According to Shrimad Bhagwatam there are 84 lakh species in which a soul travels & it travels in a specific order. Soul gets a body of all species of trees, later Water creature, birds, land animals....the second last birth is of Cow and atlast enters a human body. Many souls keeps incarnating in a human body due to unfinished desires at the time of death. Babies got this habit of putting anything they get in their mouth due to past lives practice. Soul in non human bodies does all work with mouth, let it be a Cat, Dog, bird, etc eating, picking up their babies, fight...all is done mostly with mouth and this habit of putting things in mouth can be seen in babies which are not been thought by parents, they know it since birth.....there are kids who get this habit of robbing small things like pencil, eraser etc from their school...these are symptoms of past life in which that person was robber until death and this habit of robbing is still been remembered due to past life influence, their jivatma/minute soul forces them to do so even in present life. We all must have experienced one thing in our lives, there are few people whom we hate at first site and whom we love and respect at first site, these attachments and hate has nothing to do with that person in present life but our attachments with those jivatma in our past lives. Garud Puran says - After having paid for some of his sins in naraka (hell), a sinner is born again to pay for whatever has still not been accounted for. The killer of a brahmana is first born as a dog, then progressively as a camel, a donkey, a frog and an owl. A stealer of gold is born as a worm or as an insect. The killer of a brahmana may also have tuberculosis, while the stealer of gold may have misshapen teeth. A person who steals food starves in his next life. A liar becomes dumb in his next life. A stealer of oil is born as a cockroach and a stealer of green vegetables as a peacock. If you steal fragrant substances, you will be born as a mole and if you steal food grains, you will born as a rat. A stealer of fruits is born as monkey, a stealer of animal as a goat, a stealer of milk as a crow, a stealer of meat as a vulture and a stealer of salt gets only torn clothes to wear in his next life. Each receives in accordance with what each deserves. After taking birth in these species the soul may not or may jump directly to a human specie & would once again get a chance to understand the reason of human birth to practice spirituality & attain moksha, if not....the soul keeps traveling and as we are traveling from one body to another since the birth of Brahmaji who created us. Age of our Universe is approximately - 156,301,507,537.6884422 Earth years which is also the age of Brahmaji The Creator and the age of his creation more or less is ours (immortal soul) age too within this Universe. ||HaRe KriShnA|| Via haval Yash Das
The nature of a soul's evolution, and how it goes through lifetimes in which bodies, etc., varies from sect to sect. Not all sects believe in the lower births like worms and insects. As with most everything else in Hinduism regarding the variation of beliefs, so too with this.
Yes past lives influences our present life. The Actions and deeds (karma) done by us in our past lives can affect our present life because whatever we do will come back to us at some point of time either sooner or later but definitely. So Sometimes we get the reactions of our action in the same life and sometimes in next upcoming lives like we see that someone is born blind or without hands, someone is killed in road accident etc.
