Music: The First and Last Expression
When one looks at this subject form the Eastern point of view one
finds that the Eastern idea of music originated from intuition.
But the tradition of any art or even science will tell us the same
thing. It is only later that man begins to believe in the outer
things and forgets the origin, which is intuition. Music according
to the ancient people was not a mechanical science or art; music
was the first language. The proof of this can be found even now
in the language of the animals and birds, who express their emotions
and passions to one another, though there are not words, only sounds.
It is the combination of the different sounds of the animals and
the birds which also has an effect upon the numberless multitudes
of the lower creation.
If music was the first expressive thing in the lower creation, so
it was in mankind also. And since it was the first expression of
emotions and passions of the heart, it is also the last expression
of the emotions and passions; for what art cannot express, poetry
explains; and what poetry cannot express, is expressed by music.
Therefore to a thinker music in all ages will stand supreme as the
highest expression of what is deepest in oneself.
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