The yogi who has known this passes beyond every promised reward and reaches the supreme primal abode.

Advaita Vedānta

For these commentators the supreme primal station that the yogi reaches is Brahman itself, the cause of all. Shankara names it the supreme, sovereign, primal station, that which is at the beginning, the cause, namely Brahman; Madhusudana and Dhanapati likewise gloss the highest abode as Brahman, the cause of all. They also note that with this chapter the meaning of the word 'tat' (That), one of the terms held to point to the highest reality, has been explained as the object to be meditated upon. Nilakantha adds a graded reading of the path: the yogi first reaches the 'karya-brahma-loka', the world of the conditioned or effected Brahman, and from there gradually attains the partless supreme Brahman, the supreme abode; he frames the next chapter as turning from the 'That' to be meditated on toward the Brahman to be directly known.

Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha

Viśiṣṭādvaita

For these commentators the 'this' to be known is specifically the glory of the Blessed Lord told across the two chapters that form a single instructional unit, and the supreme primal abode is the Lord's own. They stress that 'atyeti', transcends, is not a put-down of Veda, sacrifice, austerity, and gift; it marks instead the yogi's destination as lying beyond what those disciplines would yield if taken without this yoga. One source gives a vivid measure of the seeker's heart: by the sheer excess of the happiness of knowing the Lord's glory, the yogi counts all that merit-fruit as a single blade of grass. The verse, on this reading, formally closes the answer to Arjuna's seven questions; the candidate who has heard them and taken up the Lord-directed yoga is now to act on it.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This commentator reads the verse concretely. He names actual examples of each work: the four Vedas, sacrifices such as the Agnistoma, austerities such as the Candrayana, and gifts of cows, land, and gold. All of this merit-fruit the yogi transcends, and by knowing this knowledge attains the supreme and primal station, the first among all stations, the station belonging to the Supreme Lord.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

Jayatirtha did not comment on this verse, so the Dvaita tradition adds no separate reading here.

Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the supreme abode as the Lord's own 'dhama'. Vallabha says the yogi, in whom dispassion has now arisen, crosses over every Vedic merit-fruit, whether for this world or the next, in the form of food, cattle, sons, sovereignty, and the like, wishing for it no more, and reaches the supreme, primal, very root of the world, which is Bhagavan's dhama; for the wholly devoted ('ananya') seeker this dhama means the very lila of the Lord, into which he is received because the bond was rightly placed and grace freely given. He counts the questions as eight: seven from Arjuna and an eighth implied, the means of arrival, supplied by the answer itself. Purushottama reads the primal station as the form of the Lord's service and the form of His feet, so that the yogi reaches nearness to Him; his colophon verses speak of union with the Supreme Person gained through pure devotion by the grace of Sri Krishna.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator gives the briefest and most pointed reading of why the yogi passes beyond all merit. By the remembrance of the Blessed One, the latent impressions ('samskaras') of all actions are made fruitless; and when all action is thus worn away, the yogi, with ease alone, finds the supreme Shiva. The supreme abode is here named as Shiva, and the mechanism is the burning away of the residues of karma through remembrance.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These commentators read the supreme abode in devotional terms, often as the parama-pada of Vishnu or the abode of the Lord. Sridhara says the yogi attains the 'yoga-aisvarya' higher than all merit-fruit, the supreme primordial station, the root-station of the world, the supreme abode of Vishnu; he closes warmly that the fruit of contemplating the imperishable, of dying with Om on the lip and Vasudeva in the heart, departing by the bright path, is finally one and the same supreme abode, beyond every reward the scriptures promise. Vishvanatha takes the yogi here to mean the devotee, who attains a station beyond matter, eternal, and reads the chapter as making clear the pre-eminence of the devotee. Baladeva says the yogi, knowing through good company the greatness of the Lord and of His devotee taught in chapters seven and eight, counts all merit as straw beside that happiness, and, becoming possessed of devotion, attains the Lord's abode, primal, beginningless, and beyond Maya; he adds that the partial Person is reached by yoga-devotion and the path of light, but Krishna himself only by single-minded devotion. Jnaneshwari develops at length how even heavenly bliss, weighed on the palm by great yogins through the vision born of supreme knowledge, is found ridiculously light, so that the yogins make of it mere stepping stones by which they ascend to the seat of the Supreme Brahman.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

Tilak reads 'this' as the principle of the two paths, the 'devayana' (path of the gods) and 'pitryana' (path of the fathers), explained in the preceding verses: the Karma-Yogin who has understood that the devayana brings no rebirth while the pitryana, though it yields heaven, does not yield Release, naturally chooses the better path, transcends the merit-fruit of Veda, sacrifice, austerity, and charity, and reaches the highest state beyond. Sivananda glosses 'this' as the answers the Lord gave to Arjuna's seven questions and names the chapter Abhyasa Yoga; the yogi who rightly understands and follows the teaching and meditates on Brahman reaches the primeval supreme abode. Gandhi-Desai compress the verse: one who has won even-mindedness through devotion, knowledge, and service not only obtains the fruit of all good actions but also wins salvation. Ramsukhdas develops the deepest modern reasoning: every fruit of the highest scriptural works is perishable because the works themselves have a beginning and an end, and what is born of the perishable cannot be imperishable; even brahma-loka, the outermost reach of enjoyment-worlds, must be returned from, while on attaining the Lord one does not return. The seeker who grasps this, and who knows that he is himself an imperishable portion of the Supreme while worldly things are ceaselessly passing into non-existence, gives himself wholly to the Lord and so reaches the primal station, the Supreme called the highest goal and highest abode in this very chapter.

Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Swami Ramsukhdas