Patience is the Most Important Virtue

Everyone in the world is working hard to obtain one goal and that is to be happy.  Even the United States in the court system will have the motto "..the pursuit of happiness".  Isn't this true?  In almost every part of life, everyone is looking to be completely happy and they feel unsatisfied from day to day if they cannot find it.

We set our lives after leaving school in order to fulfill this ideal of happiness. Many try to fill it with a great job and career, others through relationships and family.  Yet, on the whole, we see that many people no matter how much wealth or relationships they obtain, have not found the niche on happiness.

What if you found that one person who promises to make you happy, but on the way one of you might die.  Will this create happiness?

Even if you were to be with the one person who you believe can make you happy, is it possible that the moment that they give you one misplaced word or action that your whole world could be shattered? It appears that something as sharp as a shiny sword or blade is at works to divide happiness and unhappiness.  We are on that kind of path in our lives.

If you are on a mission for God in the church for a while you feel happy after you first join.  But later you may look back and say that before you joined that you had been happy.  You look at how you have to witness to strangers, you may look miserable and you often have to do what you dislike doing.  Then, with this disappointment want to fall away from God's path.

So many types of people have passed through this way.  After they had left , they felt that they had to come back, but could not face coming back.

There are those who work hard for God in their mission work may go through many difficulties and hardships without relaxing, but they are always energetic and powerful which look strange to outsiders.  This is because no matter how difficult the work is, you have hope and are always eager to go ahead.

Through the difficult work you do for God's providence without complaint there will always be some grace and blessedness.  First, there is the toll gate of indemnity that you must pass through before the blessing.
Many people fall away from this type of heavy work.  In their later years, they may repent, and regret that they had fallen away because they were not able to overcome the moment of difficulty.

In the Unification Church, there is the ideal of the Holy Marriage blessing which is God's direct marriage that engrafts your lineage to God''s direct blood line bearing children without traces of the fall.  This was the hope of Jesus - to leave his pure blood lineage on earth.

When members fall away from the church and marry, they feel that that because they did not marry through holy matrimony, it pierces deep inside their heart.  By doing the work of God's will, much indemnity is paid, but by going through secular marriage, this indemnity is paid through the family.  This shows up as diseases, accidents and so forth.

When they look at their secular husbands, they say in their minds. "My husband is a non-Principle husband," Or. "These children of mine are born of satanic lineage filled with sin." They cannot escape from that notion lingering in their minds. Whenever their children are seriously sick, they immediately think, "This is indemnity, this is indemnity!" When they quarrel with their husbands, they immediately think, "This is the indemnity I have to go through!"

That person may visit a strange village, and there will be a fierce dog coming at her, barking, and immediately she thinks, "It knows who I am! It knows I am a betrayer, and it barks at me more fiercely than it would at other people."

Whenever such people are faced with difficulties or unhappiness, they immediately think that they are being punished by God, and that they are going through bitter indemnity. They immediately think. "Oh, if only I could return to the Unification movement, even if I were to play the role of a dog there. If I'm the dog of God there, I can see Master coming and going." But they cannot do that.

If people fall away from their God-given mission, they will end up unhappy.  Even though in the secular world they may have good children and a husband, they will know the true value they had given up.  They are always regretful, because their heart knows what they had given up by falling away from the course God had set for them.

That piercing regret and repentance is always there.

Therefore, a single moment in your life, one event or one person can mean a great deal. The one time you say a wrong word, the one time you look at things in a wrong way -- that can cause you untold misery and unhappiness. The one time you hear things in a wrong way, misery arises from that occasion. That one time matters forever.

Unhappiness and misery can be avoided.  What frame of mind should one have and how must one walk the path of life?  To be victorious, what is the best word that should be given?

Patience.

Patience is the most important virtue to embody. 

When someone speaks bitterly with you, you may become angry.  This is when patience is important to practice.  One person who shouts at another and then the other shouts back, then the two begin to quarrel.

A quarrel causes both to be defeated and shattered.  Even if you are not defeated a power beats at you and you are shattered.  When you get angry at someone, you will frown even at the thought of the person being around.  The moment you frown at someone or stare at him, your happiness will leave you.

You are poisoned inside when you are very angry.

When you are furious and mad at someone, don't you feel it inside? It is like poison to the body when you become angry, so be patient and never be angry with anyone.  Train yourself to become nonchalant, and neglect the person when he is angry at you.
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The secret of winning people over: patience is the key.

A person who is able to practice patience is able to look in every direction.  To help you remember this quality when you are becoming patient is to look at the past and say, "I was once like that when I lived like those in the outside word, I was always getting mad at someone."

When you think of that, you can tolerate that person. The next moment you can say, "I must be patient in this instance. In that case, you fight first against your own self on the spiritual level; then you have already won the fight. But if you aren't prepared in that thinking, when other people shout at you, you may immediately shout back, and you will be already defeated.

When you are out fundraising, there are sure to be moments you are reluctant, you frown and you are not willing to do the job.  This is when you must think it over and be patient.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Guerrilla Fighting in the Spiritual War

This post was rewritten and derived from the speech Opportunity for Happiness or Unhappiness.