Rhythmical Living

Wisdom Teachings
Fundamentals of Spiritual Life

When you observe Nature, you will recognize that there is system and rhythm. The activity of Nature is exactly predictable, the degree of unpredictability is quite small: The coming of the seasons, the growth of fauna and flora, the movement of the planets around the sun as well as around themselves and also the movement of the sun around a central sun – all of them have a rhythm and a periodicity, which are followed by Nature. Therefore the entire creation remains in balance.

We too gain balance when we develop a good rhythm and a system in our lives. Rhythm leads to the manifestation of electromagnetic currents. This makes us magnetic and causes a realignment of our inner lines of force: The magnetic currents which previously have been blocked begin to flow. Through the orderly structure of the atoms an iron piece becomes a magnet. Thus it also can magnetize other iron pieces in its surrounding. He who is filled with the awareness of the Divine inspires and magnetises his surroundings through his eyes, his touch and through his word. The invocation and visualisation of a master in meditation also magnetises. It is as if you invoke a magnet and you get charged by the energy to be able to work for your fellow beings.

When the rhythm gets disturbed this affects the flow of life force, of prana. This is the cause of disease, decay and death. Through the rhythmic activity of the soul healing happens. Healing is a process that removes the obstacles to the free flow of soul energy. Rhythm also eliminates the blockages such as fatigue and conflict. Fatigue is common at daily work. Interestedness, humour and patience are antidotes to fatigue. Unless we have a keen interest in our duties, the daily routine becomes a dead thing. We are captivated by habits and become negligent. Also meditation and prayer done as a matter of routine don’t bring freshness. Every day Nature offers something new. If we can see that which is new and comes to us on a daily basis in the same routine, we have transformed it into a ritual. Routine is circular and remains at a place, rhythm is spiralic in its movement. The free, rhythmic flow of energy uplifts and unfolds consciousness.

Rhythm helps us to organise the material activity of life and set up a continuous spiritual practice. In every aspect of life there must be a rhythm: At work, at rest, with meals. With prayers, meditation and study. All main activities of our lives must be rhythmical. The energy of the seventh ray of rhythmical order is called Svaraj in the East, meaning “self-governing”. Therefore the first step on the way of initiation is to govern ourselves and also to allow others to govern themselves, however not to permit them to govern us. If we take up a rhythm and follow it for long years – for example by meditating daily in the morning and evening at the same time – then the seventh ray confers, as Master Djwhal Khul says, “surprising magical results”.

Most people don’t organise well their day-to-day lives, they let themselves guide by the outside. The outer life generates so many programs for engagements which drive us away from the inner life. We have developed such a system in the outer that we get imprisoned by it. Organising the life in terms of economics, family and social is necessary, but up to which extent? The wisdom teachings say that on the basis of a moderate economic and social, family and personal life spirituality rises as a pyramid over the quadrangle.

As long as we don’t have the right rhythm in outer life, we cannot meditate. Maybe we sit down in the morning and evening, but our mind goes to outer things. It re-calls the incidents and conversations of the day which we had with people. Even if we bring the mind back from time to time, at once it goes out again. Many are not steady with their exercises, because the life situations often hinder the practice. In general also our body, our tongue (eating/speaking) and our mind don’t accept the rhythm recommended for spiritual practice, since they have the habit not to have a rhythm. The personality overwhelms us with ease. In so far as we succeed in fulfilling our duties and responsibilities, we are allowed to go inside.

When we try to take up a new rhythm, it is a fact that we much more often fail than succeed, because the power of the old rhythm opposes us. Let us laugh or smile our failures off. Above all let us not try to see the causes for them in the outside: All causes are only in-side. Each one should go by his own rhythm and follow it like a ritual. What we think is right is not necessarily that which the other considers to be right. We should understand and respect it without commenting. We should remember this, when we want to help some-body to live in the right way. No man can help another person who doesn’t help himself to take up a new rhythm.

If we have the intention to exercise a rhythm, the work with breathing will help us. To link ourselves with the breath is the direct way from the personality to reach the soul. The soul breathes and the forms live thereby. The rhythmic pulsation is the music of the soul. When we turn to the breathing, we deal with one effect of the soul and thus slowly come closer to it. When we observe the respiration and restore it to a rhythm, our life too gains a rhythmical aspect. Conscious breathing leads to the alignment of the mind with the respiration and helps to detach it from objectivity. Rhythm and a detached attitude towards the worldly actions are the fundamental requirements to work with breathing. The respiration is attacked by our emotionally coloured thoughts: When we are irritated or over-active, or when we are anxious, these are all qualities belonging to the concrete mind and disturbing the rhythm of breathing. When we are quiet mentally, the breathing calms down and gradually we reach a state in which there is no more respiration, only the subtle pulsation as the breath of the soul.

It is recommended to breathe consciously during the time of sunrise and sunset, always about 27 times (3 x 3 x 3). During this the respiration should be conscious, slow, soft, deep and uniform. This increases the resistance against disease and has remarkable effects on health: Via the vital body life force is brought in, the blood is enriched with oxygen and our life is suffused with spiritual energy. In an advanced stage, when mind and respiration are consciously united, we realise that we are active as consciousness and as life aspect, which come together in the heart. When we can identify our-selves with the soul and its breathing, we associate ourselves through continuity in rhythm with the Cosmic Will and thus also live beyond death: The pulsation of the soul is beyond the functioning of the mind and continues even when we go away from the body: The body is put into the grave or burned, we however go away from the physical plane together with the pulsation.

All rhythms and rituals finally aim at transforming the matter of our body in a natural way in order to enable a faster development. For this we need rhythm in our daily lives, a detached attitude and a sense of offering and sacrificing. Our body is the temple in which the soul lives, the place of the holy ritual. The more we sacrifice in service to our co-beings – in terms of time, money, life energy – the more we get liberated from the personality and can enter into the temple of the heart. Thus ritual and rhythm work as sacrament to change and extend the nature of man.

Sources used: K.P. Kumar: Hercules / Venus / seminar notes - E. Krishnamacharya: Book of Rituals- The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India. A. A. Bailey: White Magic, Lucis-Trust, London. (www.netnews.org / www.lucistrust.org).