By nature our consciousness is very clean like clean water, and clean water has three very important qualities: sweet taste, it’s calm, it reflects the environment. In the same way, when our consciousness is very clean it is peaceful – santatvam. When tamo-guna influences our consciousness it becomes dull. When your mind is agitated, you think about different subject matters, except Krisna. It’s a result of the influence of rajo-guna on our consciousness. When we are very concentrated, sober and composed it’s the result of sattva-guna influence.

The next natural quality of our consciousness is avikaritvam or happiness and satisfaction, but there are a lot of negative emotions, which we experience. They are not natural for the consciousness, they are the result of a change in the quality of consciousness.

In our natural state of consciousness we don’t experience grief, lamentation, desperation. If they are coming to us, it’s a sign that there is some impurity in our mind.

The most important quality of our consciousness is svachatvam or purity, the ability to reflect the environment properly. Svachatvam means that your consciousness in its natural state reflects the image of God.

If during chanting of the Holy name those qualities don’t manifest in our consciousness it means that we are doing something wrong. The reason why consciousness becomes unclean is our contact with material nature, especially with rajo-guna and tamo-guna. So, we should chant the Holy name and try to avoid contact with the lower energies of material nature. As a result very soon we will experience peacefulness, happiness and the sense that God is there with me and He is pushing me towards Himself.

Our problem is that we are used to being agitated, therefore we should remember that this is not our normal state of consciousness. If we notice that it becomes agitated, we should come back.

Questions.