"And here comes another surprise for you," I added moments later. "Do you remember the four development streams, the rivers of spiritual and scientific development that Mary Baker Eddy, America's spiritual pioneer, had defined for her pedagogical structure? Do you also remember me telling you that the first development stream contains the science of marriage, our gateway to the Principle of the Universal Marriage of Mankind? I think this is the domain that my friend Helen in East Germany had described as our universal light; or rather the principle in which the universal light of mankind is rooted, the beauty that unfolds in ecstatic moments of profound discoveries, profound relationships, and profound love. And the second development stream that Mary defined relates closely to Helen's idea of the universal kiss that she said is our peace. A kiss is deemed sexual in India, isn't it? Can the universal kiss be anything less than a sexual expression in the universal context and it river bring us peace? In Mary's second development stream, unfolds a different kind of marriage relationship. Mary had included no sexual references into her first development stream that pertains to the universal marriage of mankind. She has put her first sexual reference into her second development stream, which develops a different kind and advanced form of relationship with one another and with oneself. I think this is this stream that my friend Helen recognized must exist when she defined its essential nature in her own way as our universal kiss. I think Mary's second development stream pertains to the universal marriage of the human soul that unites us in our universal spiritual dimension, which of course is reflected in a universal physical dimension. Sex appears to be that dimension. Actually Mary has put down two references to sex and has put each one in a separate development stream. She thereby treats sex as a totally separate issue from the social dimension, form the Principle of the Universal Marriage of Mankind. I think sex, in its vast dimension, reflects the Principle of the Universal Marriage of our Humanity, the unity of the human soul. This means that we too, have to treat sex as a separate issue in our living, as a kind of spiritual manifest in a material universe. I think this more deeply rooted unity of the spiritual and the corporeal that sex brings to light has a real down to earth practical social significance."

      Indira raised her hand to interrupt me, but then let it drop.

      I paused.

      She nodded, slightly. "Go on," she said moments later, "if you can explain this down to earth connection." She spoke more quietly and thoughtfully than she had spoken before.

      I told her Erica's story. I told her how Erica had nearly been raped in Leipzig while she on the way to the streetcar coming from a late lecture at the university there. A man had followed her in the dark. He caught up with her and forced her into one of the university buildings. The man demanded sex. Erica decided that it would be safer for her to comply with what he wanted and have the sex with him, which he evidently needed badly, rather than risk a fight that she would most certainly loose. So, in response to that thought she kissed him, to take the pressure of the situation before it could become violent. This little thing that she did, this simple kiss, put the man over the edge. She felt that he literally exploded right into his pants. The attempt to rape ended right there. The man apologized profusely afterwards. He even asked her for a date. She refused. She told him that he looked like an intelligent person and should be perfectly able to develop a sexual relationship with someone on a more honorable basis. He replied to her that he had tried and tried, but had only found closed doors.

      "That's the kind of society we have been building," I said to Indira, "in which rape is becoming evermore dominant in the face of a vanishing sense of humanity and a growing isolation of people from one another. We have created a tragically poverty-stricken society. We've become small. We have become so poor as human beings that the simplest things don't work anymore, and the most deeply seated needs remain unmet. That is why I said earlier that love is the most precious light we have, and we seldom ever realize how precious this light is until it goes out. Rape isn't the rage of a deranged mind, with a few rare exceptions. It is one of the symptoms of a deranged society in which the human dimension has been relegated to the trashcan. Greed unfolds in the same manner. Greed is a rage of stealing, a different kind of rape that totally ignores the human dimension. Then take power. It's the same thing. Even terrorism is the same thing. It's all rape in the broader sense. And so is religious terrorism, and violent terrorism, and nuclear-threat terrorism. It's all the same thing, Indira. Each one of these takes us further and further away from the human dimension and its principle. It takes us away from the precious light of love, into an ever-deeper denial of it. Of all these, so it appears to me, sex may be the easiest case to sort out. Maybe that is why Mary put it onto the table and into two separate development streams."

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