A number of recent posts have touched on the word ‘rhythm’.  As Hazrat Inayat Khan explains here and here,  it is an important theme for those travelling the Sufi path.  It is also illustrated in the Sufi story recorded here. But what can we understand by this word?

In the world of music there is a different between rhythm and tempo.  Tempo refers to the speed at which music is played. A Western musical score typically shows at the beginning a quarter note and a numerical value, meaning how many quarter notes should sound in a minute; the higher the number, the more rapid the tempo.  Rhythm has to do with repeating patterns; everyone is familiar with the rhythm of the waltz: strong–weak-weak strong-weak-weak, and so on.  Indian music has much more complex rhythmic patterns; sixteen beats is a common rhythm, and the beats themselves are more than simply strong or weak.

But although he was a musician by nature, Hazrat Inayat’s use of the word is more than strictly musical. He mentions, for example, the Hindu terms, sativa, rajas and tamas. In yogic teaching, these represent qualities of manifestation, but Hazrat Inayat recognises them as degrees of vibration.  All manifestation implies movement arising from the Unseen, which produces vibration, and the rate of vibration results in qualities, just as different rates of vibration produce different musical tones, or different colours of light.  Sattva, the finest and most subtle rate of vibration, is associated with peace and tranquility, or in yogic terms, ‘being-ness.’  Rajas is a more active vibration, associated with energy, action and change; it is progressive and purposeful, but in this vibration we are strongly attached to the consequences of our actions.  Tamas is heavy, intense, and material; it is associated with ignorance, darkness and with chaos.

We may have a better understanding of this if we consider that the word ‘rhythm’ originates from a Greek word meaning ‘flow.’  A musical composition (or some poetry)  maintains its flow by the repetition of a pattern of beats. But a rapidly running stream has a rhythm too, although it repeats nothing of its song as it hurries down a hillside.  And different again is the majestic, meditative rhythm of a great river as it approaches its union with the sea.

By self-discipline and attention we can learn to alter our rhythm, but we cannot fake it.  Hazrat Inayat Khan walked with what he himself called a ‘kingly’ rhythm, and he would not alter it, even to hurry for a departing train.  He was not attached to the consequences of his actions; he walked in the consciousness of the One.