It is quite untrue to say that we are created by our environment. It is true to say that we are conditioned, assisted, or retarded by our environment, but it is only a half-truth. We bear within ourselves a consciousness which, at several points and in different attributes, is independent of and sometimes quite opposed to all environmental suggestions. For, from the first day on earth, we possess in latency certain likes and dislikes, aptitudes along one line of thought and action rather than along others, whose sum, as they disclose themselves and then develop themselves, constitutes our personality. Of course, such a process necessarily takes time. Biological heredity contributes something quite definite toward this result but former incarnations contribute much more.
-- Notebooks Category 9: From Birth to Rebirth > Chapter 3 : Laws and Patterns of Experience > # 376
