A Relationship With God is Fundamental for Life

Throughout history, man has tried to search for the true meaning of everlasting happiness and human behavior through philosophy and philosophers.

This quest leads them to ask the basic question of God's very existence.  Isn't this where every philosophical battle eventually ends up, to whether a being who created this world exists? 

We still have not reached a satisfactory conclusion which every philosopher and scientist can agree upon.  Even if they were to all take a vote and vote that He exist, would he exist from that moment on? 

What if they all voted that God did not exist?

Would such a being come into existence upon human realization that He exists or vice versa?

God does not fit into human logic too well.  Perhaps the last time you tried to explain or prove such an existence showed you how limited words or examples can be to your case.

How about your mind?  Are you able to show it and explain to someone.  If you were able to 100% understand you mind then you would have the capacity to recreate it from scratch from such knowledge.  Because you cannot know your mind totally, this shows the greatness of your mind. 


"Human beings have a mysterious aspect, and human logic can never perceive the greatness of God or human existence."


The same is for the explanation of God.  If you could explain His existence through logic then God would be small enough to fit into human logic. this would mean that humanity would be able to create God and know all about Him.

People of religion already know that there is a God, that He exists from beginning to end, and He exists throughout eternity.  He created all things and He occupies the central position.

We should clearly understand our relationship to God.

Humanity has tried several approaches to bring us closer to an understanding of this relationship, but this question remains unsettled.

Our relationship to God is the fundamental block to our existence.  A true, living relationship to God is fundamental to life that we should clarify this question.

Several religions have to come to the same principle which is common to all religions to clear up the confusion of what our relationship with God should be?

Is it like a friend, daughter/son or should we view God as an equal?  What is our true relationship with Him?

God wants us to understand this relationship to the ultimate sense - He definitely needs us human beings...why else would He create us?  Therefore, He will do everything possible to develop this relationship.


What is the most precious thing in your life?  Did you answer money or power?


When we look at this question deply, other thoughts emerge.  We conclude that the most precious thing is love - what we value most is tied to the element of love.

Second to love is life itself which is most precious.  We value these two things above all else.

If we have love and life, we need one thing further-an ideal.

Love, life an ideals are the most precious and profound in vlue and make our live woth living.

We all in some way wish fo eternal life.  Therefore, we naturally feel that we want our love and ideals to also be foreve, unchanging and unique.

We have seen writers who write about the beauty of eternal love.

Has there been a writer in history that has glorified love that changes day and night or ends forever?

There are many religions in the world which testify to the life beyond this one that we live on earth and testify to our desires for eternity.

The words 'love' and 'ideals' are empty and do not have meaning when they are isolated.  Love can only exist when there is someone to love and someone to be loved by.

Also, an ideal needs to be shared with someone. 

We are always in a position to be loved by someone in the subject position.  Things that are supremely important in human life can only come about through relationships.

Many think that humans are the cause of the universe, but how can we be the cause if we did not create ouselves?  Therefore, a subject or creator must xist.  This subject or cause is the essential reality.

Whatever name you choose for the cause does not matter; we should be certain of the cause as we are of our own existence.

We call the cause "God".  So, let's put our question to God:

God, what is the most precious thing in existence to you God?

 God will answer, "Love, life, and my ideal are the most precious things to me."

Think about this.  Does God need money?  Everything in creation belongs to God anyway.  He does not need money. He is already the Source of all power and knowledge.  God is all of these things, therefore, these two also He does not need. 

Instead, God wants to share and have give and take with someone ina reciprocal relationship.

Even though God is almighty, He cannot have love, life and ideal when He is alone.  This is why He created man and woman.

 

All human traits originate in God.

This is the meaning in the Bible where it states that humans are created in the image of God.

We reflect the characteristics of God like a mirror.  God is the Origin, therefore, our lvoe comes from the love of God.  Our life comes from the life of God, and so do our ideals.

The very dream that you wish to accomplish all your life comes from God.

God is the Subject of love, the Subject of life, and the Subject of ideals. We are the objects of love, the objects of life, and the objects of ideals.

Therefore, since God is an absolute being, we are also absolute.  Since God is eternal, His objects, men and women, are also created for eternity.  Otherwise, we would not reflect he nature of the eternal God.

If God is love, life and ideals, then He would be a God of defeat if He did not create a being with the same qualities.

 

 

God is the Subject to man and woman, and we are the objects to God.

Even though God is absolute, man and woman seem to reflect another type of being that is far from God.

When we as objects are not perfect as our Creator, then we cannot reflect fully the love, life and ideal of God.  God and humans are one.  Humans is incarnate of God. Man and woman are meant to be the visible form of God and God is the invisible form of man and woman.

Because we are the reflection and object of God whom He cannot feel love without us, this gives us as much importance and value as God Himself.

If man had followed God completely, there would be no question of His existence - HGe would have been a living reality to us.

In our present fallen, sinful ways, we should be very careful of our words and actions.  On the other hand, if humanity had obtained perfection, we would automatically reflect the universal, loving mind that is God.

There would be no religion to teach us about how to behave like God, or arguments of His existence.

One that is perfect would not be able to deny God.

If Adam and Eve had followed God and become mature in their love instead of following Lucifer's advice to give into their love in their immaturity they would have become true parents to Cain and Abel.  The good family tradition they envoked would have remained generation after generation.

Our relationship with God would not be a question - it would have been of perfect oneness; you would not be able to separate yourself from your own godly mind.  This would have been human perfection.

Such people who did not fall away from God would have become the nucleus of the universe.

Adam and Eve's perfect home life and children would have expanded to a heavenly society, nation and world.

Who would have been the center of this perfect universe or world of peace?

Instead of creating a hell on earth where "Satan was the ruler of this world", God and Adam and Eve would have formed the central axis of the universe.

Why did God need a perfect relationship with Adam and Eve?

First of all, God could only fulfill His ideal of true love through Adam and Eve.

Secondly, God who does not have a physical body would have been visible through working through men and women.

In other words, Adam and Eve were to be the phsyical manifestation of God through their perfected relationship with Him.  Thus, God could have a relationship with the visible, phsycial world through them.

What is God's reason for creating Adam and Eve?

Once Adam and Eve wre perfected on earth in a relationship of oneness of God, their spirit selves after passing to the next world would be like the body of God.  God would have been the mind of Adam and Eve and they would have been the spirit body of God.  Then God and people in the spirit world would have been eternally inseparable, one body.

Inside them God would dwell in their minds - God Himself would be the mind of Adam and Eve.

Unfortunately, due to our relationship with Lucifer's will and love, we have an inseparable relationship between the two. 

We come to speak about death and dying, but there is no such thing in the context of God's original world.  Instead of dying, we would have just passed to a new realm after giving up the physical body.  Your body would be the spirit and God would be the center of that body.

After we followed the will of Satan through our first human ancestors, all of God's ideals for a world of love and peace was separated from humanity until His first true son on earth fulfilled the responsibility to change the blood lineage to God's.


This post was rewritten and derived from the text of the writings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Having Family Brings Completeness

After reading several posts here, you have come to realize that the world we live in today is not the original world God had planned for humanity if you had any questions beforehand.

Opposite of popular belief, God did not create the evil society as a part of His creation.

Therefore, God planned that humanity would mature into perfection and only have a taste of His pure love.

Through this, God would have worked through Adam and Eve in order to govern the creation through them.

We know that this did not happen.

What a glorious new morning it will be when God is finally able to assume a physical body through a perfected being.  That will be the time He can love His grandchildren.  This will be more glorious than the time that He can love his sons and daughters.

God could only work and communicate with us through mediators such as angels and prophets.

How much joy do you think God expressed after millions of years in wait for the fruits of His labor to be born?

God had to teach Adam about His own parental joy, but this can only be learned when the children have their own sons and daughters.

Children have no understanding of what parental love is like, but they do understand after they have their own babies and family.

