The War Between Mind and Body

What is the most fearful war amongst all wars? 

The greatest damage you can experience in your life is the damage caused from the war between your mind and your body; greater than any calamities, tribulations -- or even devastation -- in the world caused by any other wars in history. You must know clearly that there remains a mountain of wreckage and debris caused by the various incidents of defeat of your mind. Your mind has been defeated numerous times in these battles, every day, between the mind and body. Yet, people are unaware of this fact.

However, you always remember any physical harm you have experienced. For instance, if you fell down, by tripping on a stone while you were walking on a street, you would remember clearly after one year; even you would not forget this for the rest of your life. You would recall an event saying, "I broke my foot right at this place, several decades ago, because I tripped and fell." You would never forget such a thing. On the other hand, there are countless people who would never think of or remember the defeats of their mind in the relentless war between their mind and body.

Considering this fact, no matter how loudly you may proclaim your own importance, you are really no more than a defeated soldier standing with a white flag in your hand. Originally, you were created to dominate your body, with the result of your mind being victorious, in the lifelong battle of mind and body. Yet, this ideal never came to pass; with the ensuing result that your mind and body each pursue contrary aims.

Your Worst Enemy

Then, what is the most fearful war among all wars? You must recognize that the war that continues centered on you and inside you is the most fearful in human history and may last forever.

What?

It is no comparison to World War II. "You" are in this eternal war within yourself. You must know that "you" are standing at the frontline of this theater in this eternal war.

The first human family started with false love and did not establish the perfected true love character of a true person, a true couple, and true parents. The fruit of false love, fallen mankind’s selfishness, destroys the true order, beginning with the discord of mind and body and expanding into division and struggle in the family, nation, and world.

The solution and cure for humankind’s affliction, therefore, is to return to God through the principle of restoration by indemnity. Through true love for others, you can stop the struggle between your mind and body and be restored into your original character of true love. Humankind needs to receive the blessing and create an ideal family from true parents who are the model of true love character. We need to restore the individual and true family and expand true love and goodness to the world level.

The strategy of Satan, who originated sin, is always to destroy the ideal of true family and to prevent true family from taking root and becoming substantialized. This led to God’s three headaches during the past 50 years. The first headache was communism, which denies God’s existence. The second is corruption and immorality. The third is the division and disunity among denominations and world religions.

Think about it. How many innocent people died because of communism?

Over 100 million were killed as a result of communism, and millions more were enslaved, starved, abused and wounded, and spent their whole life in suffering. But in addition to deaths and physical suffering, the crime of communism is even bigger: spreading false truth denying God and make men and women unable to find their ultimate value through connection to God.

Immorality, the second headache of God, is destroying families and countries and taking lives just as surely as an invading army. Moral corruption is one of the main causes of divorce, teenage pregnancies, crime, and drug addiction. The decline of morality is not limited to any single nation’s borders but is becoming the world’s common problem. The worldwide AIDS plague is a direct consequence of sexual promiscuity and moral decay. Through diseases such as AIDS, humankind's existence will be threatened.

How about God's third headache – the division and disunity within Christianity and between the world religions? For God, religious people are the conscience of the world. Religious people should have traditions and values and practical power to overcome evil. But instead they are divided. They antagonize and fight with each other. They have became incompetent and have lost the power to overcome evil and educate the world about the true way of life.


Importance of Man’s Portion of Responsibility

These three fundamental headaches are the direct result of the failure 50 years ago of those chosen to receive God’s message.

From God’s point of view, all of that suffering was totally unnecessary. All the misery, death, and destruction were not inevitable. It could have been avoided. If in the late 1940s, the religious world, centering on Christianity, had followed God’s revelation and become one with the true family ideal, then communism would have naturally declined. Also, through the influential leadership and example of each religion, the degeneration of youth, broken families, and AIDS would never have grown into a worldwide plague.

