Of four kinds are the people who worship, who serve, Me, the doers of good, of meritorious deeds, O Arjuna: the afflicted one, seized by affliction, overcome by a thief, a tiger, disease and the like; the seeker of knowledge, who wishes to know the truth of the Blessed Lord; the seeker of wealth, who desires riches; and the knower, the one who knows the truth of Viṣṇu, O bull of the Bharatas.

Doers of good, doers of meritorious deeds, having come to Me for refuge, worship Me alone. And they are of four kinds by the gradation of their good deeds; by the greatness of their good deeds, through the excellence of their attaining, each later kind is the higher. The afflicted is one who, his standing lost, his lordship fallen away, longs to regain it. The seeker of wealth, having no lordship, desires lordship; between these two there is only a difference of face, and since both have lordship for their object they are one in being one qualification. The seeker of knowledge is one who wishes to attain the own-form of the self as set apart from matter; since knowledge itself is its own-form, he is called 'seeker of knowledge'. And the man of knowledge, the knower of the own-form of the self whose single savour is being subordinate to the Blessed One, spoken of in 'but other than this, know My higher nature' and the rest, not stopping short at the bare self set apart from matter, longs for the Blessed One, holding the Blessed One to be the supreme thing to be attained.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Madhva's commentary treats verses 7.15 through 7.16 as a single passage; it is given in full at verse 7.15.