There exists a certain rhythm that needs to be discovered, sensed, and accepted. Again I use the analogy of the sea. Ebb and flow function according to a very specific rhythm, a rhythm that has been established under higher orders. This rhythm is never broken. Only when specific upheavals, like earthquakes, tidal waves, or human destructive measures interfere is the rhythm temporarily disrupted. The sea is in crisis, as it were, but even this crisis conspires to reestablish its unique rhythm, its harmony with the rest of creation. The sea has the wisdom to follow this pattern. Man, with his often disruptive mind, makes himself too often insensitive to his unique rhythm pattern with which he needs to be in harmony.

“So when you seek connections between event and your inner person, when you work for recognition of it and pray for help and the answer still fails to come, then you may be out of rhythm. You may have to use this waiting time to learn certain qualities within yourself that can only be learned in the time of ebb, never in the time of flow. The time element of ebb and flow of the sea, high tide and low tide, never coordinate exactly in equal time slots. Mostly one lasts longer than the other, if measured with earthly time. Often these time relationships change. It is the same way with the human being’s rhythm. The time of fruition may come sooner in some areas, the time of waiting may last longer in other areas.

“Sense your rhythm in all things. Feel your daily life in accordance with your personal universal rhythm pattern. It exists as definitively as you carry your life pattern within your soul substance. If you work, rest, play, live, move, and have your being in harmony with your unique rhythm pattern, you will live a much more fruitful, creative, joyful, and peaceful life. So much harassment and restlessness will fall off your burdened shoulders. This requires, again, a specifically raised consciousness to this phenomenon. You need to think about this concept, to begin with. You need to meditate that it exists. You need to stir up your imagination and feel into how it would feel to live a day in rhythm, as contrasted with your usual unconscious rhythmless existence. Once you can visualize this difference, you can concentrate daily on it and ask your personal guidance to help you to focus on it and stay increasingly in your rhythm pattern.

“When a painful personal event seems utterly disconnected from any personal cause or meaning after a comparatively long time of search and work, something in your rhythm pattern demands that you accept this as a rhythmic phenomenon. True, the rhythmic phenomenon is also determined by consciousness, that is, by underlying causes existing within the particular consciousness. But only when the rhythm pattern is respected, accepted, adhered to, and utilized in the most constructive way, will the rhythm be able to flow without disturbance and take its natural course. Doubt, rebellion, anger, belief in a meaningless universe that makes you suffer, are all destructive responses to the rhythm pattern that takes place, thereby delaying its natural flow. Equally disruptive is the self-rejecting attitude ‘I am so bad that I deserve to be punished this way.’

“You all know, you have all learned on this path, what a constructive response is. ‘What can I learn here? What could my response to this seeming delay be that would most further my development? If there is anything in my lower self that I am not yet aware of or not sufficiently connected with, I want to fully see it, yet never lose sight of the fact that I am loved by God and am His unique expression.’ These are positive responses that will further the rhythm to take its harmonious course. Then in its own time, often when you perhaps least expect it, new connections will open up and sometimes pour out with such rich profusion that suddenly all woe will disappear, and the former suffering will turn into the blessing it could always be made of.

“Again I say that personal contact with Jesus Christ will help you to live in this harmony and to make all the necessary connections. But here, too, the rhythm pattern is at work. You may be mentally completely reconciled to His reality. You may have used your personal will to make this total surrender, and you may sincerely mean it. Yet you may not have experienced the emotional reality of His sweet and loving presence. You may wait and wait for this to happen. Often man becomes impatient and then begins to doubt. He thus disrupts the plant he has sown. When the emotional experience fails to materialize for a while, it is not that He keeps you waiting. It is that your inner barriers need to give way. And that can happen only within the context of your unique, personal rhythm pattern. Remember that and do not despair. Christ is here, He hears you, He loves you, He protects you, He is deeply concerned with you even though our senses are still too dull to perceive it. But suddenly the time will come when you will be intensely aware of this fact. You will feel His loving, healing arms in which you can always rest and find new sustenance for your life task.” (PL #258)