What is after that?
Depends on who you ask? Scientist, atheist, philosophers, and the religious have their accounts of how the body stays alive and where it rests once it completes its mission on earth. No matter what their thoughts on about matter as absolute on earth, scientist and atheist must recognize that every person has a spirit body and a spirit mind and that it is eternal.
No matter if Communist make a law requiring people to believe that material is all that exist and it came from nothing, the principle of the universe knows every person has a spirit and that spirit was created by a Subject - a Being.
This being has many names and also has emotion, will and intellect. If we are made in the image of God, this means God consists of both masculine and feminine. He has a mind and a body which is the universe and humanity. There is no denying this with words or philosophy, it is the absolute truth. Science is recently finding out that everything has one Cause. This cause is God.
Hallelujah.
A seeker for clarity would want to adjust this information for differences in religious belief or background by focusing on the teachings that these accounts hold in common.
One who seeks a higher truth might learn all philosophies and religious beliefs see that all religions have certain accounts that are similar.
All of them attest that the spirit world is governed by love, and the less light of love one has while living on earth, the lower the realm in which the person lives after death. God is a God of love, who lives solely to love His children to the fullest.
Sadly, most people enter the spirit world riddled with sin. God does not judge where each spirit resides in spirit world or give punishment, rather, the way one person lived on earth decides where they live in the spirit world. The situation in which each spirit finds themselves after death is self made.
"The spirit world is where the internal fruits of one's earthly life become manifest. One brings to the spirit world the quality of character and love that one has manifested in earthly life, as well as the accumulated kindnesses and wrongs one has done to others. Earthly position, fame or reputation count for nothing. Love is all that matters."
One should prepare for heaven by living a lifestyle that is fit for heaven, by cultivating genuine love while disciplining the desires of the flesh. The love and light of heaven emanate from God; therefore, to prepare for heaven one should cultivate a spiritual life of faith and charity such that one can receive God's love.
One should prepare to enter the highest realm in spirit world by first having the lifestyle on earth fit for heaven by cultivating genuine love while disciplining the desires of the flesh.
Love and light of heaven comes directly from God. To prepare for heaven, one should live a spiritual life that cultivates faith and charity that is readily able to receive God's love.
Unfortunately, conventional religious doctrines are thousands of years old and are not fully adequate enough to lead countless numbers of faithful believers on ultimately how to gain heaven and avoid hell.
Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon who authored the Completed Testament, the Divine Principle, his teachings are widely shared by sincere believers of many faiths who have found similar spiritual texts to be valuable guides for their spiritual life.
"We live in an age when God's truth is rapidly becoming known in all quarters."
An exhaustive list of the points of agreement and points of difference between these five accounts could fill many pages. Rather than enumerating them, there will be a brief assessment of each book's unique character and discuss in passing how its vision of the spirit world can help us better understand and appreciate Sang Hun Lee's special message.
The following is written by one of Father Moon's disciples, Andrew Wilson. Sang Hung Lee, spiritualist communicates with those who have passed, has written accounts of his encounters with those in the spirit world who are working as missionaries for God's providence of restoration.
Wilson gives a brief assessment of books based on spirit world that help to explain Sang Hun Lee's special message:
The Liberation of Hell
"Swedenborg's greatest error as regards to his spiritual teachings lies in his assertion that those who are in the hells cannot be saved.
It is the testimony of several of the spiritual books in this study that the angels and spirits of heaven have been laboring constantly to bring the spirits of hell to repentance. It is not an easy task, for most of them are ignorant.
Lee writes:
'Spirit persons in the low levels don't know how their present, terrifying world of punishment will change. For them there is no hope and nothing to wait for. Only continual pain and suffering. Nevertheless, as Franchezzo declares to the poor merchant, '"There is hope even here [in hell], for hope is eternal and God in his mercy shuts none out from it." '
Ultimately, the liberation of hell is part of the Good News that will precede the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth and in the spirit world. After all, how can the Kingdom of God be established on earth as long as the hell continue their baneful influence on the living?
Lee relates that all his spiritual activities are alive with this gospel:
"Now we lecture that the door of hell will be opened and hell will be liberated.""
This hope became a reality just on the eve of the publication of Life in the Spirit World and on Earth, when on June 13, 1998, Rev. Moon gave the blessing to the Communist leaders, the war criminals and the Korean Christian leaders who opposed God's providence whom Lee interviewed for the book. Now through the Marriage) Blessing, the spirits imprisoned in hell are being liberated and shown the way they can ascend to heaven.
