1132. So what about such an ideal? It cannot but collide with the current marital traditions. The new ideal does not of course say that "thou shalt love thy wife as thyself". Nor does it say that "thou shalt love thy husband as thyself", but it says expressly that "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". It is thus not a matter of being the "wife" or "husband", the "sister" or "brother" or of being in some other way "related" to a being that determines that one is to be loved by this being as this being loves itself. Even though one is a "stranger" one shall be loved by this being. The only thing that then remains as a basis for determining that one should be loved by one's "neighbour" as he loves himself is that one is a "living being" and is situated within the area of manifestation of the being concerned. The condition for one having to love a being as one loves oneself is that the being in question is one's "neighbour", which thus in turn means, is the being or beings that in the literal sense are situated "closest" to oneself in actual physical space, regardless of where we may be. If one of two beings is in our immediate vicinity and the other is a hundred kilometres away, the former is thus our "neighbour" and has a right to our "love". If it is ill and miserable and in need of our help we would break the law of neighbourly love, if we did not help the being in question to the best of our ability in the way that we ourselves would like to be helped if it were us who were in distress. And our help must be equally effective regardless of whether our "closest being" is an animal or a human being, but of course intellectually adapted to the natural steps in life of the two species of beings. If the opposite were the case it would not be "love" that we would manifest, but more about this later. It is thus the fact that the being is "closest" to us, and that we are thus the beings that are at the shortest distance from this being, that determines its right to and claim on our "love" and the ensuing help when in need.
      It was of course not the fact that the being in distress in "the parable of the Good Samaritan" was the Good Samaritan's "wife" or "brother" or was otherwise related to him that determined that he helped him, but solely the fact that he was "closest" to the person in distress. He felt that without his assistance the person in distress would succumb to his wounds and sufferings. For him this was the decisive reason for him helping a being to whom he was not related. Here we see the world redeemer pointing to a "love" that has nothing to do with "kinship". And did this great world redeemer on another occasion not say that "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his neighbour"? There is thus no getting away from the fact that the "love" prescribed in the "Bible" and other sacred books, and by mankind's greatest wise people and the principle of world redemption itself, as mankind's absolutely only redeeming ideal is a different form of "love" from that which is directed only towards the "opposite sex".