Impact of Sex Without Commitment

Even though no intimate relationship is immune from experiencing bad times, having a committed marriage between two God-centered individuals can be the best defense against the worst influences that break up relationships.

Sex within uncommitted relations offers no protection and invites the most destructive kinds of interactions to take place.

The guilty parties in the Bible's Genesis story blamed each other for their own wrongdoing.

“Sex always changes the dynamics of a relationship,” observes educator Josh McDowell.

Essentially, any relationship outside a committed relationship is a sibling relationship, between brothers and sisters.

Therefore, when two individuals have casual sex, they no longer or maybe never will fully enjoy the benefits of a friendship or reap the complete rewards of married love.

This is why Reverend Sun Myung Moon cautions single men and women to not get physically involved, not even holding hands, because it depletes the potential for true love between them.

Also, having sex outside of marriage not only affects the two individuals, but compromises relations between friends, other peers and potential marriage partners.  This may also impact future marriage.


Impact on the Relationship

1. Stress with parents and friends
2. Problems with partners
3. Negative effect on future marriage



1. Stress with Parents and Friends

Parents have a deep stake in their children and grandchildren who are the extension of their blood and investment of heart.

When children begin to enter into sexual relations outside the form of marriage, their parents may feel worried, disrespected and hurt.

This breach can be difficult to mend just as when Adam and Eve who could not face their divine Parent and hid from God after their indiscretion.

When one gets obsessed over a sex partner, it reduces the attention given to friends. In addition, of sex only intensifies feelings on all sides.

Nothing is as divisive as sexual jealousy.

Close friends can become the best enemies overnight.

When there is a crowd of friends that are sexually active, it can become a web of attraction, rivalry, possessiveness, jealousies and betrayal.

Even the most innocent gestures become suspicious by a jealous partner.

When one betrays his spouse with infidelity, the friends are then added to the betrayal list.

 “After the initial shock of his affair wore off,” recalls Eugene, 45, a computer instructor, “I found myself dealing with my own anger. How dare he betray his wife, who was my friend! How dare he hurt his young daughters, who are my daughter’s playmates! And then I realized he lied to me too, over and over.”

2. Problems with Partners

“Once burned, twice shy” is uttered by many people who experienced heartache from a breakup of  a sexual bond.

They remember the pain and this one betrayal will stand in the way of them giving themselves completely and trust the ones who deserve their love.

Women may distrust all males as only wanting them for their body.

Males can mistrust and fear which last for years even until they find the right person to marry.

Sometimes the introduction of sex disrupts a warm and caring friendship that might well have been a good basis for marriage.

“Everyone thought we’d be married, including us,” one middle-aged man reminisced about a girl from his youth. “We were very close and didn’t need sex. But everyone expected it and we thought we were missing something. Finally we slept together. Afterwards we felt different about each other. What we had just faded away.”

Conversely, when two people have a horrible relationship that has no future, they may stay in it longer because of the strong bonding power of sex.  It becomes difficult after a couple experiences such a powerful physical intimacy that they are lacking in the emotional closeness.

Sex not only multiplies one's own ego, but it is an addictive pleasure which brings on rationalizations and demands.

One partner comes to expect sex at every opportunity.

When the other refuses to give sex, this can launch  the other to become violent.  It is a fact that when one gets involved in sex outside of marriage, especially live-in lovers, there is more violence and other forms of abuse than among married couples.

Because we posses both a mind and a body, once physical intimacy is introduced into the relationship, then the heart yearns for the same level of emotional intimacy.

Yet, having sex too early in a new relationship makes that longing harder to fulfill because it can overpower any meaningful communication or friendship-building activities together.

Thus, the couple may avoid taking the effort to understand the other and work out their differences.

One college woman admitted that ironically, “Having sex is easier than talking face to face and having to deal with all the things that come up.”

Once a couple no longer has quality interaction outside of the bedroom, then the relationship collapses from within.



3. Negative Effect on Future Marriage

Just because a couple gets married and have children, they are not free from the ill effects of premarital sexual experiences.