Though the burden of their sins is still heavy and their indemnity course may be long, they can all see the light of blessing and respond to the hope of resurrection. Ultimately, hell will disappear and all spirits will become heavenly beings, to the joy of God who loves the prodigal and wishes only for his salvation. Then the omnipotent God will be all in all.
Throughout this study we have been remarking on the contents of Life in the Spirit World and on Earth. Although it lacks the descriptive detail of Life in the World Unseen or the narrative power of A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands, it has its own special quality that makes it unparalleled as a work of spiritual literature.
Its quality derives from the fact that Sang Hun Lee goes to the spirit world representing the True Parents restored Adam and Eve as the Lord of the Second Advent). He has a mission to assist the True Parents in the liberation of the spirit world and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. Stemming from this background and purpose, Life in the Spirit World and on Earth has several unique aspects.
For the first time in this book, one can glimpse life in the Kingdom of Heaven itself.
Heaven is a world of love. Everything about it exudes love - God's love and human love. These are the two most notable features of Lee's experience, which signify that he is at a higher level then the other reporters we have encountered.
Lee describes his personal relationship with God, who calls him by name, in the intimate form used in addressing a close family member, "Sang Hun-ah." He says,
I hear his voice clearly with my own ears. Then a brilliant, glittering, radiating and reflecting light appears in front of, behind and above my head.
Amid the light, a streak of light, unidentified, captures my heart... my feeling is like the peacefulness when a baby in its mother's bosom meets the mother's eyes while listening to her heartbeat. Even this description cannot fully capture my experience. Then, as God's calling voice changes, the brightness of the beautiful light changes, and I go into an ecstatic state. My whole body seems to be melting. Then, suddenly, I am standing by myself: I cannot see God.
God's essence is love; his feeling is peace and rapture and joy; his appearance is as light.
Swedenborg described God as the Sun of the spirit world, whose light and heat radiate as love in gradations from the higher spheres to the lower spheres.'
But he did not experience God speaking to him or directly shining upon him, lifting him up into a rapturous state. Neither did the Monsignor in Life in the World Unseen experience anything like it; he and his friends could at best have a visitation from God's representatives, coming down periodically from the higher spheres.
When these visitors come down, they are accompanied by beams of light, beautiful music and wonderful sensations which fill the meeting hall for all to see and hear and touch. Franchezzo occasionally hears mysterious voices, which always guide and instruct him. He never mistakes them for the voice of God, but knows them to be directions and guidance coming from the higher spirits who preside over his activities.
We can conclude, with Lee, that only in the highest heaven do people live with God on an intimate basis. This, Lee asserts, is the unique privilege of Unification Church members (who work for the Lord of the Second Advent mission to restore the world back to God:
The thing that is hugely different is the position in relation to God. Limits exist which determine how well people belonging to another religion can hear, feel or talk to God. But Unification Church members by all means reside in a position where they may breathe together with God.
Is this just a triumphalist theology? No. It is consistent with spiritual laws, as Lee goes on to describe the shame and punishment endured by even Unification Church members who commit sin. It is consistent with the meaning and value of the Blessing for cutting off the satanic lineage and bringing human beings into God's family.
Thus, by opening the gate of the Blessing to the whole world, the opportunity to live in the complete love of God has become available to all humankind.
The second dimension of love, human love, is dramatically experienced in heaven as nowhere else. When Lee arrived at his home in the spirit world, he and his wife had a new marriage.
"In heaven, husbands and wives make love out in the open air, with the grass and flowers swaying in rhythm, the birds singing accompaniment, and all nature rejoicing. God answers their love with rays of brilliant light pouring down upon the couple and with strains of beautiful music; He embraces them and adds His love to theirs.
Swedenborg also taught that the pinnacle of heavenly love is marriage. Yet not even he could describe fully from direct experience what heavenly love is like. He knew in general that intercourse between husband and wife in the spirit world is similar to that on earth, though more interior and purer.
But he did not know that it involved such a beautiful conjunction with the creation, nor that God Himself embraced the couple, nor that it is looked upon as a beautiful act which others can view without shame.
Yet Swedenborg did understand some things about conjugal love in heaven. He knew it had nothing to do with fornication or adultery, but must be chaste love for one spouse. He knew that it is guided and governed by spiritual love, conjoined with God's love.
Hence he would assert what Lee experienced, that only those couples who had matured in their inner selves and who lived in accordance with God's will and desire (on earth first) can love each other in the true sense. There can be no deception or falsity.
There must be genuine trust, compassion and forgiveness between husband and wife for their love to be comfortable and harmonious - able to receive the fullness of God's love.
Return for Tomorrow's Post: Educating for True Love
This text given by Andrew Wilson from the textbook Journal of Unification Studies - Vol. II based on the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's teaching of the Divine Principle.
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