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"The question remains," said Helen, "are we willing to bear the challenges that we face, out of love, as Prometheus did?"
She paused, then said quietly, "I have been slandered; I have been spat at; I have been called a whore and worse; but when this happens I stand back and say to myself: What has any of that got to do with anything? Do the problems change the principle? What do the problems matter in comparison to saving humanity and our civilization? Compared to this imperative, the problems that I face in responding to the Principle of Universal Love amount to nothing. Indeed, what have a few pains and agonies to do with anything? I feel that they have nothing to do with anything that ultimately matters, because they are themselves derived from false concepts."
"How do you deal with this issue then?" I asked her.
"I focus on what is important, on what will work, on what benefits people. I know that my efforts are not wasted, because the universality of love is something that all human beings who have hearts do already embrace deep in those hearts."
She told me about a poem by Heinrich Heine, a German poet, which was set to music as a song by Robert Schumann. She said that it is a poem about love and disappointment. The disappointment in the poem doesn't result from a rejection of love, but from the simple fact that the platform had not been built on which the budding love could unfold and flourish. It is a poem about a seemingly impregnable barrier that society still bows to.
Helen went to the piano and sang the song for me. Unfortunately, she couldn't sing it the way it was meant to be sung, since it was written for a baritone and was written in German. Still she did sing it quite wonderfully. She sang a song of a lover. She translated the song into something like this:
When I gaze into to your eyes
Gone is my misery, my hell,
And when I kiss you on the lips
I find my health, complete and well.
Then, when I lean close at your breast
What heaven's delight comes o'er me,
But when you say: I love you dear
I burst into tears - oh, bitterly.
"Evidently the promise of this love could not be fulfilled," said Helen, "because the two lovers were not free, but were bound by marriage to someone else. The greater universal bond that binds people across these artificial boundaries was evidently unknown at the time when the poem was written. Thus the tragedy could not be avoided. But suppose, the science had existed in those days for the truth to be recognized that would have allowed the larger bond to stand as a bond of universal love, and to be developed into deeds, and to be so honored. How would the poem have ended then?"
"One word would have been different," I said. "The last line would have ended again with tears, as it does," I suggested, "but the crying wouldn't have been, bitterly. The tears would have been caused by a great rejoicing as the lovers were moved to tears by sublimity: 'I burst into tears, - oh, wonderfully.'"
"The poem would have ended joyfully with a recognition that something exceedingly rich was unfolding that brings joy to all who are touched by love. This is what people hope for. Unfortunately, too many mythologies still stand in the way, even now. These, I fight like hell to sweep away out of our human world, and those who have human hearts with which to love will help me. Many already do. I hope to start a revolution that allows love to unfold, unfettered and free and universal, a love that expands and finds its expression in business, finance, politics, even in the relationship between nations. Shouldn't it become possible for us then to honor the same universal bond everywhere, and to allow it to unfold even in the most intimate domain?"
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Stories
about
Healing
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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