They can understand that their parents loved them while raising them.  Therefore, the day when it is your child's turn to take a spouse is a day of glory.

Also, the day your child has a child is a day of glory.

God's Blessing Allows You to Inherit Love and Joy

You should learn your parents' love and learn how to serve them.

You should experience the conjugal love with your spouse and learn how to serve them.

You should also know children's love.  Do not just give out orders to your children, but learn how to understand and serve them well.  This is the only way that you can understand God's love.

You will stay in the the feeling of an incomplete state as long as you are without children.  You will not be able to fully understand God's love.

You will not understand how much God loved human beings, His children and the heart that He felt at losing His children at the time of the fall.

Furthermore, without being a husband, you cannot know the wife.  Without being a wife, you cannot know the husband.

Children do not know what parents' love is like until they themselves become parents.  So, without sons and daughters, you cannot be true parents.

Parents want their children to be married because they want to bequeath to them and completely teach them parental love and heart.

When parents pass onto the next world, they do not really disappear because they leave their real selves behind with their descendants.

They leave their spirit and tradition behind. This is why they need descendants.

Love is something that continues forever.

Since love is the highest human desire, everyone wants to inherit it with arms wide open.

When parents bequeath their true love centered on God to their descendants, they can stand proudly before God in the spirit world.

It is through the family that love becomes complete. 

You go to the heavenly kingdom through the family.

This is the realm where the oneness of love is realized through the relationships experienced in a family.  Everyone should follow this principle.

Seeds are sown in spring; plants fully develop in summer; they bear fruit in autumn.

In winter, you should stack up all of your harvest in order and carry the essence of this new seed of life deep within your heart.  This is the only way you will have seeds to plant again when spring returns.

This means that in the future, you should become parents and raise your sons and daughters like yourselves.

Why is it when people do not have children, they feel sorrow or that something is missing?

They feel sorry because they cannot form a complete circle.

When you see a young mother feeding her baby bird, you can recognize the deep love of that mother bird.  Western people may not know this, but in the Orient, children are liked more than adults are.

People are polite and have respect for adults, but they show the utmost love for children.

You realize how much your parents loved you when you are raising your own sons and daughters.  Everyone should get married and have and raise children so that they can know both children's love and parents' love.

It seems that western people are not like this.  They avoid having children and rather take up having dogs and staying single for the rest of their lives.

They hesitate having children or getting married because of what they may have witnessed in their own families with their fallen parents.

But if a person is not able to establish the four-position relationship (brother/sister love, conjugal/spouse love, parental love, God centered love), then they will not be able to go to the Kingdom of heaven because they will not be able to relate and know God's heart of loving all people of humanity.

Human Beings Seek the Center of Love

Human beings are born through love, grow up in parental love, and then mature while broadening love horizontally.

This horizontal love reaches the completion of the first stage where man and woman meet and grow together to the state where they can represent the love of heaven and earth. They then bear children as the fruit of their unique love.

Children are born from the heart's core as a result of love.

A child who is born from a man and woman who share this love based on their hearts, creates a path to the center of love.

This center will lead them directly to God.

By having children as a fruit of their love, human beings come to deeply experience the love with which God created all things and human beings.

By loving their children deeply, they experience the love they received from their own parents and the parental heart.

This is the only way to understand and know the heart of a parent and to understand fully God's parental heart.

This love that the parents pour out to their children is not based on materialistic love, but an intrinsic love.  The love that parents give their children does not change even if heaven and earth change and historical ages change, the love between parent and child is eternal.

Through becoming a parent and loving your children, you will understand and deeply experience how God has been loving human beings.  You will also feel and realize how your parents have loved you and worried and cared for you.

This is why we have much more respect for our parents who are aging.

We fulfill the duties of filial piety with this love.

If you do not fulfill these responsibilities, you are unqualified to be parents and your love towards your children would be considered hypocritical.

By becoming parents, then humanity can fully realize how much God has loved them.  Furthermore, they will love God even more sincerely.

A person should love their aging parents more than they love their own children.  They should love God more than they love their parents.

Now you know that this is the order and law of love after bearing children of your own.

Because heaven and earth has a spherical shape, they share horizontal love and rotate, forming a circle on the first level.

When they take a partner of the opposite sex and share love, they have children as the fruit and become parents.

When they love each other and rotate, vertical love is realized following the horizontal love. This forms the spherical world and establishes the center of love at the same time.

The center of love that emerges through the movement created by these love relationships is also the core of existence of the entire world of creation.

The earth exists because it is also moving continuously around this center of love.

The center of love is where infinite force is gathered that enables continuous movement. The center that appears through the sphere of love in this manner is also a place where God dwells.

Therefore, all creation existing in the world is born and exists through God's love and moves in search for the center of God's love.

God is a furnace of love. 

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Love Your Spouse Centered on God

This post was rewritten and derived from the textbook, Cheong Seong Gyeong Book Four - True Family, Chapter Four Section 5-8

The Three Great Loves

Has there been anyone in history who has practiced true love focused on parents, true love focused on husband and wife, and true love focused on brothers and sisters?

True love is absolute.

We express God's love through parental love, love of husband and wife and children's love.  These three great loves make it possible for human beings to exist forever.

These great loves are able to transcend even the loftiest human view of love.

When these loves are perfected without any traces of the fall, then happiness will be perfected.  Once these loves are lacking, then misfortunes sets in.

This is why we are happy when these three loves unite.  Can a motherless person feel true happiness?  Also for the person who does not have parents, the misery is equal to the emptiness he or she feels from that loss.

God's Laws of Love Centering on the Family

Can a fatherless person feel completely happy?

A person who grew up without a father will envy those who have a father.

Happiness leaves no room for envy.

This is true for love.

How can you say you are happy if you are wishing you had something someone else has?  You cannot be happy without a father and mother.

On the same token, no matter how great a man is or how much he has accomplished, he needs a woman.  He needs a wife.

When a husband and wife have lived happily together and then the husband suddenly passes, the wife will of course shed tears.

A woman cannot live without a man, and a man cannot live without a woman.  Also, no matter how happy a husband and wife may be together, they will be miserable if they do not have children.

But what if the parents have only one son and one daughter?  A son needs an elder sister and an elder brother.  A daughter needs an elder brother and an elder sister.  Furthermore, they each need a younger brother and sister.

Everyone needs elder and younger siblings.

Without having elder and younger siblings, the individual would be unhappy.  A family where the younger brother and sister and the elder brother and sister are all united will be protected by God.

This is because this family becomes the origin of the clan, which becomes a people of a nation.

My father, mother, elder brother, elder sister, younger brother, younger sister and me total seven people. This underlies the significance of the number seven as the number of perfection. You should know that I am talking here about perfection in reference to love. 

Why does seven represent perfection?

Why is it that creation of heaven and earth taught in Christianity also was completed based on the number seven?

It is because of this.

It is said that the number three is the number of heaven and four is the number of earth.  The number three establishes the father, mother and me.

Then what does the number four represent?  The number four refers to brothers and sisters.

The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit refer to Adam, Eve with God at the center.

The Father refers to the connection of top and bottom which is the vertical relationship.  Parents' love represents heaven and earth.

Your elder brothers and sisters refer to east and west.  Your younger brothers and sisters refer to north and south.

When these unite, a three-dimensional relationship is formed. 

This is the law of love.

All laws of science adhere to these mathematical principles because of this.  From God's laws of love is where the fundamental concepts of the Principle of Creation arise.  Once such laws of love are firmly established, then peace is realized.

The Reason Three Generations Must Co-exist in the Family

I am proposing that the grandfather, grandmother, mother-in-law, father-in-law, sisters-in-law and grandchildren all live together. Living together with God, the three generations of formation, growth and completion will settle down. 

You can love God only when you know how to love your grandfather - not just your father and mother.  Actually, you will love God when you can love your grandfather more than your father and mother.

Why is the husband, parents and children indispensable?  

