Gentle Winds

I had called Steve from Suchumi a week before the end of the conference, long before Nicolai's final presentation. I had asked Steve if I could meet him in Leipzig on my way home from Russia.

"Sorry, that won't be possible," Steve had replied on the phone.

"Why, Is the border to East Germany closed?" I asked him.

"There will be nobody here, Peter. That's why. I'm going to South Africa with a scientific delegation, and Ushi leaves tomorrow for Mexico. But why do you want to come here? Do you want to talk about what happened in Russia? You can do this on the phone. Do you want to tell me about the great breakthroughs that were made in your little resort town at the Black Sea?" He began to laugh.

"No great political breakthroughs were made, Steve," I replied. "If anything we identified more problems that require urgent solutions."

"Oh! What problems, Pete?"

"The collapse of Russia, Steve," I replied, "and the coming Ice Age; the cultural crisis in India; the biological breakdown of Africa; the economic disintegration of America; the growing child genocide around the world; the western cultural warfare projects; and the ongoing imperial projects to massively depopulate our planet in order to save the collapsing empires around the world from a potential new renaissance. Yes, we also explored solutions, but that exploration was mostly just talk."

Steve burst into laughter at the other end of the phone. "That must have kept you quite busy, Pete." He laughed some more. "I could have told you all of that in Leipzig when you were here."

"Why didn't you?" I cut him off.

"I didn't, Pete, for many reasons. For starters, you didn't ask. And you didn't ask, because you didn't know what to ask. And if I had told you, you wouldn't have believed me. You would have sought that I am nuts. Besides, we didn't have time. So we did the one thing that you didn't do at the conference. We explored the solution in a deep and concrete fashion, and we took profound steps to develop the technology for the solution. There exists only one single solution, Peter, for all the problems that you identified and probably explored rather deeply. That solution is located at the third level, Peter, in the vertical model of progressive scientific development that brings us face to face with the sublime elements of our humanity and its principles. We talked about this model when you were here, remember? The horrendous problems that India is facing, that Africa is facing, that Russia is facing, and that America is facing without being aware of it, are not isolated problems. They appear to be isolated, but they are not. They all have one common denominator. They are all rooted at the lowest level of society's self-perception where society regards itself as animals caged up in an imperial zoo of countless different dimension. That makes the all problems appear to be different. But they aren't. The cultural dimension of India is not any different than the cultural dimensions found in Europe, in the Arab world, in Africa, and in the Americas. They are all reeling with problems that cannot be solved on the low-level platform on which small-minded thinking created the problems, where they all appear to be different problems. But they can be solved when society raises itself two levels above that quagmire, up to the progressive scientific domain where people begin to discover the sublime nature of their humanity. That is what we did in Leipzig when you came to our home, and we did it intensely in the social context where it really hits close to home, as close as one can get." Here Steve began to laugh.

Ushi had come on the line while Steve was still laughing. "Pete, maybe we could get together in Mexico," she interrupted Steve's laughter. "I'll be there with the trade mission. We'll finish on Sunday, on the same day as your conference does. Our plane to Washington doesn't leave until the end of the week, though. The trade negotiations have been delayed. We could fly to Washington together if you came to Mexico. We could have a few days there."

"Where in Mexico, Ushi? Mexico City?"

"No!" Steve interrupted us. "There is a small island a few miles off the East Coast, off the Yucatan peninsula. Is the name Cozumel familiar to you?"

"Cozumel? No, Steve, but I'm sure I can find it."

"Will you be able to get to the Yucatan by Monday night, Pete?" Steve asked.

"Sure," I replied, "Monday is not a problem, Steve. And Ushi, if that could be arranged that would be great!"

"That can be arranged," said Steve.

"Oh my God, Ushi, I'm really looking forward to meeting you there," I replied, "wherever this place may be."

"Let me tell you about Cozumel," Steve came back. "It's a little resort island between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. You'll love it there, especially after coming back from stuffy old Russia. Heh, I wish I could come, too. Have you ever been in Mexico, Pete?"

"I've been in Mexico City, why?"

"No, Cozumel isn't anything like Mexico City. It is a paradise compared to it. Being on an island, it's never too hot. There is always a breeze coming in from the sea. It has beautiful beaches with clear water, and Peter; it isn't yet overrun by tourists, as the beautiful places tend to become. However, it will require a long detour for you to get there."

"Oh, Uncle Sam can afford the extra few dollars for his number one agent!" I replied.

Steve just laughed and laughed. "Maybe you'll have to help Uncle Sam with that a bit."

That's when I told him what I thought I couldn't afford. I couldn't afford not to meet Ushi, no matter how far it would take me, or what the cost would be. "I need to talk to Ushi about Sylvia," I added.

"Oh, are you still on that?" Steve came back. "I suspected that is why you called. Let me assure you, Pete, the solution that you are looking for is the same as that for all the other problems."

"In my case it was the solution that caused the problem," I interjected and began to laugh.

"The process of developing any solution on the platform of exploring the sublime dimension of our humanity cannot cause problems, Peter. It may pose some terrific challenges, I can agree with that. The challenge in this case is to bring up the world behind you. The challenge is to solve secondary problems that have been left unsolved for centuries. I agree, a part of that challenge can be problematic, but the solution is always the same. Don't you think, therefore, it's about time you got your act together and told Sylvia about the new environment that you discovered? No offense, I realize that growing up takes time. You might consider telling her about the benefits she would find in this environment. She may regard it to be fun to be living in a cage, but her life is bound to be so much richer when she begins living with you in the real world. Tell her what the greatest social and religious scientist of the 19th century wrote on the subject. Tell her, that 'with additional joys, benevolence would grow more diffusive.' Also tell her that this scientist was a woman, and that her counsel is to 'never contract the horizon of a worthy outlook by the selfish exaction of all another's time and thoughts.' That scientist also said, 'Home is the dearest spot on Earth, and it should be the center, though not the boundary of the affections.' If Sylvia is half as intelligent as you tell me she is, she won't have any problems with any of that."

"Right, Steve."

"Seriously, Pete? That's all it will take. It's as simple as that. All you need to do is raise up your world to the sublime level of existence where the truth is the truth."

"Thanks, Steve, I hope you are right," I replied. "I have grave doubts, though that this is humanly possible."

"Nothing is impossible when you reach for the sublime, Pete, except stepping back into the Old World that you've outgrown by moving forward. We are always moving forward and leaving things behind. You should have realized that by now. That's the inevitable unfolding of the human journey. And it is a qualitative unfolding."

I thanked Steve for his kind words. Still, my doubts remained. Life seemed so easy for him. I envied him for it.

"Hey, Pete, no thanks are needed," Steve replied. "I'm glad to be of help. Enriching one-another's life, that's what civilized living is all about, isn't it?"

"Yes it is," I replied. "It seems that I just need to be reminded of it once in a while that this isn't just theory, Steve, especially when it sounds too good to be true."

"We all need to be reminded, Pete. And don't forget what your goal towards your wife, Sylvia, is. Just tell her that your motive is to enrich her life. I know that you are worried that you will hurt her with what has happened in Leipzig and later on with Heather. You are afraid that you botch things up. Let me assure you, if your motive is true, there will be no hurt even if you mess things up, royally. Let me also assure you that Heather respects you too, for that very reason. I am sure that she may even respect you more for not having been omnipotent while you tackled the great problems of human existence that you couldn't solve in one single step. That is what makes life exciting, facing the challenges, pushing the limits forward as far as you can, and then some. So what that you have failed Heather on the last count, Pete. She'll respect you for having boldly faced the thousand situations with her that you didn't botch up, in which you and she and others came out richer. Don't let this one failure destroy what you have achieved, and don't hide from Sylvia what you both have won. Sylvia will respect you in the same manner, as I am sure Heather does, provided that you tell her honestly what this is all about. She will respect you even if she doesn't understand more than just a few tidbits of what stands behind it all. She will respect you for it, because she will feel that your involvement with expanding unity and love is already bringing riches into her life like a fresh wind that sweeps away worn-out myths. This wind is clearing the horizon for wondrous things to come that she may only have dreamed off so far, but may have never thought of as being attainable."

I answered with a sigh. "You have taken a great load of my shoulders, Steve. You have accomplished in three minutes what a professional psychiatrist in Washington couldn't accomplish in three hours."

"The psychiatrists don't know anything about that, Pete. They don't have the faintest notion what mankind's unity is all about. This isn't taught in the schools. To ask a psychiatrist for advice on this issue is like asking a baby to help solve a differential equation. They simply don't know. The psychiatrists haven't even figured out the mystery of Johannes Brahms, yet, have they? They have no idea how Clara Schumann fitted into his life. They think they know, but they don't. Some day, they will figure this out, but they haven't yet. Nor would the psychiatrists want to know what we have discovered. This would eliminate the need for psychiatry."

He began to laugh as if this was the greatest joke. Then he said good bye and wished me well.

"Pete, I will find us a nice place away from the main crowd," Ushi came back, "where we can talk undisturbed. I'll call you from Mexico City the day before you leave Suchumi."

Ushi did call as promised. We arranged to meet at the docks. I had no idea when we spoke on the phone what impact Nicolai's lecture, Olive's lingering love, and Tara's touch would have on me in the grand culmination in those final days.

I met Ushi on Monday evening after a long bus ride and a voyage by ferryboat from the mainland. She had come to the docks as she had promised. What a treat it was just to see her there! I embraced her like we'd always belonged together. Tara had been open and daring, but not without her own set of iron clad barriers. Ushi and I had stepped away from this world of barriers altogether, so it seemed. The notion of barriers didn't seem to apply as though we lived in a different world that lay outside the sphere of the conventional.

Before leaving Suchumi I had bought a tape recording of Brahms' Fourth Symphony to relive the ending of the Suchumi period on the plane. I enjoyed the sense of peace that the music projects, and its promise for ever-more peace ahead. Ushi, as I remembered her, blended perfectly into this atmosphere of peace, and joy, and power. Indeed it was a great privilege to meet her again. Just seeing her standing by the dock was a delight in itself. I had barely stepped off the boat when we were in each other's arms. I could only marvel at how much closer I felt to her now than during our days back in Leipzig, or at our last brief meeting in Berlin. I felt as though we had been together always. There was no shadow of a barrier left.

We dragged my luggage across the yard to an ice-cream vendor. I remembered her being fond of ice cream. We sat in the shade of the vendor's umbrellas, eating ice cream, while waiting for the cab that Ushi had called.

Ushi began to laugh at one point. "Do you realize that we may be the only lovers on the island who are in love with each other on the basis of being in love with ourselves that is reflected in the love for one-another in the highest sense possible, reflected in being in love with humanity? I don't think anyone else can say that."

I nodded and grinned. I fully agreed. What a feeling that brought! It seemed to me that we lived not just in a different world all of a sudden, but in a different universe, a universe without limits or distance between people. I said so to her.

She kissed me and said that I was perfectly correct, and that we shouldn't forget, ever, that I just described the real world. Then she added, "It's all your fault, you know?" She smiled as she said this.

"My fault?" I asked.

"Sure, Peter, you started it all. I am quite certain that Steve's invitation for you to spend the night with me in Leipzig wouldn't have been extended by him if you hadn't challenged him to define the concept of universal love, and with it, self-love. This opened up a New World for us all. It really did. It certainly did so for Steve. This unfolding new environment forced a kind of honest reaction on him that he couldn't deny, even if it was hard to follow through with. But Peter, the best came afterwards. Steve became so uplifted by his response to the challenge you presented that it opened up a whole New World to him as he told me later. Obviously, we both felt that way, and no doubt you felt so too."

"Sure, I did, Ushi, but..." I completed my answer with a kiss. "As I remember it was you who got me on to that line of exploration in the first place. Remember what you said at the cafe when you challenged me to explain how two people can change the world. I was right then, when I called you a genius and an angel, combined all into one."

"Oh you!" said Ushi and kissed me back.

We took the cab from the wharf, right across the island, a rather hair-raising trip to the windy side. The cab stopped a few miles past a small coastal town in front of a cozy two-story hotel overlooking the surf. The ocean looked brighter from our second story balcony than the foam of the surf. The water glittered with the golden glist of the evening sun, almost too bright to look at. Its brilliance echoed the mood I was in. The effect that Tara has had on me suddenly made me feel much closer to Ushi than I ever thought possible. That feeling came with a wonderful 'brightness' and a 'glist' all of its own. Perhaps her effect on me was that I loved myself more. In her courageous daring, Tara had inspired a sensitivity towards life in everyone of us there, which took away so many facets that don't reflect love, but which stand in the way of our self-love that should be expressed in our love for one-another. This 'growing up' as Steve had called it, now made Ushi appear more precious than before, like a precious jewel of life itself that becomes more beautiful the more one embraces it. Olive's wide-open love and the brightness of her affection, as well as her music, had set the stage for this process of growing up into a New World where life and love are one.

Our beach near the hotel was an untouched stretch of sand with a background of logs and debris piled up high that gave way to dunes overgrown with tall grasses and shrubs. My first thought was that we could go nude on the beach as in Leipzig, but unlike in Leipzig, we would let ourselves be tossed around by the ocean breakers driven by the on-shore winds. This potential adventure promised to be Leipzig and Hawaii all rolled into one. The hotel clerk kindly told us where the beach was safe from undercurrents. Nevertheless, the swimming had to wait for a while. I had arrived too late in the day. By the time we checked in, had settled down, and had a stroll along the beach in the glow of the sunset, there wasn't much time left for anything. It was too late even for dining out. We ordered room service snacks for something to eat. The room service menu was full of Mexican things, Tacos and the like.

A stronger breeze had come up over the water after sunset. It made the evening cooler and perfectly comfortable on the balcony where we were eating. We were listening to the surf between the torrents of our talking. What more could we want than this? When the last glow of the sunset had faded, the breeze from the sea still felt comfortably warm, blowing in above the surf with the never ending sound of the rushing and receding waves in the background.

We talked about many things that evening, about Russia, the war that hadn't been declared yet, and the peace conference of course, and its motto ^The Liberation of Men.^

Here Ushi burst into laughter. "Forgive me, that sounds funny," she said. "Men's liberation!"

"Well, without the liberation of men, the liberation of woman has no meaning," I said to her. "Also, without it, we wouldn't be here."

I told her about Tara and my tall dreaming which seemed so infinitely remote now, while in a sense, it was coming true that very moment. Events certainly had taken a strange twist. "Did you realize that I nearly fainted when Steve suggested that night in Leipzig that we should sleep together?" I said to her.

"I did, too," said Ushi and grinned. "This had never happened before."

"Never? Oh, I had thought it was common practice."

"Oh, no, Pete, Steve is really quite shy. I think he has been working up to this for some time. Then you came along and challenged him. You didn't even know that you had. Did you know he respects you tremendously?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"He really does, Pete. It was a gesture of respect towards me to have been given the right to be myself without strings attached. Our sleeping together that night was nice, but it was nothing compared to feeling the freedom of being able to do so. Also it had an enriching effect on Steve that he had been able to step away from those barriers that tradition imposes. He had already invalidated them in his mind, but he really hadn't learned to step away from them. That night a new Steve was born, and believe me, you had a hand in it."

"As a bystander," I said.

"No, no, much more than that, Pete. If you had opted out it would have taken Steve a long time to get back to this point. He took a daring step for a man. He might not have dared again."

"I can believe that," I replied. "I sensed that all of Steve's scientific explanations in support of his invitation were as much for his own self-assurance than they were for my benefit."

Ushi nodded and grinned. "Actually I had this strange feeling," she said, "that when we met on the beach in Leipzig that morning, that something far-reaching was going to happen."

"Me, too, Ushi, and it happened; I fell in love with you from the first moment on!"

"Oh you!" she said and punched me in the side.

"I did, I did!" I said with a grin and hugged her. "Of course you are right," I agreed. "A tremendous breakthrough had been made that day in Leipzig, and this breakthrough, all by itself, may have had a greater impact towards building a platform for rescuing humanity than we both may yet imagine."

"Oh? Rescuing humanity?"

"Yes, humanity, Ushi. I mean all of us. We have developed strange habits," I said to her. "We tend to protect that which is the most detrimental to us. Ever since I married Sylvia I had protected my isolation from the rest of the female world of humanity. That's what marriage seems to impose. I felt ashamed when I as much as looked at another women and felt something warm and beautiful inside. I had regarded myself as immoral for not being able suppress this response like a good husband should. I am glad, though, I hadn't won this war against myself. Most people are not as fortunate. Most people are heroic winners in their fight against themselves. The whole of humanity seems to be winning this fight against itself, and the grander the success is that they achieve in fighting this war, the more it threatens to destroy us all. You, Steve, and I stand apart from this. I see us like pioneers, exploring a New World that must ultimately become the world of humanity. I am convinced that this will happen if we can turn humanity around into this new direction towards itself where the horizons are bright, open, and honest."

Ushi smiled in agreement.

I asked her to look at the financial insanity that people have committed themselves to. "There is nothing bright there, open, and honest. There are fifty million households in my country, Ushi. Forty-five percent of these have poured most of their assets into the stock market. Many have borrowed against their home, their income, and even their credit cards to buy stock, dreaming of getting rich in the market. They are trapped into a dream of earning huge profits while any rational child should have been able to tell them that they will never see their money returned. A child should know that virtually all profits that are paid out in the stock market games are moneys 'stolen' from fellow investors. Those profits are 'stolen,' because in the process of trading paper nothing of any intrinsic physical value is being produced. So where do they get the money from that is paid out as profit? It comes out of the next guy's pocket. This means that people's investments are largely gone by the time the stocks are purchased. Their investments have become other people's profits. All they hold is paper while the liquidity simply doesn't exist for all the existing paper claims ever to be paid out."

