He implies that one should not acquire pious qualities.¹

NOTE. Pious qualities are acquired by engaging in pious activities by which one attains pious credits and then pious qualities:

sādhukārī sādhur bhavati pāpakārī pāpo bhavati puṇyaḥ puṇyena karmaṇā bhavati pāpaḥ pāpena.

“A person who engages in auspicious activities becomes an auspicious person. A person who engages in sinful activities becomes a sinful person. He becomes pious by engaging in pious activity. He becomes sinful by engaging in sinful activity.” (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.5)

The acquisition of pious credits is fraught with extreme dangers. This is brought out in Chapter 64 of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which describes the history of King Nṛga and concludes that one should not hanker to accumulate such pious credits.

A summary of this history is as follows.

One day Sāmba and other young boys of the Yādava dynasty went to the forest to play, and after playing for a long time they became very thirsty and began looking for water. Inside a dry well they found an amazing creature: a huge lizard resembling a hill. The boys felt sorry for it and tried to pull it out. But after several attempts with leather thongs and ropes, they saw that they would not be able to rescue the creature, and thus they went to Lord Kṛṣṇa and told Him what had happened. The Lord accompanied them to the well and, extending His left hand, easily lifted the lizard out. By the touch of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s hand the creature transformed at once into a demigod. Then Lord Kṛṣṇa asked, “Who are you, and how did you assume such a lowly form?”

The divine being replied, “My name was King Nṛga, son of Ikṣvāku, and I was famous for giving charity. Indeed, I gave away countless cows to numerous brāhmaṇas. But on one occasion a cow belonging to a first-class brāhmaṇa wandered into my herd. Unaware of this, I gave this cow in charity to a different brāhmaṇa. When the cow’s previous owner saw the second brāhmaṇa taking this cow away, the first brāhmaṇa claimed the cow as his and began arguing with the second brāhmaṇa. After quarreling for some time they approached me, and I implored them to each take one hundred thousand cows in exchange for that one cow, and to please forgive me for the offense I had unknowingly committed. But neither brāhmaṇa would accept my proposal, and the matter remained unsettled.

“Shortly thereafter I died and was taken by the Yamadūtas to the court of Yamarāja. Yama asked me which I preferred to do first: suffer the results of my sins or enjoy the results of my pious acts. I decided to suffer my sinful reactions first, and thus I assumed the body of a lizard.”

After King Nṛga had told his story, he offered prayers to Lord Kṛṣṇa and then mounted a celestial airplane, which transported him to heaven.

In Kṛṣṇa: The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrīla Prabhupāda states that King Nṛga’s history of degradation was “caused by his karma-kāṇḍa activities.” He also notes that

According to the Vedic ritualistic ceremonies, a man who is charitably disposed is recommended to give cows to the brāhmaṇas. From King Nṛga’s statement, it appears that he followed this principle earnestly; however, as a result of a slight discrepancy he was forced to take birth as a lizard. Therefore it is recommended by the Lord in the Bhagavad-gītā that one who is charitably disposed and desires to derive the benefit of his charity should offer his gifts to please Kṛṣṇa. To give charity means to perform pious activities by which one may be elevated to the higher planetary systems; but promotion to the heavenly planets is no guarantee that one will never fall down. Rather, the example of King Nṛga definitely proves that fruitive activities, even if very pious, cannot give us eternal blissful life.

In other words, dependence on accumulation of pious credits is not a foolproof method of avoiding the calamities of material existence.