It is because you can only attend God when you have all the members of your family.  The Principle states that you need to have parents to have sons and daughters.  Next a married couple and then a baby.  Why is all of this necessary.  Why can't we just attend God without family?

It is only logical that we need parents, a spouse, and children in order to form a relationship with God.  You have to know this clearly.  You have to form a relationship with someone.  Sometimes we're in the center.

Sometimes I must go above the other person, and sometimes we're on the same level with each other. In other words, I must form relationships in all four directions. Even in the case of a grandson, when he relates to his grandfather with love, his grandfather will say, "Oh, good! Very good!" 

We have been working hard to build such families based on this standard that focuses original love in order to establish the original world, heaven on earth.  It is amazing that this is being taught for the first time throughout the religious world.

Why does a wife cry when her husband dies?  Why do people weep because they do not have children?

They do not cry from disappointment.  They cry from the fundamental principle of the universe that makes it necessary to have relationships in all directions: east, west, north, south.

Everything is engaged in give in take.  The force of existence in the universe supports the ideal of reciprocation, interaction of two beings.

When one of these elements are missing, that give and take cannot happen.  Just as the North Pole and the South Pole interrelate with one another.

Nothing can exist without a partner. 

Ideal beings that have become completely one with each other, are supported by this universe.  It is a principle that heavenly fortune embraces such entities so that they can continue forever.

Everything cooperates in this give-and-take action.

That is why you need sons and daughters.

Today, Westerners accept the idea that having children is not necessary, but we can wait and see who is right in that department.  You will find out in the spirit world.

From the position where you stand, there is someone both above and below you.  You need the number three; you have to go through three stages.

This is why everything is made of three stages.  You need to have parents, your couple and children.  Not having children does not agree with the Principle of Heaven or God's purpose for creating the universe.

When this is divided into two, there are three stages for men and three corresponding stages for women.

When the two are united, an ideal world of peace can then be established with the unified number three.  In other words, it is an ideal that includes grandfather and grandmother.  Father and mother and me.

The family in the Church stems from this core belief.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: We Need Brothers and Sisters

This post was rewritten and derived from True Family, Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 4, Chapter 2

How to Have True Happiness

Would a family be balanced and happy if the father worked hard at two jobs while his children go dancing every night and eat well?

Or what if everyone in the family worked like an ox, is there happiness in that family?

Just working hard does not guarantee happiness.

If there is an understanding between the family members and they have oneness together, then the family can be joyful while doing it.

At the same time, those who go dancing every night they may look happy, but inside they may be miserable.

In order to determine what is true happiness, we should first know the relationship between the individual and the whole.

What does it take to be happy?

What is a true blessing?

When an emergency in a country happens, it is an opportunity for a true patriot to emerge and defend his country.

In the story of David and Goliath, David represented the good force and Goliath represented the evil force. David didn't just represent for himself, but for the good people.

When it was time for David to stand up against the 9-foot Goliath, this was an opportunity for him to confront danger.  The more David and the people were united, the more they would hate Goliath.  Even God and those in spirit world would see Goliath as the adversary.

From this perspective, we can see that the battle between David and Goliath was a showdown for the universe and God.  David stood as the champion of the godly forces and was determined to die for the cause.

This was David's chance to prove his loyalty and service to God.  By doing this, he could find his o  n fulfillment.  By winning the battle against the giant and fulfilling God's will, David became totally united with God and the people.

David's victory was not his own, but he shared it with God and all the people of the world.  Once David won for God's side, the people wanted him to have anything he asked for.  All he asked for was to have a few sheep to support his living.

The people wanted to give him more. God even thought he deserved to be the king.

Just like David, when we as people of faith walk down the road of battle, we might be next to deaths door.  Is this a happy march?  Even thought there was an opportunity for victory and glory, but he there was still a possibility that he could have been defeated and killed.

On the one hand there was a chance for defeat and on the other hand was the opportunity for David to have the greatest happiness and fortune.

From this view, the road of death does not necessarily have to be a bad thing.  Also, dancing and partying does not always mean there will be fun and happiness as the result.  

You determine your happiness and blessing by your attitude and motivation. 

Our attitude provides the meaning of our happiness.  If you live the true way without sleeping or food, it may feel like the suffering way of life, but it is very rewarding.  The person that lives in this way has a future and hope and there is no one who can take that away.

Don't you think that people who had great wealth throughout history were happy?  Also, scholars and people with political power.

Do these positions provide happiness to those who posses them? So, what brings happiness?

Many things may represent what may look like a happy life, but there needs to be unity between the subject and object who are one in true love for the sake of mankind.  The ideal way, true love, and the opportunity to confront death like David brings happiness.  

A person like this becomes the central figure of everything.  They become the central figure, or personality that possesses true love.  Anything that contributes to this goal will automatically bring happiness and blessing.

If something is central, would this include God or not?  The center of true love would include everything.

Have you ever asked God what He desires?  If you were to ask, He would tell you that he wants to be the center of true love.  Also, men and women who were created in God's image want to be the center of love.  Isn't this everyone's ultimate goal in life?

All races and all of creation has this same desire.

If you depart from the central theme of true love, no ideal or love is good enough.

Would you like to own something that is precious and rare or something that is trivial with little value.

Why are we need parents, husband, wife and children?  In today's climate, such relationships may be a burden, but actually these relationships can be likened to living workshops for the center of true love that give us practice for relationships outside the family.  

Yet, we come to see that families are being torn apart at the very foundation since the first family of Adam and Eve.

Teenagers in America want to be independent from their parents.  They dislike discipline and sometimes subjugate their parent's authority.  Is this the true attitude?  The American way of life is of convenience, so many think they do not need a family after a certain age.

They think that a family is a liability that needs to be supported, and has needless obligations.  It is true that it is more convenient to not be responsible for a family, but that type of thinking has nothing to do with central true love.  That mimics false, self-centered love.

We need to revolutionize the American way of thinking.  This is not an easy task, but must be fulfilled if you want to accomplish true love.  If you were to go hungry for 40 days, would you rather have central true love or a hamburger?

This kind of love is not something that you can hold, but you have a deep knowing that you need it.

When you find true love you will find the universe and mankind. 

Also you find true happiness and the Kingdom of Heaven.  Once you grab true love, you have them all.  Even people of the past and present are reaching out for true love.  God even wants true love.

Do you know of anyone who does not want any part of true love?

If a beautiful woman just sits around, do you think he can find true love?  Do people find true love by waiting for it to come to them, or by giving out their heart and soul for the goal?  An true international figure did not reach that position by sitting idle, enjoying 5-star restaurants and entertainment.

A person who obtained true love did so by giving out their total commitment while dealing with despair and hardships.  You should be always ready to give out your very best.

Are you closer to the central true love by going the easy way, or by giving your total commitment?

Most people live a normal life: go to school, get a degree, and then start a career. But people of faith may have a degree, but they become humble to go fundraising for their mission.  Is there any happiness in that?

Ph. D graduates should start at the bottom of society instead of teaching in colleges.  Then they can become involved with the people one-on-one knowing that they will receive persecution.  What is the purpose of this?  Would they do this for themselves or for others?

The person who suffers most for the sake of others will receive the greatest glory. 

What if the head of state came down to the lowest position selling candy for a fundraiser for the sake of one suffering individual?  That would be a wonderful and dramatic scene.

A person enlarges his territory by departing from the center and going down to the lowest places in order to serve others.  This central person who goes all the way down, then has to go to the other extreme.  He is so big in serving others that he reaches the limit of the universe in all directions.  All of his deeds fill the universe.

After you have made a complete circle and come back to the other extreme, the only place left to go is the center.  People may not understand why you are doing this, but when you go back to the central position they will recognize you.

Can you have a better chance at finding true love if you never leave the position you are in right now?  No, you must go all the way around to every situation.  Everybody may think that they can find happiness if they became a rock star or a billionaire instead of the place where people are miserable.

But the true way is to leave the central position for the sake of others.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: God is the Center of Love

Liquidation and Blessing

What Determines Good and Evil?