Confronting God’s three headaches, particularly communism, made those who fought it unpopular and controversial. Those who have done their research on the Divine Principle which this blog is based upon, they will know that the author was labeled a fascist and a religious charlatan. 

He was even jailed in the United States on trumped-up charges of tax evasion. Nevertheless, for 25 years, he been pouring out his heart, and energy to make the United States understand its global providential responsibilities.

Through his work in the Western Hemisphere and around the world, he was able to help the United States overcome communism. Now communism has almost disappeared. But immorality and social decay are systematically attacking the family. Modern thinking holds that the traditional family is only one kind of family and that even homosexuals can form a family and have children through adoption or artificial insemination.

This is being done without any thought of the dire consequences of undermining and destroying a fundamental biological, social, and spiritual unit that has been vital to human survival for tens of thousands of years. It is ironic that scientists warn of the threat to endangered species of plants and animals, but do not study far more seriously the consequences of family destruction.

Today God is asking us these questions: Will it be necessary to lose one-third of humanity before it is saved? Will we destroy the earth’s natural resources and environment before we learn to live in harmony with the creation as God originally intended? God will never give up! He will save this world, no matter what, and He will save it through the ideal and structure of the true family.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Cheating is Cheater's Fault, No Exception!

Photos courtesy: freedigitalphotos.net

Speech titled "Realization of a Peaceful World by the Ideal of Family" given at the 4th Global World Peace Conference in Washington, D.C. 1997

Modern Disease - Spiritual Root

If parents understood that the rise in autism has a spiritual root, that modern science hasn't researched yet, they may be relieved that there is a way to reverse that problem. Albeit not easy, as we all have problems rooted to the sins of our ancestors that we pay for, including our own.

Religions often explain differences in people’s fortunes and native endowments as the consequence of an inheritance from the past. It is conceived in two ways, either as karma from past lives or as the sins of the fathers visited upon their descendants. These doctrines encourage people to accept their lot in life and suffer it patiently, in order to expiate past deeds and earn merit for the benefit of future generations.

 In Hinduism and Buddhism, religions that hold to a belief in reincarnation, it is taught that people are bound to reap the fruit of their actions in another lifetime. However, these religions part company over whether a person’s situation is fated by karma. For Hinduism, indeed it is. Karma determines one’s present circumstances. Hence, inequalities of wealth, race, gender or caste are only apparent; in fact the universe is absolutely just and fair.

We are burdened with sins inherited from our ancestors even though we personally did not commit them, and we are also responsible for collective sins that were committed by the nation or race of people to which we belong. In a word, being a fallen person means being the result of six thousand years of fallen human history—a mixture of good and evil. We inherit good and evil characteristics from our ancestors, but since they lived in the world where there was more evil than good, we mostly inherit evil.

It is no surprise that we end up adding to that evil, trapped in a vicious cycle. There is a story behind every sin, and someone was its cause. Maybe an ancestor of yours, while living on earth, gave much difficulty and pain to someone, and that person died carrying resentment.

Now this resentful spirit comes down to you, a descendant of that ancestor, to get revenge. He could have gone to any of a number of descendants, but he alights on you. He influences you, driving you to the edge, until you commit the sin.

Resentful spirits can also afflict you with sickness and pain. All modern diseases have spiritual causes connected to the sins of ancestors. By looking at the sicknesses and difficulties of descendants, we can infer about the life of their ancestors. If the ancestors stole from others, or misused public things or money, their descendants may suffer from stomach problems.

If they committed sins of lust and fornication, their descendants may suffer from genital diseases, or be unable to bear children, or have difficulty being faithful, or get divorced.

Ancestors who did not see things about others correctly and hurt them, or who misjudged others based on bad rumors, and violated their hearts, will have descendants born blind, mute or deaf. In other words, according to the way the pain was given—to a certain part of the body—the descendants suffer with the same kind of troubles. The heavier the ancestors’ sins, the more difficult it is to heal the resulting sickness; it may even be incurable.
 

