How to Gain Spiritual Help

"What attitude do we need to nurture in order to move the spirit world? We need to change our concepts. Our attitude is an environment that must be prepared in order to receive spiritual help. We must use Father's words and make ourselves channels to receive spiritual power."

Is it possible that we can dominate the spirit world and what does that actually mean?  After Adam and Eve chose to ignore the commandment of God and chose the words of the spirit Lucifer to eat and have their eyes opened, humanity has been led by evil spirit world ever since.  Through religion and the work of saints and people of conscious, good spirit world has been able to work throgh people of goodness as well.  Reverend Sun Myung Moon speaks further about this situation: 

"Actually, the spirit world wants to be part of everything we have and do. They want to be involved to such a great extent. So whatever we may look at, we must search for the nobility in it, and treat it as if it were owned directly by True Parents. Then everything becomes like an expensive antique, a God-given treasure. Each object is waiting for your touch, hoping to feel the vibration of God through you.

Consider all things holy. Why does a handkerchief owned by a holy man become so valuable? Because of the vibration of the holy man. So you, too, should give all things a holy value. When you touch something, feel that you are giving it glory.

The same holds true for the people we meet and live with. When you see another person, how much do you care for him or her? How do you feel towards that person? You must really love the people you meet, because they are the temples of God. When you touch another person, feel that through your touch, both of you will be blessed.

Each of us has two aspects, mind and body. Our true mind wants to touch our body with heart and give love to it. We should think of our mind as God's mind, because God loves it and that is where He dwells. Look at each man or woman as a holy person. Regard each person's body as sacred and their mind as hallowed.

If you live like this, soon you will hear inside of yourself a small voice, the sound of your mind. Wherever you walk, no evil or darkness can remain. Only good spirits can touch you if you create such an atmosphere. If you place yourself in such a position, then spirit world will pour down upon you its abundant blessing and power.

You must attract this power from the spirit world and then weld yourself to it. Make it one with your body, so that even your arms and legs feel special. When you are in bed, even if it is a sleeping bag, your surroundings will become like a king's palace; your body will be resting in a king's bed.

You must name yourself as the dwelling place of God. Then all good spirits will touch you. When you go to bed, lie down with a beautiful mind. Remove all ugliness from it. In the morning when you wake, come before the deep bosom of God, and then, when you go out to your mission, you will embark from the throne of God.

The spirit world is always around you, listening and attentive. Always be aware that it is within your reach. If you keep thinking this way, then you will be able to control your circumstances. Make yourself a tuning fork, resonating with and vibrating along God's frequency. Resonate with God's unselfishness.

If you partake of this resonance with God, then when you see someone, you will automatically be able to sense what type of person he is. Sometimes you will be able to see your own spirit man with your own eyes. Train yourself and discipline yourself to develop this capacity. If you live this way, you will be always able to act in the right way when an emergency arises."

Daily, you compete with the spirit world, so we must learn how to conquer and surpass it.  As God's children, he created us to subjugate the spirit world, but in our circumstances spirit world dominates the creative world. With deep prayer, within our mind, we can become a magnet, a mover of people's spirits.  We must become a spiritual magnet, drawing people with love.  If we retain this high standard of condition, our prayer will become reality.

"Pray with all your heart, focusing your mind and soul on the object of your prayer, otherwise your mind will become restless and hasty. In the life of prayer, you must make the time to pray. Sit down even if it takes eight hours and pray; this time will never be wasted. Then you can go out and work eight hours for God.

Therefore, be prayerful now and then go out, you and God together. If you have to write a sermon, for instance, the spirit world will help you prepare it. If you go out, the spirit world will lead you. You will discover the feeling of breaking through; you will become selfless, feeling the power of your mind and body pulling together in harmony. So the key word for this kind of life is respect.

Respect all things as holy things.

Respect all men as holy men.

Respect yourself as a holy person.

Respect your mind as holy.

Respect your body as holy.

Pay deep respect to all people, no matter what kind of person they may be. As a child, be respectful towards an elderly man.

Think over your words three times before uttering them and always have a humble attitude.

Always share with others the best thing you have. Empty your pocketbook to give; then you will deserve the best result.

If you do not do good for your fellowman, you will have no sleep; if you have done good, then your mind will rest in peace.

Unpack the dirty elements inside yourself and cleanse them. Open up the baggage of your mind and look what you find there. Don't harbor selfish feelings. Repent publicly for any selfish feelings you may have entertained. Practice the virtue of meekness.

If you push yourself to develop these attitudes, then the spirit world must descend to assist you. The spirit world is using so many channels by which to come down and participate in God's providence; they will choose the best one to use first.

In the Unification Church a true leader must be able to mobilize the spirit world. When you touch it, all kinds of phenomena start to occur some very strange, some very wonderful. Don't be manipulated by them. You be the subject. Don't let yourself be driven by strange phenomena; before this, you may have had to face these challenges all alone, but now you have a clearer understanding.

You already know the secret of tapping power from the spirit world; witness to others, pouring out all your heart, soul and mind for them. When I was in prison camp, I would pray, and prisoners would just come to me and stand there. When they were introduced to me through the guidance of spirit world they would cling to me.

You, too, can be like me. The problem is that you are often too distant from thinking about the spiritual dimension: holy things, holy mankind, holy temple, holy mind. When I was in the worst of situations, lonely and hungry, a revelation would come or an important guest would appear before me. When I needed money, the spirit world would guide someone to me. Spirit world is never far away; they can cooperate with us. We should always feel that we are not doing quite enough, and that we always have to try harder.

Act with the support of the spirit world. If they are behind you, you will never be lonely; you will always have energy and power. Even though you may be penniless, still have no fear. You can be adventurous and bold. On the road of success, the more you walk, the further you yearn to go.

Who knows how long he or she will live? Maybe tomorrow you will die, at a mere 25 or 30 years of age. Do you have some guarantee from God how long you will live? No one has such a guarantee.

A wise person thinks like this: "I have only a short time to live. Within this time I must prepare myself for eternity. The way I live in the next two years will be the model for my eternal life." Then explode your sense of love. Love God, and love another person as God. For an entire day, 24 hours pour out your entire energy for someone.

 If you love a person like this, even though you may die early, you will have made the highest accomplishment in all eternity. Then when God gives you more time to live, your response will be immense gratitude. Push yourself to live more fully. The person who expects death and then is given life dwells in the fullest gratitude.

Leave behind something that God can praise. Each moment is so precious there is no time for worry or frustration. The person who recognizes that earthly life is short compared to eternity and, therefore, condenses his accomplishments is a wise man indeed. Think about what "label" you wear spiritually on your forehead. Ask yourself how many people, how many clans, how many tribes, how many nations you have loved.

Seek to become that master of love. Program your life like that, and you will never be a loser. Plan as if you only had two years to live, and then by the third year, when you are still alive, think of the joy of living! This is "resurrected" living. I still have so much to do: love my wife, love my children, love all mankind. I have to love the Unification Church; I must pay indemnity for all mankind; I need to liberate man from sin. I am determined to leave behind tremendous assets."

We must change our mindset to do everything for the purpose of love. So, even when you work, you must love that business, love the products you work with, and, of course, love the people. Always give honor to other people.

Even though God created us, he gave us the ability to reshape and restore ourselves into the original image. 

We tithe to church a portion of what we earn back into God's providence.  This is a way to separate the money we earn from the satanic world by offering part of it back to God to claim it ass a sacred offering.  Three-tenths is the best standard. Give one tenth to the local church, one tenth to the national level work and one tenth for the worldwide level.

We should thimk that each time we give, we are giving a heavenly treasure, not just money frm our own pocket. Then the person who is receiving through you is actually receiving from God. The spirit world can then help you, and God will remember everything and return it to you ten times over.

Going to work can become tiresome day in and day out, but we must not feel like a worker or supervisor.   Make your company a dwelling of God. Invest your heart in your work. Determine to make it a business that will serve all people. Then wherever your business goes, it becomes God's "love extension." Whatever you are responsible for, give it your heart and soul on a 24-hour basis; feel like you are the parent and it is your baby.

Whatever you do, think that you are carrying it out in partnership with God. Feel that you are the second owner and pour all your love into it. The one who loves something the most is the ultimate owner. When you give love, you will attain infinite value.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Don't Doubt in the Dark What God Told You in the Light

This text was taken from How to Gain Spiritual Help given by Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Why Children Rebel

Why do we worry about our kids, and can not stop the train wreck that many of them are headed?  What follows is from a speech made November 1971. 


Who would have believed the prediction  of kids killing their parents in the future and children kidnappings.  Amazing.  As you know this speech was given by Dr. Sun Myung Moon using the his intensive 9-year study of the bible:


Rebellion of Teenaged Adam and Eve

"Adam and Eve distrusted God and betrayed Him; this sowed the seeds of grief throughout the cosmos.

"Therefore in the Last Days, parents and the children will be in conflict. Just as the first human ancestors betrayed and distrusted God their Father, their descendants in the Last Days will likewise

experience children rebelling against their parents…

"That is why in today’s society there is a pervasive tone of distrust, between parents and children,

between husbands and wives, and between relatives. People no longer have confidence about their

purpose for living, so much have those who deny its basis obfuscated the matter. As you see this

happening, you should know that the Last Days are here.

"Today we face a serious youth problem. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve fell, they were teenagers. They planted the seed of free sex when they fell by engaging in an illicit sexual relationship in the shade. That is why now, during the harvest time of the Last Days, it was inevitable that free sex would become rampant throughout the world.

"Satan knows that God is trying to bring all human beings to Heaven by promoting the standard

of true love—absolute love without any trace of the Fall. Because Satan knows that the returning

Messiah will carry out this plan, his strategy is to utterly dismantle this standard. Therefore, as

there is no longer any basis for love, people today engage in all sorts of behavior, including free sex,

homosexuality and lesbianism. Homosexuals and lesbians are seeds of the archangel; therefore, like

angels they have no object partner of love

"These are the Last Days, when everywhere people are stripping off their clothes and perishing.  It is the end of Satan’s dominion. Now the earth has become hell, where life is in step with Satan’s world of hell. Therefore, if you seek and follow a way 180 degrees opposite the prevailing lifestyle, it will be a path connected to Heaven.
 

"At the Fall, the archangel Lucifer acted to make Eve his enemy and Eve acted to make Adam her

enemy. As a result, Adam, Eve and the archangel became enemies to one another. Therefore, in

the Last Days everyone will become enemies to one another. Your children will become your enemies; mothers and fathers become enemies; brothers and sisters will become enemies. Nations will become enemies. All relationships will be torn apart, and you will not be able to trust anyone.

"What will become of ethics and morality? Such a hurricane of chaos will sweep the world that people will lose any sense of direction.

People will not be able to tell right from wrong and good from evil. When that time comes, it is the Last Days. The Last Days are here right now! You will see incidents where children kill their parents and parents kill their children. You will see ministers killing members of their congregation, and acrimonious battles between church members and their ministers. Everyone will be divided. Why is that? The seed of enmity sown by Adam, Eve and the archangel has resulted in the world becoming a battlefield." 1971

 
Why America Losing Christian Values

All religions have lost their footing. Because Christianity did not completely fulfill God’s will,

Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam are also going through a tough course. As a result, families,

societies, nations and the world have become like hell.

God’s ideal realm of love is nowhere to be found on earth. Even in a vast country like America, God cannot find a True Son or True Daughter whose mind and body are truly united. God cannot find a husband and wife who are united according to the original standard that God has desired since before the Fall. In every family, parents and children are fighting. The decline of religion has led to a world of selfish individualism in which everyone is divided.
 

Without a clear vertical standard, the concepts of male and female are hazy. That is why, along with

free sex, we see so much sexual confusion in the Last Days.
 

In the free world today, many people are unwilling to marry. They live together without a legal marriage, jumping from one relationship to another… It seems like everyone is perishing, but through it God has a strategy to save them all.

This trend somehow makes sense if you look at it from God’s perspective. In God’s view, our spirit and body is supposed to become one centered on true love, not on false love. 

Therefore, as people live together who have not found the origin of true love they will continue to be restless, with spirit and body divided. Once they pass through that stage, after awhile they will yearn for the marriage Blessing, the Blessing that only Heaven can give.  Why Doesn't God End Evil?

God cannot strike human beings even when they take Satan’s side. God has to use the strategy

of being struck first and then taking the victory. Satan always strikes first, but loses in the end. Throughout history Satan takes the side of self-centered people and incites them to hatred and conflict to try to destroy Heaven’s side. Heaven, on the contrary, aims for the good of all, working to recreate the world with love and peace.

In the Last Days, when Satan is about to lose his dominion to Heaven’s side, he will suggest atheism to the world, advocating that there is no God. This will result in movements to establish humanism, materialism and communism. All over the world, these ideologies of the left are in battle

with Heaven’s side on the right.

Ultimately, however, history will enter an era of a Great Revolution when Heaven’s side will win

and peace will prevail throughout the world. This could have occurred already, with the victory of

Christian culture at the end of the Second World War, but Christianity failed its mission to follow the returned Messiah.  So Christianity had to indemnify this, you see during the 60s the breakdown of the morals in youth, divorces on the rise and the sex and drug revolution thereafter.

How Can This Be Indemnified?

After World War II, humankind was struggling to overcome the pain of war and find the way for

all nations to live in peace. At that time, God commanded the Messiah of the Second Coming to start a world-level movement to establish God’s Kingdom on the foundation of two thousand years of Christianity. The main point God revealed to the Messiah was the formula course to establish the True Parents and unite humankind as one true family.

However, to God’s great disappointment, the Korean Christian leaders did not accept this truth.

As a result, the Messiah had no choice but to walk the path of hardship. Although he had committed no crime, he was persecuted, opposed and imprisoned. This mistake of Christianity became the condition and spiritual foundation for evil to gain power in Korea. Herein lay the internal and providential reason for the Korean War and the division of Korea that has persisted for over half a century.

We also should recognize the existence of evil spirits as another avenue for our children to be led astray.

This is the biblical account of the onslaught of demons and spirits in Revelations:

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth; they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads; they

were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion, when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will fly from them.


The increase in depression, suicidal thoughts, diseases, autism etc. are all due to spiritual problems, but as the bible says, only those without the seal of God.  Others are protected.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God had created the teenaged Adam and Eve complete and perfect?  To be robots that follow the universal law like nature.  Sounds good in theory, but who wants to be a robot without choice?   But that is not how the universe works. All things begin from the bottom-most stage and grow to reach their proper level. Thus, Adam and Eve should begin their lives as babies and grow up. They are not meant to have a complete relationship with the universe in an instant.

When a young man reaches the age of fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, he comes to enjoy the world of male-female relationships. He feels romantic, poetic yearnings. Don’t teenagers feel that way? They would like to leave home, travel all over the world and find adventure on land and sea.

That is when their eyes are wide open to find a partner for love.

Adolescence is the time to give off fragrance. It spreads far and wide, attracting the bees and butterflies. That is why young men and women want to become the top champion, the top student, the

top everything

Today’s teenagers are wild; they hook up with anyone willy-nilly. By doing so, they bring about their

own ruin and society’s ruin. Yet, because adolescence is a time of change, teens cannot settle with

one partner; they go from one relationship to another.

Therefore, teenagers need to follow a definite discipline and be aware of the dangerous circumstances in which they live. You [parents] need to straighten them out. You need to clear up the complications in their lives and teach them the positives of following God's path instead of stating just the dangers and heartaches going down the wrong path.

Just as Adam and Eve were warned with death and still chose death, it is a slippery slope to give children our heartfelt warnings without them wanting to follow the dangerous and "exciting" path we try our hardest to prevent.  Isn't this every parent's worry?

In Revelations it said that God would be sorry for those who bare children, now I fully understand, because God knew in the last day that the evil and good would battle on every level of individual, family and society.  He foresaw the chaos and gave his sympathies.  There is a victory up ahead if all of those in faith keep their feet planted steadfast to God during these Last Days.  Hold on, victory of God and a peaceful world is ahead, we just have to choose it.

Photos from: www.freedigitalphotos.net

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Jesus Married?  Why Not?

Today's post was taken from World Scripture II: Eschatology and Messianic Hope.

 

 

 

 

Our American Culture Praises Lucifer-like Images

The universe was created beginning with an idea in the divine Mind, followed by the expenditure of energy to make that idea a reality. Likewise, artists and scientists give all their heart and effort to create a new existence that manifests the images and thoughts in their mind.  Artists, scientists and inventors take after the creativity of God.

This section focuses on the arts, and so includes scripture and selected passages from famous artists reflecting on the meaning of their art.

Yet, creativity is not the sole possession of these elite personages; we find creativity in the athlete who plays exuberantly for the love of sport, in the merchant who finds better ways to market his wares, and in children as they dance and sing.

Father Moon, which this posts uses his deep teachings of the bible, who has established ballet companies and art schools and who himself loves to sing duets with his wife, is cognizant of the role the arts can play in creating a God-centered culture. 

Topics include: art as harmony of opposites, art’s emotional core and emotional power; the muse, or spirituality of art; and the problem of art and values.

A culture develops from words. It begins with speech; then the words are written down to become literature. Then they are expressed in paintings and other works of art. Art and culture are thus expressions of the invisible word. This is the principle of creation through the Word, emerging as visible form and substantial existence.

Humankind struggles in frustration, longing in the world of the heart, because they have defiled

the heart’s law. People strive to fill that longing through hobbies, art, knowledge, and love objects,
but they are never fully satisfied. This is the sorrow and tragedy of the human condition since the human fall.

Human Fall

After World War II, the trend developed, especially among American women, to worship Lucifer-like

men. Who are they? Movie stars, singers and actors, etc.  Lucifer seduced Eve away from God and Adam.  When we study the bible as symbolic, we see that he seduced her away through the misuse of love - sex without God symbolized by the fruit. 

We see the terminology used today "to eat" of a woman the same way it was meant in the bible, "to eat of the fruit".  Don't most men that are idolized in the media have this same quality?  Wooing many women, accentuate outside beauty only, and have multiple sex partners outside of marriage.  These people are actually last in line to enter heaven, yet women came to worship them.

What is Lucifer-like?  Sadly, Lucifer's way and will is so ingrained in our culture, that we fantasize about obtaining it.  The music industry, fashion industry and movie business have fashioned the lifestyles of these idols around glorifying sex centered around false love, promiscuity (be with whoever you want), free sex with anything and anyone without relationships and outside the family unit. 

Does any of this sound like the creation and culture that God wants us to have or does it stem from somewhere else?  That someone else is the beautiful Lucifer who has the gift of God's beautiful creation as he is a creation of God.  Lucifer used the gifts God granted him and uses it to sway every human being away from God's path by glorifying his ungodly way and making it desirable even though his type of behavior will place people at the bottom of hell.

Lucifer-like is any behavior outside of God path.  Is wanting to be beautiful or worrying about fashion sinful? 

No, but when beauty alone is placed as a measurement of one person's worth and value - they aren't beautiful, therefore let's trash their value - then it is far from God.  It is a fine line.  To see the opposite sex as beautiful and admiring God's handiwork with someone's external being is not sinful.  To lust after it, go after that person to possess their divinity, their essence through sex, to want what is not ours outside of God's dominion is sinful.  For instance, wanting to be with a person who is not our intended spouse whether we are single or married, plants a seed likened to the bible phrase satan is crouching at the door waiting for a way in. 

Fallen Lucifer waits for us to open that door and when we plant seeds that are small it is only a matter of time.  This is how Lucifer thinks.  With even the hardcore religious, this is how he works, through the small ideas we keep to ourselves until they grow and it is hard to stop the temptation when Satan breaks his way through the door we left open for him.

Father Moon, who passed away this year at 92, had a vision for the arts far beyond secular art. He believed secular world’s art is rotten; especially the recording artists and Hollywood set who are immersed in free sex. Many have contracted HIV/AIDS. He promoted absolute sex, and advocated that members of my ballet company should not be involved in immoral love affairs. It is a wedge to protect American people from rotting away because of artists who promote ungodly behavior.

In America, you can watch movies on television 24 hours a day. You can watch any kind of movie: war movies, movies about love, even pornographic movies. Young people are readily attracted to them and influenced. Since they do not have a clear viewpoint of life or thought, they copy what they see in these movies.

Youth today live in a permissive environment and have abandoned traditional values that might restrain them from seeking out the stimulating positive activities that they see in the movies. Since their parents do not pay them much attention, family ties are not strong enough to sway them. Teachers and public officials avoid giving children proper education on these matters. Therefore, there is nothing to stop them from following the wrong paths that movies made for entertainment makes seductive.

God’s Creation and Human Creativity

What can stop young people from trying free sex, drugs, violence—copying everything they see in the movies?

If this continues, the family will disappear and the world will soon be doomed.

Therefore, we should quickly establish the standard of a new tradition for the building of a new culture. It is a most urgent matter.

 God’s heart of true love—to give and give more, and forget and forget again, to give unconditionally and live for the sake of others—is the foundation of the world of heart.

God’s ideal out of which He created the world began from His heart. The arts, which spring from this Origin, should resemble this heart. Hence, in the world of art, there can be no barriers. Art cannot be used as propaganda or the instrument of a particular ideology.  Harmony and unity are its basic principles. Divisions and conflicts are the fruits of fallen nature. Accordingly, in the world of art, East and West should understand and accept each other through art whose character is universal and inclusive.

When professionals in the art world seek for something profound and need inspiration, they fall back on their religious background. That is why the culture of art developed centered on religion. Take Christian culture, for example. If you have a chance to travel in Europe, you should visit the Vatican. You will see the essence of European culture in each work of art.

Art is worthless unless there is profound emotion in the background. A great work of art should be capable of arousing deep emotion, whether one views it today or a thousand years from now. A

painting that can stimulate such a feeling deep in our hearts is called a masterpiece.

To be an artist is to make one’s life a work of art. Children’s education should be imbued with art. A

wife should be an artist of the emotions in the way she honors and shows appreciation to her husband.
I believe that it is a greater art than the paintings that hang in museums. The greatest value of art is to beautify and elevate love in the family.  When God's love is the center of the family, this spreads to the society, to the nation and to a world of heart.


Return for Tomorrow's post: Why Children Rebel

Today's post was taken from the World Scripture II book chapter God Creation and Human Creativity section Creativity and Art