We have reached a population of seven billion people living on the face of the earth and still growing.  But they are confused from the beginning not knowing their true history.  Where has this chaotic situation began and where are we headed?

Human history is unclear which makes the process also unclear, therefore the end is unclear.  With all situations situations, the only thing that is prospering is confusion.  If we clearly knew the beginning, there would not be up or down and no confusion would exist in the world because our destiny would be very clear, therefore our end goal would be clear.

Our history is not like this.

Human history is full of confusion and continues in confusion.  People think certain things are good and certain things are evil.  There are no set standard of good and evil which everyone clearly follows.  The standard is always changing and for this reason there is greater confusion.

In history, there are two major parts that are always engaged in battle and confrontation: good and evil.  This conflict has caused bloodshed creating confusion continuing in our time.

In history many kingdoms and empires have risen and left the earth.  Those empires and kingdoms do not measure their destiny when they're going up or when they are going down; when they're going to be flourishing or when they are going to be demolished. No one knew.

Every ruler that came into power throughout history wanted to stay in power.  They wanted to stay for good and continue their goodness.  However without them knowing a logical reason, they had to perish and had to be killed.  They're kingdom had to be demolished.

Centered on men, there is good and evil in the world.  So who is going to determine what is good and what is evil?

If there happens to be a good sovereignty or an eternal good power, then that power would control and diminish evil and make good to flourish and continue to flourish.  However, there has not been such a power throughout history.

No one was able to recognize an absolute good solution, good principle or good ruler of the universe. Throughout history, rulers from different empires and kingdoms had to shape their own rules and principles to determine what was good and evil.One is different from other sets, thus from one place to the other, everyone is operating under different criteria of good and evil.

Every country has its own definition of good and evil rules and certain way of punishing evil.  In order to maintain sovereignty, each country had to enforce their own standard of good and evil.  Each country has a prison, a system of judgement and even capital punishment.

Therefore the standard of good and evil has been fluctuating up and down, according to the thinking and standards of each kingdom's ruler and sovereignty. Therefore all of humanity is destined to choose one way or the other.

People have a natural desire to take the good road which they feel they can flourish, but they end up going another way to follow the evil road.  But by following this way, they will eventually perish.  This has been the reality in history.

Furthermore, the conscience has the power of judgment; the conscience can tell what level of evil or what level of goodness. Even looking at similar countries, the conscience will see which country is the more evil country and which is the relatively good country.

The conscience has the power of judgment. 

The conscience does not only evaluate and judge matters, but is also moving itself toward the best goodness it can find.  What is the purpose of education?  Is it to educate the body or the conscience?  If the conscience has the power to judge good from evil, but the body is absolute mess far from the will of God, then what needs to be educated is the body.

 The body has to be guided, educated and led into the right direction.

So when you contact a good man one time, then the second time, and third time, your mind will know whether or not that person is good or evil or how good or how bad.  The mind and body, the conscience and body are constantly fighting with each other.  Each person has a lot of contradiction within himself or herself, but conscientious people have more harmony and cooperation between their conscience and body.

The principle states that the spirit world concentrates on the eternal, unchanging qualities of the conscience because the body is changing all of the time it cannot center on the body.

Our conscience is like the spirit world.  It is unseen, unchanging; spirit world and conscience do not change.  The physical body does not receive or communicate with the physical world.  In order to enter the spiritual world, the body is left behind.

Spirit world vibrates together with the conscience, you can harmonize and receive a message from the spirit world. 

The conscience has one standard following the one principle which is unchanging.  On the other hand, our five senses constantly change as they obey the body with ten different variations and different ways they react to the environment.  Evil uses this loophole to perform its evil acts on a playground flying in and out to do as it pleases.

When the body makes a demand, then the mind or conscience responds and rejects the idea.
Actually, there are a lot of loopholes which allow evil to come inside of us.  The eyes can view a picture many different ways.  The body will follow that image and act upon it causing the body to go down toward the road of evil.  The body chases things that will make it comfortable.  It only wants to eat good food, wear and touch soft clothes and take lots of rest.

Mind is trying to find its own place and harmonize.

We have never seen or touched our mind, but we know it is dwelling within us.  Do we know where the origin or root of the mind or original mind:?

The mind is absolutely invisible. The root of the mind has absolutely clear goals, clear direction, clear purpose-no problem there.  This means that our mind is always working toward the way and the better goodness all of the time.

Would you rather be a son and daughter of filial piety, loyal subject or a rebellious son?  What about a patriot?

If you had to choose between being a patriot or saint which would you choose?  You would probably want to be a saint because being a patriot is only limited to one country and is not far reaching.

On the other hand, a saint is a universal person who is eternal and everlasting.  Here, there is a direction and a purpose with a mind direction and purpose the mind's purpose.  The goal would not be changed for ten thousand years even million of years because it sprouts from the root of the mind.  That is the root of the conscience.

If a man absolutely obeys the direction of his conscience, he is not only known as a noble character, but he will automatically enter the kingdom of heaven.  He would be respected and admired.  The root of this noble character is the eternal center of goodness.

The original root of conscience and your conscience's purpose and direction are parallel.  So, you must know about both.  You should clearly know the purpose and goal and then there will be no confusion.

Then what is the conscience's ultimate goal?  Is our goal to gain knowledge or to be able to brag that your head holds so much knowledge and have reached the ultimate goal of goodness?

Our purpose cannot be to gain knowledge, because this quality is not everlasting and is always changing.  For example, science will tell is that vitamin B is good for the body, but then turn around years later and discover that Vitamin B is the worst thing for the body.

One study will see that a treatment for cancer is not good for the body while another thinks it is the best solution. How do you determine which is true?  Knowledge changes and is always moving forward.  What is known in our time could never have been thought of thousands of years ago.

There is no absolute truth that is guiding the academic world. 

Is money or wealth the goal of the conscience?

If you had millions of dollars in your pocket, you might feel a wonderful feeling, but the pocket rather go rest and swim.  The pocket would feel that someone will always be around to steal it and will become worrisome and watch the money.

Would the pocket be happy or feel restless and worried to carry so much wealth?

Money is not everlasting.  If a person was told to take a million dollar check for a week, but was told they would have to give it back on the weekend, at first they would feel jubilation, but would feel sad once they went home. That's money - money plays a lot of tricks.

In order to maintain power, you cannot just act normally or be a good man - you've got to be absolutely savvy and cruel in order to maintain that power. Saddam Hussein is a good example.  It is said that one only needs power to do evil, because all one needs is love as the motivator.

Because when you have sovereignty position and power, there is always someone else aiming at you, trying to topple that power.

Therefore, there are gangsters and organized crime and the coup d'etat, the military and all kinds of saboteurs, and even other political parties, all of whom are just trying to character assassinate you. They try to turn you into a vegetable so that they can take power. That's the real world. Therefore, political power has nothing to do with eternal happiness.  It will carry itself to the people as if it performing works to bring about a nation of happiness, but it is only for the interest of the politicians.

If you are in a position of power, there is always going to be an adversary that will use all their power to try to topple you over.  They will try to take all of you to turn you into a vegetable so they can take your power. This is the reality of the world and the reason why political power is not the cause of human happiness.



Please Return for Tomorrow's Post: God Wants World Peace

This post was rewritten and derived from the speech Let Us Inherit the Realm of Victory

Where is True Happiness Found?

Everyone must make that transition after they graduate from high school from living with their parents to following the visions they had for their life.

Almost everyone still lives with their parents until they hit the age of 20.  Their brothers and sisters get older and move out to attend college and get married and begin their own family .  You yourself have left your parents.  As we transition into adulthood and get married, we see that our friends begin to fade away as we get older.

Our emotions as we get older shift from just thinking about our own goals and our own wants and needs to our own family situations.  We see that things we used to hold dear to us also fade way or now have little value.