"It used to work once, didn't it?" Ushi interrupted. "America became famous for the private ownership of its industries. That's why the communists slander it."

"Sure, Ushi, there was a time a long time ago when people's financial assets represented an equivalent share of the productive process in the physical economy," I replied. "That's all gone, Ushi. The physical economy is collapsing while the financial values are being pushed sky-high. In their heart people must know that this game of insanity is a gigantic fraud. Society can't pull profit out of thin air. People know this, but they fight the very notion of what they know to be true. Thus, they keep on pouring more of their living into this physically destructive process of financial 'wealth' building. They call this 'risk taking.' They should call it suicide. It won't be an easy task to help them, but I think we should try. No doubt they will call us insane for predicting the doom of their system that causes people to steal from one-another, even while they know that this doom cannot be avoided. They will hate us for telling the truth. 'You are attacking our values,' they will say."

"Maybe they should call us insane for even trying to save them from their self-inflicted doom," said Ushi jokingly. "But we are not insane. We know that we must do this, because every human being is valuable."

"They must call us insane indeed," I agreed, "but only for as long as they believe that we do this for their sake. Once they realize that we are actually fighting to build a better world for our own sake and that of humanity, to create a brighter world for all to live in, they may realize that they have the same interests. The Principle of Universal Love, in fact, demands that not a single human being is excluded or isolated from this uplifting love for humanity that unites us all. Of course that may take years to unfold, Ushi. Until then they may well remain blind to the fact that their hollow system is destroying their world too."

I told Ushi that the same insanity also rules politically, because the whole of humanity supports the insane notion that deindustrialization enriches a nation's existence. "The people are told that this insanity is politically correct and so they believe it to be true. Strangely, they support that insanity even while it puts them onto the unemployment heap or on the streets, once they have become homeless. They also support the insane notion that the Earth is too full, by which they support the fascist depopulation schemes that are carried out all over the world through politically imposed underdevelopment, famines, and war. They also fight against the idea of global economic development, even though this is the only option available to save civilization. They fight the idea that humanity must commit itself to global re-industrialization and infrastructure building in order to survive. Most people live in a dream world, Ushi. They are like people asleep in a building ablaze."

"Weren't we all like this, Peter?" Ushi interjected. "We prefer not to live in the real world if it is not politically correct. We do this so staunchly that you called it a miracle when we stepped away from it briefly in Leipzig, after Steve invited you to stay for the night with me."

"It seemed like a miracle, Ushi. Did you ever realize that our civilization will likely not survive unless those 'miracles' cease to be called 'miracles' and become commonplace?" I said quietly. "That's the challenge that the coming Ice Age is imposing. It literally forces us to create the brightest renaissance imaginable as a means for surviving and saving civilization. The fact is, we live in an Ice Age world right now, even though the climate transition won't happen for another hundred years from now."

"How do you figure that?" Ushi interrupted.

"Isn't that obvious?" I said. "We live in Ice Age world right now, because our world is locked to the Ice Age schedule. It take us a hundred years to create the technologies and the vast infrastructures that we need to survive in the deep freeze of the Ice Age, such as infrastructures for putting most of the world's agriculture into indoor facilities. That involves a huge task that takes a hundred years to complete. If the climate transition happens in a hundred years, then we are in an Ice Age World already. The Ice Age world is on now. Everything that we do needs to be coordinated with the Ice Age schedule, starting yesterday. People think the Ice Age world is still a hundred years off. That's a delusion. It's started. It's happening. We are demanded to respond to the Ice Age reality. If we don't, mankind may become extinct, or at best perhaps only ten percent of the world population may survive, that those may wish they hadn't. That means we have to change the world and ourselves in creating the kind of high intensity renaissance that enables mankind to survive the Ice Age that will freeze up much of our world for the next 90,000 years. That involves a huge challenge. Everything that mankind has been fighting each other for and still is, like the present process of stealing from one-another and so forth, will simply vanish in the light of this new Ice Age Renaissance, because the demands imposed by the Ice Age MUST be met. The dynamics of the universe that cause the ice ages don't bend to our bidding, we can only utilize our intelligence and do what is necessary to bring our world into conformity with the cycles of the universe. The task of preparing our world for the coming Ice Age is so immense that we have to rouse ourselves to a higher level of self-discovery to where we discover our humanity. That too, is a part of the Ice Age World that is dawning on the horizon of mankind. The dawn is in progress. Now we need to work for the corresponding dawn of the full discovery of depth and breadth of our humanity. That's the level that Friedrich Schiller called the sublime. When society gets to this level of a profound scientific self-perception, stealing from one-another simply won't be on the agenda anymore. We'll have a higher agenda before us at this point, which is required for building the needed Ice Age Renaissance Civilization. In this sense you and I are a spark in the pioneering effort to light the real 'fire' that is yet to come, the fire of passion for life and for our humanity."

"We face a small minded people, Peter," Ushi replied. "How can you expect them to take those giant steps? However, haven't the two of us already started to take those steps? Maybe the dawn of the Ice Age World is really happening."

"So, I take it that you agree with me," I said to Ushi, "that what we have started in Leipzig is big and has the potential to change the world."

"I have agreed with you on the day we met in Leipzig, Peter," she replied. "I knew it theoretically then. I had a faint notion that this should work. Now I know more."

"Do you also know that we have no other option?" I interrupted her. "Do you realize that this is the platform that I must take to Sylvia? Deep down at the bottom of my heart I know that the universal need for a wider unity requires a wider honest perception of the value of our common humanity. We find in it the sanity of our love for ourselves reflected in a universal love for one-another. That will bring the world together, just as it brought us together. I also feel that our sexuality as human beings has something to do with that, because it attracts people to one-another, and it does so with a great fire of passion that never goes out, that never becomes extinguished with satisfaction. We must never stop expanding our embrace. Sex is a part of it. It brings us together as sexual spiritual human beings that are in love with our spiritual humanity."

"Love is the fountain for unity," said Ushi. "It has no meaning for as long as it remains theoretical without fulfilling the Principle of the Advantage of the Other. If we try to create unity without the Principle of the Advantage of the Other, we reject every vital element that is a part of the equation of our humanity. Why would we do this? Why would we exclude sex from this? We have to stop dreaming and move forward by committing ourselves to what is real and uplift it. Everything else appears to be secondary."

"Isn't that what I said?" I interjected. "The countless mythologies about sex, about marriage, about marriage boundaries, even political division and so forth, which are all detrimental to love and unity, are elements that must be faced and be uplifted with the Principle of Universal Love. Every one of them must be uplifted, sex included. We shouldn't shun sex, Olive, but let it be the symbol for our passion, our passion for things human, our passion for life. Nor must we ever be satisfied in our passion, because at the moment we are, the passion stops, the horizon is no longer boundless and infinity becomes finite. That's when life becomes doomed."

"But can we do this, Peter? You are talking about big issues."

"You bet we can do this. We can face the challenge and win. We can win, because we have to win. In fact there is nothing else on the horizon worth considering. But you are wrong about these being the big issues. As vital as these issues are, like sex, marriage, politics, and so forth, they are not primary in themselves. Universal love and self-love are primary. Our passion must be rooted in that, and the Ice Age Renaissance that we need to create in order to survive must reflect the dynamics of an unending passion. So let's not throw sex into the trash can, which stands at the center of our passion with a lot of wonderful human things surrounding it. If we begin with the primary imperative to develop the passion for our humanity and for life to the highest degree, the lesser issues, which may be world-shaking issues, tend to resolve themselves.

"For example, if our goal was to create an Ice Age Renaissance in order to enable mankind to survive the Ice Age without losing our food supply, the necessary economic and cultural renaissance that can get us there would unfold in the flow of it together with the solutions for all the other secondary issues. By themselves, every one of those secondary issues may indeed appear big in our sight with insurmountable challenges standing in the way. In fact, these secondary issues may never be resolved as isolated issues being pursued at the lowest level of society's self-perception. But in the pursuit of huge goals, like an Ice Age Renaissance, the huge demands on us may empower us to leave all the low-level concerns behind us by which these low-level concerns become resolved as non-issues. If our goal is to fully develop our humanity in order to create this Ice Age Renaissance, as we must do before the temperatures drop and wipe out our agriculture, then we will become willing to deal with all the smaller issues that stand in the way. Right now those lower issues are denying our humanity like the countless forms of division and isolation that we now cherish, including sexual division and marriage isolation. Why shouldn't we be able to regard one another primarily as human beings, men and woman, married or not? We fill our homes with beautiful things, like fine furniture, lovely flowers, and beautiful art. Why shouldn't we fill our lives with beautiful people too? Why should we be so small-minded as to deny ourselves the most precious we have, one-another as human beings and ourselves? How can we even hope to create an Ice Age Renaissance with this small-minded attitude towards one another that closes all of the social doors?"

Ushi began to smile. "If only Steve could hear you," she said. "Steve had said essentially the same thing to me after you had left that day in Leipzig. You are right. What binds us together is something very deep that goes to the root of our humanity, but we didn't see this then. We had explored all possible avenues simultaneously that day for their own merit. We explored all the avenues that were even remotely connected with what we vaguely understood of that higher imperative. Of course we had to move fast back then. We only had one day. The breakthrough that we achieved in that one single day was tremendous. It was a daring exploration into a beautifully human world, which I agree, should be common place. Indeed, it would be common place if society wasn't so small-minded."

"Yes," I replied, "that wonderfully rich day that we shared would not have come about if we had not been honest with ourselves in a big way all the way through. You and Steve have helped me with your own honesty to end that personal war that I had been unjustly fighting against myself in the name of what is erroneously called, morality and honor. You have both helped more than you can imagine, Ushi, to make this breakthrough a reality with all these deep things in it. You created a New World for me to live in."

"So it is our honesty with ourselves that must never be allowed to end, Peter, or else we will never reach the tall goal that we must reach in the world to protect and uplift our lives. Is that a part of our passion? What can be more beautiful than to embrace one another as human beings and to uplift the world to the point that it matches this tall image?"

"We won't succeed if we become complacent, Ushi, and let even a single element slip out of sight. Our passion must be full. I found this out in Russia. I met many daring people, surrounded by all sorts of self-made barriers, each struggling against them. I know it is tough to deal with these barriers. I was just as deeply trapped by them than most people are, trying to get free."

"Trying is not enough," said Ushi and nodded. "We must empower ourselves to keep on moving forward. We must become ever more honest with ourselves, more open to the beauty and strength of the human world, and become constantly richer in our loving and our self-discovery that feeds our loving. At the same time we must also become more gentle in all that we do and aim for."

I agreed. "Who knows how great a task this may yet turn to out to be!" I said smiling, leaning back into my chair on the balcony.

"And what loveliness, joys, and opportunities it will yet unfold," added Ushi.

I stood up and leaned over the railing to sniff the breeze that came in from the open ocean. Our corner balcony faced right into the flow of the Trade Winds.

"I find the wind refreshing," I said to Ushi as she joined me at the railing. "There is such vitality in the wind. The wind makes me ashamed of not being able to move with the same ease and the same gentle power," I added quietly. "Instead of moving with ease and with power, I am stuck with puzzles that I find no answers for."

"It's about Sylvia, right? Let me help you," Ushi replied and reached her hand out.

"It is something much deeper than that," I said and took hold of her hand. "I am ashamed because I can't respond in kind to the wonderful help that I have been given. Everywhere people are helping me, but I don't seem to be able to return the gesture. I am stuck in a one way street, as it were."

Ushi shook her head and raised her hand to stop me.

"No, Ushi, this is how I feel," I replied. "I met a woman in Suchumi who had modeled her approach to loving on the premise that all of humanity is naturally generous, helpful, and loving. She learned this from a businessman who had built his entire business on that platform. He always endeavored to give a portion of the substance of his success back to people in order to keep the process alive on which his prosperity depends. The woman that I met was dedicated to the same idea, to the same principle, just like you and Steve are. I have received so much love from both of you, and so much generously offered help, but why am I so bankrupt when it comes to giving anything back that enriches people's life, most of all yours?"

She put her arm around me. "You mustn't think that way, Peter," she said quietly. She responded with a kiss. "You have made profound contributions to us all by just being honest with yourself. Don't belittle that. Still, I know what you are saying, because what's troubling you is all too common in the world. I often feel the same way. And the reason is that we simply aren't used to making contributions. We are not used to truly being ourselves, and acknowledging ourselves as bright and wonderful gems of light like a sun. We are ninety-nine times more focused on getting than on giving anything back. That puts us miles away from radiating love effortless like a sun. That's why we can't move."

"As if our feet are glued to the ground?" I interjected.

Ushi nodded. "It requires a skill that we have so far failed to learn, Peter. But you have stepped beyond that a little. Celebrate the fact that you have at least recognized the problem and made some contributions. Having made this recognition, you are half way home to doing much more. In time you will become sensitive enough to recognize plenty of opportunities for making a profound difference in enriching people's life. That's quite something for you to look forward to, and for all of us, isn't it?"

I nodded in reply and returned her kiss, gratefully.

"By the way, I loved your post cards," said Ushi, after taking a sip of the fruit cocktail the hotel had provided. "Steve, too, was deeply moved by your gesture of sharing the bright spots that you found. He found them uplifting. He loved what he called that 'primitive idea' that the poem brought out and how you responded to it, saying that love is joy in the beauty of another, and that human beings exist to be cherished, because love exists. Steve loved those ideas. He said the poem is beautifully down to Earth, rudimentary, even if it doesn't bring out the fundamental element on which the whole structure rests, which is self-love in the sublime sense. He also said that it hints at the real principle of economics. You know how Steve talks. He found it refreshing to know that somebody had moved that far, and that someone else had treasured that idea enough to frame it and put it in a prominent place that others could respond to."

"Actually, I have seen this poem reflected in Tara," I confessed. "Tara is the kind of beautiful person that makes one sensitive to the beauty that one finds in humanity, which is rooted in all of us. By her development of this precious idea, I am certain that you have become more precious to me," I said to Ushi, "even if this seems hardly possible. Do you believe this to be possible, Ushi?"

"I think it's not only possible, Pete. This kind of sensitivity will continue to grow. That's a part of the evidence of the Principle of Universal Love coming alive in our being. That is a part of the evidence that we were looking for when we talked about this in Leipzig. Remember, we were looking for evidence that is indisputable."

I agreed. "But can we can start a movement in that direction?" I said to Ushi. "Can we move people, based on the freedom which our growing sensitivity has brought? It is possible that if we can do this ourselves, other people may begin to recognize what they too, should be fighting for in fighting for their humanity, instead of fighting a war against themselves, as I once did. Then people may not only begin to enrich their lives as we did, but they may also begin to wonder in what other respects they are fighting a war against themselves, like supporting the Global Warming Doctrine that prevents the creating of an Ice Age Renaissance. Once people recognize that they are fighting countless wars against themselves, they may empower themselves to turn their efforts around into a blessing."

I suggested to Ushi that it is physically impossible for anyone of society to have a rich and secure life in a decaying and collapsing world, no matter what people believe. I suggested that most people find it impossible to create the brighter world that they would love to live in because of generally accepted small-minded irrational beliefs. "They can't do what they hope to do," I said to Ushi, "because it goes against their grain to work for anything except their petty little self-interests, which isn't in their interest at all. In fact society has become religiously instructed in politically correct thinking, to commit itself to what is most to its disadvantage as human beings. In the modern world the watchword is to steal, rather than to build. Society has been trained to want it all now, without really knowing what it is that they want. They see an economy as a physical construct that provides them with things. But they are wrong."

"Why are they wrong, Peter?" Ushi interrupted. "We do need things."

"No Ushi, we need a lot more than just things," I cut her off. "An economy is primarily a construct of our humanity that is expressed in the kind of intelligent behavior that enables human beings to utilize their inner resources in order to build a civilization which becomes ever richer out of its own resources and supports ever more people with a richer life. This perception of economy takes the focus far beyond just providing things. It takes the steam out of getting, which has become evermore slavery oriented, and puts it onto building and creating and uplifting one-another. My friend Olive called this shift in focus, a transition in intent. What goes under the name of economy today is a farce. It's the outcome of imperial intent. It is fascist in nature, because the imperial intent is looting. Consumerism is a small subset of that. Society is allowed to participate in the process of looting to legitimize it. But nothing is created in the world of consumerism that supposedly enriches society by looting it. That's why everything is collapsing. People have to wake up and find the value that they now seek in money and in things, already existing in themselves."

"That would put the focus on efficient industrial production that enriches everyone," said Ushi in agreement, "rather than on cheap slavery production that enriches no one."

"The real Principle of Economy is the Principle of Universal Love, isn't it? I am certain about that. Everything comes down to that. People have to wake up to this fact, and hopefully they will wake up soon. This awakening, if and when it happens, will likely change the world far more than we can imagine."

"It's already changing it," Ushi grinned. "It has changed our world, hasn't it?"

"I told you that this could be done," I replied. "Remember, I said something like that to you in the cafe near the university. I said that we ourselves are sufficient to change the world with a right idea. I just didn't realize, then, that the process had already begun. I didn't realize until today how much our world has really changed since the day when I came into your office looking for someone by the name of Ursula Fleischer."

"Oh, and what made you realize that?" Ushi asked, grinning again.

"You did, of course," I answered. "You always have made a difference. Your wonderful self is the key element in all this. Who but you would have arranged to meet a foreign guest on a nudist beach? Can you answer me that?"

"Oh, you!" she replied. "And what took you so long to figure this out?" she added a moment later.

