What direction should we take? Where should we live?
People are born into this world, yet they do not even know truly or understand the origin and purpose of their own birth.
If people do not know the why of their existence, they are ignorant of their own purpose.
Can anyone boast that they brought about their own existence?
Our birth, not even our own death stems from our own intentions. What do we have to be proud about? We don't have any control over our birth, and we cannot avoid the path of death.
We are merely custodians in this life.
Thus, any attempt at self-praise or pride is pitiful.
Once we are born on earth, we are destined to live, die and pass away to the next world.
Philosophy and religion has worked hard to solve the problems that human life encounters daily. Philosophers took great pains to come up with many theories with regard to the value and perfection of humanity and to succeed and be proud before the whole universe on their own order.
Yet, today, these ideologies have been tested by human society and are found to be failures.
People live haphazardly, hating to die, yet they hold many questions such as "Why am I living? "What is the origin of life?". Can these answers be found in books written by philosphers when they were just seeking and paving the way toward God.
Q. What is religion?
Religious life begins from learning about God in order to live together with Him.
No one would take objection to having the happiest or dazzling life. Yet, because we come from the fall, we are not able to live free as we please. Still, each of us feels pride in ourselves, live freely with respect to our own will and remembered accordingly.
These conflicts are found within our hearts.
"Let us say you live up to eighty years of age. If you subtract the hours you spend sleeping, you are left with about fifty years of life. Would you say you are alive when you are asleep? When you are asleep, you are as good as dead, because you are inanimate. Sleeping is the same as being dead the whole time.
The number of hours you labor each day to make a living is about half of the twenty-four hours in a day. Now deduct the time you spend eating. From whatever time is left subtract the time spent visiting, going to friends' parties, attending the sixtieth birthday celebrations of village elders, attending funerals and wakes, and being bedridden.
In short, if you were to exclude all the days you lose for whatever reasons that might arise, you cannot claim to have actually lived very much. Would it even be half of your entire lifetime? When I calculated this recently, it came out as roughly seven years. Even so, of those seven years, how many days could you claim to have truly lived?"
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Life passes by very quickly.
A decade flies by in the twinkling of an eye and it seems like in only secondes, we turn sixty years old. Then very soon, you will be seventy, but only for a minute before you age again.
If someone who is born with good fortune of a value of 100, but spends 120 in the the course their life, his descendants will persih. If he only spends 80, he can bequeath the remaining 20 as a blessing to his descendants.
Did you know that you can change your fortune, but not your inherited destiny?
Are you able to change the that you born in the homeland you were born? Can you change your parents?
You can never change the fact that you were born as the son or daughter of your parents, no matter how strong your nation's sovereignty or custom may be.
When you make a wrong start, you will end up in an unexpected place.
people do not know the port of departure for human life. Where can we find the direction and guide the compass to reach our detsination in the world beyond?
People are wandering about back and forth. No matter how hard they may try, they are not able to overcome their human limiations.
Q. What is our destiny?
Where do we go after this life is over?
We need to resolve this important issue. Humanity has tried through religion and phisophies throughout history, so we cannot deny that we are driven by this destiny.
Where are our minds and bodies ultimately trying to go?
Is it just to live, work and die?
What about our hearts, wishes, hopes and ideals - where are they trying to go?
Even if we cannot satisfactorily answer these questions, we are still destined to eventually pass away. When we die, our bodies are buried and our minds, lives, hearts, ideals and even our hopes are also buried.
Unless you have sound contents, solutions and a purpose, you will eventually become an unhappy people.
In order for cicadas to pass from the larval stage into adulthood, they have to prepare to fly while they are still in the previous stage.
In order to pass form the former to the latter, they first shed their shell, which is the final barrier before they are mature and molt into adult insects.
Thus, they need to undergo a complete metamorphosis to adapt accordingly.
So, ultimately, why are we born?
What should our focus of life and for what purpose do we pass on?
We can never answer these questions without God.
Without Him, we can never find the true purpose of life, since He is the cause and beginning of each of our existence.
Those who lack purpose can neither reap the fruit of their work no have their value recognized.
Every building is constructed according to an architect's blueprint. If the builders do not reference the blueprint during construction, it cannot become what was originally intended in the design.
When autumn arrives, it foretells the coming of winter.
Those who have vitality are the only ones who can pass through the course of winter. Things without vitality cannot but retreat from it.
Therefore, they need to be infused with new life before the coming of winter.
We need a new principle and thought based on a new love and outlook on life, the world and universe.
We will not be able to survive the harshness of winter without thinking of these principles.
Once you acqure the vitality to pass through winter, spring will draw nearer with each day that passes.
This is the path trodden by the Unification Church.
Return for tomorrow's post: Love Like God's
This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook Cheon Seong Gyeon, Book Ten, Chapter 1 Section 1
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