Classical Vedanta · part of the Mahabharata
Bhagavad Gita 2.70
Desires enter the still mind as rivers enter the ocean
आपूर्यमाणमचलप्रतिष्ठं समुद्रमापः प्रविशन्ति यद्वत्। तद्वत्कामा यं प्रविशन्ति सर्वे स शान्तिमाप्नोति न कामकामी॥
A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires — that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still — can alone achieve peace.
What this verse points to
The image is precise. The ocean is not still because rivers stop arriving — they arrive constantly. It is still because it is large enough that arrival does not change its level. Peace here is not the absence of wanting; it is a capacity that wanting cannot disturb.
That reframes the whole task. You are not trying to shut the rivers off, which has never worked for anyone. You are enlarging the container.
Sit with it
When a want surfaces mid-sit, do not push it away and do not follow it. Let it enter, and watch whether your attention level actually rises.
About the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is a 700-verse dialogue set on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in which Krishna counsels the warrior Arjuna at the moment he refuses to fight. Across eighteen chapters it draws together the paths of action, devotion, and knowledge into a single teaching on how to act without being bound by action. It sits inside the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata and has been the most widely commented-upon text in the Vedantic tradition, from Shankara onward.
References to this text are given as chapter.verse — here, 2.70.