"Eh, Rome wasn't built in a day. I count myself lucky that I figured this out at all. In fact, I haven't the faintest idea of how to go forward from where we are now, towards embracing the whole world. It is enough of a challenge for me just to dare to lift Sylvia out of the rut of the world, and she is a highly intelligent person. But I suppose, as long as we move forward and keep the focus on that, we will win."

I told Ushi that my disaster with Heather was proof of the difficulty involved. "My association with Heather had unfolded so richly and so beautifully, until the last day," I said to Ushi. "Then, boom, it ended with a silent war that we each fought against ourselves without saying a word. And we both won this war against ourselves. As a result we were worse of. Nothing was resolved by winning that war against us. We have to win the peace."

I showed her Heather's letter. I told her that Steve didn't know about the letter yet.

I remained on the balcony while Ushi went inside and read the letter. I felt a deep sense of peace looking out onto the ocean. The Heather-affair seemed as far in the distance now as the horizon over the sea that was obscured by the dark. The whole affair seemed as if it were irrelevant now.

The Moon appeared now and then when a break in the clouds opened patches of clear sky. In the Moon's ghostly light the sea appeared like a silver-painted patchwork without a trace of color. It created the appearance of a primordial setting in which the sky and the sea were one as if they had melted into each other.

It struck me as odd that there is never any color in the moonlight. I wondered why. Didn't the moon reflect the same sunshine that we see at noonday? It occurred to me that we might need much brighter light to see the colors of the world. The same also seemed to apply to the face of love. Its colors all too often become hidden in the dim.

I loved the peaceful atmosphere that one finds at the seashore in the dark, the sound of the waves, the salt air, and also the moonlight among the clouds. I didn't mind the dim this time. I understood the real world and the splendor of its coloring that bursts forth in the brilliance of the noonday in a profusion of wonders. It was sufficient for the moment to see the sunlight reflected merely on the tiny face of the moon and to know that even this tiny refection was enough to brighten the night enough to bring light into it. In some cases the tiny reflections seem to be enough to inspire romance as in the case of the Count in Mozart's Figaro.

I puzzled over the paradox that Mozart had laid before us. He had bid us to rejoice in the fullness of universal love, even if society is too poor to have a place for it in its daily living. Heather's letter reflected that paradox. I felt that the Count in Figaro would have rejoiced to see how richly in color and light our love had unfolded, Heather's and mine, even if its unfolding ended in the way Mozart's opera closed, with a concession to the conventional in the dim of the moonlight.

There was a great beauty in the peace that came from this kind of pondering and from the listening to the surf.

Ushi had gone to the desk by the telephone to read Heather's letter, where a reading lamp had been provided. "Heather had been fighting against herself," Ushi's voice came thinly from the room. "Heather couldn't see any other option but to walk away and let the world follow its time-trodden course."

"Yes, and I was too stupid in my 'infancy' in these matters to offer a solution," I added to the thought. "Mozart appears to have reacted in the same manner in the way he lets the Figaro opera close. I wonder if he would write the ending differently today. Indeed, I wonder if Heather's reaction too, would be different today if we had a second chance."

"Don't blame yourself for what happened," Ushi replied in a soft tone. "I can imagine how Sylvia would have reacted had you brought Heather home with you as your friend and lover and invited her to stay in your house until she established herself in Pittsburgh. Any wife would be emotionally devastated by such a confrontation. I think that if Mozart were to compose his Figaro today he would still have to consider what society is willing to respond to openly. With this in mind, I think he would have closed the Figaro opera the same way today as he did two centuries ago. But why should this be a problem. Mozart presented the brilliance of universal love, and left it up to society to carry forward the continuation. This communications was enough. It was a job well done. However, I do expect more from you, Peter. I also know what you would be committed to today. And so, to answer your second question, I am convinced that you would find a way to make this work with Heather and Sylvia, to open your home to Heather for as long as she would need it."

"I might be tempted to do this, of course," I replied. "Ultimately we will have to make this sort of thing possible. Also, we've got to make the breakthrough soon, even if we mess up along the way before we get there. The Ice Age schedule, to the best of our understanding, leaves us 100 years, maybe 150 years, to create our New World. So, we are in a race against time to get started. That means that every step counts. And as you know, we've taken quite a few steps already. Beyond that a few things have also started moving in Russia. You simply can't guess what I've already helped to set in motion in Russia during the conference."

I told Ushi about Olive and our long discussions about what is needed for mankind to survive in the coming Ice Age, and how Olive had promised to engage some high level scientists in Russia to be really daring and place the coming Ice Age into the global policy arena. I told Ushi that it appears that Olive had actually been successful in doing that, which may send tremors right around the world since the Ice Age reality appears to be a forbidden subject for any prominent scientist to speak about. In this case my long discussion with Olive may have indeed caused a few earthquakes.

"We had a top level scientist from Novosibirsk giving a surprise presentation at the conference in the second week," I said to Ushi. "Apparently he came from the leading university of Russia's leading science city. As far as I can tell he came all the way down from Siberia on his own initiative, and right in the middle of his vacation. He gave a truly fascinating presentation about the return of the Ice Age. He didn't say anything new, but he put the subject onto the global policy map in a big way so that it cannot be ignored anymore so easily. He spoke in simple terms, about both the problems and the needed solutions. However, he missed one vital point. He made three points, but then missed the essential next step.

"His first point was," I said to Ushi, "that the return of the Ice Age is certain, only the precise date is not. His second point was that the resulting cool climate would likely be devastating to agriculture, for which we have to put agriculture into indoor facilities. He suggested to us that this response is required right around the world in order to prevent the death of possibly nine-tenth of mankind that might otherwise perish for lack of food or die in food related wars. His third point was that the technologies to generate the required nuclear power and material resources, which mankind needs to accomplish this immense task, are literally lying at our feet beckoning to be developed. The fourth point, which he failed to bring up, would have been the most vital one, if he had made it. He should have pointed out that it appears presently a thousand times easier, technologically, to create the gargantuan energy and material resources, than it is to motivate society to commit itself to actually doing it."

"It's always been like that," Ushi interrupted. "The physical resources have always existed to turn this planet into a paradise. But why haven't we done it?"

"The impasse that I am talking about is far bigger," I said to Ushi. "We allow the impasse to stand, even when it is certain that billions of people will die if the project isn't accomplished to put much of the world's agriculture into indoor facilities. We know that billions of people will die in the coming Ice Age if the preparatory work isn't started soon. But I see no movement in that direction, as if society's feet were glued to the ground. The impasse is that big. The bottom line is, Ushi, that we are facing the most critical challenge that mankind has ever faced in its entire history and nobody gives a damn. We are facing this horrendous challenge as a bunch of 'little' people with small-minded thinking. The result is that absolutely nothing is being done on the entire front of getting the world ready for an Ice Age. Our biggest challenge therefore, is not the physical challenge posed by the approaching Ice Age. That challenge can be met. The biggest challenge is the mental challenge for society to rouse itself to become human beings. Evidently, the way we relate to one-another is a key element in meeting this challenge. That means getting rid of countless forms of division and isolation in society, even our pathetic isolation from the future. If it takes a hundred years to get ready for the Ice Age, and the Ice Age is expected to resume in a hundred years time, we have to start the preparations now. We can't isolate ourselves from the future, or else mankind won't have a future."

I suddenly began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Ushi asked.

"The funny thing is, that this takes us back to Heather's letter," I replied. "The professor from Novosibirsk stated bluntly that the most deeply rooted forms of society's countless divisions and isolation from one-another are the sexual division and marriage isolation that we practice almost universally. My impasse with Heather, and my second impasse in not being able to tell Sylvia about it, and to tell her about the whole development behind it, appears to be directly related to this horrendous challenge of saving our civilization. It seems that Heather, Sylvia, and I, are stuck in an iron-cast mental environment in which nobody can move. We are the tallest species of life on the planet, Ushi. Shouldn't we have the capacity to move freely, take huge steps, and live in such a manner that we are able to enrich one-another's world by relating to one-another as human beings without tearing each other apart? How much effort would it have taken physically to open the door for Heather to our home, for a week perhaps, or a month? It would have taken no effort at all, but it didn't seem possible to do. Then let's ask ourselves how much does it take physically to restructure the world in which we live to create a renaissance that enables mankind to survive the Ice Age? It takes infinitely more than just opening the door. But that's our least worry. Apparently it takes miracles to get us even interested in moving on that challenge. Maybe those miracles aren't achievable, considering that we can't even reach our hands across a table to one-another with love, except under authorized circumstances. Isn't that something that Mozart already understood to some degree, two hundred years ago? We seem to be still stuck with that.

"Don't blame Mozart," said Ushi. "The root of the tragedy that Mozart laments is impressed upon children in fairy tales at a very early age. Take the Cinderella story for instance. It appears like a wonderful love story on the surface, with a happy ending. The downtrodden Cinderella meets her prince against all odds, and the prince meets the girl of his dreams, and so they live happily ever after. What could me more romantic, right? Well, I would have to scream, no! That's wrong! That story is a tragedy. It teaches every child that it gets one single chance in life to love. After that the horizon is closed. Its love is confined into the smallest possible sphere. Its world suddenly becomes small, and its future unchangeable. Shouldn't life be filled to the brim with love, a rich profusion of it, with each love enriching every other, and the horizon without ever ending? Then the future would never be out of sight. Why should life be a one-time Olympic competition? Shouldn't it rather be an endless dance, where each one wins and the winning never stops? Shouldn't our marriages be the centers of our affection, rather than the boundaries of it as Steve suggests?"

"How would you rewrite the Cinderella story then?" I asked Ushi.

"I wouldn't write it at all. I would never write a story that tells a child that life is an Olympic race that ends with a medal, followed by a closed door. What a future would I present with that? I would write a lot of Figaro-like stories that open towards the sublime, which is not something that is easily defined, just as the Principle of Universal Love is not easily circumscribed. However, since we are also facing an Ice Age, I would now have to write the story in such a manner that its unfolding love empowers the brightest love-based renaissance of all times. I would count anything less of a solution, a tragedy. If that forces me to turn my back to what the religions say on the subject, so be it. They have been the champions of far too many similar tragedies for far too long."

"Maybe if Mozart had written the ending for Figaro correctly, as it should have been written, we wouldn't be in such a mess as we are in today," I interrupted Ushi.

"How about you re-writing your ending with Heather in the way it should have been written, Peter?" Ushi interrupted. "You certainly blew it with Heather on the last day you had together. The question is, would you do the same mistake all over again? Or would you act correctly if you had a second chance? In this case, how would you rewrite the story of your love? Ask yourself, Peter, if you would really be able to find a way to bring Heather home with you today, to your wife, knowing that you had some rather intense sexual intimacies with Heather? Would you break that Cinderella story?"

"The question is a rather simple one, isn't it?" I replied. "How would one expect the most advanced species in the known universe to react in such a situation? How would a society of human beings have to react at the sublime level of its self-discovery? That's where we discover ourselves as human beings of a common humanity. Thus, we must ask ourselves as members of that society if we would commit ourselves to play out the Cinderella story? I don't think we would play it out at all. It's too small a story. It's too limited."

Ushi applauded. "Yes, Peter, you must find your answer to your puzzle in that answer you just gave. I also think the answer isn't a tough one. Indeed, Peter, would it be actually possible at the sublime level not to invite Heather into your home until she found a new place to stay? Would a sublime person possibly withhold that invitation? I think the answer is obvious, isn't it? This might mean that you should have phoned ahead, letting Sylvia know, and then have invited Heather to come to your house long before she tore herself apart inside and walked out on you out of sheer desperation. And even without phoning ahead, you still should have been able to bring Heather home with you for a few days or weeks. This would have been expected in a sublime world, even inevitable. It should have been impossible not to do it."

"No, no, no," I interrupted her. "What you suggest wouldn't have worked. I might even have tried this if Heather had not left. I certainly would do this today if I had a chance to do it again, in the light of the great urgency that we face to create a breakthrough in relating to one-another as human beings. Nevertheless it probably wouldn't work, even now. It is unrealistic to assume that this sort of thing could be made to work. We've moved backwards on this front for far too long. We can't bridge all this in a single step. I knew this then. Heather seemed to have had a sense of that too, as her letter indicates."

"That's why the impasse occurred," said Ushi. "We don't allow ourselves to move with the imperatives of universal principle. This is not a case of stepping out of a wrong history. It is a case of starting a brand new and correct train of history, creating a New World.

"Heather's reaction would likely be the same today," I interjected. "And what about Sylvia's reaction? I can't imagine what her reaction would have been had I brought Heather home with me. Not even the most extraordinary woman would be able to deal with this kind of situation, as a wife. As you said yourself, she would be emotionally devastated if I imposed this on her. Some time in the future this may become possible, but not now. Unfortunately, time is running out for mankind. We are reaching an impasse that is becoming evermore impossible to resolve while billions of lives hang in the balance and the world remains tied into knots in terms of finding a solution."

"What has time got to do with that?" Ushi asked. "Do principles change over time? What is possible in time is possible today. You say it wouldn't be possible today for society to act as sublime human beings. I say it would be possible to solve the entire problem from A to Z if we gave ourselves half a chance, certainly your little problem that you find so impossible to resolve. And, Peter, I can prove it to you."

"Prove it, Ushi? How?"

"Let me tell you a story, Peter. The story is an ancient legend of the native Northwest coastal nations. It's a story about a magic canoe that enables the people in it to travel instantly to where they want to go. It is obvious how this kind or magic power to move instantly would have uplifted the whole community that has this canoe, in terms of finding fish and so forth. I am sure we would have even better uses for it today, if we had that kind of capability. Such a capability would for instance revolutionize space exploration. It would reduce the vast distances of space to zero. It would make the very concept of distance invalid. Of course we may never have this capacity in the physical world. We can't magically override the physical principles of the universe and the barriers they impose. However, we don't have these limitations in the metal realm, do we? What then would hinder us to reduce all the vast distances that stand between us human beings to zero, which we have set up foolishly to isolate us from one-another? I see no reason why these distances shouldn't be reduced to zero since no principle supports this universal division and isolation that we practice. According to Helen's model of the lateral lattice that you are familiar with, Peter, we all exist side by side laterally as children of the same humanity with no distance between us a matter of principle. Nothing exists in this reality that would isolate us as."

I nodded. "You are right, of course," I said quietly. "Only by shutting down the strands of love that are the cement of the lateral lattice that Helen saw, which she beheld in progress, can the isolation between people occur. This shutdown of reality won't likely ever happen in the real world. It would mean shutting down our humanity. However, we do react as if this had actually happened."

"That's the reality of our being, Peter," said Ushi. "No universal principle imposes isolation, much less the development of any distance between us as human beings."

Ushi went back inside after she said this as the kettle began to whistle. She returned moments later. "Every concept of distance therefore appears to be invalid, Peter," she continued. "That is why I think we feel so close to each other. What we experience, you and I, appears to be the natural reflection of what is the reality of our being and all being. Helen's lateral lattice model that you are familiar with is merely a construct of what we already acknowledge to be true. So, why shouldn't we respond to what we acknowledge to be true? I am certain that we both already experience the reality that we have discovered. There exists no magical thing that the two of us have created by which we feel closer to each other. We experience the closeness that we do, because we have invalidated the concept of distance by discovering that the concept of difference has nothing to do with anything real. If the closeness that we feel were not already the reality of our being, we would never be able to artificially create it. To do so, would be paramount to overriding the design of our humanity. Luckily, there is no need for that. There is only a need to bring it out more fully. This tells me, Peter, that the same closeness that exists between us exists also between you, Heather, and Sylvia. So why would Sylvia have exploded in anger if you had invited Heather into you home for a few days? Don't you see, Peter, what you are afraid of exists only in the mythical world of the imperial vertical model where huge hierarchical distances have been artificially created between people to support the imperial hierarchical model of an artificial world?"

"Sure, that's the lowest possible form of self-perception that I can imagine," I interjected. "But that doesn't apply to Sylvia and Heather and me."

"That's what I have been trying to tell you, Peter. What you find impossible to accept is as far away from the truth as one can get," said Ushi. "It certainly doesn't represent us, and Sylvia and Heather, as far as I can tell. The entire construct of distance is nothing more than a lie that has been cleverly imposed on society, for society to imagine and respond to accordingly. So, why should we comply with that, responding to a lie? What people perceive at the lowest possible level of self-perception, were this lie is anchored, has nothing to do with reality. Why should we react to it? Shouldn't we rather react to what is real, the Principle of Universal Love, and enrich one-another's existence to the fullest possible extent? Why wouldn't Sylvia have embraced Heather with joy for that very reason, and have found herself enriched by embracing her? I see no reason why she would have closed the door? As a human being, which she is, as we all are, she has the capacity to react as a human being would react. She has this capacity now and always had that capacity. That is what is true today, and I can prove it."

"I respect Sylvia's genius," I interrupted Ushi. "I admire her for it. But is she the kind of superhuman genius who can set aside all the deeply drawn emotions that society has been trained to associate with such a situation, like me bringing Heather to the door as a guest? How could she avoid those longstanding emotions? How would these emotions not devastate her in this situation as society has been trained to become devastated? I have my doubts that what you propose would have worked, Ushi."

Ushi shook her head vigorously. "Sylvia wouldn't need to be a genius at all for this to have worked, Peter," Ushi replied. "Every honest, living, human being is able to meet the demands of such a situation without becoming devastated in the process if the response rests on the Principle of Universal Love. This principle determines the intent of our response. The intent in turn determines the outcome. What I have suggested would have been possible on that platform, because then Sylvia's response would have echoed what is already rooted in her heart as it is in everyone's heart, and always has been. Let me prove it to you."

