WHAT IS HARMONY?
Harmony is defined as a state of peaceful existence and
agreement. It may be among the members of any kind of party, faith, ideology, school
of thought, institution, or society.
In music, it stands for the way in which different notes that
are played or sung together combine to make a pleasing sound.
Some synonymous of harmony are : agreement, co-operation,
unity, friendship, sympathy, like-mindedness, fellowship or peacefulness.
Indian
professor of musicology, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the west, Hazrat Inayat Khan (5 July 1882 – 5 Feb 1927)
says harmony is that which makes beauty. Beauty in itself has no meaning. He adds that harmony is a combination of
colours. It is in the drawing of a design on a line. A word , a thought, a feeling, or an action
which is productive of beauty represents harmony.
Quoting the words of Lord Christ, ‘Resist no evil’, Hazrat Inayat
Khan calls them a hint not to respond to inharmony. For instance a word of
kindness, of sympathy, or an action of love and affection, finds response, but
a word of insult, an action of revolt or of hatred , creates a response too,
and that response creates still more inharmony in the world.
Answering the question what causes inharmony in a person, Hazrat
Inayat Khan says “weakness” . Physical
weakness or mental weakness, but it is always weakness. Very often , therefore,
one finds that bodily illness causes disharmony and inharmonious tendencies.
Finally, Hazrat Inayat Khan finds the cause of every
discomfort and every failure in inharmony; and the most useful thing one could
impart in education is the sense of harmony. To develop it in children and to
bring it to their notice will not be as difficult as it appears; what is needed
is to point out to them the different
aspects of harmony in all the various affairs of life.
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G. R.Kanwal
12 July 2o24
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