The only girl left to call on was Lisa Green. Her question caught Lady Jennifer completely by surprise. In all of the years she had been initiating young women into this kingdom, she had never had an initiate ask this question at this stage in their development. "Mistress Jennifer, this may seem like a silly question, but it has me intrigued. You talked about how 'Us' is real but 'Them' is not, yet you never mentioned how 'I' fits in to this discussion. Surely 'I' exist, right?"
Lady Jennifer just sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then finally she said, "You really shouldn't be perceptive enough yet to ask that question. That's a topic we don't get into until much later, and no, there is nothing silly about it at all."
After thinking for a few moments more she continued. "Since you have asked it, I think I am going to give a shot at answering it. Keep in mind that we normally teach much more about life and religion before we get to this.
"The obvious answer to your question is ubiquitous phrase 'I think, therefore I am,' but is this really satisfactory enough? Remember what I said earlier about answers. Just because you have found something that is factually correct, doesn't mean that you have found the one you should be looking for, and the key to way to determine if it is the right answer is whether it helps you in some sort of productive manner.
"The first thing you must keep in mind is that unenlightened people do not question their existence. Without any exception — what so ever — unenlightened people never take their existence into consideration.
"Yet the phrase 'I think, therefore I am' is what people who really are enlightened refer to as a pseudo-enlightened phrase. It appears to answer an enlightened question, but it does no such thing. It in fact dismisses the question. It makes the question seem silly to ask, just as you had commented, Lisa.
"As you gain enlightenment you will find that the aspects of you that have any real value are those aspects that have something to do with how you relate to others. Sometimes you have to go off on a sabbatical, and be by yourself in order to refocus on who you are, but if it is not for the specific purpose of improving your relationships with others, then you are doing great harm to yourself, as any hermit can show.
"A wonderful example is to watch what happens to Tom Hanks' character in the movie Castaway. It's about a man that finds himself stranded on an isolated island in the Pacific. This character drives himself insane because of his lack of human contact. He eventually throws himself into the ocean on a makeshift raft in order to escape his isolation. He didn't do this to survive, because his best chance at survival was to stay where he was. He did this in order to live.
"We humans are meaningless on our own. For all intents and purposes, we may as well not exist if it were not for our interaction with others. From this flows the phrase 'I am not real; you are not real; we are real.'
"As your enlightenment grows you will also see that it is God that adds reality to our existence. The big problem with 'I think, therefore I am' is that it does not factor in God. From this point of view we get another phrase that is derived directly from the previous one I stated, and it goes 'I am not God; you are not God; we are God.'"
Lady Jennifer paused for a few moments to allow what she said to sink in. When she continued she couldn't help taking a swipe at an easy target. "It's too bad that big-time liberal actors like Tom Hanks cannot derive the right lessons from the roles they play. They can demonstrate just how important relationships are to the human existence, yet they can't fathom how a dependency on a myth like a government is an acid on those relationships."
Looking back at Lisa, Lady Jennifer continued. "As a final thought for now on your question, You need to consider that unenlightened people determine the existence of anything by what their five senses tell them. We believe that any of these senses can easily be deceived, and so cannot be trusted. So a measure of your enlightenment can be established by whether you can determine your existence with out the use of any of them.
"I imagine that my answer to your question was not what you were hoping for, but it is the best I can give you for now."
Lady Jennifer noticed that Marcia had raised her hand again. She wanted to move on, but decided to see what she had to say, and nodded towards, "Yes Marcia. Do you have something else?"
"Mistress Jennifer, how can there be a 'we' without a 'you' and an 'I'? Would they not have to exist first?"
"Excellent question, Marcia. An even better one would be 'How can there be a God without a you and an I?' or even, 'does a God make any sense without an us?'
"Something that takes a long to time to understand is that the true measure of your enlightenment is determined by the questions that you pose to yourself, and not the answers you have settled on. Enlightenment is a journey, and answers are a destination.
"Sometimes you need an answer in order to make a decision, but once the decision has been made you must throw out the answer, so that you can continue your journey, because there will always be a better answer to find later."
Several of the girls now raised their hands again. Lady Jennifer responded with a little exasperation. "Enough questions girls. We are already way out onto a tangent that I really should not have gone down on. What you need now is experience, not answers."
With that said she took a deep breath, and stood up. "Enough lecture for today. It's time for an exercise to reinforce what you should already have learned by now. A key component to enlightenment is understanding the difference between pain and harm. Not only is there the old saying 'no pain, no gain,' but some of the most harmful things in life have no pain at all.
"You all must learn how to disassociate pain from harm, and this exercise will help with that. It will also help you to understand that contrasting pain with pleasure makes for a far more pleasurable experience.
"I want everyone to go get a towel like they did last night, then line up along the back of this couch." Lady Jennifer was pointing to the couch to her left; the one Marcia had been sitting on. Each girl went and got herself a towel as before, then lined up where Lady Jennifer said. The order of the girls was the same as they were sitting on the couch with Marcia first, and Lisa last.
"In today's exercise," began Lady Jennifer. "Each of you will get an opportunity to spank and be spanked by all of the other girls. One at a time you will each lie across the arm of this seat." Lady Jennifer was now point at the love seat she had been sitting in. "Then each of you will take turns spanking the girl lying on it.
"Marcia, you will be first. Lay your towel across the arm, and keep it folded the way it is." Then to the remaining girls she said, "Lay your towels across the back of the couch until it is your turn to be spanked."
Marcia went up to the couch, and placed her towel as she was told. She knew she should have felt fear about what was to happen, but all she could feel now was an absolute thrill. She even felt honored that she was the first one up. Leadership was something that came easy to her, and she wanted to set a good example for the others to follow.
"Take your panties off," continued Lady Jennifer, "and keep them in your hand." Marcia quickly complied.
"Now, raise the front of your dress, and lie across your towel so that your hips are on the towel, and not the dress." Once Marcia had positioned herself as she was commanded, Lady Jennifer continued with her instructions. "Pull the back of your dress up so that your are completely exposed from the rear. Then finally — and this one is something that men want to see, so you need to start getting used to it — put your panties in your mouth to muffle your screams."
Marcia pulled her dress up without any problem, but putting her panties in her mouth was a different story. Her mistress was asking her to use them as a gag, and that is what she felt like doing with the thought of putting them in her mouth.
As she continued to debate herself with what to do, she felt a paddle make a painful contact with her bottom, and the command "Do it now!" ring in her ears.
'Where does she get these paddles?' Marcia thought as her senses returned to her.
Without any further delay, she stuffed her panties in her mouth, and waited for what was to follow.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2rvncq/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch04_what_are