The Gita crowns a different path in each chapter. So, the misreading goes, either it contradicts itself, or one path wins and the others are for the weak. A reader who holds this has a fair reason. Several verses do seem to name several winners, and a quick reading takes them as a ranking.
Why the verses look like rival claims
The praise is strong each time. The yoga of action is called better than giving up action (Gita 5.2). The yogi is called higher than the ascetic, the scholar and the ritualist (Gita 6.46). The devotee is called the most united of all yogis (Gita 6.47) and the most perfect in yoga (Gita 12.2). Heard one after another, the words "better", "higher" and "most" seem to point at different winners.
The basis of each comparison
Every one of these verses compares particular people on a particular measure. Set side by side, they look like this.
| Verse | Who is compared | On what measure | What the verse concludes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gita 3.3 | Knowledge for the contemplative, action for the active | By inclination | Both are paths the Lord taught earlier |
| Gita 5.2 | Giving up action and the yoga of action | For one who is still acting | Both lead to the highest good, and the yoga of action is better than giving up action |
| Gita 5.4, Gita 5.5 | Knowledge and action | By where they arrive | The same goal, and one who sees this sees truly |
| Gita 6.46 | The yogi, the ascetic, the scholar, the ritualist | How complete the practice is | The yogi is higher |
| Gita 6.47 | The devotee among yogis | Union through faith and love | The devotee is the most united |
| Gita 12.1, Gita 12.2 | Devotees of the personal form and seekers of the unmanifest | Who is better established | Those who fix the mind on the Lord with faith |
| Gita 12.3 to Gita 12.5 | Seekers of the unmanifest | The difficulty for embodied beings | They reach Him too, though it is harder |
| Gita 12.12 | Practice, knowledge, meditation, giving up the fruit | The depth that brings peace | Peace follows at once from giving up the fruit |
The table shows that the verses do not compete. Each answers a different question, and none of the questions is "which path is the highest in itself".
Three verses read slowly
Take the verse that is most often quoted alone.
श्रद्धावान्भजते यो मां स मे युक्ततमो मतः॥ ६.४७॥
Among all yogis, the one who, with unwavering faith, fixes the mind and heart on Me and lovingly worships Me is considered by Me to be the most perfectly united and the highest of all yogis.
Among all yogis, the one who with faith fixes the mind on the Lord and worships Him is the most united (Gita 6.47). The comparison is among yogis. The verse before it has already said that the yogi is higher than those who do only a part of the path (Gita 6.46). So the praise of the devotee stands inside the praise of yoga. It does not cancel the other paths.
मय्यावेश्य मनो ये मां नित्ययुक्ता उपासते ।
श्रद्धया परयोपेतास्ते मे युक्ततमा मताः ॥ १२.२ ॥
The Blessed Lord said: Those who fix their mind on Me, who are ever steadfast, and who worship Me with supreme faith, are considered by Me to be the most perfect in yoga.
The answer in chapter 12 is of the same kind. Arjuna asked about two kinds of seekers (Gita 12.1), and the Lord answers that those who fix the mind on Him with supreme faith are the most perfect (Gita 12.2). The three verses that follow carry on at once. Those who worship the unmanifest reach Him too (Gita 12.3, Gita 12.4). Their road is harder for people who live in a body (Gita 12.5).
एकं सांख्यं च योगं च यः पश्यति स पश्यति ॥ ५.५ ॥
The supreme state attained through Jñāna Yoga is also reached through Karma Yoga. One who understands that these two paths ultimately lead to the same destination is the one who truly sees reality as it is.
And at the base of all of them is the verse on the destination. The place reached through knowledge is reached through action as well (Gita 5.5), and only the immature treat the two as separate (Gita 5.4).
Three questions for any verse of praise
When a verse seems to crown a path, ask who is compared, by what measure, and what the next verse adds. For Gita 12.2, the answers are: two kinds of seekers, ease and surety for the embodied, and "those who worship the unmanifest reach Me too" (Gita 12.3). The next verse is often the one that stops a ranking from forming.
Two streams of commentators
Commentators read the pattern in two ways. One stream, which stresses devotion, reads the praise of devotion as the Gita's highest measure, the one that is called "most united", and takes the other paths as ways that arrive there. The other stream, which stresses knowledge, reads Gita 5.4, Gita 5.5 and Gita 12.12 as saying that the paths reach a single state, and takes the order in Gita 12.12 as an order of ripening. Both streams agree on the point that matters here. No path is dropped.
A better reading
The Gita ranks nothing in the abstract. Each praise names a person and a measure, and together they say that the paths complete each other. What follows for a reader is a step, not a choice of winner. The Lord's own advice is to begin where the mind can stand, with the mind fixed on Him if it will stay (Gita 12.8), and to let the other ways join as they are needed.
Where to go next
The whole picture is in The Paths: Action, Knowledge, Devotion, and its detailed reading adds the cautions the Gita gives each path. For Gita 5.2 and Gita 5.4, see Renunciation or Karma Yoga?. For the verses of chapter 12, see Devotion or the Unmanifest. A short note on the same misreading is in Does the Gita Contradict Itself by Praising Several Paths?.