Verse 7.27 described the usual condition of the jīva: self-ignorance produces desire and aversion, desire and aversion divide the world into supposed sources of happiness and sorrow, and life becomes an endless movement of acquiring what is wanted and avoiding what is unwanted. Verse 7.28 now introduces an important exception: some people begin to break out of this cycle.

Kṛṣṇa says, yeṣāṃ tvantagataṃ pāpaṃ janānāṃ puṇyakarmaṇām — there are people whose pāpa has diminished because they have lived through puṇya-karma, noble and dhārmic actions. Here the point is not simply that “good people receive a spiritual reward.” Puṇya-karma contributes to purification of the mind. A life of contribution, responsibility, gratitude, reverence, service, and the spirit represented by the pañca-mahā-yajñas gradually reduces excessive self-centeredness and weakens the hold of rāga and dveṣa.

Kṛṣṇa describes this as antagataṃ pāpam — pāpa has come toward an end. One important indication of this purification is that the person begins to think seriously about the direction of life. Until then, life may have been one uninterrupted attempt to adjust the external world: obtain the right possessions, arrange the right relationships, achieve the right status, eliminate the right problems, and finally become secure and happy.

A purified mind begins to question the strategy itself: “I have been adjusting the world for so many years. Why is the fundamental restlessness still present? I have obtained things that I once thought would finally satisfy me. Why did the search continue? Is life only about artha and kāma—security and enjoyment—or is there another goal?”

This questioning is a major spiritual development. The seeker is no longer merely asking, “How can I get what I want?” The seeker begins asking, “What am I actually seeking through everything I want?”

As clarity grows, the mistake described in 7.27 becomes visible. Happiness and sorrow cannot ultimately be assigned to external objects. The fundamental problem is not an insufficiently adjusted world but self-ignorance. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says such people become dvandva-moha-nirmuktāḥ — free from, or increasingly free from, the delusion produced by the pairs of desire and aversion.

Freedom from dvandva-moha does not mean that all practical preferences disappear. The seeker may still prefer health to illness, financial stability to crisis, order to disorder, and pleasant circumstances to unpleasant ones. The change is that these things are no longer given the impossible job of producing permanent pūrṇatvam.

With this clarity comes nitya-anitya-vastu-viveka, discrimination between the permanent and impermanent, and ihāmutra-phala-bhoga-vairāgyam, dispassion toward finite results available either here or in other worlds. This vairāgyam is not bitterness toward life. It is accurate understanding of limitation. A finite result is allowed to remain finite.

Money is useful for what money can do. Relationships are valued for what relationships can give. Health is cared for. Dharma is followed. Responsibilities continue. But the seeker no longer expects one of these changing things to become a permanent source of security and completeness.

Once that confusion weakens, the direction of bhakti changes. Kṛṣṇa says, bhajante māṃ dṛḍhavratāḥ — they seek Me with firm resolve. Here mām, “Me,” points to Bhagavān’s higher nature, parā prakṛti, rather than merely to finite results available through aparā prakṛti. The seeker is no longer using Bhagavān primarily as a means to improve worldly arrangements. Bhagavān as the infinite becomes the goal.

This is the movement into niṣkāma-bhakti. Material needs need not disappear, but they become secondary rather than ultimate. Prayer, worship, karma-yoga, study, and contemplation increasingly become means for spiritual growth and discovery of the infinite.

This also explains dṛḍhavratāḥ — firm in resolve. Once the seeker has diagnosed the problem correctly, the spiritual pursuit stops being one optional interest among many. There is growing conviction: “The fundamental problem is self-ignorance. Repeatedly rearranging finite things cannot solve it. I must discover the infinite reality.”

Verse 7.28 therefore marks a decisive spiritual turning point: puṇya-karma purifies the mind; a purified mind begins questioning the old outward search; discrimination weakens dvandva-moha; and the seeker firmly turns toward Bhagavān’s parā prakṛti as the real destination. Bhakti now begins moving from obtaining the finite toward discovering the infinite.