Those devotees who, ever devoted to Thee, thus worship Thee, and those who worship the Unmanifest Imperishable – which of them are better versed in yoga? (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12 – Verse 1)
Which form of worship is superior, the worship of the Personal God, the worship of Ishvara as He has just been seen by Arjuna in His Universal Form, or the worship of the Form less? To which aspect of the Reality should we direct our worship, to the saguna or the nirguna, to Brahman with form or without form? The one is endowed with the highest qualities; the other has no qualities. The one is reached by the path of bhakti, the positive path; the other is reached by jnana, the path of negation. Shall we worship a God to whom we can reach up, whom we can love as we love a father or a mother or a friend, in whose presence we rejoice, whom we can serve as a Master, or shall we follow the path of denial, the ‘neti, neti’ path, the path of negation? That is Arjuna’s question. Should we worship God as pointed out in the last verse of the eleventh chapter, or should we, abandoning all desires and renouncing all actions, meditate on the Absolute Unmanifest, the One in comprehensible to the senses and devoid of all upadhis? In answering the question, Sri Krishna first deals with the worshippers of Ishvara, the personal aspect of God.