Text 25

dhyanenatmani pasyanti
kecid atmanam atmana
anye sankhyena yogena
karma-yogena capare

Translation

Some perceive the Supersoul within themselves through meditation, others through the cultivation of knowledge, and still others through working without fruitive desires.

Commentary by Srila Prabhupada

The Lord informs Arjuna that the conditioned souls can be divided into two classes as far as man’s search for self-realization is concerned. Those who are atheists, agnostics and skeptics are beyond the sense of spiritual understanding. But there are others, who are faithful in their understanding of spiritual life, and they are called introspective devotees, philosophers, and workers who have renounced fruitive results. Those who always try to establish the doctrine of monism are also counted among the atheists and agnostics. In other words, only the devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are best situated in spiritual understanding, because they understand that beyond this material nature are the spiritual world and the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is expanded as the Paramatma, the Supersoul in everyone, the all-pervading Godhead. Of course there are those who try to understand the Supreme Absolute Truth by cultivation of knowledge, and they can be counted in the class of the faithful. The Sankhya philosophers analyze this material world into twenty-four elements, and they place the individual soul as the twenty-fifth item. When they are able to understand the nature of the individual soul to be transcendental to the material elements, they are able to understand also that above the individual soul there is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is the twenty-sixth element. Thus gradually they also come to the standard of devotional service in Krishna consciousness. Those who work without fruitive results are also perfect in their attitude. They are given a chance to advance to the platform of devotional service in Krishna consciousness. Here it is stated that there are some people who are pure in consciousness and who try to find out the Supersoul by meditation, and when they discover the Supersoul within themselves, they become transcendentally situated. Similarly, there are others who also try to understand the Supreme Soul by cultivation of knowledge, and there are others who cultivate the hatha-yoga system and who try to satisfy the Supreme Personality of Godhead by childish activities.

Commentary by Sri Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur

Alternative methods are mentioned in two verses. Some devotees, by contemplation of the Lord (dhyanena) in the mind (atmani) without help from any other process, spontaneously (atmana), not by any other process except bhakti, see the paramatma. This is understood from a later verse: bhaktya mam abhijanati (BG 18.55), only by devotion am I known. Others (anye), jnanis, by deliberation on the soul (sankhyena atmana), and others (apare), yogis, by astanga yoga (yogena), and others by niskama karma (karma yogena), see paramatma. In this regard, jnana yoga, astanga yoga and niskama karma yoga are successive causes of each other and not direct causes of seeing paramatma. That is because their nature is sattvika but the nature of paramatma is beyond the gunas. Moreover, it is said by the Lord:

jnanam ca mayi sannyaset

A self-realized person who has cultivated scriptural knowledge up to the point of enlightenment and who is free from impersonal speculation, understanding the material universe to be simply illusion, should surrender unto Me both that knowledge and the means by which he achieved it. SB 11.19.1

bhaktyaham ekaya grahyah

Only by practicing unalloyed devotional service with full faith in Me can one obtain Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. SB 11.14.21

Thus, after giving up jnana, indicated in the first of the verses quoted, becoming free from jnana, one sees paramatma by bhakti alone, indicated in the second verse.