Advaita Vedānta

On this reading the 'Me' to whom the verse points is the Self of all beings, the unconditioned consciousness that is the true Self, and 'coming to Me' means realizing one's non-difference from that Self rather than arriving somewhere apart from oneself. The Lord is the Self of all and the supreme resort, so the goal is identity with Him. Two images carry the point. The space inside a pot becomes one with the great space outside once the pot is broken; the seeker, freed from the limiting adjuncts of ignorance, becomes identical with the supreme Brahman. And as the scripture says, the rivers flowing to the sea lose their separate name and form, so the knower, freed of name and form, attains the divine Person higher than the highest. The yoking of the self here is the gathering and steadying of the mind in the knowledge that I am the Self of all and the highest goal.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Sivananda · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the 'Me' is the supreme Person, Brahman with all auspicious qualities, all-knowing, of true resolve, the single cause of the world, of surpassing beauty and boundless compassion, the master and refuge of all. The verse is not about merging into an attributeless absolute but about a love-soaked relation that grows toward an unending experience of this Person. 'Devotee' is glossed as one joined to Him by an exceedingly great love; 'sacrificer' is the full service that gives Him every enjoyment, attendance, touch, and food; 'bowing' is the resolve to bend utterly low before Him as the inner Self. The four acts form a natural cascade from inner to outer: the mind's contemplation first, since without it the rest would be mere outer form, then devotion as the heart's stance, then sacrifice as its active expression, then reverence as the body's ratification. To 'have Me as supreme resort' means to find no support for oneself apart from Him. Living this out means doing even ordinary and obligatory actions with the thought that they are caused by Him and have being-subordinate-to-Him as their single savour, all for His pleasure.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Śuddhādvaita

On this reading the 'Me' is Shri Purushottama, the supreme Person who of His own will brought out the whole treasure of His beauty and came forth on earth, the nourisher of the lowly. The four acts are mapped onto the three sections of the Veda: thinking of Him in remembrance accomplishes the meaning of the knowledge-section, being established in service to Him accomplishes the worship-section, and sacrificing to Him accomplishes the action-section, while the bowing is glossed as self-surrender, 'I am yours,' preceded by the full prostration and the casting-off of ego. The little word 'eva,' 'alone,' is to be carried through every clause, so that one is not to worship or even look toward another deity; this exclusive giving-up of all other worship is what the later verse on abandoning all duties will name. Because dependence on the Lord is itself chief, He becomes for such a devotee both the means and the fruit. What is reached is the visible Purushottama Himself, with the gifts of the path: a body fit for His service or nearness to Him in His heaven.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

On this reading the verse is the chapter's four-fold imperative of pure devotion: think of Him, love Him, offer to Him, bow to Him, each complete in itself yet folding into the others. Krishna is named as the son of Vasudeva, dark as the blue lotus, supremely dear, and the devotee is to hold to Him with the conviction that He is master and supreme goal, the mind on Him like an unbroken stream of honey, the bow a full prostration laid out like a rod, all done with utmost love. The mark of this devotion as the king of secrets is given in a remembered line: empty of all reckoning of who is worthy or unworthy, destroying every sin by its mere touch like the Ganga, devotion alone is here the sovereign secret. The devotion is to be performed as already offered, that is, in the consciousness that one already belongs to Him. What is reached is His eternal home and the hidden treasure of eternal bliss.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These voices read the verse as the final admonition of the whole Gita, the mystic import in which mind, body, and speech are surrendered to the Lord. One stresses that the verse speaks deliberately in the first person, of Krishna's perceptible form, because this is the path of devotion rather than abstract metaphysics, and that one who performs this yoga with devotion is freed from the bonds of action and finally merged in Him, the same teaching given once metaphysically and here devotionally. Another develops the bowing at length into the heart of surrender: to bow to Him is to stay supremely content in every arrangement He sends, favourable or unfavourable, taking each event as His grace alone and keeping no view or wish of one's own; the more adverse the event, the more one should see His special kindness in it, since His hand and will are in it for one's welfare. On this reading the four acts complete surrender: love makes Him one's own, the mind rests in Him, all activity becomes His worship, and the bowing surrenders one's very will, so that to reach Him is to come into oneness with Him, an ever-growing inexpressible love. Surrender of the whole being without reservation transforms the whole life, removes all sorrow, and gives the vision of God everywhere.

Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi