"Since men cannot accept that there is a power over them, they deny it,
and in the process they misinterpret the various things of life as
physical things, not the spiritual things that they represent. For
instance, love: men in many "advanced," that is to say, self-obsessed,
civilizations, view it only in its physical materializations, but not in
its spiritual context. When they see the results of love, romance
especially, they do not understand that the romance is only the fruit of
the spiritual essence of love, but instead think that the romance is
love. There can be so-called romance on the physical level without its
spiritual counterpart, but it is only the shadow of love, which will
never fulfill and will never be complete, because, by definition, it is
only a mocking of the true force of love. On the other hand, true
romance is not, as some would seem to think, a certain action or set of
actions, such as the gift of a precious metal or some colorful piece of
foliage, instead it is whatever is the result of the spiritual love, for
the physical manifestation of the spiritual essence of love is not
confined to certain objects or actions, but to any that are sanctioned
with its blessings. The daily toil of a poor man shows far more love
than a lavish gift from a rich man."

When he had finished, I gave him a big grin and thanked him for his
lecture, and then asked him how it was that this did not break the
rules, but other things did. To this he replied that it affected my task
only indirectly, while the other things were all direct concomitants.
Then he asked me if I had any other questions for him, and I replied
that I did indeed have one. Which was as follows, "I know that there was
a great war directly after my departure from my native temporal zone,
and that it was very devastating in its reach and effect, and while I
know that the situation was very tense at the time, I was under the