Advaita Vedānta

One Advaita voice gives 'avyaya' (imperishable) a distinctive metaphysical ground: the form is imperishable precisely because it is maya-formed. In maya, all is all-formed and ever-existing, so the lordly form, being of the nature of maya, does not decay. The reasoning is illustrated by the image of the mirage-pool, which does not gradually dry up the way real water would; and by a cited authority that present, past, and future, the gross and the atomic, the far and the near, a moment or an age, all abide displayed by maya in the consciousness-Self. So the cosmic form's permanence is the permanence of an ever-available appearance within consciousness.

Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha

Viśiṣṭādvaita

The qualified-nondual reading takes 'yoga' in 'Yogeshvara' to mean the Lord's joining with His auspicious qualities, His knowledge and the rest, citing the later phrase 'see My lordly yoga.' The form to be shown is the Lord as creator, governor, and support of all, the treasure-house of the six perfections, knowledge, power, lordship, valour, might, and splendour, that cannot be supposed in any other. This reading also takes 'avyaya' (imperishable) as an adverb qualifying the act of showing: 'show me Yourself whole, completely,' rather than only as an adjective of the Self.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Śuddhādvaita

The pure-nondual path of grace stresses that the sight, like everything else of worth on this path, is not won by the seeker's own contrivance but given by the Lord's own will alone. One voice guards against two errors at once: a wandering mind that, seeing only the son of Vasudeva seated as charioteer, wonders why he is praised so highly; the answer is that on the word of the seer-elders he is known as Purushottama, the supreme Lord, even while seated there, so intimate friendship and awe coexist without diminishing each other. A second voice reads 'then' (tatah) as a crucial safeguard: Arjuna wants the seeing, but not to be dissolved into the form, for if he were swallowed up the loving relish of the Purushottama-form, the bhakti-rasa, could not arise; so he asks that after the heart's wish is fulfilled, the bliss-formed Self be shown, with a return from the seeing intact.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Dvaita

The dualist reading focuses on grounding the address 'Prabhu' in scripture and lexicon. 'Prabhu' means 'the able one,' supported by the lexical equation of prabhu, isha, and the capable one, and by the Moksha-dharma's declaration that there is no being higher than that everlasting Person. The point pressed is that 'Prabhu' does not mean mere lordship; it carries the import that, through the Lord's surpassing power, even what lies beyond the senses can be seen by that power.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhakti

The devotional reading dwells on Arjuna's humility and on the freedom of grace. One voice expands the conditional at length: a patient cannot diagnose his own ailment, and the thirst for the vision has blinded Arjuna to his own fitness, so only the Lord, like a mother who alone knows her child, can gauge his worth; yet the Lord's mercy is famously free, given even to enemies and sinners and to those who never worshipped Him, so Arjuna trusts the gift will come once the Lord makes him fit. Other devotional voices say plainly that though Arjuna is unworthy, it is the Lord's yogic sovereignty alone that becomes the cause of his fitness to see.

Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī

Modern

The modern commentators add framing and definition rather than a new metaphysics. One reads 'Yogeshvara' precisely as 'the Lord of Yoga' (not of yogins), where 'yoga' is the power of bringing the perceptible universe out of the imperceptible, the very power by which the cosmic form is about to be shown. Another spells out the Lord's fivefold action implied in His lordship: creation, preservation, destruction, veiling, and gracious release, and defines Yogeshvara as the one able to bestow the realization of identity on the deserving aspirant. A third keeps the request non-sectarian and devotional: if You hold me capable, well and good; if not, then please grant me that very capability so that I may see Your form.

Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas