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During the next few days, I thought a lot about Beth's request and our conversation. My eyes, ears, hands and feet were busy with mundane affairs at home and at my two offices, but my attention was far away.

My condition was like that of a driver who becomes aware, after a time, of having travelled some distance, with absolutely no recollection of what has been going on with the driving process during that time. One's body has been operating on automatic pilot while one's inner awareness has been visiting elsewhere.

During the second day of my deliberations, I began to jot down a ledger of pros and cons. Putting problems in this kind of concrete form often helped me to work toward a resolution in some cases.

On the con side of things were a number of issues. First of all, there was the bizarre character of the whole situation.

Although I felt Beth was being quite sincere in everything she had said, she was asking me to act on the basis of her vision. Yet- and, putting aside, for the moment, alcohol- and drug-induced experiences, I had never had a "spiritual" vision, and the same was true, as far as I knew, of my family, friends and colleagues.

I accepted the possibility of all kinds of anomalous, out-of-the-ordinary sorts of experience along the lines I had pointed out to Beth in the book I had showed her. However, the idea of receiving communications and transmissions from some other-worldly spiritual realm seemed to me to be...well...bizarre.

This attitude of mine did not mean I considered a person's report of such experiences to be nonsense. Such experiences frequently were of great psychological significance in helping to shape an individual's sense of meaning, values and purpose in life.

Indeed, these kinds of experiences often signalled points of tremendous growth and transformation in the life of a person. Nevertheless, people often confused the psychological significance of experiences with ontological issues and, on the basis of such experiences, try to invent worlds which, very likely, did not exist anywhere except in dreams, the mind or imagination.

The creation of a "reality" by psychotics is, in many ways, an exaggerated and pathological form of a potential for fantasy that we all have. Problems arise, of course, when we lose the ability to understand how these created worlds come into being through the exercise of our subjective processes.

From a psychological point of view, the idea of God can be a very, very powerful organizing force in a person's life. Unfortunately, when we fall in love with an idea, we tend to forget it is an idea for which we have fallen.

Democracy, communism, capitalism, science, philosophy, mythology and literature also are filled with extremely powerful ideas by which individuals become seduced or with which people become enamoured. But, the existence of a sincerity or intensity of psychological experience does not necessarily mean reality must have the character we attempt to project on to it.

The fact Beth has a spiritual paradigm out of which she operates and that is of great importance and significance to her, doesn't mean I should find her paradigm important or significant in any way other than that the paradigm has meaning for her. If she were having problems working through a motivational or emotional problem in the context of her life-paradigm, then I might be able to give her some therapeutic assistance.

This, however, was not the case. What Beth was seeking was extra-clinical or outside the normal boundaries of a therapist-client relationship.

She didn't want therapy as a client. She was asking for help as a human being.

This presented something of a problem. Should every person who came into one's life in need of some kind of help have a right to expect help?

I recalled a friend of mine who had gone to India and travelled through various parts of the country. He had related to me that practically everywhere he went, there were poor, hungry people seeking money.

Apparently, there were so many poor people that even if he had given just a few rupees (roughly, 20 cents per rupee) to each of them, nevertheless, in very short order, he would have gone through a huge amount of money. He said he would have exhausted his resources to such an extent he would have had to become one of the indigent himself.

The next sunrise would have found them all, including my friend, back on the streets seeking a few more rupees, as if yesterday had never happened...except the day might have found all too few of them not quite as hungry as the day before. A small thing, perhaps, but it often could spell the difference between life and death for the lucky ones who happened to cross the path of charity at the right time.

With finite resources of time, money and energy, who does one help? Moreover, how much help does one give? How does one find the point of balance in one's personal life akin to what economists call 'sustainable development'- that point which allows one to continue on without requiring one to cannibalize one's future for the sake of the present?

To what extent am I my brother's or sister's keeper? Beth had asked a legitimate question.

Yes, the question was legitimate and, yet, at the same time, the act of asking the question seemed somewhat unfair. Did she have the right to raise the question with me under the circumstances of our meeting?

On the other hand, if we are not asking this question of ourselves, then, presumably, the responsibility for doing so falls on someone else. Consequently, if Beth does not ask the question, then who will ask it?

Is the decision to help, or not to help, someone a purely arbitrary and personal one? Or, are there transcendent standards of some kind- religious, philosophical or scientific, by which we should abide in such matters?

If there are standards, do we follow them because of the negative consequences that may follow if we don't do so? Or, do we help irrespective of the consequences...just because it is the 'right' thing to do?

Like most of us, when faced with this kind of choice, I'm inclined to do less rather than more. I often give help, financial or otherwise, more as a bribe for my conscience to be quiet than as an expression of a clear understanding of the moral issues at stake. In fact, I often give so I won't have to think about such issues and, yet, still be able to feel good about myself as being the kind of guy who is a compassionate person.

I have a lot of respect for those precious few individuals who are prepared to sacrifice virtually everything in order to help people in need. Nonetheless, something in me vigorously resists following their example.

There is a saying among members of the underworld subculture which goes: if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. I suppose, in somewhat analogous fashion, I'm afraid that if I go too far in the giving department, I won't be able to live with the consequences.

Unfortunately, this generally means other people may get sacrificed on the altar of my weakness and convenience. Moreover, I don't really seem to be very willing to explore how much the envelope can be pushed in this respect. Maybe I'm tougher than I think, but at the rate I'm going, I'm never going to find out.

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