By 'thus' Arjuna takes up the meaning told in the immediately preceding verse, 'he who does work for Me' and the rest. Ever yoked thus, unbrokenly engaged and composed in the matter described, in the works of the Blessed Lord and so on: the devotees who, taking refuge in no other, meditate, all around, on You as the universal form shown; and those others too who, having given up every longing, having renounced all action, worship the imperishable Brahman as it has been qualified, the unmanifest, beyond the reach of the instruments, since all limiting adjuncts have been set aside from it. What is within the reach of the instruments is called the manifest, the word being from the root 'añj' and so taking an object; but this Imperishable is the opposite, and is distinguished by the further qualifications about to be told. Of these two kinds of worshippers, which are the better knowers of yoga, the more excellent in knowing yoga? The Blessed Lord said: those worshippers of the Imperishable, the seers of the truth, free of longing, let them stand aside for now; what is to be said of them I shall say later on. But the others.

Arjuna spoke. Those devotees who, ever joined in the manner described in 'so My action-doer' and the rest, holding you, the Blessed One, to be the supreme thing to be attained, worship you, the full one, joined with all glory, the ocean of bliss-qualities, unsurpassed and limitless beauty, gracious accessibility, all-knowingness, being-of-true-resolve, and the rest; and those who worship the imperishable, the own form of the inmost self, that very thing, unmanifest, of an own form not made manifest by the eye and the other organs; of these two, which are the best knowers of the discipline, that is, which are the swift-goers toward what each is to accomplish? For that the being the best knower of the discipline bears on swiftness will be made plain right after, in 'I become, before long, Partha, the deliverer of those whose minds are entered into Me'.

Salutation to Him who is dear through worship. Having shown, in what went before, the superiority of the worship of the Lord over the worship of the unmanifest, Krishna shows the means to that worship in this chapter. The worship of the unmanifest too is understood to be a means to release, as the scriptures show: 'clothed in Shri, they come to immortality; true are the kindlings on the measured tree' (Rigveda 7.4.4.4), and 'having discerned that which is beginningless and endless, higher than the great, fixed, one is freed from the mouth of death' (Katha Upanishad 1.3.15). And the unmanifest is 'higher than the great', since it accords with the reference back to 'the unmanifest is higher than the great' (Katha Upanishad 1.3.11). The Agniveshya branch of the Samaveda says, 'worshipping that Shri, named the unmanifest, with devotion, the mortal is freed from all bonds'. And her great glory is told in the Vedas: 'the youthful one of four braids, well-adorned, ghee-faced, wears the forms of knowledge; on her the two golden-winged, bull-like ones settled, where the gods set down their share' (Rigveda 8.6.16.3); and from 'I move with the Rudras, with the Vasus, and with the Adityas and the All-gods' onward to 'I am the queen, the gatherer of treasures, the knowing one, the first of those worthy of sacrifice; the gods set me down in many places, with many stations, causing me to enter into much. Through me he eats food who sees, who breathes, who hears what is said; without knowing it they dwell by me; hear, O famed one, I tell you what is worthy of faith. Whom I love, him I make mighty, him a knower of Brahman, him a seer, him of good wisdom. I stretch the bow for Rudra, that his arrow may slay the hater of Brahman. I bring forth the father on the head of this world; my womb is within the waters, in the sea; thence I spread through all the worlds, and touch yonder heaven with my greatness' (Rigveda 8.7, hymns 11-12), and 'graced by you, O goddess, one becomes a seer; through you one becomes a knower of Brahman, possessed of glory' (Mahanarayana 13.2). Such a doubt arises in some; therefore, though he knows, Arjuna asks, in order to learn the subtle reasoning, with 'thus'. By the word 'thus' the form seen and heard, and the manner stated in 'doing My work' (11.55) and the rest, are referred to. 'The unmanifest' is prakriti, from the usage 'the unmanifest higher than the great' (Katha Upanishad 1.3.11), and from the Bhagavata, 'that unmanifest, of the three gunas, eternal, of the nature of the existent and the non-existent, they call the principal one, prakriti, the featureless that yet has features' (Bhagavata 3.26.10). And it is 'imperishable' (akshara), by the scripture 'higher than the imperishable is the Supreme' (Mundaka Upanishad 2.1.2). But the 'supreme Brahman' is nothing other than the Lord, as the Bhagavata says, 'bliss, in the blissful, all-self Brahman, Vasudeva, as the final resting'. His form has been established before to be of such a kind, and the worship is to be done likewise. From 'the Person of a thousand heads, of a thousand eyes, of a thousand feet' (Rigveda 8.4.17.1; Shvetashvatara Upanishad 3.14) onward to 'knowing Him thus, one becomes immortal here' (Nrisimha-purva-tapini 1.6), and 'there is no other path for the journey' (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 3.8), there is a near-sameness of texts. His being sun-coloured and the rest is not to be accepted as a mere figurative usage. So the Saukarayana scripture in the Samaveda says, 'Sthanu, the son of Prajapati, came to Prajapati, his father, and said: for the seekers of release, the good, whose sins are purified, what is the rescuing one, called the rescuer? and how should there be a meditation on Him whose radiance is gained? and who is the Person, the one without down on His feet?'. And He said to him: 'this Vishnu is the rescuer, the one without down on His feet, and I tell the meditation on Him whose radiance is gained. He is of endless head, of many colours, golden, to be meditated on; He is indeed red, of sun-colour, or else dark, in the heart; He is eight-armed, of endless valour, of endless strength, ancient'. The way in which the unmanifest is a path has been told from its formlessness and the rest. And a difference of persons is conveyed in the question and the rest, as in 'those who worship you, and those, again, the imperishable, the unmanifest' and the like.