I had gone inside the room while she spoke to get the tea ready. I returned to the balcony with a couple of cups on a tray and a dish with cookies, chocolate, and another dish with Mexican pastry. I simply shook my head, referring to what she said. "How can you prove this? That's not possible, is it?"

"It is possible, but you have to help me, Peter. Let's do some role playing," said Ushi. "I will play your part and you play the role of your wife, Sylvia."

Ushi took a couple of steps away from me, and turned around, facing me with a grin. "Here we go, Peter. Put your tray down and pay attention to the fact that whenever we touch on the truth in our relating to one-another, there is always zero distance between us. So here we go! You arrive at your home with Heather at your side. You get the key out of your pocket at your front door." Ushi reached into her pocket. "The door opens. Hello Sylvia! Let me introduce to you my newly found friend, Heather. Heather has gone through hell in her marriage that just broke up. She needs some help for a few days to establish herself here in Pittsburgh. I have invited her to stay with us until she gets back on her feet. It probably won't take long. A day or two might suffice, or a week, maybe more. We have a spare room that stands empty."

Ushi motioned me to respond to that. "OK Peter, play Sylvia's part. What would Sylvia answer to that? Play her role. Are you going to throw a tantrum? Are you going to raise the roof? Really, Peter, what could you say, playing her role? If you say this woman can't stay, because she is a woman, I will ask you why you want to throw half of humanity onto the scrap heap like some subhuman species. Would I need to remind you that fifty-percent of mankind happens to be women? No, I wouldn't have to say that! Everyone knows that, right? What I am trying to illustrate to you, Peter, is that unless Sylvia is a bigot, she simply can't use that kind of argument to bar Heather from coming into your house. You, yourself, couldn't find a valid argument against this, right? Likewise, neither would she have if this had been a real situation. I think she would have been honest with herself about the nature of our humanity. The option to bar Heather wouldn't be open to her, right? And why should she bar Heather? Is there a distance to cross that would isolate Heather?"

I shook my head.

"So, let's see, what else could you say if you were Sylvia?" Ushi continued. "You might reject Heather on the grounds that she doesn't fit into 'our family.' If you were to bring up this argument, Peter, I would turn the argument around and ask you why 'our' family has to be so small that there isn't room enough for one more person, or for that matter many more persons. I would then ask you why it is that we take from the whole world as freely as we do, to feed our family and meet our needs, or to enrich our home, and never give anything back in terms of enriching one-another as human beings outside of this narrow sphere and in a manner that enriches society at large. We take and take and take, and don't give a damn. Why are we so spontaneously willing to take, and not willing to give? Are we not all human beings? Why is this so hard to acknowledge on an individual basis? Obviously, being an honest person representing your wife, you wouldn't be able to use that kind of argument either, that your heart is too small, that Heather wouldn't fit. That option isn't open to you in your role playing now, and neither would it have been open to Sylvia in real life, right? The true response is that which reflects what is rooted in the heart and Soul of our humanity."

I nodded again. "What can I say? What can anyone say to that?" I defended myself. "What you propose would have been possible is the same response that my friend Olive suggested is natural when one is listening to great classical music, which she said is designed to have the same effect, to echo what is rooted in the human heart and Soul. She said it brings us home. It helps us to discover the overflowing riches of our humanity."

Ushi smiled with a sense of satisfaction and continued without a comment.

"Failing this," she said, "you might want to say that Heather can't stay in the house because there might be sexual intimacies that would surely result if they hadn't happened already. But, Peter, if you brought this argument up, playing the role of your wife, I would ask you if you were referring to the kind of sexual intimacies that we have with each other twice a week like most adult human beings. I would ask you if you suggest that it is possible for one human being to be a lesser human being, of lesser value, less worthy of affection, and less worthy of love than another human being. I would ask you why love, and whatever intimacies may be a part of it, should apply profoundly and richly to one human being, and not at all to another. I can't think of an excuse that an honest human being could bring up to counter that kind of argument. The bottom line is, your wife wouldn't have been able to counter this argument either, against Heather coming into your house. This option simply wouldn't have been available."

I nodded again. All that I could do is nod. She was right. How could any honest human being argue with that? "The tragedy of the world is that we have played those games of divide and isolate for so long that we don't know anymore how not to play them," I said. "Being divided and isolated has become our state of civilization as we call it. Is it any wonder then that we created a culture in which people steal from one another in this multiply divided world and make war to steal some more? If we weren't facing the return of the Ice Age I would say that we could live with that tragedy and go on suffering the consequences. But that option is no longer open. That's no long possible, is it? It's now a crime against the future and a crime against humanity. That's what we called this in Russia. The division and isolation has to stop. But that's easier said than done, Ushi, isn't it?"

"Of course you might say that Heather can't stay in the house for reasons of adultery," said Ushi, "since having sexual relationships with any other person in the world, except one's spouse, is immoral, illegal, rotten, filthy, swinish, ugly, a terrible disgrace even, because it is ugly stuff! If you were to say that," Ushi grinned, "I would ask you why it is that you like to engage in sexual intimacies yourself, twice a week or whatever the case may be, if it is such an ugly thing that it must be kept hidden behind closed doors, and be contained within the smallest possible sphere within the family. I would ask, if this were to be so, why would anyone want to risk such 'filth' spoiling their marriage by being sexually active. Why not keep sex far outside of it? Why not keep it as far away from the home as possible? But all people embrace it, from kings to beggars? So, what's the problem with sex? Can you answer that?

"Of course you may answer me," Ushi continued, "that sex is only ugly with another person who isn't specifically licensed to engage in procreation. In this case, I would ask why we have sex so regularity, and with the kind of passion that is associated with it, if one needs sex only twice in a person's lifetime to procreate the species. Sylvia may argue against that, that the intimacy of sex in a relationship between only two people makes it so special that it draws people closer together. In this case I would ask you why anyone would want to impose restrictive barriers at all, which encumber an element of our humanity that draws people more powerfully together than any other human aspect. Why would we want to turn sex, which naturally unites people, into an instrument for division that isolates the whole society from one-another? Does that make sense? It doesn't to me. Neither would it make sense to Sylvia.

"If she would still hesitate, I would ask then if we don't have enough isolation and division in the world already. Why would we want to add more? I would ask how we can even hope to overcome the world's political, economic, religious, ethnic, and military division, which threatens our very existence, if we can't even deal with the problem of overcoming division and isolation at the home plate. I would point out that this division makes no sense at all, like all the other forms of division that nobody really wants. Don't we all want to live in a world without distance? Unity between human beings is a natural dimension of the humanity that we all share. Who, except one trained to be a deeply selfish person, someone who aims to dominate and hog all of another's attention, would want to divide people so deeply against one-another as to assure society's near complete isolation, which every human being longs to overcome? I would add that this selfishness includes definitely the isolation by sexual privatization."

I raised my hand to stop her and said something about emotions, as sex inspires powerful emotions.

Ushi just shook her head. "People don't want to be divided against each other," she said firmly, "especially not at the sexual level. That's why they look across the fence and dream. But they are not allowed to take one step further than dreaming, because of emotional barriers. Woe to the person who fights this division!"

I assured Ushi that I understood this perfectly, but...

"But why don't we do away with this division and isolation?" asked Ushi. "Does Sylvia benefit from enforcing a division that denies the very nature of our common humanity? It creates isolation and builds up this vast distance between people that nobody really wants."

I interrupted Sylvia with a boat building story. A true story. Someone I knew had begun building a boat in his backyard, an ocean-going trimaron. He and his wife had been building this boat for many years. Finally, on the big maiden voyage across some of the roughest seas to test the design, they revealed to each other that they both had been committed to building this boat on the belief that the other really wanted it, while neither had longed for that great adventure to sail the world. The entire project had been pursued on the basis of a misperception. They committed themselves for years to something that neither of them really wanted.

"Doesn't the same apply to the deep reaching sexual division and isolation that we all subscribe to, which nobody really wants?" said Ushi. "Sylvia might imagine that she does benefit from this isolation while living under the thumb of emotions. But are the emotions really true? Or are they just politically educated responses? Indeed, what are emotions? Aren't they all carefully shaped axiomatic responses that we've been taught? Haven't we all been 'carefully taught' as the Lieutenant sings in the musical, South Pacific? We have been taught how to feel, and what to feel about other people. We have been taught whom to hate, and by the same token whom to love. We have been taught how to relate to one-another, but not based on truth. We have been taught when to embrace another person, and when to isolate ourselves. The only thing that we have not been taught, is how to relate to one-another honestly as human beings."

"That's what my friend Raymond makes his living of as a psychiatrist," I said to Ushi, "because we can't deal with one-another primarily as human beings, especially sexually. His researchers have found out that this sexual division and isolation is really a universal problem that nearly the whole of society is struggling with. People are at war quietly and individually within themselves. It is really surprising that we have any kind of deep love and unity at all under these circumstances. Maybe we don't, Ushi, in comparison with what we could have."

"That's my point, Peter," said Ushi. "If sex has been so mythologized that it stands in the way on such a large scale, why don't we uplift it to a higher level as a part of our humanity that is worth embracing universally? Why are we so committed to arrogantly throwing a part of our humanity away as a mistake of creation that we must shun as an error made by God; a black spot created in the heavens for which we must shun half of humanity? I'd say we need to uplift sex to a higher level in our perception. We think too poorly of it. We think too small. We have to raise the whole idea of sex onto the spiritual level as a worthy element of our humanity and then drag the physical aspects up behind us, thereby uplifting the whole scene of humanity to where we come to light as the very image of God. I think this idea was faintly understood during the Renaissance by the most leading edge thinkers."

"Like Mozart in Figaro?" I interrupted.

"Like Mozart," Ushi replied. "So, tell me, Peter, what would you say to me if I stood in your place and you stood in the place of your wife? Can you think of any valid argument, representing your wife, that you could use to send Heather away if you are honest with yourself as a human being? I can't imagine what a wife could possibly say against Heather that wouldn't instantly discredit her as an honest human person? I would like to think that Sylvia would be in the same predicament that you are in right now if she was honest with herself as a human being."

"She would recognize that she really has no other options than to bid Heather welcome," I said quietly.

"And why shouldn't she?" said Ushi. "That's what creating a renaissance is all about. We open the door to one-another as human beings and invite one-another into the realm of the lateral lattice where the concept of distance is invalid, as are the concepts of division and isolation. We need to turn us into human beings again, Peter! That's what a renaissance is. A renaissance is a paradigm shift in society's thinking towards becoming human again. That's what it is, isn't it? Are you surprised, Peter? All the economic, political, and cultural Golden Days that are traditionally associated with a great renaissance, are all secondary results of people uplifting themselves as human beings in an embrace of universal truths. That is how they uplift one-another, and thereby their world. Can you imagine, Peter, that living in such a renaissance a wife would send her husband's new love away in a huff of indignation? That would never happen in a renaissance world, right? It would be unthinkable, but it happens now. That's a paradox that needs to be resolved in the flow of building that renaissance. In building this renaissance we are literally forced to drag the physical scene up behind us into conformity with our newly discovered spiritual world of recognized truth, our world of scientific perception and discoveries of universal principles."

Ushi stopped and began to laugh, suddenly. "So, would you still say to me, no, no, no, that can't be done? Do you still believe that Sylvia would be devastated if this actually happened?"

I shrugged my shoulders once more. "No, of course not, but!"

"Aha!" Ushi replied. "Here is your opportunity for giving something back to the world, Peter."

"A woman from India was calling this renaissance, which is needed, a state of super-high-energy humanism. She said that this is where our humanity is truly active in an intense way so that it powers all the necessary steps of us being truly human," I replied. "Would that qualify, is we were to achieve it?"

Ushi nodded. "I think we have both been looking at this Heather problem backwards. The real challenge isn't to get Sylvia's permission to bring Heather into the house. The real challenge is to enrich Sylvia's thinking to such a high level of scientific perception of the truth about our humanity that she would bid Heather welcome by her own initiative, and do it gladly. That's the real challenge, isn't it? The object of this challenge would have to be to create the kind of uplifting environment in which Sylvia would discover herself for a new and richer life. I think this challenge can be met," Ushi sighed. "I think bringing Heather to the door might have catalyzed that development."

I shook my head slightly.

"That's why I had asked you to play Sylvia's role," Ushi added moments later. "You agreed that you would play this role, but you didn't say a word until now. This means that you are either stupid, which I can't believe, or there exists no valid argument that a rational person could bring up against the truth that I have presented. I also would like to suggest that if you had realized all of that while you were in Key West with Heather, you would have made the appropriate arrangements right there and then, with both Heather and Sylvia. I bet it would have worked out great."

"So, the blame lies with me," I admitted.

"No, Pete, the blame lies with us all. The blame lies with humanity. It was our history and our insanity that created the conditions for such cruelty to be imposed upon ourselves; the kind that you and Heather have experienced; the kind that Sylvia might experience unless she is able to step out of this box with your help, which I expect will happen. It was the world's stupidity that put us into the rut where all our impasses were created. It put us all into that box in which no one can move unless specifically authorized to do so by the imperial 'largess.' Remember the case of Christ Jesus defending the adulterous woman. It was a case of unauthorized sex; but unauthorized by whom? Was it unauthorized by God or the imperial rulers? Christ Jesus lifted the woman out of that box. In fact, the dissolved the box. He invalidated the imperial law. You and Heather both tried to get out of the box, but you weren't quite able. You weren't quite ready to break the mythology of unauthorized sex, because you didn't understand the nature of the box. You still don't believe that this can actually be done, do you, that this box can be dissolved and the mythology be invalidated? But I have news for you, Peter. You had the courage to test the waters. I believe you would have been successful all the way through had Heather not opted out on her own. You were both thinking in big terms, not small-minded as the rest of the world thinks. You merely stumbled on the last step.

"I can imagine that Sylvia is probably a lot like you and Heather," Ushi continued. "Do you really believe that you would have asked Heather to step out of your car a block from your house? Do you think that Sylvia would have felt good about it if you had, if she knew? It wouldn't have happened, Peter. It wouldn't have happened in a million years. You aren't that small and that cheap, and that pitiful, Peter. And do you really believe that Sylvia would have closed the door on you and Heather? That would never have happened either. She would have offered Heather a place in your home for as long as she needed it. Whatever problems this might have created, and there might have been challenging problems to deal with, you would have both worked them out. I also think that the three of you would have done this in such a way that Sylvia too, would feel good about it. That's what I believe. That's what I know! I also believe that Heather might have faintly realized that you would have attempted that. She may have had doubts about Sylvia's reaction. That is why I think Heather said, no, no, no way! She was afraid, Peter, of the unknown."

Ushi laughed again. "Suppose, Heather had been Sylvia's friend, not yours, then Sylvia would have had no reservation with inviting her. But why should it be any different the other way around? Suppose Heather was her sister, which in the truer sense she is. Would she send her away? The very moment that you ask those kinds of questions, the answer stares you in the face and the problem is resolved. That really happens, Peter, in real life. Try it!"

"The difference lies in what is politically correct according to the prevailing doctrine," I agreed.

"Prevailing doctrines, yes Peter, that's what people have reacted to for thousands of years," Ushi affirmed. "People weren't allowed to see beyond the tip of their nose under the shroud of doctrines. The greatest atrocities were committed under the shroud of doctrines, and still are. I have been told that 200 million women and girls have been murdered that way over a span of thousands of years in early India, because it had been defined in the Vedas to be politically correct to do that. The same insanity continues to happen under the shroud of the doctrine of political correctness."

"People have relied on doctrines for centuries, to guide them," I added. "We haven't really been allowed to discover ourselves as we truly are in the way Helen did by visualizing the lateral lattice. Who even thinks in terms of a scientific model for the reality of our being, in which we live and love and enrich one-another with rays of love like the sunshine from the Sun? Unfortunately, I am not the genius that Helen is, or a similar genius, and neither is Sylvia."

"Don't lie to yourself, Peter. Sylvia is not one of those people that live under the shroud of doctrine and neither are you!" Ushi interrupted emphatically. "She can't be, the way you have described her to me. You both live in the sunshine of the genius of our humanity that makes us all human. We all have the capacity to live in that sunshine. Some already do, and some are standing at the edge of it, waiting for the final nudge. Yes, Sylvia might have been emotionally challenged at first had you brought Heather home, I agree. I don't deny that it can be agonizing to grow up, especially having to do it quickly. But should one remain forever bound to infancy for that reason? Look at what Heather's opting out has already cost Sylvia. Think about that."

"It has cost her the joy of coming to know the wonderful person that Heather is," I replied sadly. "It has cost her the riches of feeling Heather's vitality, her love, her appreciation of life, her caring..."

"...And the joy of her loving Heather herself," Ushi finished my sentence. "So, it all boils down to a lack of self-love, doesn't it. That's the terrible cost that far too many people are ready to pay in fighting their private little wars against themselves. That's where the real tragedy is rooted, Peter! If you want to give something back in the sphere of love, spare her that tragedy. Bring her with you into the sphere of universal love where this tragedy can never ever happen. Bring her out of the sphere of poverty where people fight against themselves under the shroud of dogmas. I'm sure you know what I mean."