The problem of self-centered sexual habits can be carried into the marriage bed.

Marital sex is supposed to be one of uninhibited surrender to the joy of pleasing the one they love within the safe context of acceptance and commitment.

When those who have repeatedly used sex for selfish reason enter into a committed relationship, they find it difficult to switch it from a selfish act to one of giving to the other.

Those who were virgins when they married learn the other's wants and needs and attune to one another, those who are already experienced have habits and preferences that may obstruct that harmony.

Second, because people hardly forget a past sexual partner, one who is experienced may be haunted by images of past partners even after marriage.  They may unconsciously compare their spouse's performance to past lovers.

This must not only disturb them, but also is heartening to the spouse if they find out.

Who wants to have a spouse that compares their body or performance to another lover of the past?

One young husband observed, “Whenever I kiss my wife or engage in love play, my memory reminds me that this girl could kiss better than my wife, that that girl was better at something else, and so forth. I can’t concentrate on loving my wife with all that I have—there have been too many women in my life to be wholly committed to one.”

Since sex before marriage is taboo, males can be conditioned to connect premarital sexual arousal with the thrill of doing something illicit – the forbidden encounter and the excitement of possibly being discovered.

This sexual excitement can be psychologically linked to risk.

Later on in life, a sexually experienced person may see the safety and legitimacy of marriage as to tamed to be arousing.  Therefore, in order for a husband to get sexually aroused, he is constantly drawn to illicit stimulation such as affairs or pornography.


Weak bonding and predisposition to breakup

Fourthly, after one has many encounters, sex may lose its potency to build strong attachment to one who they finally choose as a lifemate.

Research suggests the chemical sexual bonding power may grow feebler after having already imprinted the heart and mind with previous partners.

On the other side, disappointing sexual experiences can lead one to avert sex or have a feeling of boredom during the act.

One can get into the habit of holding their heart from a sex partner because of many experiences with sex in unsecure relationships that turned sour.

Instead of viewing sex as wholesome and giving of the mind, body and soul like virgins on their wedding day, one may find it challenging to completely give of themselves even with their spouses.  This can be hard to overcome even after years of marriage.

A final consequence of indulging in unmarried sex is the possibility of divorce.

Couples who lived together first before they were married, are more likely to break up some time after they get married.

Research also shows that women who were sexually active before marriage have less stable and satisfying marriages than those who were virgins before marriage.

Those who have a series of sexual relationships learn many things, not the least of which is break-ups and failure in relationships.

Sex amplifies an already present atmosphere of understanding, acceptance and intimacy within a marriage.

On the other hand, outside of marriage, sex only aggravates insecurity, lack of trust and misunderstanding, making real intimacy harder to attain.

One single 21-year-old woman, a rock musician, agrees: “Leaving sexual intercourse out makes it easier to enjoy a relationship . . . . Without sex, you can be yourself—it’s more comfortable. It helps you figure out faster what kind of person they are if they are right for you.

You can also get out of a relationship easier—you’re not glued by the sex. Sex complicates things and confuses you. Sex just slows down everything if what you’re interested in is a good relationship.”


Return for Tomorrow's Post: New Sexual Revolution for God

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on sex and marriage.

What is the True Way of Life?

Love alone is the core of human desire.

Sun Myung Moon


Modern life is ripe with ambiguity, pain and a lot of disappointment.

All people enter the world with a hope to have fulfilling relationships, happiness, and a meaningful and rewarding role in work and society. This path can be called the 'true way of life”.

This path is not easily founded.  It requires the same amount of lessons that are taught in school.  Schools successfully teach students knowledge necessary for a successful career.  But even with a six-figure income, a person's life can be for naught if they fail to have lasting relationships and have healthy families.

The youth today have high hopes to have love and happiness in their marriage and their families.  But they are left feeling incapable of living in the harmony they once dreamed.

Then pessimism sets in about have a good family relationship, and many youth expect to follow the pattern of “Marry. Divorce.  Marry again.”