If people on the earth do not clear up these sins through paying the required indemnity, the suffering is passed down to their children. Later, when those people come to the spirit world and watch their children suffer they regret that they did not clear things up for them. They lament, “If only I had borne my suffering on earth, my children would not need to suffer now.” Therefore, unless you clear up all the sins passed down from your ancestors, as well as your personal sins, your children cannot escape from sickness and pain.

Jesus paid for the ultimate sin which gave us life and opened up Paradise.  His mission was incomplete which was to include physical salvation and open the way for Heaven on Earth.  This is why The Lord of the Second Advent has returned and gives the Completed Testament which Jesus tried to convey to his disciples, but they had no understanding. 
 

Today all the people of the world have the responsibility to take down the walls of grudges and resentments their ancestors built up; we take this on as our responsibility.
 

Original sin, personal sin, collective sin, and hereditary sin inherited from our ancestral line—we should cleanse all sin before we pass on to the spirit world. It doesn’t matter that you have become a follower of the Lord; an indemnity course remains for each individual. None of you has the same course. Some suffer a great deal; some even die on the way; while others have an easier time. Why Everyone’s indemnity course differs.

Your ancestors committed a great many sins. On top of it, how much more sin did you commit? If you truly knew the weight of it all, you would despair. Surely you should do your best to indemnify those sins and leave a clean slate for your descendants.

If you cannot cleanse them completely, you should be willing to devote your life as a sacrificial offering. For example, your handsome ancestors probably omen badly.  You might marry an ugly woman and determine to make your life together with her better than the most handsome couple in the world.   This is just a small example of indemnity. 

Imagine if the whole world turned around their dark pasts in this way.  You would clearly see the world change overnight and see weapons turned into plowshares for rebuilding our world into a peaceful world.

Return for tomorrow's post: Why Arranged Marriages Work


This text is taken from the World Scripture Volume II, from the section "Inherited Sin and Karma"

How Was Jesus Physically Born Pure?

We live in a diseased world whose destruction is inevitable. Every day we hear the ugly sounds of its final death rattle.

We can trace the origin of this disease to the original human ancestors, who lost their position in paradise. Our original ancestors contracted a serious disease. In religious terms, this event is referred to as the human fall. Thus history began in a diseased state.

This disease and Satan have been the focus of human history. The tragedy of human history was that it originated with Satan, the lord of evil, who stood in the central position to God's ideal of creation. The marriage of Adam and Eve, resulted in the children of evil. Inevitably, humankind inherited Satan's love, Satan's life and Satan's lineage.

The human reproductive organs, by which husband and wife are intended to join together in virtue, were originally intended to be temples of true love, true life and the true lineage. Love should be an experience in which a husband and wife join in a virtuous union to procreate children who will carry on the lineage. The center of life is love, and the human lineage is transmitted by means of the love and life of a husband and wife.

The linkage of love, life and lineage is what gives history its continuity. After the fall, the human race has been held captive by satanic love, satanic life and a satanic lineage. Adam and Eve were in their youth when they sowed the seeds of false love, false life and the false lineage.

Thus, when the Last Days come, we can expect the increase of moral decadence among young people to arise as a global phenomenon. In fact, we live in such a time now. Satan used fallen love as a condition to create a den of sin in which an eternal blow could be struck against God's ideal of true love.

The relaxation of standards concerning sexual behavior, the increasing moral decadence of young people, the plague of drug addiction, and the decline of family structure and traditional values has turned this world into an earthly hell.

Thus, it has become impossible to find a true man, true woman, true brothers and sisters, a true husband and wife or true parents anywhere. Until now, there could be no hope of creating a true society, true nation or true world.

God's Providential History of Restoration

To understand the history of Jesus's birth, we must first discuss the reason why Jesus came as the Messiah.  He came to reverse the mistake of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

In the record of the Old Testament, history was a course of indemnification, eye for eye, tooth for tooth and life for life. The responsibility of the fall passed from Eve to Adam, with Satan at the center. As seen from the standpoint of Eve after she had received the seed of false life, the fall occurred when Satan took over God's position.