"I know," I said. "I've been there. I've been a champion player in this sphere of tragedy. I had fought this war against myself for fifteen years. The outcome could have been fatal. It certainly would be fatal for the whole of mankind if this universal trend continued towards the Ice Age transition, thereby preventing society from creating the scientific and technological infrastructures to create a new food resource for the coming cold environment in which traditional agriculture becomes largely disabled. The one thing that developed clearly in Russia is the perception that the technological and economic aspects of creating the needed large-scale indoor agriculture aren't the biggest obstacles that we face. It became clear that the biggest obstacles are posed by our 'smallness' as a society, and by our petty division that we cling to tenaciously. Therefore, if mankind becomes wiped out in the coming Ice Age deep-freeze it would not be the result of a natural catastrophe, but would be a manmade tragedy. It would be manmade, because it would have resulted from our refusal to break the barriers that confine our humanity with irrational smallness."

"That's what I said, Peter. The whole world is locked into the same trend, Peter. It's actually amazing how terribly we human beings treat ourselves?" said Ushi. "Is it any wonder that we stand ready to fight wars against each other with atomic bombs, or with cultural warfare that prevents us from responding to the coming Ice Age so that most of mankind might become extinct? It seems that killing one another is all that we've been authorized for. But we are fighting back, Peter, and Steve too. We've authorized ourselves to respond to the truth."

Ushi paused. "I guess Steve didn't tell you that it was us who organized the Leipzig Declaration in opposition to the Global Warming myth," said Ushi a moment later. "Steve and I got the ball rolling in Leipzig right after the Heidelberg Appeal failed. The Heidelberg Appeal was the first great protest-effort by the real scientific community against the Global Warming Doctrine. Of course, the international Global Warming Promoters ignored their voices? The Heidelberg Appeal brought together 4000 signatures from the scientific community of 69 countries, Peter, all standing in opposition to the Global Warming Doctrine's unscientific nonsense. When the scientific community's appeal was ignored as if it didn't exist, Steve and I got into the act and collected signatures for our Leipzig Declaration. We went exclusively to the world's leading climate specialists. We got 110 signatures that probably covered most of the world's specialists in the field of climate sciences. When their expert voices were likewise ignored, Steve inspired a few people that he knew in Oregon to do something really big. As far as I know the Oregon Petition Project brought in signatures from 17,000 scientists from around the world, most of them with advanced degrees, petitioning the world's governments to ignore the Global Warming Myth as unscientific. That final effort seemed to have worked to some degree, because less than ten percent of the worlds 220 most important countries ended up supporting the Global Warming Doctrine. That's a greater than 90% worldwide rejection of the doctrine. That is what Steve fought for. I guess we won, we all won! Nevertheless the fight isn't over. The Global Warming promoters are immensely powerful and intimidating, and will keep on pushing their lies to hide the coming Ice Age, but Steve is equally determined to deny them their victory. That's the kind of fighter Steve is, as are the people he is associated with. Steve fights, because he is dismayed at how terribly we human beings tend to treat ourselves, especially now at the most critical period in human history when the fate of mankind will be decided soon, possibly for all times to come. Steve wants to help mankind to end this war against itself, and save civilization and most of mankind with it. He sees no reason why we should fight these wars against ourselves that lead to our own extinction, Pete. After your visit in Leipzig Steve started to shift his fighting onto a higher level, by putting it into the social arena in pursuit of the Principle of Universal Love. It seems you have begun to do the same, Peter."

I told Ushi about Tara and our little group's daring to ask Tara out for dinner, which she couldn't allow herself to accept. I suggested that if she had been able to move with that, she would have made a bunch of people very proud to be so privileged, which she would have enjoyed tremendously. But she couldn't consent to this, because it would have offended another person who had evidently demanded that this war against herself be fought relentlessly and be won by her.

"I am puzzled as to who demanded this same type of fighting in Sylvia's case, against herself?" Ushi asked.

"You should know the answer to this," I replied.

"Yes Peter, it was you who made that demand," she said to me. "You set the example. You were the champion of the cause. You set the stage. You said so yourself that you led the way! You were Sylvia's role model. But suppose for a moment that Sylvia and you were both thinking like Steve. How would this change the background? How might this have reflected itself in Sylvia's response towards you and Heather?"

I began to smile here that must have surprised her. She began to grin in return.

"In this case Sylvia would have insisted that I invite Heather to the house without fail. In fact, she would have invited her herself, if she have had prior knowledge of our possible coming. She might even have insisted that the depth of our association be maintained during the full length of her stay and continue to grow without end. This is what I suppose Steve would have done, had I stayed any longer in Leipzig."

"What you just said could have come true," Ushi replied with a smile. "And it will come true with Heather. I think you will find each other again. I even predict that you will have a wonderful journey together, you, Heather, Sylvia, and whoever else might yet come into your life. You might even want to include me one day as a part of your growing intimate family."

"You already are as far as I am concerned," I interrupted her. "I am certain that Sylvia would have found the short period of Heather living with us a rich one for her. Heather is a bright and loving person, full of life, a joy to be with, just like you. And she would most certainly welcome you too on the same basis."

"That's precisely what I am talking about," said Ushi. "Steve found the day that we had together in Leipzig, richly rewarding for that reason." Here Ushi paused and began to grin. "And guess who is paying for the cost of our hotel room here?"

"Steve? - No, not Steve!"

She nodded, now grinning even more. "Steve offered it when you were on the phone that day."

My mouth fell open. "How can I ever repay him?" I asked when the shock wore off.

"I'm sure you already have," she said with a smile. "I can't wait to tell Steve what you told me about you having started a movement in Russia that has the potential to change the world, meaning that you have already taken your first step in creating a New Renaissance, an Ice Age Renaissance, as you call it. Isn't it amazing how a new sunrise can unfold from such a small start as we had in Leipzig when we met, and really change the world? Steve knows that mankind will have to do this globally in order to survive, but to hear the same confirmed from you, and to hear that you may have already helped to bring this sunrise one step further onto the global policy agenda will give him great joy."

"Tell Steve that one day we will all live in this rich New World that we dreamed about back then," I interjected. "Tell him that our Renaissance World will be a world in which the East has been restructured with a human focus and the West has given up its fascination with poverty, fascism, and fostering imperial wars and depopulation. Tell him that this future world will be a bright human world in which the West has lost its devotion to stealing and has embraced the General Welfare Principle that the USA had been founded on and has elevated it to a global principle. Tell him that this will be a world in which the geopolitical empires no longer exist, and might not even be remembered in; a world in which all elements of society are integrated into a community of principle, embracing the Principle of Universal Love. Tell him that the greatest obstacle to human prosperity is not the West, or the East, or the oligarchy, but the small-minded thinking that underlies the imperial system that has erroneously been adapted around the world in every sphere and on every level. Tell him that this system is already dying, being a system that had divided and crippled the world, but which soon will exist no more. Tell him that we have begun to counter this crippling system with love, and that it will be overturned some day soon. Tell him that we have begun to hasten that day, thanks to his own great generosity and his keen scientific thinking. Do you think Steve will believe that?" I added.

Ushi smiled. "Steve doesn't just believe this," she replied, "he knows this to be true." She said that Steve understands that the imperial system is already disintegrating, because the system is so defective that even the oligarchs need to be rescued from it. He also knows that we are in a process of helping the imperials, on the platform of the Principle of Universal Love, to shut their system down that now threatens their own existence more than anything else in the world."

Ushi added that Steve understands all of this, probably better than anyone. "He knows that the imperial system absolutely opposes the principle of economics that supports human existence, by which the imperial system is self-doomed together with the imperial oligarchy that is doomed by consequence of this madness that created the self-doomed system. Steve is of course aware that the imperials are presently destroying the world that they need for looting, by which they have become doomed, and we with them. But Steve also insists that this process of destruction doesn't have to play itself out to the bitter end, that it can be stopped at any point along the way and that a human system can take its place, even while the imperial system is collapsing. He recognizes that we have already begun to do that. And Peter, just wait till I tell him about what you have set in motion in Russia in terms of putting the Ice Age on the world agenda."

Ushi talked about Steve's analogy to the present world situation. "Steve sees the West as completely taken over by the original Venetian imperial mentality," she said. "He says that the British Empire never really existed, because Britain had been completely taken over by the Venetian oligarchy in the 1688 invasion of England by the Venetian's Dutch operative, Prince William of Orange. From this point on the monarchy of Britain became subservient to the oligarchy and to the looting of the world. It became a front for a private 'commercial' venture carried out for 'profit.' Steve says that this process has now been globalized with the exception of the communist world, which is therefore under attack and will continue to be under attack until it submits itself to the private looting process. Or it will be destroyed in the attacks. He laughs at the notion that there will ever be an independent American Empire, as some people claim is being built. He claims that the very notion of an American Empire is a contradiction in language, because America represents mankind's anti-imperial humanist spirit. That's its true culture. He says that there exists only one empire in the world, which carries out the Venetian intent to globalize private imperial control over everything from banking to oil, raw materials, food production and distribution, even drinking water. He says that all the vital national infrastructures and resources are being privatized for looting evermore profits out of the populations."

"Steve seems to forget one crucial aspect that shaped the British-Venetian Empire," I interjected. "He is like everybody else in that respect. People seem to ignore that the British Empire with its Venetian background also has a deep reaching root in Brahmanic India. The British Empire had a 250-year hands-on learning experience in India during the Anglo Brahmanic Colonial period. Its involvement there evidently shaped the empire's global imperial policies to greater degree than one might think. While we can see a lot of the corrupting system of the Venetian Empire reflected in the way the British empire operates, we can also see the Brahmanic antihuman madness reflected in the empire's policies, especially in the policies of depopulation. We really should be referring to the modern world-empire as the British-Venetian-Brahmanic imperial complex. That is the complex that has now privatized much of the control over the world into its own hands, regardless of whatever control the government fancy themselves to have. The notion of an American Empire is just another one of those fancy dreams. America has been 'privatized' by the empire. Somebody should be fighting to rescue America."

"Steve is fighting for that," said Ushi. "He is fighting the entire imperial privatization process, especially the imperially instigated privatization of sex that started in ancient times, enforced with the death penalty for unauthorized sex under the early religious imperial structures. Steve suggests that the entire pyramid of today's world-empire appears to rest still rather solidly on that ancient foundation, the empire's core privatization project, the privatization of sex, meaning the universal isolation and privatization of society. He keeps insisting that we will forever spin our wheels for naught in trying to fix the world politically and economically if we don't address that core issue. He says that the entire Ice Age Renaissance project, and thereby the future existence of mankind, hinges on our success in resolving that one core issue, which can only be resolved on the platform of the Principle of Universal Love."

"I hope he also recognizes that society is moving further and further away from this principle instead of embracing it more and more," I interjected. "However, I wonder if Steve is right. Is it the best course action to face the core issue right on, rather than slowly working up to it? Is this the only option? Or maybe both options are similarly insufficient. Right after the agricultural revolution happened and civilization began, mankind slipped into a near universal dynastic and imperial mode. This tragedy may have happened on the road of growing up, but this period should have ended by now. Mankind has been trapped into this mode for 7000 years already. The demand, which the future is imposing now, is that we snap out of this mode almost instantly. We have only 100 years left to create the infrastructures that we need for surviving in the coming Ice Age deep freeze. Those vast infrastructures cannot be created in the old imperial mode. We need to snap out of it and jump to totally new platform for human development that we should have been on for a few centuries already instead of having been locked into this insane Three Hundred Years War that the imperials have been fighting against humanity on a global scale, and still are."

Ushi nodded. "If we were in a space ship on a course that would take us directly into the sun, wouldn't it be wise to deal directly with the core issue and change course? We really wouldn't have any other option, would we? The same applies here. Steve sees the Western nations like passengers in an airplane on the way from New York to San Francisco, flying at 48,000 feet. Suddenly the captain announces that he has been requested by his superior at the home office to implement a new cost-saving idea. He has been instructed to turn the engines off. Ushi explained that this act corresponds to the imperials' deindustrialization and depopulation campaigns that the West has obediently committed itself to under the privatization mantra. The oligarchy is telling the passengers that the empire has no need for industries and infrastructures, and for populations working in the industries. That's a hidden form of genocide, isn't it? Society is told that the simple life of living nicely isolated from one another and by simple means is the ideal future. That's the primitive get back to Earth kind of dream that society is taught to love."

Ushi sighed. "Unfortunately, this dream is but a dream," she said. "The reality is that the primitive Earth doesn't support many people, and much less so during an Ice Age. We must never forget that after 2.5 million years of development mankind came out of the last Ice Age with a world population of only a few million people, five million the most. The primitive and uncomplicated future that people are taught to seek today is a future of abject poverty and starvation at the very best, especially with society mired in a feudal world in an Ice Age environment. That's the kind of future in which very few will be able to survive, possibly even in the short run. That's what the primitive song means when the captain sings obediently, 'we can fly this airplane without engines,' and repeats his song again and again with great joy, 'see, we can fly this airplane without engines!' That's what the captain tells the passengers, adding as a refrain, 'listen people how quiet the flight has become, and how efficient! Just imagine we can make greater profits in the gambling casinos of the financial markets than in the physical economy where we have to work for a living! We can all become rich people by doing nothing and enslaving other people whose life we own by the bonds of financial debt! We can fly this airplane forever without engines!' That's like saying we can fly our spacecraft straight into the sun and have a hell of a future."

Ushi explained that Steve's scenario is a perfect analogy of a systemic crisis. "With its engines shut down the airplane will not fly for long," Ushi continued. "It will crash long before it gets to San Francisco. That sort of process constitutes a systemic crisis. There is something wrong in the 'system' if we try to fly an airliner without its engines powered. That core issue needs to be corrected, or else the end result is a systemic failure in transportation, which is ultimately a human failure, because society has lost its human dimension. Steve always keeps coming back to the point that civilization is not a primitive issue, because it is a construct built on the Principle of Universal Love. He says that only human beings are capable of operating on this high level platform, built on the recognition of universal principles. No animal is capable of consciously recognizing universal principles, much less of founding its existence on them. Steve says that only our human civilization is such a construct built on discovered principles, and that we simply cannot step away from this principle-oriented platform that we have created without loosing our civilization and nine-tenth of mankind with it that would have no physical means to exist without it. Steve also says that we must move forward. He says that the greater the physical challenges become in maintaining our civilization, as in an approaching Ice Age, the deeper we must reach into the Principle of Universal Love, even though the issues become evermore more complex that we thereby face and the resulting civilization becomes evermore beautiful and rich, and bright with ever greater freedoms."

"Flying and airplane without engines is like society trying to face an Ice Age without building the infrastructures for securing society's food supply." I interjected.

"Steve says that he is convinced that the nations on the airplane can be inspired to order the captain to turn the engines back on before the fatal crash occurs. Steve is hoping that we can inspire enough self-love in the world, reflected in people's love for one-another and their posterity, that the nations will take the necessary steps to save themselves, even if the deeper issues of the Principle of Universal Love are evermore complex."

"The time for starting this is just about now," I interjected. "The first step would have to be to get the captain to put the plane into steep dive to restart the engines, unless there is enough battery-power left to do it. When this is accomplished and the engines are rolling again, a whole New World unfolds, a world of powered flight!"

"Steve believes that this kind of shift in thinking, beginning at the grassroots level, is possible. He believes that we can get this thing started," said Ushi. "He thinks it is possible to inspire the nations of the world to care enough about themselves, and beyond that, about each other and their children and children's children, that they will shut down the imperial game and prevent the wars that are presently planned and built the infrastructures that will enable mankind to live more richly in an Ice Age environment that we live now."

"Steve's airplane story is also the story of my own impasse with Sylvia," I interrupted Ushi. "You proved to me earlier that the platform has always existed on which I could have brought Heather home with me from Key West. Still, I also recognize that the quality of our world is so poor that Sylvia may very well have been devastated for no real reasons at all. As you say, we live in a society that has forced its captain to turn the engines off. This has already happened. We have been on a glide path to a crash for some time. We've dropped so low that I can feel the ground turbulence already. If we were still flying at 48,000 feet I could see myself knocking at Sylvia's door, introducing Heather, with everything working out fine. In a sense, we are flying at 48,000 feet right now, you and me, but Sylvia isn't. She is still on that airplane."

"This may be so," Ushi replied, smiling. "But as a human being Sylvia has the capacity to go to the cockpit and hit the starter switch for the engines and pull the nose up. Maybe they have batteries on board so that they wouldn't need a steep dive to start the engines again. Maybe it is your task as her husband and lover to wake her up so that she will perform this task to save herself. In fact, you have to awake her as soon as you arrive in Washington. That's when the role-playing ends and real life begins. But the principles are the same. The truths that we have explored together, at 48,000 feet altitude, are true. Remember, every scary argument that you could have possibly brought up against Heather coming to your home, I had been able to counter and overturn with what we both understand to be the truth about our humanity and the principles that reflect it. You could not deny a single argument based on this truth. So, it won't be denied by Sylvia either if you do your job right."

I nodded. "Actually, you weren't quite fair with me during the role playing," replied. "You assigned me a role that didn't give me a chance to say anything, because there was nothing to be said."

"I have been fair, Peter," Ushi protested. "I proposed the role playing in that particular way, in order to prove a point, and the point is that you can't make a point in defense of your fears about Sylvia being devastated, should this issue be addressed. I made my point strong and clear, right? But if you like, let's reverse our roles and see what happens. In this case you will take on the role of yourself, and I will represent Sylvia. I'll do my best to discredit your arguments, if that is possible. Only, let's not argue about the legitimacy of emotions that are but images of dreams, the kind of dreams that make it impossible for a person to storm the cockpit and restart the engines. Let's keep ourselves alert to nothing but universal truths."

"Right," I agreed. "Let's not even focus on the by-products that come with the golden age of the renaissance that we want to create. Let's not make issues out of those secondary things. Let's focus on the principles of the renaissance."