Thus, as a result, the modern lifestyle has left the natural human longing for community in shambles.

Neighbors rarely look after the other and are often cold and distant.  Neighbors tell one another that just want to live in peace and rarely take the steps to foster a genuine community of mutual help.

Instead, when problems arise, citizens blame one another or the politicians.

When there are problems with the children at school, the parents blame the teachers and the teachers blame the parents.

Can a community really live in peace where there are a knowing of others who are suffeing?  These concerns of conscience are drowned by the thought that the less fortunate are not as meritorious, hard-working or deserving.  This smug self assurance incline others to not help the less fortunate.






On the national level, partisanship divides national policy; racism abounds, corruption festers, and issues seem unsolvable.






Nations act in their own self-interest instead of the interests of the world community.

Even generous gifts or aid from other countries come with strings attached.

Quarrels between nation spiral into a revenge-retaliation-revenge whirlwind with each side claiming that they are evening the score of past conflict.

Humankind lives in disharmony with their environment.  They often take more than is given back ruining delicate ecosystems and sacrificing God's long-term blessings for short-term profits.

Humanity is unable to share with the natural systems that sustains us.

Is there a solution to the worlds problems, or is humanity doomed to wait for the actual end to the world?

Can humanity as a whole live a true way of life that has positive results on every level?

Answers have been sought through philosophy and religion, yet the answers generated there have often created more confusion and conflict.

Also, political and educational programs flounder in half truths and superficial solutions which fail to touch the core of humanity's problems.

In seeking an objective truth, science has tried to dispel the ignorance that pervades human life.  All of these efforts have helped the enormously, still goals of curing diseases, improving communication the root of the problems have not been effectively addressed.

Men, women and children have yet felt satisfied a yearning – a hunger – they experience.  Something missing.

Writer John Steinbeck described it: “You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields.”

King Solomon wrote how he built majestic palaces and gardens and had a satiable appetite for learning and other accomplishments only to feel that the big void howling inside his soul was yet unfilled.  In the end, he wrote, “this too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 2.11

Also, Buddha did not find any gratification as a young prince and left the pleasures of the palace in order to pursue enlightenment.

Satisfaction and fulfillment is always out of reach, just over the horizon, coming tomorrow, or next year or the next.

People think they will finally be satisfied when they hit the lottery or when they make more money or when a person finally loves them.

Yet, they find that when they finally get these things, happiness still eludes them just as mercury slips away from pursuing fingertips.

The Qur’an affirms, “The life of this world is but the comfort of illusion” (3.185).

St. Augustine said that the human heart will always be restless for God until it finds a resting place within Him.

One modern preacher said, “There's a God-sized hole inside of us.  No matter how many steaks, electronics, liquor, drugs, entertainment and sex we pour down it, only God can fill this hole.”

To many people God is an abstraction. 

To many, God seems like a god of punishment with many rules and demands to follow.

Worse still, is many people of faith have done horrible things in the name of God.  There is a lot of terrorist violence, the Inquisition, and the Crusades were all violence falsely done under the use of God's name.

Loyalties to denomination and religions set believers apart rather than bringing them together.  Religion has even been seen as a tool of capitalist or colonialist imperialism and exploitation.

When one witnesses all these caveats about religion, how can we say that God is the answer to the universal human longing of having world peace?

The apostle John said, “God is love” (1 John 4.8).   What people actually long for is inside and behind God.  They want the essence of God, which is thoroughly love.  People want to feel and know pure, selfless love.  They want that love to pervade all of their relationships and their world.

Such a love of God is the true key to filling filled and fulfilled.

Paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin said, “Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them,   Love alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest within themselves.

When people have hope in something, wish for something, buy something dream about attaining something, they truly wanting to further their experience of love.

In every relationship, in every action and transaction, all day, every day, people are seeking true love. 

This universal need is found in all people at all times under different circumstances and situations.

Mother Teresa stated that people throughout the world may look different or believe in different religions, hold separate positions and have a different education, but they are all same..they all hunger for love.

