Talk:Rebirth or Resurrection: Gateway to Evil and Ego

By Vishal Agarwal

In Chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavān Krishna cautions against excessive ego and pride in performing virtuous deeds. To paraphrase, Krishna warns those who think, “I have accomplished this action today, and I shall do another tomorrow. I give charity and perform religious rites to secure a place in heaven,” are at risk of spiritual ruin if they become consumed by vanity. This admonition suggests that the motive behind righteous acts—rather than the acts themselves—is critical to genuine spiritual growth.

Good deeds (or dharma-based actions) should be carried out as an offering to the Divine, free from egoistic desire for personal gain or rewards in heaven. Performing actions with attachment to the outcome, or with the sense of “I am the doer,” is believed to lead an individual to continued rebirth, as it binds one to the cycle of saṃsāra. From this perspective, humility and selflessness are central to true spiritual progress.

Christian and Islamic teachings emphasize righteous behavior primarily as a means to gain entry into heaven. They argue that this heaven-centric motivation may, in some interpretations, inadvertently encourage a sense of self-assurance regarding one’s spiritual merits. Critics within these comparative studies posit that such an approach could be less conducive to cultivating humility and gentleness, though interpretations vary among adherents of Abrahamic faiths.

Historical accounts describe how some Christian missionaries, upon arriving in India, displayed attitudes that locals perceived as haughtiness and arrogance or a lack of humility. The followers of St. Paul (in one of his Epistles in the New Testament) state that due to his service to the Christian God, he feels like a runner who will come first in the competition and win the prize! Humility seems to be one virtue lacking in the lives of so many Biblical and Muslim prophets, as is evident from stories of their lives in the texts of these religions.