"Right, let's focus on the principles, the sunrise that portents the new day; the love that makes us human, which transcends sex, color, nationality, including the religions that all tend to divide humanity," Ushi suggested. "Let's focus on sex that way, all by itself, which is evidently the most powerful element in the human domain, since you are scared to death by it, fearing that it would injure Sylvia. Also, let's do it with absolute honesty, because if we strike sex from the list of the causes that divide humanity, and hide it under the table, what foundation do we have for creating a new Renaissance? Right now, we are hiding it under the table, together with all the other aspects that we should be dealing with. If we exempt a single element, like sex, and give it legitimacy for dividing and isolating people, then we deny the principle of our universal humanity and throw away the renaissance that it has in store for us."

Wow! I almost applauded Ushi. "What would Sylvia say to this if I presented this approach as a platform for discussion? How would she respond? Can you think of a valid argument that she might bring up against it? Can you think of an argument that she might use to ask for a divorce over this issue?"

Ushi nodded. "There is a legitimate principle she could use. She could ask for a divorce on the grounds of her individual sovereignty as a human being. The Principle of Universal Love opens up a privilege based on the scientific acknowledgment of applicable universal truths, as Steve points out. The Principle of Universal Love doesn't impose itself as a duty. The universe is not built on duties, but on scientific privileges. Every person of humanity has claimed the democratic right to stay forever locked up in the dark caves of mythological opinions, or remain fast asleep on an airplane that is crashing."

"But that's a crime against our common future!" I interrupted.

"So far mankind has exercised these kinds of assumed democratic rights for centuries as a kind of default exercise, even though it is killing it, while it is clinging to mythologies that have no basis in reality," said Ushi. "That's the result of small, pitiful thinking. Everyone has claimed the right to live that way, and to be as foolish as the fancy of irrationality suggests that they be. But doing so isn't wise and is terribly unjust to the whole of mankind."

"Therefore those assumed rights don't really exist," I interjected. "Nobody has those rights."

"Sylvia could ask for a divorce on the basis of those assumed rights nevertheless," Ushi continued, "and be as foolish as the rest of the world. However, a human being also has the scientific privilege to step out of the caves into the sunshine of a New Renaissance. No one has to change the world for that. That comprises our real rights. It can be done individually, if not collectively. Every renaissance starts at the individual level. Then, to whatever degree this is done, the world at large gets pulled up behind the pioneer by the footsteps that are taken individually. That means that you reach out to Sylvia from the brightness of your own renaissance; you urge her to leave the dark old caves behind; and indeed, she might respond by asking you to go it alone, asking for a divorce. Technically, this is possible. Realistically, a person would have to be pretty small-minded to do this. And that's not Sylvia, right?"

I hugged Ushi and smiled. That was music to my ears. I begged her to search her mind and tell me if she could think of another argument that Sylvia could bring up against me, or could use for closing the door to Heather.

"Not in the form of a divorce, Peter," Ushi replied cautiously. "But you've got to understand that the sexual dimension of our humanity is as wide as the proverbial seashore. What is appropriate for one person may not be appropriate for another. The dimension is so wide that we can't possibly circumscribe it or verbalize its meaning. If we become honestly open towards the wonders of our humanity, to the point that we will turn our back against all the conventions that have isolated us from it and from ourselves; that have distorted our humanity; that have degraded it; that have exploited it; that have vilified it; that have scandalized its very name; then we face it as a new and as yet undiscovered county in which we are bound to find a new image of ourselves. As we reach out for this country, to discover it, we will surely find that the unfolding discovery gives a new meaning for the Golden Renaissance image of mankind as being created in the image and likeness of God. This concept, too, is an as yet undiscovered country. It is one of great promises that the Golden Renaissance of the 15th Century illustrates. Also, it appears to me that these two undiscovered countries, sex and our humanity, are actually one and the same? Can you separate the two, or demand me to do so?"

"Would Sylvia ever say this?" I asked.

Ushi nodded and grinned. "Probably not," she added.

"So it isn't an argument that she could use against accepting Heather into our house," I answered.

Ushi just smiled. "That wasn't my role playing task. You asked me to play the role of Sylvia as an intelligent, alert, human being, not one torn by emotions. What I told you would be the inevitable outcome of it, Peter, in a normal world. In playing the role of Sylvia in that world, I would extend to Heather a welcome with open arms, contrary to all your dark fears. How else could Sylvia respond as a human being?"

"I suppose you really did prove your point," I replied, "that it would have been possible to bring Heather home with me from Key West."

Ushi's smile became a grin. "It would have caused a revolution for a new renaissance in our petty little society. Unfortunately, as a would-be modern and progressive society we are far too small-minded. This is our crime and our problem. We are so small-minded as a society, that we don't want to turn the engines on while the plane comes down towards a certain crash. Turning the engines on would be too big a solution for us. That's not our style, isn't it? We like to remain stuck in our petty little gold plated cages. In this respect we are probably worse of than your friend Raymond the psychiatrist is that you talked to me about on the phone, who at least talks about living in big houses with huge windows to the world, though he doesn't allow himself to actually live in them. That's the situation we face with Sylvia. We don't ever talk big at the social level, as a society, about big universal principles of love and universal marriage. We are stuck out of fear that sex will get in the way, somehow, and cause us to hurt one-another under the ancient privatization mantra. We haven't even earned the right yet to call ourselves a human society. We haven't discovered yet what this means. We live like an imperial society. This is the situation that Sylvia finds herself in. So, you are asking me what will cause Sylvia to leave this comfortable spot, though it is extremely dangerous, being soundly asleep in the back of the plane that is about to crash together with everybody else. I would say that a revolution for a new renaissance would suffice."

"You are talking in riddles, Ushi," I interrupted.

"Ask for the details, Peter. Be daring! Try me! Test the waters! Create the stage for a revolution. Start a New Renaissance!"

"OK, here we go again!" I replied. "Knock, knock! Sylvia opens the door. I present Heather! I state my reason." I turned to Ushi. "Give me a rational scenario for her closing the door on us. Can you think of a real valid reason for which this might not work?"

"That depends on how you answer one single question," Ushi replied, still grinning. "The question that I would ask you would be designed to probe your thinking as to what sex really means to you. Sure, it is a vast undiscovered country, but certain aspects are known, which are determined by the parameters of our humanity. If your answer to this question was to reflect a perception of sex that puts it into the sphere of entertainment or hedonistic purposes in order to fill out the void of an otherwise empty life, I'd close the door on both Heather and you. I would find it disdainful to live with a person who thinks that small and lives that way. The hedonist involvement of sex, which is primarily for personal satisfaction where sex becomes an entertainment center, is really a form of exploitation. Pursuing sex on that platform becomes synonymous with theft. It becomes an act of stealing from another's soul. I would close the door on a person who lives in this kind of environment, lest I expose myself to becoming a sacrificial victim."

"Would you really do that?" I asked. "Would you really close the door on a person for that?"

"I would first try to help that person to gain a higher perception. The capacity for redemption, for growing up as a human being, is a profoundly human quality that I cannot ignore, but failing that, I would have no option but to walk away to avoid becoming a flagellant."

"You really would walk away," I said surprised.

"Seriously, Peter, I would have no choice. I would walk away for also another reason, depending on how you would answer my question about sex."

"And that reason would be, Ushi?"

"Can't you guess, Peter? Be daring! The answer will be surprising when it hits you in the face."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"All right, Peter. It's the same situation as before. You come to Sylvia's door. You introduce Heather. I am playing the role of Sylvia, I'll ask you one simple question: Are you having a beautiful sexual relationship with Heather? That's what I would ask. That's all I would have to ask. Suppose, you would answer: What do you mean, having sex with her? Me? Heck, no! Sex is immoral. Doesn't every moral person say, keep sex out of your life? No Sylvia, I wouldn't dream of messing around with another person like that."

Ushi nodded and paused to give me time to think. "Yes, Peter. If you were to say this to me I would close the door on you immediately, even if you didn't lie. I would see you as having a sterile, shapeless, futile image of humanity. I would see you living in a dreary and empty world that I wouldn't want to be a part of. Just thinking of such a world reminds me of Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution, when every person wore the same drab, shapeless, dull uniform; when every person had only one thought, Mao's thought; only one identity, the authorized identity; and only one faceless face staring into a hopeless future. I thank God for the people of China that this structure collapsed. I wouldn't want to be caught in it. I want to be alive. I want to be associated with people who live at the leading edge, who live by the riches of their humanity, and share their riches freely to enrich the world and one-another's life with it. If a person denies sex as a sham, which is a part of our humanity, what else does that person deny about our humanity? Some people deny everything that defines our humanity, to the point of seeing the human being as nothing more than a just another ape with no higher qualities and no higher capabilities than that of an ape. Who wants to live like that?

"Of course, if you were to smile at me," Ushi continued, "when I asked you if you had a beautiful sexual relationship with Heather, and you would answer simply, yes, then I would have to acknowledge that there is something moving inside of you as a human being. I would have to acknowledge your honesty about a dimension of our humanity which you may not fully understand perhaps, but which you embrace simply for it being a part of our humanity; which you thereby cherish as something beautiful, and perhaps grand in the way it draws people together by the attraction of its 'color,' shape, and unique qualities. This honesty towards a profound reality allows a woman to be acknowledged as a woman, and a man as a man. Such an honest acknowledgment attributes a unique beauty to the human being as a sexual being instead of being just another 'faceless' person. Naturally, as we uplift ourselves to a higher perception of being, based on the spiritual dimension of our humanity, we lift the physical sphere up with us. We develop a perception of sex that the sexual 'hedonists' and 'flagellants' would never understand. We then create a culture rooted in the Principle of Universal Love that finds its good in the larger expression of our humanity reflected in the good of another and the common welfare of society, beginning at the home plate."

Ushi smiled and suggested that there may never be a final answer found as to what the human sexual dimension really represents at the highest level of mankind's self-perception. "We simply aren't there yet," she said. "Still, we can say with scientific certainty that this higher image of sex doesn't include the notion that sex exists exclusively for procreation, not to mention as an entertainment center for the exploitation of sensual pleasures. I see it as an element of our humanity that represents in physical form, in the way it attracts one to another, a reflection of the invariable truth of mankind's universal marriage as the reality of our being. That is where our passion should be anchored. We can understand it in this dimension. I have proved to you that this is possible, and that we can experience this truth as we understand it."

"But we can experience this truth only as we understand it, Ushi, and not until then, because until then we deny it," I interjected. "That's ancient wisdom, isn't it? I see it reflected in an old biblical story that I have always regarded as a piece of bad fiction, but which is beginning to make sense now. Do you remember the ancient story of Jacob meeting his brother Esau, years after a tragedy that tore the two brothers apart? Jacob had treated his brother so badly in his youth, over a rather insignificant issue, that he had to flee his home and his country. After a successful life abroad he decided to return home, but the old feud had not been resolved after all this time. Jacob heard on the way home that his brother was coming towards him with several hundred men. Fearing for his life and for that of his people, Jacob struggled during the night before their meeting, probably in the same manner as Helen struggled during her friend's crisis in hospital when a healing was required for a critical situation. In that crisis Helen drew together all the aspects of truth that she understood, into what became a profound visual construct of a lateral lattice of human hearts all interconnected by countless stands of love, sharing their strength to enrich the one in need. Jacob apparently beheld something similar in his struggles that night, because when he and his brother met the next day he was able to embrace his brother and kiss him, and say to him, I have seen thy face as though I have seen the face of God."

"Are you saying that this story applies to your struggle with Sylvia?" Ushi interrupted.

"Doesn't it, Ushi?" I replied with a smile. "I think it does. It applies to this issue and all those countless similar issues that the whole world is struggling with, for which we have avoided the responsibility of uplifting our civilization into the brightest renaissance ever that would enable us to not only survive in the coming Ice Age that we cannot avoid, but would enable us to flourish and prosper in it and more richly so than we do now. Why shouldn't we say to one-another, I see your face as though I see the face of God, and say this honestly from the heart? All those little issues that have not been dealt with over the centuries, like sexual division and marriage isolation and their privatization, have now grown into new forms and become a huge barrier against our ability of responding to the Principle of Universal Love. Thereby they become crimes against the future as they prevent us from tackling the big issue of creating an Ice Age Renaissance that we need to be able to survive. I think Sylvia might be able to understand this without any effort at all."

"She will if you do your job right," Ushi interjected.

"Jacob had avoided the big issue for decades," I continued. "He was scared of his brother. He had avoided dealing with his brother as two human beings normally would. He hadn't taken the time to figure out how. The whole world is still playing the role of Jacob in that respect, and has been for centuries. Historians praise the Golden Renaissance as the brightest period in the advance of civilization, while in real terms it started a fiasco that we haven't dealt with to the present day. The renaissance powers had tried to eradicate the Venetian Empire with military force, rather than to uplift it with the brightness of the Renaissance. In doing that, they created an enemy of mankind, a wounded hyena that has been at war with it ever since, lurking at every corner to destroy the spirit of renaissance in every form and in every period it appears on the horizon. Mankind has so far avoided dealing with this core issue. The avoidance has so far been immensely tragic for mankind, with wars and destruction resulting from it on a near unimaginable scale, Ushi. Just imagine what a great world we would have if all the wars from the 15th Century onward had never happened! They hadn't been inevitable. They were manmade disasters that should have been avoided, but weren't. Thus, the destruction happened and trashed the world. But worst of all, the still continuing avoidance of the Principle of Universal Love is preventing us so from creating the renaissance that we need to survive in the coming Ice Age. The building of the Ice Age Renaissance should have been started decades ago, and it would have been started had mankind resolved that critical issue that has been avoided since 1508. The enemy, which the Renaissance powers created in 1508, still stands at our gate and won't let us get back onto the path of scientific and technological progress to where we should be, and won't be until that issue is resolved. We cannot afford to avoid this issue any longer. We have to deal with the imperial issue now, in the manner that Jacob had done before meeting his brother."

"Are you telling me that you regard Sylvia as a potential enemy over this little issue of sexual proliferation under the Principle of Universal Love, which hasn't been resolved in human relationships for millennia?" said Ushi in a surprised tone of voice.

"The potential is there that Sylvia may cast herself in that role, Ushi, but I haven't created it. I have been avoiding it. Now I am struggling do deal with it in an emergency fashion, and the more I struggle, the more I find myself forced to realize that what this struggle is all about is basically as insignificant in real terms than what Jacob's feud with his brother was about. Both feuds were artificially imposed. In Jacob's case the feud was over a treachery his mother had instigated. In society's case of the near universal sexual division and marital isolation, the treachery appears to have been imperially instigated many ages ago. Jacob responded by running away. Sylvia may respond with demanding a divorce. However, running away won't solve anything. Jacob found this out. Society should have realized the same, and long before countless social dark ages erupted out of this issue that has been avoided so far, in which countless millions of murders have been committed. In both cases, Ushi, the feud had been built up into something gigantic, out of nothing more than a distorted perception of the real nature and the universal worth of the human being. In other words, it's been all over nothing. Maybe Jacob realized that. I am beginning to realize that too. The question is, will Sylvia realize that also before she becomes hurt in the process?"

"You say that you realize that the whole historic feud over sexual isolation and marital division has been essentially over nothing, why then don't you move joyously and enthusiastically with this realization, Peter?" said Ushi. "If it is the truth, move with it. I have experienced in my own life that moving forward with the truth leads to further discoveries of more and more amazing elements of universal truth that are absolutely exciting. We both have already experienced that to some degree. Our daring to move in this direction has put us into realms that we may never have dared to dream of before. Now we endeavor to live the role of a human being that is brighter than dreams. Who would have ever thought that the enrichment of one-another unfolds riches in us that we never knew to exist? I think it is amazing how far we have come in so short a time, Peter, and I regard this as only a start."

"We should challenge each other across the whole of society to move forward into this unknown country, instead of holding each other back," I interjected, and punctuated the thought with a kiss. "That is what Helen is committed to doing. We should all do this and take it further and further, and uplift and enrich one-another's life with new vistas and new discoveries of universal truth, and not smother each other with limits."

"That's what I am tying to tell you, Peter," said Ushi with a grin. "If I had stood in Sylvia's stead, in our hypothetical situation, I would have welcomed Heather with open arms as the bringer of a bright new opportunity to be a part of an unfolding aspect of love that has not been allowed to unfold for thousands of years. I would have stood in awe before the genius of both of you, which had inspired enough of a commitment to the truth about our humanity so that you didn't want to hide its unfolding. I would have embraced and kissed you both, and would have allowed myself to be uplifted by this exciting unfolding.

"So, my dear Peter," Ushi said moments later as she handed Heather's letter back to me, "I would like to counsel you to throw Heather's letter away. Don't accept what it says as the truth. Rewrite the ending of your unfolding love with her in the way it should have been written. Re-write the letter. Re-write history in the way it should have unfolded from the standpoint of what we are capable of accomplishing as human beings. This can be done. If it should happen that you meet Heather again, don't hesitate to translate the higher truths about our humanity that you know, into life. And don't apply this just to Heather. Apply it to Sylvia and to whomever you may yet meet. Enrich your world by enriching one-another in it. Enrich our world by enriching everyone's world. Doesn't this make life worth living? The human universe is rich with wonderful opportunities that we only need to become sensitive to and dare to embrace, and to embrace each other in the flow of them, and the hole of humanity."

"It seems to me that the reality of the universe is a vast domain of a great universal good that we have drifted into by responding to the science of our spirituality," I replied. "Does this make sense?"

She said it did.

