KYBALION The Principle of Rhythm
- Everything IFS
- 2 days ago
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Updated: 2 days ago
Principle 5: The Principle of Rhythm
“Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.” — The Kybalion (1908)
A Journey Through the Law of Sacred Pulse
There is a pulse beneath all things. A swing that governs the cosmos, a silent pendulum moving between opposites left and right, up and down, birth and death, joy and sorrow.
This is not metaphor.
This is Rhythm unseen but relentless.
The tide that pulls all of creation forward, backward, and forward again.
And like the other Hermetic Principles, Rhythm is not merely cosmic.
It lives in your body.
It pulses in your nervous system.
It animates your moods, your cravings, your fears, your hopes.
The Kybalion teaches that the swing is universal. And it says something more: compensation is built into it.
What rises must fall.
What falls must rise.
The further the arc one way, the stronger the return.
This is not punishment
It is balance.
It is the cosmic correction that ensures nothing stays too high for too long or too low.
What This Isn’t Saying
This isn’t karma in the tit-for-tat sense.
You are not punished for joy or rewarded for pain. Rhythm is subtler. It is not retribution. It is pattern.
This principle doesn’t ask you to fear happiness, expecting suffering to “balance” it.
It asks you to expect movement. To remember that no state is permanent.
Not your sorrow. Not your numbness. Not your ecstasy.
All of it will move. Because all of it is part of the arc.
A Mercy, Not a Curse
At first, this teaching can feel defeating.
Like joy is doomed, like peace is a tease.
But the Principle of Rhythm is not cruel.
It is the law that makes trauma survivable. The law that ensures even your deepest despair is temporary.
Rhythm is the reason the worst moment of your life did not last forever. And it is the reason your best moments can return again and again on a different swing.
It is the great equalizer of extremes.
The more we resist it, the more we suffer. The more we accept its dance, the more gracefully we move.
Transcending the Swing?
The Kybalion offers a mystery:
It says that advanced souls those who study Rhythm, who understand its sway can rise above the swing. Not by stopping it. But by stepping into the part of themselves that remains unmoved.
The Self beneath the moods. The still point inside the swing. The “I” that watches the pendulum but is not the pendulum.
That is transcendence not escape, but stable witnessing.
Not dissociation. Not detachment. But a rooted awareness that says:
“Yes, sorrow has returned. But I am more than this moment.”
“Yes, joy has lifted me. But I am not enslaved to its presence.”
This is not indifference. It is inner anchoring.
A Parts Work Reflection
Bring this principle close.
Let it sit beside you not to convince, but to companion.
Ask gently:
Is there a part of me that fears the swing?
A part that believes joy is dangerous because sorrow always follows?
Is there a part that clings to peace, terrified it will vanish?
Is there a part that feels trapped in cycles of up and down, unable to trust anything stable?
Or is there a wise part that knows how to ride the wave—softening, swaying, not bracing?
Let them speak. Don’t force harmony. Just let them be heard.
Even your resistance is rhythmic. Even your clinging is a swing.
All of it belongs.
Closing Thought
Rhythm is not your enemy.
It is the heartbeat of the cosmos the inhale and exhale of Divine Mind.
And even now, whether you are rising, falling, or floating somewhere in between, you are not outside the arc.
You are in it,
held by it.
Not as punishment.
Not as a lesson.
But as part of the sacred dance.
The swing may never stop.
But the One who watches it The “I” behind the rhythm, that One is still.
And you are That. You always were.
⭐ Continue the Journey Through the Seven Hermetic Principles
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