Next Birth

My dear Ramu,
You are assuming that in the next birth, you will be born a man or woman. This subject is fascinating and I have got a lot of doubts. Actually, only man is capable of sinning or earning punyam. But they say that the actions of previous seven births will influence your next birth. So, how does one work for redemption. Most of the Mahaans and sages were destined even at birth to become such mahaans, how ? Many of them led unworthy lives early and suddenly God made them great sages. How to explain these things ?
For long, I have felt that what we may be taking with us to the next birth is a part of our knowledge, wisdom, feelings (vasanaas ) and I have thus tried to gain knowledge (which I would like to carry forward) and tried to have good positive thoughts always. I have not gained any knowledge worth mentioning but I have been able to generally have good thoughts and whenever the bad thoughts/emotions surfaced I have consciously tried to overcome them.
One more thing. It seems when a person dies, he is not born immediately. Several years may be spent as Pithrus or something, depending on your earlier Karma.
So, as I said, I have more questions in my mind but we have not reached the level where we can expect to get the answers. Be good and have faith. That is all we can do.
-Ramakrishnan.