Listen without judgement, without opinion

He learned incessantly from the river. Above all, it taught him to listen, to listen with a silent heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgement, without opinion.
That quote comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha. Written in 1922, it introduced many - including this writer - to the teachings of the Buddha four decades later, while Hesse's 1932 Journey to the East led to him being dubbed the patron saint of the 1960's overland hippie trail to India. In a rare example of generational convergence three of Strauss' Four Last Songs set the poetry of Hesse, which allowed the delicious conjunction of Richard Strauss and psychedelic rock music in an earlier post. Selfies are frowned on, or worse, on this blog. But a relevant selfie can be seen via this link. There is more in yet another post on the vitally important but lost art of listening. We don't need to change the music or the environment it is played in, we just need to change the way audiences listen.

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