In the course of the fall, Eve placed the archangel in the position of her father and god and Adam in the position of her son. Consequently, women, who in the course of the history of restoration through indemnity have come to stand in the position of Eve, have had to risk their lives, if necessary, in order to assure that God's will is passed on to the next generation.

When we study the historical record in the Bible, we come across a number of events that seem to defy explanation. God's original intention in His creation was that Eve would become one with God, her Father, and with God's son, Adam.

As a result of the fall, however, she became one with Satan and Adam, the false son when he fell away from God's word. Immediately after the fall, God began working through the family of Adam in order to undo what had been done, that is, to accomplish restoration through indemnity by the reverse course.

He worked with Adam's family, because even the fall had not deprived the members of this family of the element of eternity with which they had been endowed at their creation. Cain, the first fruit of the love by which Satan took Eve, was conceded to the side of Satan, and Abel, who was born as the second fruit of the love with her husband Adam, was placed on the side of heaven.

This was the beginning of the history of the struggle between good and evil aimed at fundamental restoration through indemnity. It was necessary in history that the second son be blessed so that the second son realm of heaven could restore and claim the birthright of the first son held by Satan.

 For example, Cain and Abel made offerings to God simultaneously, but God received only the offering of Abel, the second son, while refusing the offering of Cain. The reason for this was that the second son on heaven's side should restore the birthright from the first son. Had Cain made his offering through Abel, an orderly path could have been established from God to Adam and to the archangel, and restoration could have been accomplished.

Because Cain killed Abel, however, heaven established Seth and extended the providence to his descendants. Cain and Abel were brothers who had been born into this world. Because of their failure to accomplish God's will in their position outside their mother's womb, God's next dispensation had to be carried out within the maternal womb.

Thus, when Rebecca asked God why it was that Esau and Jacob fought within her womb, God said to her: "Two nations are in your womb, . . . the older shall serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23) From that time, Rebecca came to take greater care of the second son, Jacob. Jacob, as the second son, had to restore through indemnity the birthright of his brother Esau. For this to be successful, Rebecca needed to fulfill her responsibility in the position of Eve.

The blow struck at the firstborn of Egypt during the course of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt and Jacob's switching of his hands over Joseph's sons Manasseh and Ephraim at the time of their blessing (Genesis 48) all contained the hidden will of heaven to bring about a reversal of the realms of first and second born which Cain failed to fulfill.

God's Providence to Send the Messiah

Throughout the bible, women are hardly mentioned, except on the accounts of several women in Jesus's direct lineage who did seemingly unexplainable missions.  Even through they were on God's side, time after time they had decieved both husbands and sons in their acts.

Just as with Noah, when God gives a command to his faithful, he does it opposite of the way of the world.  His missions may seem odd and different to those who don't see it from God's point of view.

In her fall, Eve deceived God, her Father, and Adam, who was in the position of her son. To restore this, Rebecca stood on the side of heaven and deceived the father Isaac and her son Esau so that Jacob could receive Isaac's blessing.

Jacob purchased the birthright of the firstborn, and initiated the lineage of the Israelites on the foundation of a victory won through the cooperation of a mother and her son. He conditionally claimed the first-son realm and the second- son realm for the side of heaven, and established the foundation of victory for the Israelite nation that was to descend from him.

Jacob, however, was more than forty years old at the time when he took full control over the birthright of the firstborn. Thus, the realm of the human age prior to forty was still left without the condition of having won victory over Satan.

Once again, therefore, a dispensation was carried out for the purpose of gaining victory in the womb. Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, had in her womb the twin sons Zerah and Perez. Although Perez was the younger, he pushed his brother Zerah aside in order to be born first. In fact, the name "Perez" is derived from this event. (Genesis 38) At the beginning of history, the lineage of Satan was planted in the maternal womb. With Tamar, the womb was restored to the side of God. 

