It is part of our belief that we believe in reincarnation. That the body may die but the soul doesn't. That we are reborn. That only the soul which has reached the highest state of consciousness is not reborn. Now this may make sense if the population is dwindling. How do we apply the above belief in a case where our population is increasing? There must be some (thousands of) births every year which didn't exist the year before. Where did the soul of these new births reside earlier?
We also believe in poorva janma palan. That we enjoy or suffer the fruits of what we did in the previous birth. What happened when we were born the 1st time? Or as outlined above, what happens in the life of those souls who are born the 1st time now? There was no poorva janma for them?
And for those people who are going through their 2nd, 3rd etc births we believe that they go through what is accumulated in their account from their previous births - that's what Krishna says in Mahabharata, if I am not mistaken. If what happens in this life is a result of what we did earlier, there really is no free will in this birth. Why are we judged then? Judging people assumes a free will. The only time we had a free will was when we were going through our first birth. And subsequent events carried forward the backlog from one birth to another, with the amount of free will getting reduced. As in "Ass", a card game popular in India, where the person who loses the game carries forward an Ace to the next game. And if he loses the next game, he carries forward two Aces to the 3rd game and so on. Poorva Punya seems to be like the Ace in the card game.
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