Power of Inborn Tendencies

 YOUNG MAN: "If the world is of the nature of illusion-magic-then why doesn't one get rid of it?"

MASTER: "It is due to the samskaras, inborn tendencies. Repeated births in this world of māyā make one believe that māyā is real. 

"Let me tell you how powerful inborn tendencies are. A prince had, in a previous birth, been the son of a washerman. While playing with his chums in his incarnation as the prince, he said to them: 'Stop those games. I will show you a new one. I shall lie on my belly, and you will beat the clothes on my back as the washerman does, making a swishing sound.'"  

                                    - Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 585 (02 October 1884)