Bhagavad Gita 2.59 is Chapter 2, Verse 59, in Sankhya Yoga (The Eternal Soul). Below are the Sanskrit text, a transliteration, a plain-English translation and an explanation.
viṣayā vinivartante nirāhārasya dehinaḥ rasa-varjaṁ raso 'py asya paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate
"Sense objects turn away from one who abstains from feeding on them, but the taste for them remains. Even this taste disappears for one who has seen the Supreme."
What This Means:
If you just force yourself to give up pleasures, the objects might leave but the desire stays. You're still craving them. But when you experience something higher, the Supreme Reality, even the taste for those old pleasures naturally fades. The craving dissolves because you've found something better.
Going Deeper:
This is crucial: willpower-based renunciation leaves 'rasa' (taste/desire) intact. The celibate who secretly craves, the dieter who obsesses about food, the monk who resents his poverty, they've given up objects but not attachment. True freedom comes when something greater is experienced. Then lesser pleasures simply lose their appeal.
How To Apply This:
Don't just suppress desires, find what they're really seeking. Every craving points to a deeper need: security, love, meaning. When you connect with the source of these (through meditation, devotion, self-inquiry), the symptoms (cravings) naturally diminish. Replace, don't just repress.
Where this verse sits
From 2.54, in answer to Arjuna's question about the person of steady wisdom, Krishna describes the sthitaprajna. Verse 58 gives the image of the tortoise drawing in its limbs, the senses withdrawn from their objects. Verse 59 immediately qualifies it: withdrawal is not enough. Verses 60 and 61 then admit that the senses can carry off even the mind of a striving, discerning person, and prescribe restraint joined to a higher aim. Verse 59 is the hinge between the two.
What the words say
Niraharasya dehinah, 'of the embodied one who does not feed', is usually read of a person who starves the senses of their objects, though it also suggests literal fasting. From such a person the objects (vishayah) turn away, but rasa, the taste or relish for them, remains. Then the crucial clause: rasa 'py asya param drishtva nivartate, even the taste turns away for one who has seen the highest. Shankara takes param as the supreme reality, the self; Ramanuja reads it as the self realised in its superiority to sense objects; Vishvanatha Chakravarti, in the Gaudiya line, takes it as the Supreme Person. Either way the mechanism is the same: craving ends not by pressure but by being outmatched.
A common misreading
The verse is not a dismissal of discipline; 2.60 and 2.61 insist on it. It is a diagnosis of why discipline alone fails and an account of what completes it. The dieter who thinks about food all day has done the first half. The verse says the second half is not more willpower but a different object of attention, something whose taste makes the old taste fade. That is why the Gita keeps returning to devotion and knowledge alongside restraint: restraint holds the ground, seeing the higher takes it.
Key Sanskrit Terms: