📿 Shloka Collection

Vishaya Vinivartante

Gita 2.59 Bhagavad Gita
📖 Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 — Sankhya Yoga
विषया विनिवर्तन्ते निराहारस्य देहिनः ।
रसवर्जं रसोऽप्यस्य परं दृष्ट्वा निवर्तते ॥
Vishaya vinivartante niraharasya dehinah
Rasavarjam raso'pyasya param drishtva nivartate
विषयाः
sense objects
विनिवर्तन्ते
turn away, cease
निराहारस्य
of one who abstains (from sense indulgence)
देहिनः
of the embodied being
रसवर्जम्
except the taste (the inner craving)
रसः अपि
even the taste
अस्य
of this person
परम् दृष्ट्वा
having seen the Supreme
निवर्तते
turns away, ceases

Here is an honest admission rarely found in spiritual teaching. Krishna says: when you forcibly restrain the senses, the outward behavior changes — but the inner craving remains. The rasa, the taste, the pull — that stays. It only leaves when something greater is experienced.

Anyone who has dieted knows this truth. You stop eating sweets. The sweets are gone from the plate. But the wanting lingers. The mind still turns toward the dessert counter. Outer control alone cannot uproot inner longing.

What can? Param drishtva — seeing the Supreme, tasting something higher. When a child discovers cricket, marbles fall away on their own. No one forced the child to quit marbles. A greater joy simply made the lesser one irrelevant. Krishna's path is not suppression. It is replacement — from a smaller joy to an immeasurably larger one.

This shloka acknowledges the real limitation of willpower-based sense control. The Gita's path is not one of grim suppression. It is transformation through inner experience — when the deeper reality is glimpsed, the old cravings lose their grip naturally.

The theme continues in 2.60 and 2.61, where Krishna describes the power of the senses and then names the remedy: fixing the mind on the Supreme.

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