NEO Magazine Issue 3 | Page 29

h dhanesvara das healer, social economist, spiritual teacher, speaker and monk Consciousness is at the root of everything that we do. It is consciousness that determines whether we will establish an economy that exploits people or serves them. It is consciousness that determines whether to exploit commodity markets for profit at the cost of widespread suffering. It is consciousness that determines whether we solve our differences with violence or mutual respect and discussion. Every one of our actions is determined by our consciousness, therefore to understand consciousness and how it is affected is imperative to creating a good and proper civilization, a NewEarth Nation. Reincarnating lifetime after lifetime, for thousands and millions of incarnations has made each of us who we are. The impressions of each life, or samskaras, are carried with us from one life to the next, and thus we show our unique personalities from the beginning of infancy. Our personalities are formed by the experiences we’ve had, the people we’ve been with, and the activities we’ve engaged in. We are, in one sense, the sum total of our experiences, and this is expressed as our consciousness. As we all know our experiences make different impressions on us ~ some uplifting us and fostering our growth ~ while others bring darkness, despair and even destruction. The variety of these effects have been classified by the ancients according to their influence, under the heading of gunas, and are explained in spiritual texts of the Vedas. Guna is a Sanskrit word that I translate as “consciousness determinants” as the gunas influence our consciousness. The word itself however is translated in many ways. One translation is ‘ropes’, a word chosen for the nature of these influences. Just as a person tied with ropes is controlled by them, the gunas are unseen and unfelt influences that exert strong influences on consciousness, almost forcing us to act in predictable ways, ways that we have become accustomed to. Other translations are ‘quality’, ‘attribute’, or ‘property’ of all created things. The gunas are a subtle action of nature that operate not on the physical aspects of nature, but on consciousness. Like electromagnetic energies, they are ever-present and imperceptible, constantly exerting their influences on our choices, behaviours,