Then as we get even older, our parents may pass away and our relatives and friends who we have loved will also separate from us.  Even in our own homes, we may not experience a smooth and happy life at all times.  We may be at odds with our spouse and children. In other words, the path of life can be bumpy.

Those who are advent fisherman along the seacoast or riverbank are familiar with the different waves at the surface change many times.

At night while fishing we want to embrace nature in deep solitude and peace at such a time.  but then a gust of strong wind comes up all of the sudden and changes the waves.  The water can seem to be angry at you and come to the shoreline briskly toward you.  Nature can be wondrous, stormy and beautiful and peaceful to violent from moment to moment.

No one likes the fact that as we are deeply indebted for life, we want to mature, but we don't want to get older and closer to death.  

No one, no matter how rich or famous, stays in the prime of their life forever.  As they say, youth is wasted on the young as they do not know the blessedness of being youthful.  It is understandable, because if one always eats nourishing and lavish food all of the time, they lose appreciation for its value and goodness after awhile.

Our taste buds distinguish the different flavors between sour, salty, sweet and other taste.  The seasons change automatically from spring, summer to autumn then to winter.  What if these changes were not part of the natural order?

What if it was all of the sudden daylight for 24 hours, what would happen?  Well, in the Arctic, there are longer days and sometimes because they are positioned at a certain place on earth, they experience sunlight for three months or more.  This may seem like a dream for those who enjoy playing a lot of outdoor activities that require the sunlight.  But after awhile, it would be normal to long for the darkness of the night to come.

The beauty and wonder of nature come about when these kinds of changes occur.

The most difficult things that bring about change can also bring about joy.  For instance, one may join an organization with a new ideology that requires a lot of effort and change for them to keep up, yet they are happy at the end of the day after much work.

It is natural as we get older that we get set into a certain pattern or ideal and stick to it and are stubborn about disrupting the 'natural' order.  We as a people must shift our thinking to where we feel happy even though there are changes all around us.

Before one practices any faith, they were headed in one direction.  Usually it is a destructive path.  But after joining, they are headed in a more glorious direction toward God's will.

In the secular world, two people who experience a disagreement will separate and end the acquaintance.  But once joining a mission in your church, you have to mingle together to become one in harmony. However hard it may be, you must succeed in that.

When it comes to applying the teachings of the Divine Principle, the Completed Testament, there is a certain price of indemnity that must be paid in order to turn the wrongful history into the right direction.  In restoration, Gods providence, everything is turned around in the opposite direction of hell.

In order to pay the indemnity, you must search out your enemy first not your friends in order to pay the debt owed to God for our partnership in the sinful history of humanity.  How can this kind of mission and lifestyle be called happiness when paying indemnity can feel like a punishment?

The real question is:  Where is there any true happiness on earth?

The kind of happiness that is everlasting and can be enjoyed by God as well.  You want to put all of your effort into what you learn and put it into practice, but may not experience happiness there. True happiness comes  after the indemnity has been paid and victory is won in the Divine Principle.

Even though one finds the truth and it brings them happiness in the beginning, it does not mean that you will find it all the way through your journey in your mission.

Unless you actualize what you learn in daily life, you cannot feel happy.

Only after hard work and obtaining the goal will you feel real happiness and find yourself the victor.  You must be steadfast against any obstacles along the way and endure any difficulties which you encounter.  Obtain the goal and then look on the past and you will feel real happiness.

Then in conclusion, our happiness can only be felt after winning the victory. Isn't this true in any sport?  Athletes train everyday for long hours to perfect their ability and they find more unity and happiness with their teammates after winning a championship.  This is the goal in any competitive sport.

If this is the definition of happiness, then what is unhappiness?

It is when you are a failure.  There isn't some place built of happiness or unhappiness.  Your actions are the sole determinants of your happiness or lack of it.  This is where the boundary line between happiness and unhappiness lies.

Every moment that you spend on this boundary line, the moment you step to your right you become happy.  But the very moment you step to the left you fall into unhappiness.  So, it is very important that each step by step you walk on the path of life is propelling you forward.

When you want to step forward, it is always your mind that controls the direction.

When you are searching to be happy, you must look into your own mind because it is the subject to everything you do.  Here, you will decide where to go.  You know when and what makes you happy and you also know which direction to follow in order to gain that happiness.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Reversing the Fall

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

Love is Foundation of Unity and Happiness

"Can you call someone a "human being" only because he has a body? A human being must have a mind also."

Does a true human being laugh when they see someone sad or get sad because they see other people are happy?  No.  This is a human being in appearance only.

Does a true human being laugh at someone's sorrow or become sad when they see others in happiness?  No, this kind of person is only a human being in appearance only.  As human beings, we are capable of all sorts of emotions: delight, anger, love, happiness and so forth.

When we look at humanity in the context of emotional responses we can see the world is united.  

Do not Easterners cry over the same thing that a Westerner does such as death and other tragedies?  The same thing that would make a person from the West weep, will also make an Easterner weep.  The scenes that make a Korean weep will also make its enemy from Japan weep.  Is there a difference between the parental love of a Korean or a Japanese?  No, there are not because it is all the same.

What is the foundation of unity?

People are not the foundation, nor words.  It must be based on feelings like a couple in love.  What makes a couple united.  They united based on emotional feelings.  Isn't this so?  If two people coming together in marriage do not carry out their emotions it is just an empty shell of a relationship.

What is the definition of a couple without experiencing any emotion?

It would be likened to a wound-up doll or a talking doll.  They become a talking female and male doll.  If they feel emotions for one another, then they are not like dolls.

Is there a possibility to have friends without them feeling friendship?  No, there can't be.  People feel patriotic toward their country for their country.  Those who feel this love for their country can unite with others with the same feeling.  Isn't this a great thought?

Love is the foundation of unity and also of happiness.

Is it possible to have happiness without unity?  Mothers and fathers become one to be happy.  Parents and children must become one to be happy.  Is there happiness in a family that is full of disarray?  How can there be happiness with a family that quarrels and fights among themselves constantly?

They will not know happiness in this setting.

This is the formula - there is no unity without love, and no happiness without unity.  How can we attain this happiness?  First, two people must become one.  When one weeps, the other weeps.  When one laughs so does the other.  When one goes, so does the other.

How do two people become one?  They unit through their feelings of emotion.

The highest authority is the heart.

Internal unity needs to be achieved more than external unity.  How can there be happiness or peace within a family if the human heart does not participate?  The human heart transcends history, following absolute standards.


Unity Through United Hearts


"This is the universal temple where unity is attained. But people tend to think they can attain unity only because they arrived here. To achieve unity, however, one must want the unity of heart from one's own deepest heart and must be prepared to overcome all sorts of hardship on the way. We must be prepared to die for the idea of unity."

Many people cannot achieve unity even when they are pushed.  Is it easy for you to unite with another person?  We must be in unity first within ourselves. How can we unite two separate entities without  first uniting our own mind and body ourselves.

We must unite all disjointed hearts first. We must not fear death if that's what it takes to unite hearts.
 

In order to even begin speaking about working for God's unity, we must first begin to overcome the hardships of our individual and familial life.  Heaven will recognize this merit when you fall from exhaustion from your efforts for peace.

Unity does not happen automatically; it must first go through the valley of tribulation before it reaches a plateau.  Unity does not just happen, we make effort for it to happen.  Don't just remain the flour, we must become the yeast.

We must achieve unity and triumph over the valley of death the same way as Jesus.  

Religious people may wonder why they have endured such hardships.  It is because they have lost their confidence.  As long as people are standing on their own feet, your endurance is actualized in your own people.

But if you are enduring suffering just for yourself and not for your people or for God, then your doubting mind will not receive any help.

When you look around with this selfish thinking, you will look for help but there will be no source of extra strength for you to keep going.  We must offer our life at the altar of God.  Your goal should be for the unity of God and your nation, your people and not for the individual self.


