How to achieve punya in our lives and get human birth in next life?

Question

Punya helps a soul to get human birth and get good reward for our action. What are the good karmic acts that a human being can carry out consciously to get huge amount of punya . Also what actions one must carry out to get a human birth in the next life . Also what are some texts and stotras which can be chanted to remove huge bad karmas in ones life ? Thank you.

Answer 1

There's no way to guarantee a future birth as a human as it is said to be extremely rare given the complex laws of Karma.

The scriptures thus state that one must utilize the present human body to attain self-realization.

Garuda Purana (pg 35) II.49.12-21

Passing through four types of bodies in order of their karma and leaving one body after the other a thousand times, taking birth in human form and acquiring knowledge due to good acts one obtains release.

In the eighty four lacs of bodies of creatures one does not acquire true knowledge anywhere unless one is born as man.

Here, after thousands of crores of births a creature obtains human form only sometime due to the aggregate of virtue.

Having obtained a rare human form he should endeavour for moksa. If he does not endeavour for it, there can be no greater sinner in the world.

Punya karmas do not produce the ultimate result if they're performed without cultivation of spiritual knowledge.

In the Bhagavad Gita 9.21, it is stated:

ते तं भुक्त्वा स्वर्गलोकं विशालं
क्षीणे पुण्ये मर्त्यलोकं विशन्ति ।
एवं त्रयीधर्ममनुप्रपन्ना
गतागतं कामकामा लभन्ते ॥ २१ ॥

When they have thus enjoyed vast heavenly sense pleasure and the
results of their pious activities are exhausted, they return to this
mortal planet again. Thus those who seek sense enjoyment by adhering
to the principles of the three Vedas achieve only repeated birth and
death.

On a related note, in the Mahabharata, King Nahusha describes his own life incident to King Yudhiṣṭhira on how he was reborn even after reaching heaven and speaks about the ultimate solution.

“How does the soul accept a material body, O Nahusha?”

“The soul, or atman, receives bodies according to his own behavior. Thus he transmigrates life after life, impelled by his sinful and pious acts, sometimes going to heaven and sometimes moving about in the body of an animal. Final liberation is attained when one comes to know Brahman, the Supreme Absolute.”

Yudhiṣṭhira nodded. The snake’s answers were in accord with what he had learned from the ṛṣis. Clearly Nahusha had deep spiritual realizations. How then had he become a snake?

Nahusha replied, “By sacrifice and asceticism I became so powerful that I coursed through the heavens on a golden chariot. I became emperor of the wide earth and even the Gandharvas, Yakṣas, Rākṣasas, and all the inhabitants of the three worlds--even the ṛṣis--payed me taxes. Such was my power that I withdrew the energy of anyone simply by looking at them. Then my pride overwhelmed me and I lost my good sense. My knowledge became covered by the ignorance born of pride. I ordered the Brahmin sages to draw my chariot and thus offended them.

“One day while in heaven, I touched Agastya Ṛṣi with my foot. The sage cursed me and I fell to earth, my body changing into that of a serpent.

“In accord with Agastya’s words, however, you have now freed me from that curse. My discussion with you has reawakened my knowledge. I now realize that my real interest lies in cultivating Brahminical qualities and spiritual knowledge, not in material status or opulence.”

To be freed of all kinds of Karmas, the Vaishnavas constantly chant the Holy Names of Lord Krishna (or Vishnu) while remembering His divine form.

Salutations to that Supreme Lord Vishnu whose mere remembrance frees one from the cycle of birth and death. Salutations to that all-powerful Vishnu, Who is signified by the Pranava (Omkara). ~ Vishnu Sahasranama.