Our conversation had a strange effect on both of us. The hotel room suddenly seemed too small, too confining. We locked the room up. Before us lay the seashore. We decided that this is where we should be. The sea lay dim and gray in the moonlight, but that didn't matter. The real light was in us. We walked the seashore together, hand in hand, with bare feet across the sandbars, through the surf, touched by the foam of the ever-recycling waters. We embraced the sea breeze, and in its flow each other in a unity that no man has created, which felt as natural and all embracing as the principle of the universe that we are at one with, that no man could erase.

We walked 'taller' that night, upon the sand of this seashore, than possibly any other creature ever had or could, or any man who saw himself as but a creature of this Earth instead of as a human being, a citizen of the heavens. We saw ourselves as being endowed with the science of heaven, the intellect of God, the freedom of omnipotence that no physical principle can define or deny. We felt exhilarated by the unfolding recognition of our humanity that rises on the horizon as a world bright with a light that overpowered the darkness of the moonlit landscape without violating it. It uplifted it. It gave a new meaning to it. It gave a new meaning to unity itself as it took love out of the cage of dreams and personal confinement and encirclement, into the realm of a universal 'sun' by which the mysticism of love becomes dissolved like the morning mists.

We walked for miles that night, and finally at the far reaches of the beach, far from any house or village, we shed our clothes for a swim in the faintly unfolding dawn of a new day. I felt a sense of freedom in this hour that surpassed the freedom that I had felt at the beach in Leipzig. We swam and splashed and enjoyed each other's touch and kisses, and then started walking back in the direction of the hotel to dry off again. We lived in a setting in which the cares of the world had no place anymore, in which nothing mattered but our love, the sea, the beach, the moonlight, and the new dawn.

Eventually we fell asleep at the beach, in each other's arms, propped up against the log of a fallen tree, only to be wakened by the morning sun.

When we got finally back to the hotel it was time for breakfast, for eggs, bacon, coffee and fruits served at an open seaside restaurant that, just as we required, was not confining, but was open to the world. Here our two worlds converged, the world of civilization, and the world of our spiritual freedom to grasp for the infinite. Our spiritual world supported the physical, by which both became united into one, just as we too were one.

We slept till noon that day, cuddled up to each other. We didn't get out of bed until two. It was heavenly just to be there, to talk, to be close to one-another and to look out onto the beach and the world.

"Pete, what would you say if I told you that I am considering having a baby," said Ushi at one point during the conversation.

"You are? That's great!" I responded.

"No, I don't think you understand. I meant your baby!"

"No, no, Ushi! Not mine. You're flattering me, but Steve should be the father, don't you think?"

"Steve told me that if I wanted a child, I could have it with whosoever I wanted."

"Surely, he expects you to choose to have it from him."

"Not necessarily, Pete. If Steve says something, he means it. He always does. Also I think you used the wrong phrase when you said I should have it FROM him. Steve looks at this differently, from a higher level platform that comes closer to the truth. He wants to be truthful to the higher perception that we truly share a single humanity that is reflected in all of us. He says that we didn't create this humanity. It just is, and we are all a part of it. Our existence is the reflection of 'God' so to speak, or the reflection of a great order produced by a complex array of spiritual and physical universal principles. Steve recognizes that even biologically our personal part in the process of procreation is a rather minute one. Sure we play our part, our tiny part, but the rest unfolds on a platform of principles that is infinitely greater than we can yet comprehend except in the broadest metaphysical terms. We look at DNA, but we have no idea how the DNA forms an eye, a nose, and a knee and so forth, and all in the right places and in the right proportions. Our personal part in that wonderfully complex process is so miniscule, Peter, that we shouldn't see ourselves as having a significant personal role in it to play at all. Steve simply turns his back to the mysticism that has been built up around our assumed role of being personal creators and says that we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that our role in the process is insignificant; that the real process begins afterwards without our intervention and with an efficiency we cannot even comprehend. He tells me that we should see 'our' child as 'God's' child so to speak, as 'the child of our humanity' that reflects all that we are. And that is what he is recognizing by giving me this freedom to choose."

I shook my head, "No, Ushi, that is too much, too fast."

"Don't worry," she smiled, "I wouldn't have a child with anyone, but him. Still, you must admit, the thought is wonderful of having been given this tremendous freedom! It's exciting, don't you think? Nobody but Steve would give a wife that much freedom to be herself. Nevertheless, now that the platform has been raised to a higher level, it can't be pushed back down again. That downward door is closed. So, I must ask you again, would you have a child with me?"

"Is that a trick question?" I asked in return.

"It is a question that needs to be answered, Peter."

"If you were to invite me, yes, I would. But that is not the question, isn't it?" I answered quietly.

"If my child is 'God's' child, the child of our humanity, what does an invitation matter?" she said and began to grin. "So you are correct. That's not the question. Then, what is the real question, Peter, and what is your answer?"

As if compelled by a great mountain of evidence the answer emerged, and it emerged with such a force that I almost shouted it out loud. "Yes, yes! The answer is, yes! Yes, Ushi, I will embrace a child with you on the same platform that Steve does. On that platform the minute details are unimportant. It will be 'our' child no matter who starts the process. It will be the child of our humanity, and not anyone's personally."

Ushi nodded. "Nothing else but this basic fact is significant," said Ushi.

"Now I am beginning to understand Steve," I said. "This will be the first child ever to be born on that platform in the entire history of humanity. It will be 'our' universal child, Ushi. It will be yours, Steve's, mine, the child of humanity as you say."

"And will it be so embraced and supported on that platform, Peter? This means that we will move Heaven and Earth to create the needed Ice Age Renaissance in which it has a future. Fourteen centuries ago a man named Mohammed did the same thing in order that society and all children might have a bright future. He didn't win the world, but he started a movement that uplifted the world more profoundly than we may ever know. He started as an orphan, and probably out of his love for all children laid a foundation for a human renaissance that became the Golden Renaissance, which in turn opened the gate to the humanist passion and scientific development behind the Second Renaissance in which the USA was created that became 'the beacon of hope and the bastion of liberty' for mankind. That's the outcome of the work started by a single human being. We are on the same course again, but with a far more urgent mission, aren't we?"

"Yes, Ushi, it has to be that way," I added. "The moment that we start moving forward from now on, we will likewise be powered by our love for the child of our humanity. It will be the child of the Principle of Universal Love. It will be another part of that 'evidence' that we were aiming to find back in Leipzig, the kind that is irrefutable. So, it really doesn't matter how that child comes about, does it? It is only important that is does, and that it does so within the sphere of universal love where all humanity becomes enriched by it, and that this scene expands and embraces all children."

"Did you know that Steve had suggested to me that you would say something like that?"

I just shook my head in disbelief. "That's Steve all right," I said. "Whenever I think I understand him, he is two steps ahead of me. If I had said something like what we have just been talking about, to the people at the conference, it would have taken their breath away," I said to Ushi.

"No, Pete, they would have thought you are crazy. They would have laughed at you, Pete. And I wouldn't blame them. I can't really believe it myself. But I agree. There is only one Steve and he's the greatest. He is as close on the mark on this one as anyone can get. I don't think anyone at your conference had the slightest idea what a tremendous subject they had touched upon when they made it their goal to focus on the liberation of men."

"A faint inkling maybe?"

"But nothing more," she grinned. "Even you don't understand the issue fully."

"Me?" I replied. "What is there so difficult about recognizing that the child that you will bear is not anyone's personal product but is the child of our universal humanity? Did I miss anything?"

Ushi nodded. "I want you to tell me what you missed. I give a hint. The answer is related to energy levels, You said earlier that the entire physical universe exists either as solid, liquid, gas, or plasma, according the energy intensity of the background in which it exists. You said at low energy levels water exists as solid ice. As the energy level increases the ice melts into a liquid and eventually evaporates into steam and so forth. You also said that society likewise exists in four different states according to the intensity of the humanist energy that can be found in the different states. You suggested that the imperial world corresponds to the frozen solid state, which is a state of near zero-energy in humanist terms in the human system. That is possibly why the second stage of civilization failed in the humanist sense and became a dynastic and imperial stage, a kind of zero-energy stage in human development that lasted for 7000 years.

"You explained to me that when the humanist energy begins to develop and is becoming more intense," Ushi continued, "then the ice melts and a totally different world is born, a renaissance world that is as different in the geometry of its existence than liquid water is different from ice. You said that empires can only exist in a humanist frozen world, and a renaissance can only exist in a humanist energized world. You said that you can recognize three different types of renaissance, each with a totally different geometry, corresponding to increasingly higher levels of humanist energy that is unfolding in society. You said that we could easily defeat empires and the fascism and terrorism that they exude, by simply stepping up the humanist energy level in society. You also said that no other process could defeat the empires and the terrorism and fascism that supports them as part of their package, except the process of stepping up the humanist energy levels, thereby creating a cultural renaissance; and at higher levels, a scientific renaissance; and at the highest energy level, a sublime renaissance. I agree this has to be so."

"But what has this got to do with recognizing your baby as the child of our universal humanity?" I interrupted Ushi.

"You tell me," Ushi replied. "I gave you the hints. The answer relates to everything we talked about; the role playing and all."

"Energy levels?" I repeated.

"Compare our concept with the old concept related to children, and think of the energy in the system," said Ushi.

"The old way is so tied into knots, it's hard to tell what to think," I said to Ushi. "Once you say, I am a father, all sorts of questions surface. Just think of it! Is he really the father? Do I have a responsibility for HIS children? Who was the mother? Do I have a responsibility to support the mother? Do I care if other children have enough to eat, or clothes to wear, or shoes on their feet, or a proper school to go to, or even if they'll have a future? There is no end to this kind of reasoning, Ushi. It's inefficient. You can go around in circles forever and nothing gets resolved."

"Would you say that there is no humanist energy unfolding in this kind of system, even though everyone is intensely involved in running around in circles?" said Ushi. "Our way of looking at it is comparatively straight forward and simple, isn't it. Also, there is no question in my mind that from now on universal support for all the children is called for, including assuring them a future."

"That outcome is efficient. It leaves no ambiguities and produces results that elevate civilization," I said in a sudden recognition of a profound truth. "The humanist energy-level is therefore defined by the effect it has on elevating civilization rather than by the intensity of an activity.

Ushi nodded. "That's only half the answer, Peter. What does the efficiency reflect that produces the greatest amount of humanist energy? Did you ever think about that?"

"It reflects the nature of the universe, Ushi. A woman by the name of Alyona from Irkutsk in Russia mentioned something like that. She said that the universe is organized in the most efficient manner. She said for example, that the six-sided cell of a honeycomb is the most efficient way to divide a flat space for containing circular objects. She said we find the same six-sided shapes when soap bubbles are bunched together on a flat surface, because the resulting shape is the most efficient shape. The universe is organized to be efficient."

Ushi nodded again. "There is still a part missing, Peter." She put a finger on her nose.

"We human beings are part of that efficient universe. We are designed to be efficient in the way we exist and in the way we develop. What is the most inefficient way of human development, Peter?

"You're probably right," I agreed. "So, are you going to have a baby then? Will it be soon?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. Is it fair to expose a new child to the risks that we face today? Would it be fairer to wait until the imperials' depopulation project has been defeated and all nuclear weapons have been removed? Except this won't happen soon, will it?"

"It will happen, Ushi, if we make it to happen. It could unfold rapidly. There is no inertia that holds back an idea. What we have set in motion will make a difference in keeping us safe. The old system that is strangling the world today is essentially already dead. Nothing works anymore. Even the old world-financial system is dead. Everything is kept together with just spit and chewing gum. The question is, how long will the rulers be able to keep their imperial facade shining with lies and increased stealing and murdering? Will it be days, months, or years? Maybe there will be a nuclear war before the facade falls. One thing is certain; the old system is like a terminal patient whose end is near. Only the exact date and time of the patient's demise remains an open question.

"The biggest factor rests with us," I continued. "We are bringing the new baby into OUR world, the world we create. How soon can we transform the Old World into the needed New World? Maybe you should have this baby now, and we should make it our combined goal to create the kind of world NOW, in which it can live securely. Maybe the real question is, how many people we will be able to inspire into saving themselves by creating a saner world for themselves and their children in which people enrich one-another's existence instead of tearing one-another to the ground?"

"What do you think, Pete, with all this in mind should I risk having a baby then?" asked Ushi. "What about the uncertainty? Humanity hasn't won that war yet, against the war that it is fighting against itself. Building an Ice Age Renaissance isn't even on the agenda, much less in progress. That higher war against universal insanity hasn't even been declared yet, except by us. We are still living in an extremely dangerous time, Peter. Is it fair to a little baby that one allows it to be born into a world where it is likely to be murdered soon as the insane world continues in which people reach out for nuclear war that would end all hope? The probability for that tragedy to happen is extremely high for as long as the whole world avoids dealing with the core issue. Is it fair to bring a baby into this kind of a world?"

"Who knows what is fair, Ushi?" I replied.

I suggested that it might be better to let the little idea remain unborn. However, neither would it be fair not to give it this chance to be, a chance to feel life, to know love, to respond to it, to experience the wonders of this wonderful world, the joys of splashing in the water, of being cuddled, of feeling sad, of crying and laughing, even if it will only last a short time.

I realized that precisely such a chance had been Olive's gift to me, a chance to be touched by her in a wonderful facet of life, even though we both knew that it would be but for a moment. Should this have been blocked then, simply because it couldn't last?

I asked Ushi if this wasn't the same question, for which the answer should probably also be the same.

"Who knows what is fair?" I continued and shrugged my shoulders. "A moment of life is an infinitely rich thing compared to not being alive at all. On the other hand there doesn't need to be a war that ends everything. Even the oligarchs' maddening scheme for depopulation can be stopped. We can commit ourselves to do everything that can be done to assure that these ugly things won't happen by inspiring the oligarchs to come and join us in the brightness of this world. Wouldn't this stop their scheming to destroy the world? And why shouldn't we invite children into this world as well? If we presently live in a world in which we must ask if it is right to bring children into, we should look into the mirror with shame, because it implies that we have failed ourselves as human beings to create a human world. So the critical factor isn't related to whether we should have children or not. It is reflected in building the kind of world in which children have a future. That's the human thing, Ushi. We shouldn't even ask if we are fulfilling our mandate in this regard. We should simply do it! I think this is what Mohammed did when the world had become an unlivable hellhole in the wake of the Roman Empire. He grew up as an orphan, as you said. As a man he created a New World in which children have a future, and a new life, and a new civilization, and a New Kingdom that eventually extended from Morocco to the Indies. He created a new humanism that elevated civilization in far away Europe, Asia, Africa, India, and eventually around the world. The USA would never have been born had he not laid the foundation for it a thousand years earlier.

"You are right," Ushi continued after a pause, "what Mohammed started created the Islamic Renaissance, which in turn helped Europe create the Golden Renaissance that gave rise to the Second Renaissance in Europe that became the foundation for the founding of the USA. And he was just one man. He started all this out of nothing in the Arabian dessert. All that he brought to the table was his profound humanist spirit. We can do this again, can't we, so that the ice age threat means nothing, and the nuclear threat has no sting left? If the world isn't good enough for our children, then we have to make it so. It is as simple as that. Indeed, why should we deprive the children of that chance to be involved at the leading edge in the greatest transformation of this planet, creating an Ice Age Renaissance? That is the world that we are capable of creating and of proudly inviting children into."

"Oh, you naive dreamer!" said Ushi in reply. "My beautiful, beautiful dreamer, I wish you could be right."

"I am right. Remember, I told you that it only takes the two of us to change the world, and it is already happening, and now we are already six on that bandwagon to uplift the world. That includes you, Steve, Nic, Olive, Heather, and me. Soon Sylvia will join us. Why shouldn't the oligarchs likewise join us? They are human beings too, are they not? They too, have the capacity to discover their humanity, as unlikely as that may seem today. The truth is the truth. If we can uplift each other into the light of living as real human beings, enveloped by love and supported by the Principle of Universal Love, shouldn't we be able to uplift the oligarchs in the same manner who are strangled by much more superficial mythologies than those that tie the social scene into knots?"

"So, how can I help you with Sylvia in order that we'll soon be seven? That's probably the harder challenge," said Ushi grinning back at me.

"Sylvia?" I replied. "Sylvia isn't really a problem anymore. You made it quite clear that the challenge that I was so afraid of at first, really isn't a challenge at all, because the feud would be over nothing. Raymond had been right about that part when he had said to me that I alone was the problem."

I told Ushi about Raymond and about the last days of the conference in Russia. I told Ushi that I had finally figured things out, of how I might address the challenge of bringing Sylvia into our New World. Nevertheless, Ushi promised that she would help in any way she could.

"Of course you mustn't forget," Ushi added, "that there is evidently a valid reason behind the original development of the small marriage bond, and that this reason might still be a valid element today. The attraction between people forms a powerful bond when it becomes intertwined with enriching one-another's life. This core bonding in marriage and its protective element will never go away. One can only add to the bond and enrich it, and expand it, but never break it. In the early ages this bond might have had to be protected against the onslaught of sexually transmitted diseases that were often fatal, like AIDS is today, or against exploitation, desertion, devastation and so forth, out of which the sexual taboos probably evolved that were sold together with their isolating myths of 'secrets.'"

