321. Purely day-conscious memories are thus of little importance as proof of the living being's reincarnation and eternal existence. They constitute no more than a recognition by that being of the superficial tones of the experiences within the area of day-conscious life. So the memories are expressing the purely passing colours, vibrations and reactions of experiences. But these are only of local importance, in that they are of interest to the being only at the moment of experiencing them. And those superficial tones in themselves have no significance in a new physical life. The important factor here is exclusively the conversion of former experiences into talents, abilities and characteristics of consciousness.
      Whatever skills an individual acquires and everything he makes a habit of consciousness in one life will consequently influence the creation of his new physical body and his new existence. Here he will experience these skills and tendencies as innate abilities and talents, that is to say as characteristics of consciousness, in so far as he has cultivated them as habits in previous lives. What is important in the present life is not a question of a day-conscious mental recollection of the details of things the individual did in a former life, but on the contrary, it is a question of what effects those activities have caused in his present life – what possibilities or limitations have been carried over into his fate of today. The most important thing is that he brings over the results of his efforts in previous lives into his present life, in the form of talents and skills. It is of no importance that he cannot remember the many tears, sorrows and worries his efforts cost him in that former existence. And if those efforts have brought about harmful aptitudes, inclinations and vices that are carried with him as the result of excesses he practised in a former life, then indeed, the individual in question will have enough to do in this life by making his mind and nervous system able to stand the recollection of the resulting unhappy fate he has at present. Are not the many nervous breakdowns and mental disorders in evidence nowadays more than sufficient proof that in such cases people's memories of the present life have already been so heavy a burden that it has far exceeded the mental endurance of the individuals in question? Why should such people have additional dark and dismal memories? Is it not, in fact, a blessing that such memories are lost in the obscurity of the past? And this blessing is so much the greater in that such past memories could not in any way alter the individual's present suffering. What is done cannot be undone. Wrong actions can but be regretted. Besides, ordinary daily life has abundant means of producing tears. To weep about memories from former lives would be wholly superfluous and Nature or Providence does not use methods or principles which create the superfluous.