Unity As The Goal Of Love


When does the unity around God arrive and what would this ultimate center of unity be that is the ideal monument of God's Creation?  Would it be the power of God that brings unity?  If power alone exampled in the churches with God could establish an eternal paradise on earth, then this power would have stopped the Fall from happening in the first place which brought about disunity.

"That's just illogical dreaming which only leads to ruination. Power is not it; God's omniscience or omnipotence are not it. You just misunderstand the whole thing. It's not your knowledge. It's not Heaven's unlimited treasure. It's love. It's love that's at the center of all things."

What is unity with love at its center? It's love that belongs to God.

So where should the foundation of unity for God be?

Whose love does a wife's diamond ring symbolize?  The ring is not hers alone, but symbolizes the love of her husband.  The ring will fade if it does not mean love because love is its substance.  Will the gold or gem have happiness within it if her husband's love is lost?

God would be pleased with the object of love that satisfies all of God's mind and body that will make him scream out "That's it!".  That's love.  Adam and Eve took part in their own love not connecting to God's love leaving God out of partaking with them.

If Adam and Eve's first love was true, this love would have made Adam Eve's and Eve Adam's.  and both God's.  Therefore all of creation would have belonged to all three.  Then when this true love centered and connected to God connected the two of them, all things on earth would have been theirs as they were also God's.

That's why love unifies all things. Love unifies God's mind and body, and will unify even the once alienated Adam and Eve, and all creatures on earth. 

That's what makes love such a great thing. Love bridges social standings, obliterates time and space, establishes collective belonging of all to all, and places everyone within the sphere of collective power.

It's a surprisingly great fact that should be taught throughout the universe.

The Fall would not have occurred if Adam and Eve would have connected their love to God.  This is why God had warned Adam and Eve of their misuse of love by requiring them not to eat of the fruit until they were mature.

If they had waited to partake in love all would have belonged to God - Adam would be God's, Eve would be Adam's, Adam Eve's, the woman the man's, the man the woman's, parents their children's, children their parents' centered on the true love of God.  All would belong to everyone else as the firm foundation of things.  We must have a clear understanding of this in the process of restoration.


Love for God is the Foundation of Unity

This love becomes the source of power to unite every nation, to lead all nations for eternity.
Love begets greater love, just as parents love children. Love becomes one. No one can divide one's unity with God in love. Is there any love grander than this?

When we look at the world this way, we can clearly see that no good can come through the workings of the God-denying Communist countries.

Perfect unity is possible only in perfect love for God.

Would God create all things including man in order that they would return to Him Joy or grief?
Where would unity take place? Thinking about it alone doesn't do it. Only love can make it happen. It will happen when your love unites your whole mind and body. That's how it's done. Because of that, unity is possible only through love.

Even Satan will obey love that's higher than himself.

Through this, oneness is possible only this way.  Perfect unity, the final unity of all including the horizontal unity begins with love.  When it is centered around God, the nature of goodness is in love.  Unity becomes automatic true love.  God created heaven and earth to give us the greatest good and to give us love.

Love as the Absolute Secret of Unity


The foundations for the mind is love. If we connect this explosive power of love to God, it would be able to multiply a hundred, thousand-fold.  What is the secret to achieve our wishes and to have eternal life and heaven on earth?

Mothers and fathers will not be able to achieve unity without having children.

The secret is love.  It is the elevator toward unity and its absolute secret solution.  Neither banquets nor money can bind parents and children. Only love can bind them.

The rope of love binds the mother and the father into one. The mutual love of parents is much stronger than their individual love.  A link made of iron will eventually rust, but a chain that is made of love will last forever.

Only love binds brothers, families, clans, tribes, peoples, and eventually the world. Love binds humanity with God as one.

"The reason we prefer love is because it is the foundation that unifies all things. You don't understand completely why love is such a wonderful thing. That's why Teacher brings out the issue of love now."

Without love, oneness is not possible.

Words do not have the power to bind two people.  So what is needed to make two people one?  What if they were bond by material or through a third agent and it disappeared and left them?  How do you bind two people forever?

It is love.  Without love, nothing is possible.

Does love make things grow farther apart or grow closer together?  Closer together.  Love is good; it brings things that are far apart closer together.

Will we ever be able to unite the Westerners and the Easterners with political, military or cultural power?  Mankind has tried throughout history using these tactics and we have not reached a world of peace.  We have not been able to achieve world peace through these fields.  So what can create everlasting unity?

Love can make two sworn enemies one entity and reconcile two extreme opposites. 

Men and women are extreme opposites.

If love is true, you can get into God's bosom, pull him by the nose or anything else, to anywhere in the world, even heaven and hell without boundaries. You can go anywhere, anywhere with true love.

Even the world observes the Principle in this way?  Do you have to have a doctorate to become the First Lady or be highly intelligent to do so?  Can she have just one eye, or one leg disqualify her from being the First Lady?  

Even with a gimpy leg, if the president loves her enough, she automatically inherits the title First Lady once he becomes president of the nation.  Even a peanut farmer can leap to greatness if he is loved enough by those who are great.

Is love so powerful that this is possible?  How is it possible?

Love unites and transcends all things, there being nothing irreconcilable through love. No matter what kind of sin you might have committed, God can forgive and fill in the gaps with love.  Don't you believe that? Is that true? This is always possible. If Rev. Moon didn't know this, he would have faded a long time ago.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Mutual Love as the Solution for Unity

This text was rewritten and taken from the Textbook"Way Of Unification" Written by Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

The True Meaning of Peace

What is the origin of the universe?  I suppose it depends to whom you pose this question.  To atheist it would be just chance and to the religious, God with several different names or looks.

If God is a God of love and it is said that He created the world for love, why do humans who are the highest entity still look for, search and hope for love and peace?  We have said that there was an origin to this disconnection, where must we begin if we are to finally settle this road of the fall and return it to the time of peace once enjoyed in the Garden of Eden?


God, the origin of peace

Humanity since the beginning has never ceased in its quest for true love, true peace, true happiness and the true ideal that is everlasting and unchanging to this day.  The reality is finding the ideal love, happiness and peace in which we reach in this hostile world that has been lost.   In this search, we have walked blindly through an alley and have been smashing our heads against the wall looking for what was meant to be from the beginning.

We have fallen into a miserable, suffering condition in which the hope of fulfilling these ideals is lost.  If God is living, then being an eternal, unchanging and absolute being, he must be at the center of all of these ideals.  He transcends the constant varying ideals in which we center on ourselves.  He is the King and source of love, peace, happiness and the ideal.

Man has been trying all through history to create the ideal conditions we are looking for.  To this day true love, happiness and peace must be found at its source.  Man must come to a position where they reach the same standard as God with the same place of hope, sharing life's sweetness and bitterness.  Without God, man cannot ever have hope to bring about a world of peace

Man is the object partner of God's love, ideal, peace and happiness.  He then gains eternal life when he learns that by standing where he can serve God as his subject partner, as his Father in Heaven.  This is the most logical conclusion to begin speaking about bringing about an ideal world.

Man who thinks that there is no afterlife, just learn that if he is an eternal partner of God and His child who will live eternally.

We all understand that God is the subject partner and we are the object partner.  We can take it a step further and will see a problem.  We need to know exactly where the source of true love is.  Without knowing the source we cannot realize God's love, ideal, peace and happiness.  Where would God place the source of true love, peace, happiness and ideal centering on Himself?

When we truly think about the fact that God does not stand alone as an subject partner, but needs man in order to love as an object, then he must place the source of happiness, love and peace in Himself as the subject partner where He exist for His object partner man.

Adam and Eve are the incarnation of God.  God dwells directly in their hearts.

Thus, the internal and external masters meet and generate all the world's happiness, becoming the standard of universal peace and the absolute standard of happiness in complete union.

Is there a way to untangle this great chaos that was started in the earthly world or must we as humans abandon hope and just wait every day to be a day of despair?  Definitely not.  There is one basic solution to this problem based on the premise - absolute God exists.