She said, “The people you see in the streets of Calcutta are hungry in body, but the people in London or New York also have a hunger which must be satisfied. Every person needs to be loved.”

True love is so ultimately valued that it encompasses and informs all other values. 

People are drawn to love like bees are drawn to nectar.

Love is the wellspring of value and the standard of all value.  It is so ambrosial, satisfying and fulfilling that once have a taste of it, they will not let it go.

If a bee sucks the nectar from a flower, you can try to pull him away, but the bee will not let go, his body will half.  He still will never stop sucking the nectar.  Selfless love is that delicious.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: Where is the School of Love?

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, Educating for True Love, Chapter 1 written by a team of writers to explaining Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon's thoughts on morality, society and Family.

A Prayer for Your Life of Faith

Beloved Heavenly, Father, I thank You for Your grace, and for shielding me while I experience struggle from my childhood until now.  During those years, I have been apprehensive of any humiliation or shame that Heaven might suffer.

There is nothing among all the good things on this earth more precious than connecting to Your original heart.

Knowing this, we should eternally have a longing for that relationship with You.

We should keep in mind that those who experience Your love will have no regrets, even if they forget about all the things of this world.

We must now seek the ideal world which You created, the original homeland where we live by Your love.

We must prepare today while on earth for our third life as liberated children endowed with the authority of freedom.

Just as we needed to be healthy in the womb in order to be born with a healthy life on earth, we need a wholesome earthly life to have a wholesome life in heaven.

The world today is a world of conflict dominated by evil.  

We must be resolved to fight to the death in order to be blessed with the cooperation of heaven and earth and to keep in step with the dynamics of fortunes of the universe.

We must resolve that our descendants will never have to be placed in such a sorrowful position as we have been suffering under the dominion of sin.

Beloved Father, when we reflect on how you have toiled to usher in a new spring, we should become Your infinitely grateful and joyous daughter and sons who lament over the fact we could not offer our entire life and love to You.

In our predestined relationship with You, our lives were meant to be harmonized, and completed by You so that we too may greet the new spring.

Only when we greet spring for the first time is when the flowers bloom.  Just as flowers go through summer and autumn before bearing fruit and blooming, we too are to undergo a similar process to bear fruit.

For a tree to bear any fruit, it absorbs life elements through the roots, trunk and branches in the summer.

There, it concentrates a perfect life to bring forth a second life.

Similarly, we must become sons and daughters who are introspective and determine whether we have a life for which swells up in our hearts capable of rebirth in a new world even if our bodies should die.

No matter how much time passes or how much the storm rages, our inner life force must withstand the intrusions of the environment and persevere persistently on the path of growth.

Only in this way, can we welcome the new spring and become a seed, that is the original source of a second life, which can be planted again.

Even though we may look pathetic externally, if we maintain our value as the original essence that can enhance the spiritual life force as a seed that can be planted in the eternal world, we are no longer miserable people even though we may think we are.

Please allow us to realize that the more miserable we appear, the more the value of our internal selves becomes complete and guaranteed..

Father, we realize that if we do not have the desire to serve and bow humbly before You, we can have no relationship with You in the eternal world.

Please, open the doors of our heart to feel Your heart and hear Your voice welling up from the depths of our hearts.  Guide us to regain our lost bodies today.

Father, help us to appreciate Your historical course of toil and trouble to find each of us that we can then humbly bow our heads before You.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: The Root of Promiscuious Sex

This post was rewritten and derived from the book Cheon Seong Gyeong Book Five, Chapter One, Section 1, 1-4

 

Become Ideal People for Liberation

It has been reported to me that there is a great deal of communist activity on college campuses. When our CARP teams stage counter demonstrations, all the communists usually retreat.

You applaud when you hear this because you are excited. CARP pushed the communists to take cover so you feel good, but you don't want to exert the discipline that would give you the power to do that.

You have to accept the discipline that will make you powerful enough to drive communism back. If with bare hands we can gather the resources to lay the foundation that can save the world, then if we have enough tools and money could we do it easily?


