Apuryamanam Achala-Pratistham

Rivers pour endlessly into the ocean. The Ganga, the Yamuna, a thousand unnamed streams — all merging in. Yet the ocean neither swells nor shrinks. It absorbs everything and remains exactly what it was: vast, still, unmoved. Krishna says the person of steady wisdom is like that ocean.

Desires do not stop arriving. Thoughts arise, impulses surface, the world keeps presenting its attractions. The difference is that in the Sthitaprajna, these desires enter and dissolve without causing disturbance. The ocean does not refuse the rivers. It simply remains itself.

The final line draws the contrast: the kamkami — the one who chases desire after desire — does not find peace. The one who lets desires flow through, like rivers into a boundless ocean, does.

The ocean analogy is one of the Gita's most enduring images. For centuries, it has been used across Indian traditions to explain the nature of inner stillness — not as emptiness but as fullness so complete that nothing added can change it.

In 2.55, Krishna spoke of abandoning desires. Here in 2.70, he clarifies what that means. It is not that desires stop arising. It is that they stop mattering. The ocean does not push rivers away; it simply remains undisturbed.