The current world we are living is not the world that God planned to substantiate on earth.  He intended a world of peace without disorder.

If you remember the 1999 movie "The Matrix" when one of the Agents was explaining after they had captured Morpheus in the office building deprogramming his mind, the Agent told him about the first Matrix.

He said that they had developed the Matrix to be a world of peace, but none of the crops accepted this world and they lost mostly all of them.  In other words, he said thereafter that we humans could not have peace and we like filth and chaos.  Absolutely profound revelation when we compare this scene to what happened in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was full of peace and God's direct love was bestowed upon Adam and Eve everyday, yet they still went toward the archangel who told them untruths and to do opposite of God.

The world that God had intended to substantiate on earth was a true Utopia abounding in freedom, peace and happiness. Cherishing the ideal of Utopia in His heart, God searched for earthly man with frustration.

The way that man comes up with solutions for the current world problems are not viable or everlasting.  Because man was not fully aware of God's purpose of creation or even His existence, the world was thrown into utter confusion.  Throughout the thousands of years of history, religion has had its major problems and corruption, but without it man would not have a way to learn about God's existence.  God gave religion to man as a way to teach of Him and to return His children to His bosom.

Man searched for this Utopia they had once enjoyed freely in the Garden of Eden.  Instead, they roamed through darkness racked in agony amid great chaos.  God's ideal, which He sought with much frustration to achieve, and man's longing search for the Utopia are the same.  This Heaven on Earth will be realized once man and God's ideal meet.  This meeting has not taken place in any form and leaves man groaning in anguish ever since. What kind of a being is God's He is a God of Love.

Saint Paul asked, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Even Christ is nobody without God's love, so we cherish God's love more than anything.

God's love is the source of life, happiness and peace. You will know this if you have some spiritual experiences.

When man dreams of peace based solely on his own ideas, no matter what solution they come up with creatively it will not offer any hope.  The dream of a future full of peace, unity or oneness that goes beyond the present day of utter confusion is only an illusion unless there is a stronger power.  Without God, peace is impossible.

If the omniscient and omnipresent God has been laboring for thousands of years to guide us, why can't He lead us toward a world where His purpose of goodness can be fulfilled.  Are we moving away from the ideal toward destruction and despair?

This is a serious problem.  If we were to analyze the world's situation, we may surmise that there is no God.  Is it possible for a world of peace or some utopia in the future if we conclude that God does not exist?  Philosophers and thinkers have sought this perfect world throughout the course of history.

Since these types of people have not been able to bring about a solution, we cannot think that manpower alone will solve humanity's problems in the future.

Through historical experience, man concludes that it is impossible to attain this end, yet his original nature does not yield easily.

Regardless of race and tradition, we can see that the ultimate goal in life is but one way.

Whether Eastern or Western, people have sought after the eternal true love, peace, happiness and the ideal even in the midst of the state of sin, mistrust and confusion.  Humankind has pursued all different ways to achieve happiness which the original mind desires by following the desire to pursue goodness.

If man alone has not been able to relinquishment the fallen history, then they must be able to rely on an even stronger power that is higher than man.  Man is a unique being which knows its own limitations. Man is incapable of determining his own destiny, going beyond himself so he naturally must look for a greater subject partner, God who knows how to make this path feasible.

If God still yearns for true love, peace, happiness and his true ideal, then that goal is possible through Him alone.  Man must fully bring to reality what God has shown him in order to fulfill the ideal requisites man has sought throughout history by calling on God.

"If it is something people just desire, the transcendental force and the propensity for relationship with which God has operated from behind our lives, can pervade everything."SMM

Without realizing it himself, man today is looking for a world of peace and happiness while pursuing freedom. This is the evidence that he is still not standing on the fundamental foundation of freedom, peace and happiness.

There is only one path in life for an individual, family, society, nation and world.  Every road we all must follow points toward a world of peace full of love and happiness.  This ideal must be established through mutual relationships.

Even the almighty God can not accomplish this by Himself.  This is not blasphemous to say.  Do you realize that if God had the ability to get rid of sin and usher in heaven on Earth, He would have done that back in the Garden of Eden the moment after the fall occurred?

If God lives as the absolute and almighty being, then all things which He created including man must be free if God is free.  If God is in a peaceful place, then man must be in the same place He is.

We can deduce the fact that if there is no freedom, happiness and peace in the human world, God, its Creator, can neither be free nor happy, but must be in a miserable position. 

This is known as the fall of man in today's religious world. The fall is comparable to falling off the original foundation, from a position where perfection can be reached to an imperfect position.

Once humans grow and mature through the foundation of their parents' love and give birth to children through conjugal spousal love, the family was to establish a foundation for perfect happiness.  Yet, we know our lives have not resulted in such a life full of perfect peace and freedom.  This is completed by the Second Advent who brings the Completed Testament and as humanity follows these words of God to bring about the world of peace longed throughout history.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: A World of Peace

This post was rewritten and derived from the Textbook: Sun Myung Moon's Philosophy of Peace, Chapter, What is Peace?

How to Love With God's Heart

 “Above all else, guard your heart,” says the proverb, “for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4.23).

"In any case, the heart, like a garden, needs protection and cultivation if it is to flourish and break through the forces that warp and distort its impulses."

What does it mean to "keep the heart"?  It means to keep your heart pure and polished.  How?  through cutting through the ego, pride, misperceptions and distortions that cover our hearts. 

How can we purify our hearts and delve into the intrinsically good and pure heart that mirrors the heart of the Creator, our heavenly Father?

The Heart of God

Dr. Martin Luther King said, “At the heart of reality, there is a Heart.”

Behind the human heart, of course, is the divine heavenly Heart.

God’s Heart is the wellspring of His love, the core of His being. This heart impels Him to live for the sake of His children and creation.  What may not be known about God's awesome might and majesty is a fierce concern, intense sensitivity, and incomparable tenderness.  God is the king of love.
 

“Can God enjoy His life without love?” asks Reverend Moon. “No. However omniscient or omnipotent He may be, by Himself alone, He cannot enjoy happiness . . . You say you are happy because you have your parents, your husband or wife, your sweetheart. You say to someone, ‘I am happy because I have you with me . . .’ If that is true with human beings, the same applies to God.”

Jesus addressed his Lord and Creator as “Abba”—Papa (Mark 14.36).
 

More than the most devoted of earthly parents, the Heavenly Father is so passionately concerned with every single one of His children, that no one’s gladness or distress escapes His notice.

“Not one [sparrow] is forgotten before God,” we are assured, and surely each person is “worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12.6-7).

God's heart works in relation to a partner and it does not stand to be apart or enjoy isolation.  Who can stand as God's true object partner in relation to His heart?

Philosopher Abraham Heschel speaks of a Lord passionately and personally involved with His people. The Bible has the Creator as affected by humanity as a man is by his wife (Hosea and Jeremiah 3.20).

 

God’s heart shapes His ideal, what religious traditions have called the Kingdom of Heaven, the World to Come, the Golden Age.  It is the place where “The dwelling of God is with men,” (Revelation 21.3) as He intended. Intimacy with one’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren—does any parent desire anything more? In the same way, God’s heart wants eternal closeness with each of His children.

This parental heart means no one is outside its reach. God's grace falls like rain on the worthy and unworthy alike. There are no limits to this love; no sacrifice is too great. He “so loved the world” that He would offer everything He has, even His most beloved Son (John 3.16) that “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” and be saved (2 Peter 3.9). “Turn to me and be saved,” He cries through the prophet Isaiah, “all you ends of the earth!” (45.22-23).

Indeed, this is a defining characteristic of God’s Heart—no one is outside it. Even those who disobey Him, reject Him or even seek to destroy everything He holds dear are not excluded. His wrath and judgment are ultimately for the purpose of reconciliation, of being together with His children.

Thus there is Jesus’ saying to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” in imitation of the Creator's characteristics (Matthew 5.44). As Reverend Moon has said, no matter what state human beings are in, “God cannot but love man. You can be so confident as to say, without you, God cannot be happy.”

