Helen told me that this ancient story became a part of the background in the struggle for building a strong foundation for the humanist truth in the early 1600s. The story was used to serve as a platform for exposing the lies of the hired philosophers of the empires. Rembrandt evidently supported this fight against the philosophers of war and destruction, the philosophers who had insisted that love applies exclusively to the private domain but has no place in politics or in the relationships between nations. The story of Susanna pinned the lie on the elite.

      "People must have realized that the philosophy that outlawed universal love, might have been a lie too. The physical evidence certainly suggested that. The philosophy of a world governed without love had turned all of Europe into a wasteland. There was literally nothing left on which to rebuild a civilization, except the idea of universal love that had for so long been rejected."

      Helen pointed out that after everything is peeled away, every mythology and utopian madness has been discredited by reality. Then one invariably gets back to the truth, because there is nothing left that has any validity.



      Something struck me about what she had said; referring to what is ultimately valid. "Hold everything!" I interrupted her forcefully.

      "Oh, why? Don't you want me to touch you anymore?" she said surprised. She pulled her hand away from her embrace of me.

      "No Helen, I don't mean that. I think you just gave me an answer to something that had puzzled me all night," I said to her. I brought her hand back to where it was. "You just answered an important question. You answered to me the question of why I am here, with you, in this bed."

      I told her that Erica and I had asked ourselves the question why married men dream about having intimate relationships with other women and women with men, but rarely ever allow themselves to make their dreams come true. I told Helen that my answer to Erica had been, that we have all become slaves to a mythology, like underlings bowing to their master, against our own will. "But that's not valid. You presented a much more scientific answer," I said to her. "You pointed out that the reason why we are all so divided and isolated from one-another in the world, and in our marriages, reflects the simple fact that we still think that love applies only in the smallest possible private domain. Instead, we should acknowledge it as a universal Principle, reflecting universal singular Truth."

      Helen just smiled. We were facing each other in the dimly lit bedroom. She seemed delighted with what I said, but didn't answer.

      "You told me that I should have answered Erica that we are already married to one-another as human beings in a kind of universal marriage that reflects our common humanity. You are right of course. Had I said this, and said this clearly, a lot of things would have changed. But this wouldn't have been enough. Something would still have been missing. Something would have had to be included that would have made her immensely proud of that humanity that we are all a part of, and thereby made her proud of herself. That's a tall task, isn't it? But you, Helen, did it so easily and seemingly effortlessly. You made me feel so proud to be a human being. I feel so rich and honored just to know you, to be touched by the love that you have for everyone. If we could only do this on a universal scale and make the whole of mankind feel that way. But we don't. We are making the same mistake against our innermost wishes, which the Europeans had made during their eighty years of war. We relegate love to the smallest possible sphere and hide it away behind the tallest possible barriers."

      "Of course, Peter," said Helen. "From the moment on that one takes love out of the universal domain, one opens the door to all sorts of mythologies and paradoxes, and artificial barriers. Then, one wonders why nothing works. However, let me shock you. Universal love means that ones love must be universal. It means that the lateral relationship that binds us together in love, where the light is our common humanity, has no sex barrier, no race barrier, and no age barrier. Did you ever think about that? Universal love cannot be conditional or involve exceptions. There may be variances in form, according to what most ideally uplifts and enriches the human scene on the vast plain of our individuality. All of these forms, however, must be subservient to the Principle of Universal Love, unfolding a love that flows laterally from heart to heart, that reflects the truth that binds us into one. Age, sex, race, color, and so forth cannot be barriers then, but must be seen as factors that enrich the light of our humanity. Did you ever think about that?"

Next Page

|| - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||

Stories about  Love from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche