In the Vedic view, the soul is indivisible — it cannot be portioned out across lives. What changes between incarnations is not the atman itself, but the garments it wears: each life is a distinct body-mind, with its own name, memories, and personality. When the body ends, that personality dissolves, much as the shape of a flame disappears when its wick is spent. What continues is not the person, but the impressions — the samskaras, the karmic residue that life cultivated. So in the higher realms, we do not encounter our past selves as separate beings, because those selves no longer exist as coherent entities. What returns to Earth is likewise not a fragment of soul, but a karmic seed seeking its next expression. Heaven holds the accounting; Earth holds the sowing. The soul itself remains one, whole, quietly witnessing both.
In the Vedic view, the soul is indivisible — it cannot be portioned out across lives. What changes between incarnations is not the atman itself, but the garments it wears: each life is a distinct body-mind, with its own name, memories, and personality. When the body ends, that personality dissolves, much as the shape of a flame disappears when its wick is spent. What continues is not the person, but the impressions — the samskaras, the karmic residue that life cultivated. So in the higher realms, we do not encounter our past selves as separate beings, because those selves no longer exist as coherent entities. What returns to Earth is likewise not a fragment of soul, but a karmic seed seeking its next expression. Heaven holds the accounting; Earth holds the sowing. The soul itself remains one, whole, quietly witnessing both.
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