All living beings must live in harmony in order to have any happiness or sense of peace. That the world today is lacking this harmonious rhythm is a warning in it self that there are great cataclysmic changes soon to come on our planet earth. One who can bring harmony into balance in all things can understand the meaning to life, one who cannot remains a fool despite any acquired material knowledge. Humans become attracted by two opposites in the search for harmony. One is the direction of godliness and spiritual life, the other towards material life in the form of matter. By moving further towards the material we lose sight and remembrance of the spiritual. It is only when we bring ourselves into harmony with the will of the Supreme that our own harmony is ultimately realized.
There is harmony in God’s creation between land and water, the sun and the moon and between the stars and planets. They are all connected and moving in a universal harmony. There is a purpose and reason for all things moving and non-moving. Even the calamities of earth’s past (as well as those to come in the future) regardless of how awful they may seem to us, are simply an adjustment to restore universal harmony. There are individual as well as collective karmas between us due to thoughts, words and deeds created in ignorance and these negatives destroy harmony, thereby necessitating nature’s intervention. Were all people to adhere to God’s laws, the laws of nature, there would always be universal harmony within the world.
There is universal harmony, which we have been speaking of, and there is an eternal harmony, known only once we are purified of material designations and situated on the plane of transcendence. There is also a harmony we must maintain individually between our own body and soul and one to be maintained between us as separate individuals. Most people today are completely unaware of the actual needs of the soul, but are engaged in an endless struggle to obtain flickering material happiness of the body. This is never fulfilled. The more a person struggles to become materially comfortable, the more dissatisfied he becomes. Not able to see beneath the dictates of the mind he thinks this dissatisfaction is due to some other unfulfilled material desire and thus it is an endless struggle of frustration upon frustration. One desire begets another and on and on. It is like pouring gasoline on a fire to put it out. Attempting to satisfy the sensual cravings of the physical body only increases the fire of material desire. Acting in this way there is never an end to it, nor ever satiation of further material (bodily) desire.
To have harmony between body and soul we human beings must strive to learn love. If we watch each thought we think, each word we say and each action we perform, striving to bring them to a higher level, then the ultimate outcome of this effort will be peace and wisdom. The eternal soul’s desires are what are important, not the temporary illusory desires born of the body. To have harmony the bodily desires must be brought to subservience to those of the soul.
To have harmony between ourselves and others the blindness of false egoism must be removed. This is what makes us look at everything through the eyes of self-interest and judge everything in relation to ourselves. We become unable to see our own faults, much less do anything about them, and are then also unable to see the good qualities and merits of others. Until we can become free from the spell of illusion (maya) we can never have harmony and peace within ourselves or between each other.
It is possible to see gradations of harmony within man, birds, and beasts. The lions and tigers are always restless and welcome no outsiders to their homes, although they are of the same species. All other forest animals live in fear of them due to their severely passionate nature. Animals that live on herbs and grasses such as cows, sheep, or goats live in herds due to greater harmony between them. They do not harm one another, but are sympathetic toward one another. This makes them share harmony, but also makes them vulnerable to other wild animals. Birds have a great harmony in that many of them, even different species, can live together in one tree. Many insects such as the ants or bees can also be seen living and working in harmony. Many tribal and aboriginal people's of the world lived together in harmony and with empathy for the world around them. The American aboriginals, known as the American Indians, are an example of a people who valued harmony with nature, rather than the modern values of accumulation and waste.
Then there is tone and rhythm. Just as in music rhythm and harmony can be learned, so it is with our own lives. We must learn to distinguish tones within words and thus their hidden meanings. How else to distinguish the truth from a lie, sarcasm from sincerity, admiration from flattery, modesty from humility, arrogance from pride, whether they are directly or indirectly expressed? The rhythm is the balance between speech and action. One must speak at the proper time otherwise it is better to keep silent. We smile in rhythm and harmony when a person laughs, offer a sympathetic word in the face of another’s grief and so on. In all arenas of life there is a certain harmony and rhythm at the heart of it all.
Source: http://www.vedicworld.org/in-perfect-coexistence-the-harmony-rhythm-of-life/
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