This is how Jesus was born pure beginning with this purification in the his lineage starting in the womb.

The side of heaven took control over the first-son realm and the second-son realm so that God's original lineage could be established. It was in this way that the tribe of Judah came to form the foundation on which the Messiah would later be born.  As a woman, Tamar placed herself in the position of having deceived father and son; she denied her father-in-law and his sons, in order to separate the position of Eve from Satan.

As a result of Tamar's separation of the womb from Satan, a basic tradition was established whereby God's children could be conceived and given birth without Satan's invasion.  It was then up to the Israelites and Judaism to carry on this standard of victory in the womb until such time that the Messiah could be sent as the True Adam.  Adam was to take Eve as his true wife and they were to become True Parents to humankind.  The Messiah was to restore this in his time True Parent.

Because Satan had already been able to establish his nations in the world, the sending of the Messiah had to wait until such time that the Israelites could establish a national base sufficient for indemnifying the other nations of the world. God waited nearly 2, 000 years until there was a sufficient national foundation, and a woman who could stand in the position of Eve, for Him to carry out His providence. This finally took place through Mary, the mother of Jesus.

When Adam and Eve committed the fall, they were already engaged to be married at a later date. In the same way, Mary and Joseph were betrothed to each other centered on God. As with Rebecca and Tamar, Mary was a revolutionary woman called by God to take part in the process of recreating Adam. Mary risked her life to form an absolute unity with God, and placed herself in the position of having deceived father and son in order to accomplish the history of restoration through indemnity.

It was in this manner that Jesus was conceived. During the time that Jesus was in Mary's womb, Satan could make no invasion in terms of his lineage. Jesus was born of the womb of a victorious woman as the first fruit of the first love who could be claimed only by God. It was the first time in history that a child was born as God's only begotten son. Even among the saints, there exists no one else whose birth followed such a process for making a separation from the satanic lineage.

Thus, we refer to Jesus as a saint among saints. This was the reason that the Christian cultural sphere was able to spread throughout the world. Finally, in our century, God has worked to use the victory of the Second World War and the Christian cultural sphere to accomplish the unification of the world.

Mankind Must Engraft Onto God and True Parents

In order for God's mission to succeed in returning the world to His side, we  must understand that Satan exists and that he has brought about this horrible reality we face today.

With this knowledge, we can find the cause of the disease and uncover the origin of the human fall. We must reveal to the world that Satan, Adam and Eve formed a trinity of evil, and that it is up to us to restore the trinity of God, Adam and Eve that is in accordance with the ideal of creation.

For this issue to be resolved, someone must testify to the fact that Satan committed sin, and clearly explain the fundamental truths concerning the sin committed by the original human ancestors. God and Satan have always known the details about the fall.

There were many things that Adam did not understand, however, because he was still young at the time. In the Last Days, the restored and completed Adam will come and make all this information known. He will reveal the sins committed by Satan throughout the course of history.

As the Messiah returns in our time, it is possible to expel Satan from this world. For the first time, humankind will be able to make a fundamental change in direction toward a world of hope, peace, happiness and freedom. In order for humankind to make a total break from the false love, false life and false lineage that derive from Satan as their parent, it is necessary that we be grafted onto the true olive tree.

That is, all people need to be grafted onto God and True Parents (The Messiah as True Man and his True Wife become restored Adam and Eve) in order to recover true love, true life and the true lineage. This will make it possible for us to build heaven on earth as well as in the spiritual world. This, in fact, is the final purpose of God's providence of salvation, restoration and recreation. Thus, the reappearance of the True Parents is an event of the greatest historic importance.

The True Parents represent the conclusion and final fruit of human history. The True Parents embody the completed form of human cultural history. They signify the victory of religion and philosophy within history. Prior to the emergence of True Parents, however, there must be a period of restoration through indemnity, that is, a period of recreation.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: The Fall of Humans Isn't a Literal Fruit

Textbook for World Peace, Chapter 2,  "The Way to World Peace