With this post we conclude the series on the philosophy of capacity. In the previous post, Hazrat Inayat Khan speaks of vibration, and makes reference to the rhythms of sattva, rajas and tamas.
The three rhythms mentioned above may also be called mobile, regular, and irregular. It is because of them that manifestation has various forms, qualities, colors and features. The rhythm which is mobile goes straight; the rhythm which is regular strikes right and left, the first forming the perpendicular line the next a horizontal line; and the third is destructive, it is zigzag or irregular. This can also be seen when one examines one’s breath: the breath which is flowing through the right nostril gives power; when it flows through the left nostril it takes that power away; and when it flows through both nostrils at the same time, its flow causes destruction.
What was there before creation? Was there stillness or was there motion? As far as science can reach it finds that there is motion behind it all. This is true; for what we call stillness is in reality an imperceptible motion. That is why mountains can exist, and trees can live, and man can act, and animals can move by the power of movement, vibration. Their health, their joy, their sorrow, and their destruction are all caused by a quicker speed, a slower speed, or a particular activity of these vibrations. Disease and health both depend upon the law of vibrations.
A diamond is bright because it is vibrating; it is the vibration of the diamond which makes it brilliant. And so it is with the brilliant person whose intelligence is vibrating; according to the rhythm of its vibration the intelligence is capable of understanding. One will always see that it is the brilliant person who understands more quickly, more deeply, and better; and it is the one who is not brilliant who takes time to understand.
In conclusion we arrive at the understanding that the whole phenomenon is a phenomenon of capacity, and according to that capacity all that it contains is formed. As each thing or being vibrates, it acts in accordance with the capacity, and the results are in accordance with this capacity too. We ourselves are also akashas, and in our akasha we get the resonance of our rhythm. This resonance is like the feeling that we have when we are tired, depressed, joyous, or strengthened. All these different conditions which we feel, it is our akasha that feels them; and what causes this is our rhythm.
Every word, once it is spoken, every deed that is done, every sentiment felt is recorded somewhere; it has not gone, it is not lost. We do not see it because it is not always recorded on the ground. If a seed is sown in the ground, it is recorded in the ground; it comes out in big letters proving ‘I am an apple tree,’ ‘I am a rose bush.’ But when something is thrown into space, space does not lose it either. It has received it and it holds it; and it shows it to those who can build a capacity around the space and get its reflection in that capacity. There is a capacity which is the whole of life; in fact everything is a recording capacity; but then there is a reading capacity, and that we have to make ourselves. We must be able to make a capacity in order to read what is written there. In the Quran it is said, ‘Their hands shall speak and their feet shall bear witness to their deeds,’ which means the same thing: that everything is recorded, written down. When a thief comes from the house where he has stolen something, he may have dug a hole in the ground and buried his spoils and appear with nothing in his hands, yet there is something written on his face about what he has done. It is written, he cannot efface it; and those who can read will read it. Nothing of what we say, do, or think is lost; it is recorded somewhere, if we only know how to read it.