Ushi suggested on that note that the sexual isolation of society into small coherent groups might have been developed as a necessity for survival in the very early ages when the humanist energy level was still extremely low. She said that marriage isolation might have been, and may still be, the best public health protection method against sexually transmitted infectious diseases that has ever been devised. She suggested that Sylvia couldn't ignore this factor; nor should we; nor should anyone else. "However, that's not as big a factor anymore, is it, because we can deal with that effectively? When the Principle of Universal Love rules the human environment, one won't allow anything to unfold that cheapens another person's identity, or even endangers another person physically. That's not possible at the sublime level of our self-perception as human beings. That's all being left behind at the lower levels where we regard ourselves basically as animals. The big factor at the sublime level is to dissolve the division and isolation of society as a denial of the truth about our humanity. These isolating factors are factors that should be recognized as being by far the most dangerous factors, far more dangerous than AIDS. If these big factors aren't dealt with, nothing else matters, because we won't have a world to live in if we fail to address these big factors. Maybe AIDS was invented as a sexually focused disease to prevent us from moving forward on this big front of overcoming sexual division and isolation."

"AIDS probably wasn't invented on purpose, Ushi," I replied. "It probably came out of the caldron of poverty. However, isn't it interesting what is happening in the context of poverty, Ushi? The closer we come to implementing the Principle of Universal Love, and the wider the gates are opening up to expanding the wonders of universal love, the more paramount becomes the care for one-another so that not the lightest injury in any form can happen. And that includes creating a richer world."

"That's the real test of the Principle of Universal Love," said Ushi. "But that is also what we had relied on from the beginning. Love becomes our security and guarantor, possibly in a much more powerful way than anything else does. If there is the slightest doubt that this protection isn't happening in our dealing with one-another, then there is something spiritually lacking. In this case one has to reexamine oneself. Sloppy thinking and living just doesn't have a place anymore in the complex domain of the Principle of Universal Love."

"There is another factor to be considered," I said to Ushi. "This factor must likewise be carefully considered. It is a vital factor that we can no longer afford to ignore. That factor is that it is not right that I spare Sylvia the challenge of having to consider the Principle of Universal Love, which is a universal principle that uplifts and affects everyone. It is a natural principle that one cannot get away from, certainly not by ignoring it. Ignoring it leads to unpleasant consequences. Sylvia disserves to be protected from that, as does the whole of humanity."

I told Ushi that I agreed with her that the isolation that has been developing between people and nations has become a mortal threat in the age of nuclear weapons, far greater than any other threat we have ever faced. I suggested that this means that we need Sylvia's help to eradicate the threat. We need everybody's help. So it is in Sylvia's interest that I solicit her help. It would reflect the Principle of the Advantage of the Other that came out of the Second Renaissance. We can certainly protect ourselves against infectious diseases by living intelligently and with the care of infinite love, but we cannot protect ourselves and our world, and everybody else's world by ignoring the Principle of Universal Love. So it is in everybody's interest that we acknowledge the Principle of Universal Love. There is no defense possible in a nuclear war to protect society. We can only prevent the war, and for that we need to be living intelligently with one-another on the platform of the Principle of Universal Love. Indeed, war has never been a technical issue, or a political issue. Nor can one resolve it by political means, because it isn't a political problem. War has always been fundamentally a failure of human beings in relating to one-another with the care, respect, responsibility, and the love that should be the hallmark of a human civilization."

"Divisions and isolation are components of a larger failure that must be overcome," said Ushi. "The may be the most major components of that failure. We must address what lies at the root of this component."

"Our life literally depends on our success in dealing with this issue," I said in total agreement. "Sylvia doesn't have the option really, not to take the required responsibility for overcoming this failure. No one has that option. Sylvia is as much a part of this world as we are. She cannot be exempted from the responsibility of having to address this vital issue. No one can be exempted from this."

"Are you saying that war, being a human failure, precludes the possibility for finding a technological or political solution that can be achieved to compensate for this failure? Are you saying that nuclear war must be addressed strictly as an issue of the failure of human beings in relating to one-another?"

I nodded. "But you know all this. Why do you ask?"

"I wanted you to acknowledge it, because this critical failure puts the greatest demand on the most advanced thinkers," she replied. "The urgency demands that society put the best resources to work that it has. That's us, Peter, right here. If nuclear war erupts, we can kiss the Ice Age Renaissance good bye. It will then become physically impossible to implement."

"I would count Sylvia among the advanced thinkers of the world," I said to her. "It's dishonorable, even immoral, to withhold this challenge from her. We must raise this issue by which she can grow as a human being and help save civilization at the same time. The coming Ice Age is like a great dam that we know is breaking. The possibility for a nuclear war is an element of that. Of course we can't fix the dam of the Ice Age breaking. However, we can prepare our village for the consequences when the 'breaking' deep-freeze disables our traditional agriculture. We can take steps to protect the village behind the dam. It may take a hundred years to accomplish that, but it can be done. It would be honorable, therefore, to inspire Sylvia to become a part of the solution to save the village, rather than risk her becoming a victim when the dam begins to fail and the needed work hasn't been done."

Ushi nodded. "The fact is, the world urgently needs people who can boldly stand up for the truth and fight for it," said Ushi.

"There is only one small hurtle to cross to get Sylvia there," I said to Ushi. I agreed with Ushi that the old challenge remains that we protect one-another from diseases, but I added that we must protect one-another from every danger, especially from the danger of a collapsing civilization, which is a form of self-inflicted harm. This larger demand of love will never go away. In fact, the demand has become more crucial. It must therefore be addressed responsibly and with care, but also with allowing love to unfold in every nook and crevice, instead of resorting to primitive isolation. If we treat each other on an ever-wider platform with the care, love, and affection that are the foundation for all bonds of unity, we will make the world safe for our baby to be born, which really isn't ours, but is a child of our humanity that we have become responsible for, as for all the children, by inviting the new child to be."

Ushi just laughed. "You should hear yourself, Peter. You sound already like a prospective father. Steve said something similar to this when he told me that I could have my baby with whosoever I would choose. He said that his care, love, and affection would always embrace me and our universal child, 'the child of the universe' as he called it. Of course, the most responsible answer to that would be to choose him to be the one to start the invitation and the celebration. Being the father of it in that sense would greatly enrich his life and add to the wonderful bond between us that we both treasure. However, it would still be 'our' child. And who knows, there may be a time some day in which you too might be involved in such an invitation, starting another celebration with me. That's scary right now, isn't it?"

"Wonderfully scary," I replied.

It was beautiful to listen to Ushi the way she had described the world of 'our' child, the child of our humanity, as we were getting ready this afternoon to go out into the world again, to the beach and for dinner afterwards. That's what I loved about Ushi and Steve. Whatever needed to be done to break the cycle of isolation, was done no matter what it took. It was as if they recognized this as a principle by which they, and everyone else, would end up richer.

I recognized that this principle was the same principle on which our country had been built up during its brighter era. The building of the Golden Gate Bridge was an example of it. It had been built because it needed to be built. It had been built regardless of the cost involved, and it became a beautiful monument all at the same time. The cost didn't seem to matter in comparison to the potential benefits for the entire area. I realized that this is the principle by which civilization is advanced when people care enough for each other to take the responsibility to elevate one-another and their world to greater levels of freedom. I recognized sadly that this rational quality had been largely destroyed in human hearts over the last few decades, except in Steve's heart, where it was still fully evident by his commitment to Ushi's freedom that had created once again a still more beautiful world.

"That's an amazing commitment by Steve," I said to Ushi some time later, referring to her freedom to have a baby with whomsoever she wished. "You must be so proud of Steve."

She nodded in response and kissed me. Then she smiled and added, "But this doesn't mean that I can't also share my life with you, fully, as well. I am proud of you too. Did you know that? Maybe some day I'll invite another child with you involved at the starting gate."

She didn't wait for me to respond. She suggested that we should go swimming to "cool off!"

I agreed that we should.

We went swimming for the rest of the day and much of the next day too. We found ourselves a spot far down the beach where we would be alone. The place was a couple of miles away from the hotels, an unspoiled sandy spot, isolated from the main beach by piles of debris. There, at last, we found the kind of hidden retreat that could substitute for the beach that we had enjoyed in Leipzig for its honest and open atmosphere. Nothing less seemed appropriate.

At our hidden beach, I felt the same freedom again that I had enjoyed in Leipzig. We were running through the waves, naked as on the day we were born. No bathing suits got filled with sand, stirred up by the incoming breakers. No wet clothing hung cold and clammy from our bodies once we were out of the water. Life was wonderfully uncomplicated and totally beautiful.

"Thanks for inviting me here," I said to Ushi as we were lying in the sand in the late afternoon sun. "It's such a treat to be here with you. Life with you is so natural, wide open, joyful and sexy."

"Sexy?" she repeated and grinned. "What if I wasn't sexy, or were not interested in sex? What if I became from this moment on a devout disciple of celibacy? Or what, if I discovered that my sexual joy in life was found in having sex exclusively with women? Would you still love me?"

"Why wouldn't I, Ushi?" I said. Nevertheless, I was surprised at the question. "To me you will remain a lovely, uncomplicated, wide open, and yes, sexy woman. If what you say were to happen, one element that we enjoyed about each other might be missing. But so what? One can deal with that and work around it."

"Don't worry, I haven't changed," said Ushi. "But the question is a valid one to ask if we want to understand ourselves, because the physical elements of sexual sharing aren't that high up on the scale of the elements that define our humanity. We have given it the top prominence it has, mainly because of all the centuries of sexual division and isolation that we subjected ourselves to. I would suggest that if we look at it honestly, the physical process doesn't rank all that high. Sex is really a mental and spiritual issue, something that lights up the fire of passion for our humanity."

Ushi laughed. "The truth is, Peter, physical sex is a rather fleeting thing. We can't keep it going for long no matter how hard we try. But sexual love, in contrast, can put us on Cloud Nine and keep us there in a tipsy for days, even a lifetime. Compared to that, the physical sexual intimacies aren't so much of a big deal. Still we seem to need them too. They seem to be interwoven with who we are as sexual beings. Yes, you can say that they keep the fire of passion going. That fire keeps us up there on Cloud Nine in a tipsy."

"So, why should we deny them?" I interjected. "Why should we even quantify them? Why should we quantify anything connected with love? This means, that one must always look at what the higher elements of our humanity are, especially those that are not physical in nature, such as intelligence, love, truth, a beautiful soul, wisdom, creativity, honor, gentleness, compassion, vitality, and so forth, and then see our sexuality in this context."

Ushi nodded. "It appears that all the hype about the physical sexual intimacies doesn't measure up to the least of these aspects," she said, "and yet we need the physical aspects just as much. We can't give them up. This seems to indicate to me that sexual intimacy really isn't a physical thing at all, but is primarily a spiritual thing with a physical expression, a thing of our humanity, so that when it is blocked, there is something spiritually lacking."

"Right, Peter, who would want to give this up then, and what for? And that's exactly the point. The point is, that while sex is an integral element of our humanity, it is just one of many."

She paused, as if searching for words. "Tell me," she continued, "what was the first thing that impressed you about Sylvia, which made you want to be with her, always? Was it sex?"

I had to laugh. "No it wasn't sex. There was a sparkle in her looks, and gentleness in her manners, a caring in her heart. Oh, and could she sing! If you had heard her sing that wonderful duet from Samson and Delilah, you would have fallen in love with her, too. Sure, sex was intertwined with all that. She is a beautifully sexy woman. But was sex the key factor? It was at times, but not the decisive factor. There were many sexy women in our office, but Sylvia was from a different world as it were."

"Why didn't you latch onto those other sexy women, Peter, before you met Sylvia? Why didn't you take them for lunch."

"It never occurred to me," I replied. "Sex simply isn't the all-important factor that pushes everything else into the background, but whatever Sylvia brought to the table was so strongly in the foreground that nothing else seemed to matter. Love was the driving force. Sex came with the package, and nicely so, but it was the package that mattered. It was the same with Heather, and it was the same with you and still is."

Ushi began to laugh. "Do you realize how crazy the world has become? Do you realize that the deepest division and isolation between people that has ever been created, the sexual division and isolation, is built on an element of our humanity that hardly measures up to anything of any great importance? And yet, it divides us all. Still, we need it as a part of the package, as you have put it. I have a feeling that we don't recognize its full dimension yet. We have been taught to shun sex for centuries, to regard it as something dirty, to see it as an animal propensity. I don't think we have seen it yet as a uniquely spiritual human element that no other form of life can match, which may be comparable only to art and music or literature. It appears to be a unique form of self-awareness and communication with which we enrich one-another. I think it is something like that."

Here I had to laugh too. "Sex appears to be only the key element when it comes to dividing and isolating people. Suddenly sex overshadows everything," I said to Ushi. "We get into this even though we barely understand its real dimension. We may be fighting an element of the Principle of Universal Love that is fundamental to our being, and put ourselves at war against an element that is anchored in our Soul. Maybe sex was the only deeply rooted element that the oligarchy could find in ancient times with the potential for dividing humanity."

"Why don't you tell Sylvia what you just said?" Ushi interrupted me. "But you've got to be honest about it."

"That should be easy," I said.

"Oh, would it be?" said Ushi and smiled. "Ask yourself what would happen if Sylvia came to embrace celibacy or became a lesbian to the degree that this would exclude all sexual contact with you, how would you react?"

"I'd help her to fulfill her new needs whatever they might be, wouldn't I? I certainly would, Ushi. We are not one-another's keeper, or one-another's slave, but one-another's lover, and that still means that we enrich one-another's existence no matter what the specifics may involve. The bottom line is, I would have to say to myself then, what has sex got to do with any of that? Not much, really. It wouldn't alter my fascination with Sylvia, and my fascination with sex, and my embrace of our humanity in the boundless dimension of universal love where all human needs are met."

Ushi grinned. "You really mean that?"

"Sure," I said. "That makes it possible for us to embrace sex fully when we find such great joy in doing so, as we both apparently do. Shouldn't we embrace whatever we enjoy at the higher levels in the domain of love, and find beautiful in our humanity? Embracing those little things is still better than denying their existence and their validity as part of our humanity, isn't it?" I began to grin now, as I turned towards her.

Ushi answered with a kiss.

In this free, but caring atmosphere, I suddenly realized why the question of protecting ourselves against sexual diseases had not been touched upon during our first night in Leipzig. That night was a night filled with expressions of caring, of loving, of taking responsibility for the world and for uplifting each other. The safety question had already been answered in countless different ways long before the situation even developed in which that question might have been asked. It didn't need to be asked. No one would have allowed another to be harmed or to take a single step if the slightest chance for that existed. This trust unfolds from honesty, the kind of honesty that had marked the entire day back in Leipzig from the moment we had met at the beach in Leipzig. Now it became the basis for a growing bond and an ever-wider openness towards each other, with ever-greater affection and caring.

We banished whatever stood even remotely in the way of us experiencing the unity that we had established, or anything that would hide the beauty of our human nature behind the cloak of conventionality. Only when it became necessary did we concede to the conventions, such as when we went out for dinner, shopping, or for simply having a drink at the bar. But when the night came and it was time for strolling along the beach in the moonlight, or enjoying our midnight swim interspersed with an infinite embrace, the conventions were set aside again.

Unfortunately, as holidays are, our time together was short and fast coming to an end.

As it turned out we had not been totally alone at our hideout resort. The psychological officer of Ushi's troop had spied us on. As an officer, this person has had full access to everyone's travel plans. It appeared that she had followed Ushi to the remote beach resort and kept a carefully maintained log of all the 'proceedings,' suspecting smuggling operations or meetings with foreign spies arriving by boat or by submarines. The truth came out in Mexico City when we changed planes. A most unattractive, stout woman, approached Ushi and gave her a tongue lashing in German, and a lecture on morality. She seemed angry that no political crime had been discovered. Or maybe she was envious. She totally ignored me, as if I didn't exist. Ushi didn't say a word in reply to her charges. Eventually, I couldn't take it any longer. I spiced the situation by saying a few words about East German political immorality in respect to keeping its people imprisoned behind barbed wire fences, mine fields, machine gun towers, and automatic shrapnel throwing devices.

I had hoped that this background of what is really immoral would put Ushi's 'crime' into perspective. I really lectured that woman, then concluded, "Against this kind of gross immorality by the state, what other immorality can there possibly be that you could accuse us of?"

The nasty woman cringed for a moment, but quickly recovered. Overall, this comment had about the same effect as dousing a fire with gasoline. The situation became explosive. Ushi, to save herself politically, obviously had to support the woman against me, who appeared to be her superior, who now lashed out against the West.

"A strong border is needed," said Ushi, quietly. "Without it, there wouldn't have been any population left in East Germany."

"Yes, everyone would have been lured away to the West," the woman supported Ushi.

I told them that I was well aware that the people had left by the trainloads, day after day, before the wall was built. An economy needs people. Without them it will collapse. The depopulationists know this fact and are using it as a political tool to collapse all "excessive civilization," wherever the slightest "excessive civilization" can be found that exceeds the officially mandated poverty that is desired in an imperial environment.

Luckily the nasty woman didn't think that far to make the association, otherwise she could have discredited my argument.

"Let me tell you what is immoral," the nasty woman came back. "It's not protecting people. Gross immorality is found in starving people to death, in taking the meager food they have, right out of their mouths.... That's immoral! That's what's happening in the West."

That was well put. She was right on the mark. I shook her hand. "You are absolutely, totally right," I said to her. "It is estimated that by this single process more than ten million people are put to death each year around the world by western intentions. This is the result of the modern, imperially created depopulation project, which is carried out by all the imperials in the world through their far-flung networks of agents. Yes, this is immorality, gross immorality even. This is what you and your government must spare no effort to fight and defeat. This is the fight that humanity must win. Your life, and everyone else's, depends on it. This is the kind of victory for humanity that Ursula and I are committed to achieving." I thanked the woman for recognizing the urgent need for this.

The woman didn't quite know what to answer. She remained quiet for once, in turmoil with herself. This ended the warfare.

Our flight was announced just then, so we left the woman where she was and lined up for the boarding.