If a soul has had many successive incarnations in the East and then takes an incarnation in the West, it carries with it the impressions of its lives in the East; and though living in the West, it leads a life essentially in conformity with the Eastern pattern. If a soul has had many successive incarnations in the West and then takes an incarnation in the East, it carries with it the impressions of its lives in the West; and though living in the East, it leads a life that is in conformity with the Western pattern. Sometimes one may thus have, for example, a European soul in an Indian form or an Indian soul in European form. It must be borne in mind that this distinction is only relative to past incarnations and sanskaras, and that the soul as such is beyond such distinctions.
-Discourses 7th Ed., p321