Dane Rudhyar's was a dedicated mind and art. Over the years, his ideas did not change direction but continued to grow and deepen, providing a body of work that is essentially consistent throughout. In his creative output one can sense a collision of the evolving dynamics of distinct philosophical and conceptual leanings. In the early twentieth-century Western European model, he sensed decay, sterility, a tendency toward quantity (rather than quality), and a separation of the soul from the intellect. As his subjective self diminished in effect and weight over the years, his new identity tried to move beyond the ego and to avoid national/patriotic leanings. It was universality—not the exclusivity of Europeanism or Americanism—that he increasingly sought to render and evoke.

He often embraced a multiplicity of ideas, which worked side by side and constituted a dynamic polarity that is central to his philosophy. Hence by attempting to move beyond geocultural and aesthetic dichotomies, he chose the dialectical implications of pluralism. For Rudhyar, reality is an incessant state of movement between the polarities of unity and multiplicity, in an ever-spiraling activity. In his vision and persona, the interrelated prevails over the absolute with an emphasis on humanitarian and utilitarian positions. Intrigued by the larger macrocosmic picture of (inter)relatedness and integration, he embraced a framework of symbols and meanings that could bring the best out of human potentiality. Today, for the purposes for our own engagement with a syncretic and multicultural outlook on life, art, and consciousness, his vision from a fringe perspective becomes highly relevant as an unorthodox mode of representation—one that resists elitism and technical innovation. Rudhyar, as a thinker, composer, and artist, continues to yield new and interesting paths to research and to stimulate and fascinate with his complete vision.

The implications of self-sacrifice and unrealized potentiality embedded in his seed philosophy are also reflected in his creative activity. Regarding the “value” of his compositions, he once stated that it “is more in the potentialities they reveal than in what they have been able to actualize in sonic and instrumental terms.” As in the case of a seed, which awaits in static apprehension, for Rudhyar, potentiality triumphed over actuality:

The only thing he feels he could do was to express in tone some of the most characteristic experiences and feelings of his inner life when operating as what he calls a “seed man.”