers come; you absorb them all without changing. Rest in your ocean nature.
To internalize this teaching, consider these practices:
Begin each day visualizing yourself as the ocean. Set the intention: "Today, desires may flow through me, but I remain vast and stable. My peace is independent of circumstances."
Throughout the day, notice desires as they arise. Instead of immediately acting on them or suppressing them, simply observe: "A desire has entered." Watch it with detachment, as the ocean would receive a river.
Before sleep, review the day's desires. Which disturbed you? Which didn't? Notice that when you maintained ocean-consciousness, desires caused no problem. The disturbance came from identification with the small self.
Deepen understanding by studying the entire sthitaprajna section (2.54-2.72). See how each verse builds toward the ocean metaphor.
Shankara emphasizes that the ocean analogy points to Brahman-realization. The ocean's fullness represents the completeness of pure consciousness. One established in Brahman experiences desires as mere appearances in infinite awareness - they come and go without touching the reality of the Self.
Ramanuja focuses on the devotional aspect. The ocean's stability comes from its grounding in the earth; our stability comes from grounding in God. Desires lose their power when we're filled with divine love. The devotee remains stable because their identity rests in the Lord, not in sense gratification.
Madhva emphasizes God's grace as the source of stability. Just as the ocean's nature is given, not self-created, our ability to remain unmoved comes from divine grace. Through devotion and surrender, we receive the capacity to absorb desires without disturbance.
Abhinavagupta sees this verse as pointing to the nature of consciousness itself. The ocean is Shiva - infinite awareness that contains all phenomena (waves, rivers, creatures) without being affected. Recognition of our identity as this ocean-consciousness is liberation itself.
Bhagavad Gita 2.70 teaches that just as the ocean remains calm and unchanged despite countless rivers flowing into it, a person of steady wisdom remains peaceful despite desires entering the mind. Peace comes not from eliminating desires but from remaining unmoved by them. The verse contrasts this ocean-like stability with the futile approach of trying to achieve peace through fulfilling endless desires.
The Sanskrit verse is: "apuryamanam achala-pratishtham samudram apah pravisanti yadvat, tadvat kama yam pravisanti sarve sa shantim apnoti na kama-kami." This translates to: "As the ocean remains unmoved and ever-full though waters continuously flow into it, one into whom all desires enter without causing disturbance attains peace, not one who strives after desires."
Krishna uses the ocean analogy because it perfectly illustrates key spiritual truths: the ocean's vastness makes rivers insignificant to its nature; the ocean remains stable despite constant inflow; the ocean doesn't reject rivers but absorbs them naturally. Similarly, expanded consciousness remains stable as desires arise, not through suppression but through natural absorption into vastness. The analogy is experientially accessible - everyone can visualize the ocean's unshakeable stability.
Apply this verse by: (1) Cultivating witness consciousness - observe desires without immediate reaction; (2) Practicing meditation to expand awareness; (3) When desires arise, acknowledge them without resistance or attachment; (4) Shift identity from the small self (that needs desires fulfilled) to the vast Self (that absorbs all experiences); (5) Measure peace by its independence from circumstances, not by desire-fulfillment.
No. The verse doesn't condemn desires - it treats them as natural phenomena like rivers. The teaching isn't about eliminating desires but changing our relationship to them. Desires continue to flow (pravisanti - they enter), but the wise person remains unmoved. The problem isn't desires themselves but being controlled by them (kama-kami - desiring desires). Natural desires can arise without disturbing one who is established in self-knowledge.
Meditation cultivates the ocean-like consciousness described here. In meditation, we practice letting thoughts and desires arise without engagement - essentially training ourselves to be like the ocean receiving rivers. Over time, this capacity extends beyond formal practice into daily life. The stillness discovered in meditation becomes our baseline state, with desires flowing through without disturbing our fundamental peace.
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