“Have you ever looked at a tree without a single word of like or dislike, without a single image? What then takes place? For the first time, you see the tree as it is and you see the beauty of it.”

Every musician knows the difference between hearing a piece and actually listening to it. We sight-read a chart and our mind is already three bars ahead, labeling it: too fast, wrong key, not my style. We never arrive at the sound itself. Krishnamurti once asked whether we could look at a tree without a single word of like or dislike, without any image at all — and only then, he said, do we see its beauty for the first time. The same is true of a phrase of music.

Why has man created the society and culture in which we live? Thought, being fragmentary, cannot possibly solve the things it has created. You can face the fact only if you are actually listening to the fact. If thought cannot change me, what will? One must find out if there is a totally different kind of energy not brought about through conflict. Can the mind, consciousness, empty itself of itself to find out if there is a totally different kind of energy? Questions from the audience followed the talk.