The Rhyme of History

Storms do not surprise the sea. They belong to it. Wind rises, waves crest, shorelines shift—and then the calm returns. To the ocean, it is one unbroken rhythm.

History is no different. It does not unfold as progress. It moves like weather: swelling, breaking, and returning in familiar rhythms. Each generation insists its moment is unique, but anyone who listens closely can hear the rhyme.

People like to say, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” The cleverness of the phrase sometimes blinds us to its seriousness. If it’s true, then history isn’t a string of accidents. It is a composition, a pattern repeating itself in altered form, like verses of an old song.

That is why historians are drawn to their work. On the surface, they seem obsessed with dates, battles, and personalities. But underneath, what pulls them forward is rhythm. Why else compare Rome’s collapse to America’s? Why else revisit the French Revolution, the rise of fascism, the fall of the Soviet Union? They are listening for the rhyme. They may not name it this way, but they are circling around what Vedanta calls maya—the play of appearances, endlessly repeating, forever disguising itself as novelty.

If you look closely, the rhyme often follows a predictable order:

• First, slogans—short, bright words that flatten complexity into something memorable.

• Then, restrictions—curfews, rationing, or decrees framed as mercies.

• Then, checkpoints and surveillance, always in the name of “safety.”

• Then, arrests—selective at first, then careless.

• Then, violence, explained away as “necessary.”

• And finally, silence—the most reliable note of all.

Rome knew it. France knew it. Germany in the 1930s knew it. Chile in the 1970s knew it. And America in 2025 is learning it again. Different fonts, different uniforms, different barricades—the same sequence.

What blinds us is the craving for novelty. Each age insists: “This time is different. Our enemies are new. Our situation has no precedent.” But the logic is always the same. The slogans change color, the scapegoats change name, but the pattern is as old as empire.

A Parable of Perspective

Let’s imagine someone who has lived for 500 years. What might they be witness to?

They would have seen monarchs crowned and toppled. They would have walked the streets of Paris when heads fell into baskets, and strolled through Berlin when swastikas hung from every facade. They would have heard the same promises from emperors, presidents, generals, commissars—each declaring that this time was the turning point of history.

At first, such a witness might be shocked. Then, saddened. Eventually, they would learn the truth: nothing new ever happens, only the same play performed with new costumes. “Revolution,” “reform,” “restoration”—different banners for the same script.

To live so long would be to lose the illusion of novelty. Perhaps it would also bring peace. When you see the rhyme clearly, panic loses its grip. A storm coming does not terrify the sea. It belongs to it.

The Vedantic View

Vedanta sharpens this insight. It teaches that all of history is the play of gunas—rajas (activity), tamas (inertia), sattva (order). These qualities rise, clash, and exhaust themselves. Fascism is not an “aberration.” It is rajas and tamas colliding, one more cycle of turbulence exhausting itself until order re-emerges.

This is not an excuse. It is recognition. Just as storms follow their season, upheavals follow theirs. To confuse the clouds for permanence is ignorance. To see them as passing weather is wisdom.

And this is the gift: dispassion, not despair. If I know a storm is coming, I do not waste energy pretending otherwise. I respond appropriately: I lock my doors, I protect my neighbor, I resist injustice. But I do not imagine myself holding back the ocean. I know better.

America’s Verse

Consider America in 2025. Commentators say it resembles Germany in the 1930s: the slogans, the rallies, the scapegoats. Of course it does. That is the rhyme. Fascism arriving here is not a freak accident—it is a verse in a poem the world has already heard.

This does not mean resignation. It means steadiness. To see the rhyme is not to shrug, but to steady the hand.

The Witness Beyond

Storms will keep coming, as they always have. Waves will rise, crash, and fall back into the sea. But the ocean does not panic. It contains the storm without being broken by it.

So too with us. If we learn to stand in the witness—the Self that is not born with an empire, nor buried with its collapse—we find the one place untouched by history’s rhyme. There, silence is not the end of a cycle but the ground of all cycles.

Historians will continue to write their books. Citizens will continue to believe their moment is exceptional. Politicians will continue to chant old slogans in new fonts. And the pattern will play on.

But those who glimpse its impersonality need not drown in it. They walk more lightly. They respond without frenzy. And when silence falls—as it always does—they remain rooted in what is beyond history: the witness to whom rhyme and repetition are only echoes fading into the vastness.