Chapter twelve begins with a straightforward comparative question. Some worship a God who has taken form and are constantly devoted; others worship the imperishable and unmanifest. Which of them, Arjuna asks, knows yoga better?
Krishna answers that those who fix their minds on him and worship with constant discipline and supreme faith are, in his view, the most disciplined. Those who worship the imperishable, indefinable, unmanifest, all pervading, unthinkable and unmoving also reach him, provided they have restrained the senses and are engaged in the welfare of all beings. But the trouble is greater for those whose minds are set on the unmanifest, because the unmanifest goal is difficult for embodied beings to attain.
What makes the chapter useful is what comes next: a descending sequence of alternatives, each offered to whoever cannot manage the one above. Fix your mind on me. If you cannot do that, seek to reach me by repeated practice. If you are unable to practise, be intent on doing work for my sake, since by doing work for my sake you will reach perfection. And if you cannot even do that, then take refuge in discipline and give up the fruit of all action, exercising self control.
Very few religious texts build failure into the structure of their instruction in this way, and fewer still put the concession in the teacher's own mouth four times in a row. The chapter treats inability as ordinary rather than shameful, and it arranges its demands so that everyone reading is somewhere on the ladder rather than off it.