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Chapter 7 - Intervention Against PrivatizationSteve and Ushi arrived two days later. Surprisingly, there was no emotional hoopla associated with their arrival, although we hadn't seen Steve for more than a dozen years. Only once before had I had the feeling that time had stood still for a long period like that. This happened on the island of Maui. We had come for a vacation. As we drove from Kahului Airport across the island to Lahina everything appeared exactly like I had remembered it from our previous visit ten years earlier. The old volcano was still shrouded in clouds. The sugar cane stood as tall as I remembered it. The road to other side of the island was still the same narrow road. Even the trees and the weeds at the roadside looked the same. The only thing that I noticed to be different in our case, about Steve, was his shirt. He used to love wearing brightly colored shirts whenever he could. He wore a darker, deeply colored shirt now. Steve listened intently to what we had accomplished. At the end he shook his head. "You don't understand the Platonic method," was his comment. He looked directly at me when he said this, as if I was at fault. "What did I tell you a long time ago in Leipzig, on the very first day we met?" he asked. "That's totally related to what is happening here, Peter. Remember, I had asked you to engage yourself in some role-playing. I had requested you to play the role of an aspiring architect of the universe, in competition with all the other aspiring competitors. Your goal was to design the most perfect species of life in the universe. I asked you to describe your design. Remember, you gave me your wish list that contained everything that you had hoped humanity would ever be, a people with a spiritual sense so keen that none of the principles of the universe, which the eye cannot see, would remain hidden from them? You may also recall that when you were finished telling me the design of your dreams, I shocked you by telling you that you had accurately described the present reality of humanity. Do you remember that, Peter? That's what Plato did, as far as I understand his method. He began with the highest perception of truth and shocked people. That high level perception wasn't his goal that he worked towards. It was his staring point. His goal was to bring the rest of humanity up to the level where he stood and challenge it to step beyond. I have always endeavored to be true to this method. It has actually never been my goal to raise humanity up, above itself, but merely to raise it to a truer appreciation of itself and its infinite potential. That, of course, involves developing a higher level of truthfulness. That's the challenge, Peter." Steve kept looking at me again when he said this, as if it were my fault that we didn't do this yet fully. "What did your friend Helen tell you in Leipzig a few nights before you met Ushi and me?" Steve asked, maintaining his deep-searching look. I shrugged my shoulders. "She taught you a very profound lesson, Peter, in which we find summed up all the problems in the world; and I really mean that. Can you remember what that lesson was?" Steve asked. I shrugged my shoulders again. "I don't know what you are getting at, Steve," I answered. "She had taught me many things that night." "That, my friend, means, that you have not really learned that lesson," said Steve. "I suppose, if you had learned that lesson there might also not have been a reason for us to be here. The lesson that she taught you, Peter, and she did this in the most dramatic manner that anyone could have done this, is that one must always be truthful with oneself in respect to all the principles that pertain to our humanity. Now do you remember what this lesson was? You had even confirmed to her in your own words that you had learned this lesson. She was so proud of you that you had. Would you like me to tell you, and everyone here, what she had said?" || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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