There are certain activities – dancing is an example – in which it is not only what we do that is important but how we do it. If the choreography asks the dancer to touch the feet of the deity in a salutation, the same movement may be done mechanically, as a meaningless gesture, or with presence, tenderness and respect. Only the second example will inspire the audience and tune them for what follows.

We find the same in our daily life: we may wish to cross through a room full of people, and the same crossing may be done in haste, without regard for those present, or it may be done more quietly, with awareness of those we pass. In the first case, our rush could cause offence, and even damage friendships, whereas the more quiet passage could bring happiness and make new friends. Therefore, the rhythms of life have significance.

Hazrat Inayat Khan spoke in a number of lectures about the rhythms of life using the Sanskrit terms sattva, rajas and tamas, and showing how these may be observed in our mind, for example, and in our breath. A tale told by Sri Ramakrishna illustrates these grades of activity very well. The story says that a person is lost in a dense forest, trying to find his way home, when he is captured by a band of three robbers. The robbers take everything the person has, tie him to a tree, and then begin to debate among themselves what to do with him. One robber says, “Let’s kill him!” but the second robber says, “No, we don’t need to kill him. We can just leave him tied to the tree.” After much discussion they decide to do this, and the three go off into the forest, leaving the poor victim helpless. But later, the third robber comes back and unties the person, saying, “Don’t be afraid, I will help you.” Then he leads the person through the thick woods until at last they come to the edge. “Now,” says the robber, “you can see more clearly. Keep going in that direction, and you will find your home.” The person thanks the robber, and says, “But you have been kind to me, please come with me.” “No,” says the third robber, “I cannot go to your home, I can only show you the way. You must go on alone.”

The first robber represents the dense, earthbound, destructive energy of tamas. There is no balance in tamas, and so with nothing to hold it back, it accelerates unchecked until the whole mechanism chaotically flies apart, breaking everything in its sphere. The second robber represents rajas, an active energy which has some degree of balance. Because the energy is to some extent contained, the rajas rhythm is able to accomplish goals. The results may be mixed – perhaps good, perhaps bad – but the bad will not be as destructive as in the case of tamas. The third robber represents sattva, the peaceful energy that shows us the way to our home.

It is very helpful to study our life – our thoughts, feelings and actions and also those with whom we keep company and our environment – to see if we can recognize which rhythm might be active at a given moment. In every case, the rhythm of tamas, which we may feel as noisiness and chaos but also as heaviness, laziness and inertia, should be avoided, but once we are overtaken by this rhythm it requires will power to alter.

We might wonder though, if the sattva rhythm is so uplifting, why the story includes it in the band of robbers? The clue is in the last part of the story, in which the figure of sattva tells the person that it is unable to go to his home. All three of the rhythms move and act in the world of manifestation, and the spiritual goal, the home from which we have come and to which we will return, lies further on. For this reason, the peace that the sattvic rhythm gives can bring us to the frontier of our daily life, to the place where the realm of meditation starts, but it cannot go further. Then, to continue on, the forgetting of the self and the help of the Divine are necessary. That is the meaning of this saying in Vadan Ragas. A verse that details all the frustrations and disappointments of a search in which the Divine Presence seems so elusive concludes with these lines:
When I started in Thy pursuit,
Thou didst move away from me still farther.
When I called Thee aloud in my distress,
Thou didst not hear my soul’s bitter cry.
Cross-legged I sat in silence;
then alone I heard Thy call.