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Sensing Jennifer had come to the end of her remarks, at least for the moment, I indicated: "Sounds like someone we both know and, I hope, like, should withdraw to a mountain retreat and begin to consider various forms of ritualized suicide. Something like hara-kiri seems to be the only decent and honorable thing a man could do under the circumstances."

"There is no need for you to entertain such thoughts in lonely isolation," Jennifer replied. "I'm sure there might be any number of my sisters who would be prepared to assist you in your deliberations."

"Thanks," I said. "I can't tell you how much solace and encouragement I find in your words."

"I am constantly at your service in all matters," she commented.

Returning, once again, to what I believed was the serious side of our discussion, I inquired, "Jennifer, do you think conflict between women and men is inevitable? In other words, do you feel the respective natures of men and women are innately and, perhaps, irresolvably antagonistic to one another?"

"Yes and no," Jennifer stated without hesitating. "Everything really depends on what realm one is considering."

Before she expanded on what had been said, Jennifer reminded me: "Keep in mind, David, I'm speaking through the voice of just one woman. Moreover, I'm engaging your question from a particular orientation ... a spiritual one.

"Consequently, whatever I say is a blend of both my experience as a human being, as well as my understanding of the currents of spirituality that run through, color and shape my being. Quite a few, perhaps most, feminists might dismiss what I'm about to say to you, but they cannot ignore the voice through which it is said without bringing into question the legitimacy of their efforts to give expression to their own voice in such matters.

"This is so because if, as I believe is the case, the touchstone that forms the starting point of all analysis and interpretation is personal experience, then everyone's experience has a certain potential contribution to make to the discussion. The value of any given contribution will depend on its degree of accuracy, truth, insight, wisdom, fairness and so on, and not on the identity of the locus of manifestation through which the contribution comes.

"In short, one cannot automatically assume that voice, whether of a woman or man, gives expression, in and of itself, to truth. One should be seeking neither the masculine voice nor the feminine voice, but the voice of truth, to whatever extent we are capable of listening to this modality of voice and understanding its manner of addressing us.

"Voice does give expression to personal experience. Nonetheless, experience cannot act as a non-circular guarantor of the truth of voice except to the extent that what is voiced about experience accurately reflects something of the truth of the ontological or existential conditions in which experience is rooted and to which experience gives, at least, partial expression."

Having concluded her prefatory remarks, Jennifer offered her answer to my original question: "Let us consider any given interaction between a woman and a man that is rooted in a purely worldly context. And, for the sake of argument, lets define a 'purely worldly context' as goals and purposes that are pursued for non-spiritual intentions and motivations.

"Under such circumstances, I believe there are inevitable conflicts which will arise between women and men. In fact, irrespective of the sexual identities of those who are participating in the activities occurring in a 'purely worldly context', antagonism is inherent and unavoidable in this kind of situation.

"On the other hand, let us consider any given interaction of a woman and a man that arises in a spiritual context. Again, for the sake of argument, let's define a spiritual context as consisting of goals and purposes that are pursued for spiritual intentions and motivations along the lines I outlined previously.

Jennifer had given added emphasis to the word "spiritual", and, then, as if explaining her emphasis, she said: "If you will remember, David, earlier in the evening I made a distinction between the spiritual and the religious which is applicable here. A person who operates out of a religious framework does not necessarily pursue goals and purposes with spiritual intentions and/or motivations. So, in what follows, I'm talking about spiritual, not religious, contexts.

"More specifically, in a spiritual context, I feel the relationship between a man and a woman has the potential to become complementary. I also believe such relationships are naturally given to establishing reciprocity and harmony between the two.

"In fact, irrespective of the sexual identities of the participants, any two, or more, people who come together in a spiritual context will be inclined to interact with harmony, reciprocity and in a complementary fashion. In short, just as much as worldly contexts are divisive and conflict-laden, so, too, spiritual contexts tend to be unitive and directed toward resolving conflicts.

"On the level of the world, taken as an end in itself, both men and women are largely dominated and driven by our egos or false selves. On that level, many of our actions are governed by ambition, envy, desire, greed, arrogance, selfishness, anger, pride, hostility, jealousy, stubbornness, lust, insincerity, gossip and pettiness.

"According to the mystics, the nature of the ego or false self is precisely the same in everyone. However, individual ability, personal history, socialization, education, and various processes of reflection, interpretation, and evaluation combine together in a complex dialectic to generate the beliefs, values, commitments and actions that either prune, or are pruned by, our egos in one direction rather than another."

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