आपूर्यमाणमचलप्रतिष्ठं समुद्रमापः प्रविशन्ति यद्वत्।तद्वत्कामा यं प्रविशन्ति सर्वे स शान्तिमाप्नोति न कामकामी॥
āpūryamāṇam acala-pratiṣṭhaṃsamudram āpaḥ praviśanti yadvattadvat kāmā yaṃ praviśanti sarvesa śāntim āpnoti na kāma-kāmī
Word by word
The verse says
Rivers pour into the ocean and the ocean stays where it is, filled and unmoved. Wants enter a person like that, and he finds peace — not the man who goes after what he wants.
In plain words
The second great image, and it is the answer to the boat.
The rivers keep arriving. The ocean does not refuse them and does not rise. It is already full.
So the desires still come. What has changed is that there is nowhere in him for them to make a difference.
Where you've felt this · at work
An offer arrives that would once have unsettled your whole year. You consider it properly, on its merits, and say no by Thursday. The old version of you would still be turning it over at Christmas.
Going deeper
Everything in this image depends on the ocean already being full, and that is what separates it from mere self-control.
A man damming the rivers is fighting. The ocean is not fighting anything. Āpūryamāṇam acala-pratiṣṭham — being filled, yet standing unmoved. The rivers are welcome. They simply cannot alter the level.
This is verse 55 again in a different form — content in the self, by the self. Because the fullness is not on loan from anything arriving, nothing that arrives can add to it or take from it.
The last phrase is the sharp one. Na kāma-kāmī — not the one who desires desires. Not the man who wants things, but the man who is in love with wanting itself, for whom the pursuit is the point and any particular object is interchangeable.
That is a distinction worth keeping. The Gita is not describing someone who has stopped having preferences. It is describing someone who has stopped needing the chase.
And note the contrast with 2.67 two verses back. The boat is moved by wind because it is small and empty. The ocean is not moved by whole rivers.