The impulse to seek joy through loving is too strong for any permanent rejection or estrangement between the Father and any of His children.

God's Heart has three aspects; One is joy, the spirit in which He created the universe.  This is reflected in the infinite varieties of the beauties that make up the creation.  During the creation process, the divine imagination was animated with gladness.


“It was good,” He said of His creation (Genesis 1.10). He was especially joyful in anticipation of sharing His life with responsive children and having them delight in the creation He had made. When human parents happily prepare a nursery and then tearfully welcome a new child into the world, they taste something of God’s heart of joy at the creation.

The Heart of God is the ultimate counterpart to the human heart, and deeper and wider than our own and overflowing with the purest, most profound love. Only His heart so fully, in the words of Blaise Pascal, “fills the soul and heart which He possesses" ... it alone has the capacity to completely stimulate every part of us.

 

Those privileged to have tasted of its fullness have described its intoxicating rapture.

 

“Once the heart of God dwells within you, no matter how lonely you may be you will be filled and the universe will be filled,” states Reverend Moon. “Such a person is infinitely joyful, lacking nothing.”

 

“Ah, my Lord God,” wrote Thomas à Kempis, in, “most faithful lover, when Thou comes into my heart, all that is within me rejoices!”

This is the ultimate happiness and the essence of Heaven. It has been called paradise, nirvana, bliss. Whatever it is called, it is ineffably good and satisfying— an oasis in the desert to the thirsting human heart.

Aspects of God’s Heart
 

This is why the distance from Him that has been the human condition throughout the ages leaves such an ache and restlessness.

As the psalmist expressed it: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night” (42.1-3). Conversely, when Adam sinned, God searched for him in the Garden, calling, “Where are you?”(Genesis 3.9).  This can be views as God's pure Heart could no longer see Adam's impure heart after the fall occurred.

The fall left Heavenly Father and the earthly children in need of fulfillment having lost their "love partner" of one another.  God's heart has experienced much displeasure.  Who can look at God's situation as wonderful throughout history when one peers through the eyes of God looking upon His lost children disconnected from His heart? "The agonies of the world that burden all but the most callous of souls are."

 

Joy over the Creation Hope and Commitment to Restore the Lost Ideal Impulse to Love Sorrow Over Human Suffering

This is an important aspect of the divine heart: sorrow.

God is likened to a human parent that has to endure witnessing their children suffering through a reckless act or worse, as victims of a crime.  God's heart breaks whenever he sees the torment and misery of the world;the senselessness of war, the wretchedness of hunger and poverty, the harshness of disease, the agonies of families torn apart and the devastation of spiritual emptiness.

 “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it,” said St. Paul of the body of believers (1 Corinthians 12.26); how could the Head of the body not suffer? He agonizes with His loved ones as any of His children do with theirs.

“In all their distress, he too was distressed” (Isaiah 63.9), say the Hebrew scriptures of His relationship with His people; He “could bear Israel’s misery no longer” (Judges 10.16). He was even agonized as a mother in labor: “Now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42.14).  Muhammad likewise felt God’s misery, saying in a Hadith, “I see what you do not see and I hear what you do not hear; heaven has groaned, and heaven has a right to groan.”

Not only does God feel the pain of every person, but this is ever amplified by His understanding of what could be, like a dreamer who is far from his ideal, His unrealized vision for the beautiful world He intended. A parent grieves even more painfully over a child’s mistakes and suffering than the child does, because the elder also knows more fully all the potential and hopes and dreams that have been lost.

God had envisioned a Heaven on Earth and higher ideal than the current situation of the world.

Besides His pain arising from compassion, God’s heart aches for the broken communion with His loved ones. He feels the pangs of joys lost, unable to fully share the lives and the loves of His myriad sons and daughters. This frustrated hope is what Asians call “han,” the basis of what theologian Andrew Sung Park calls God’s “wounded heart”.

Yes, God's heart has been broken at the disobedience and suffering of His children.
 

Scriptures reveal the pain of the Parent who has given all yet cannot connect with His children enough.  His love is largely unrequited. “The more I called Israel, the further they went from me...” (Hosea 11.2). This Hebrew verse captures the poignant lament of a heartbroken Father.

"How often I have longed to gather your children together,” He confesses to a rebellious world, “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23.37).

The parent is willing to give without end for the sake of her child, but joy is incomplete when love is not returned. Indeed, He is described as “grieved” over the wickedness and faithlessness of His children (Genesis 6.5-6).

A Christian from California recounts I’ve never really been very good at sharing my faith with people. Then one day I was walking down the street in Berkeley, California, and I saw this big poster of a missing child. 

That poster seemed to speak to me. I realized that God is missing all kinds of children. Day after day, He watches His children killing each other, robbing each other, crumbling down in loneliness and then going to hell. When I thought how I’d run around searching if my own child was missing, I realized I had to testify to my faith with more fervor to help God find His missing children.
 

God is the fountain of hope. This is the third primary aspect of God’s Heart—there is hope that God's ideal which was lost in the beginning can be restored.

This hope gives power to overcome the sorrow, disappointment, and grief.  This force sustains His awesome perseverance, which has been laboring painstakingly and patiently through His representative for the day of the great homecoming.

He fervently seeks among the multitudes of every child who does not know Him. The Bible offers metaphors for the almighty Lord of the universe.

One is the image of a poor woman desperately searching for a lost coin (Luke 15.8-10), as if the omnipotent One forgets all dignity in His urgent efforts to save His children. Another is that of a shepherd, leaving all of his flock to track down the missing one and rejoicing when it is found (Luke 15.4-7).

If a parent's child was taken captive, that parent would sacrifice and offer anything and any amount of ransom if it meant the liberation of their children held in bondage.  God does the same with more intensity using His whole heart and effort toward liberating man from the chains of ignorance and the force of selfishness.

God cannot rest until even those who have committed the most heinous of crimes repent and begin to cultivate their own hearts of original goodness which emulates God's great heart.

Maybe the best poignant image of the tender Creator is the one painted by Jesus in his story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15.11-32).  The patriarch's aching heart is revealed for his wayward son's return when he stays waiting at the window hoping for the day he returned.  The father forgets everything when he first sights his son walk back to the land and runs forward to greet him. He is beside himself with joy to have his son back, no matter what pain the young man caused. One could say the father is a willing slave to parental love.
 

Since man is made in God's image, God's heart is essentially the same. 

God has fashioned Himself to be vulnerable to His children and to be captive the the same love that captivates them.

“He is the Lord omnipotent, the Lord of all beings, the controller of all,” the Hindu scripture reads, “yet he permits himself to be controlled by those who love him” (Srimad Bhagavatam)—and by love itself.

Because of His unfailing faith in His people and His vision, God can endure the agony of seeing His faithful ones scorned and persecuted and to keep on working until every part of the original plan is realized.  This means, God will not cease His work of restoring His children and world until everyone is back into His bosom.

“He will not falter or be discouraged,” the prophet Isaiah declared, “till he establishes justice on earth” (42.4).

With the heart of the Father yet in the shoes of a servant, God perseveres to save His children, driven by His heart of hope.  The father who pays for his son’s careless damage to another person’s car, the mother who goes to the principal to ask for one more chance for her daughter, the father who stands with his boy in court and offers his own respectability as a hope for leniency, the mother who apologizes to a child her daughter has shared the sorrow of God over the misbehavior of His children.

All share the same hope: if they pay enough, pray enough, love enough, and try hard enough, eventually their children will respond to their sacrifice and love and will become responsible people in their own right. This is the hope of every parent. God, the Parent of all, is the same.

Photos by: freedigitalphotos.net
 

Return for Tomorrow's Post: How to Grow the Heart

 

Textbook: Educating For True Love Chapter, Foundation of Character Foundation based on the teachings of Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon as more of an understanding of the Heart of God.