written in 1973
I feel we are at the
threshold of a new age,
and that we need now,
more than anything else,
a new approach
to human relationships
and to social organization.
We need a planetary approach,
we need a synthetic approach.
We need something in which
the individual learns
his own function in the world
because if you are to have
a global world
the individual has to be
so well established
in his or her own identity
that he or she can afford to
co-operate with other people
all over the world,
independent of
their culture,
their race,
their traditions
and so on.
It is very important, therefore
that one should learn
how to establish oneself in
one’s own identity.
We need a new type
of human being.
We need something which is
based no longer, so much,
on conflict,
but on a
full acceptance of the
total human being
body, mind, soul, feeling
everything.
An esthetic approach
versus
an ethical approach,
so that you can see
the relationship
in which everything
stands inside of the whole,
so you can look at the whole
and become identified with the
“wholeness”
of that whole,
rather than with any particular part.
Now this is, of course,
a very difficult situation.
We are certainly
in a difficult time
and what is ahead of us today,
I do not know.
I am rather pessimistic
as far as the immediate future is concerned,
considering the way
the world and our nation
is moving at the present time.
But you must realize that
crises are sometimes
necessary to accomplish
what is to be accomplished.
The only problem, however,
is this:
something must be ready before
the great crisis comes
— when the new cycle begins —
for it will have to begin
on the foundation of those
seeds which have been sown
before the crisis.
If you have a winter
followed by a spring, but
there was no harvest
in the fall
no seed will germinate
during the spring,
and you will have to start
at the very beginning
into the most primitive time of manifestation.
That’s why I have stressed,
so much all my life the idea I call
the “seed man” and “seed woman”
the “seed person,” the individual
who is willing and able
to gather within himself or herself,
as it were,
the past of humanity
and particularly of our western world,
but also of other cultures
because what we want
to emerge from the future,
after whatever crisis will come
is a global world.
We therefore need
men and women of great vision,
individuals who are not specialists,
men and women who
have the vision and courage
to wait,
and to, in some way
through their lives,
through their example, and
through whatever they leave
after their deaths,
to become
the seeds
of the future world.
That’s of course,
the great choice
we have all to make,
and we all can make it.
We can follow
the mass vibration
and decay, like
all the leaves
of the world
in the fall
(however beautiful
the golden leaves may be),
they will have to decay
and become manure
for the future
of civilization,
but it is only
the “seed men and women” that really count,
and it is those
you should look for,
if you yourself do not
feel yet to the point of being ready to become
a “seed person,”
because it is that only which is
the insurance for the future rebirth of humanity.
I think today
it is of no use
to try to look
to the immediate future,
because it looks very dark;
but it is to look
to prepare —
for the possibility that
a new world may arise,
if not tomorrow,
the day after tomorrow.
I think it is the only thing
which gives value to
all our sacrifice,
all our courage, decisions and choices
today:
it is to become seeds
for the development of the future world.
So I hope
every one of you,
each one in your own life,
in your way can —
some day soon, very soon,
(if you have not done it already),
make the choice, and become
“seed men” and “seed women.”
I thank you.
Dane Rudhyar ~ 1895 to 1985