2.59 The taste remains Krishna speaks
विषया विनिवर्तन्ते निराहारस्य देहिनः
रसवर्जं रसोऽप्यस्य परं दृष्ट्वा निवर्तते
viṣhayā vinivartante nirāhārasya dehinaḥ
rasa-varjaṁ raso ’pyasya paraṁ dṛiṣhṭvā nivartate
For the one who merely abstains, the objects fall away but the taste for them remains. Even that taste goes when the highest is seen.
Explanation
The sharpest psychological observation in the chapter.
For the one who merely abstains, the objects fall away but the taste for them remains — rasa-varjam.
It is the whole case against willpower as a method, made in one line. And the remedy is not more restraint: even that taste goes when the highest is seen.
Going further
Word by word
- viṣhayāḥ
- objects for senses
- vinivartante
- restrain
- nirāhārasya
- practicing self restraint
- dehinaḥ
- for the embodied
- rasa-varjam
- cessation of taste
- rasaḥ
- taste
- api
- however
- asya
- person’s
- param
- the Supreme
- dṛiṣhṭvā
- on realization
- nivartate
- ceases to be
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The sharpest psychological observation in the chapter: for the one who merely abstains, the objects fall away but the taste remains.
Anyone who has given something up by force of will recognises this exactly. The thing is gone and the wanting is not. Krishna does not treat abstinence as failure — he treats it as incomplete, and says the taste goes only when something else has actually been seen.