Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, Verse 42

Or else he is born into a family of wise Yogis only; verily, a birth such as that is very rare to obtain in this world.

For some, the progress goes even further, landing somewhere specifically set up to keep that same growth going.

This describes an even more favorable version of that continuation, being born into circumstances genuinely suited to picking up spiritual practice again. Nothing about the earlier effort is described as lost, it's described as carried forward, sometimes into exactly the right conditions.