Reverend Sun Myung Moon


If we have already become such people, then the world has no way to compete with Father.  What we can accomplish is so above their own standards, that they cannot even imagine how to compete with us.

In the fishing industry, Father set a standard that no competitor could outdo him.  He would be able to be out on the boat fishing with his crew at 4 am and not return until almost midnight.  Sometimes they would spend 24 hours on the boat.

Once he would proclaim something, that would echo throughout the entire country and world.

"People cannot help but listen. I operate on a simple principle and I have a plan."

Don't look for the easy way out in the Unification Church.

Before you are thirty, I will push you down to the dungeon. In that hell you will have to persevere and survive. The rest of the world is looking for the easiest direction, looking for another way to have a good time, but we don't care that those things exist. By following my discipline you can all become saints by the time you are thirty. After that, go ahead and have a good time. You can even grow your hair until it reaches your toes. You can braid it into a rope and connect yourselves together and have a big parade, but only after you reach that saintly plateau.


Once you become ideal men of God, you shall enjoy true liberation.  No matter how much you enjoy this liberation, you must always be within the Principle.  This is what perfection is.

The most precious and important thing is God.

We might take God's presence for granted throughout our daily lives.  Imagine a life without God's existence, or God decided to abandon the human race?

What comes into existence first: spirit or matter?

You cannot show spirit to someone, but the communist place such importance on matter.  When you wake up in the morning, usually the first thing you think about is breakfast, correct?

Are you able to prove that the invisible world of the mind exists?

What about the eye for example?  Does the eye understand that it needed to tear in order to keep it clean and wet enough to function?  Was the eye aware that it needed to develop eyelashes to help keep the dust away?

Did the eyebrows automatically develop to keep the sweat and rain from running into the eye?

When communists, Marxists and evolutionist cry that matter came about haphazardly or automatically, then how did the hair know to come out of the forehead and not the eyes.  Even after a baby is born, it has no clue or knowledge about the atmosphere.

Would the eye know anything about itself in the mother's womb and develop on its own accord?

Of course not.

There was a designer of the eye that knew about the related environment with sunshine and dust and rain.  The point is that someone knew in advance that the eye would have to cooperate with the environment.  Therefore, the designer would also plan for hair, eyebrows, ears and so forth that would unite with the rest of creation.

What if no one was born with hair that lived in the hot tropics?

Imagine being bald on a hot fierce beaming sun day.  There was an universal mind that figured out all of these things in advance.  Since no material in creation could haphazardly bring itself about into existence, material did not come into being first. Therefore, spirit existed before there was any material world.

Why is there such a debate over this?

It is like a debate between the religious and god-denying world of communism that denies the world of spirit.

If material just came into exist by happen chance and thought came as an effect of material, then there is no set standard to live by.  If there are no standards, if gives rise to lose behavior and live however bringing about chaos.

As a person of faith, you live by the principles set by God that brings about peace.

Even the best eye doctor a hundred years from now, still would not be able to discover all the secrets and complexities of the formation of the eye.

It is completely illogical to say matter comes first.

Even though the spirit is invisible, it comes before any material comes into being.  The conclusion is that all of the beauty we observe in the universe was designed by a universal consciousness which is spirit.  From that spirit, the visible world was created.

You are an effect, not a cause, therefore, you need to know this cause.  The vertical subject.

You live in a material reality as men and women with horizontal relationships.  When you connect to the vertical power, the vertical and horizontal turn around together.  Then existence is permanent.

Mechanical principles work the same way in physics.  The motor has four poles; one pair of plus and minus is not enough.  Even the visible universe has a spirit, like the visible body has a spirit.

If there is a subject, that designed man, then does this mean that that spirit is superior to you?

That universal spirit would thus have give and take with all the things of the universe.

The center that designed all things is who we call God.  No one can deny that there is a divine knowledge, emotion and will in the universe.

If God exists in our universe what would be the most important for Him of all?  Is it true love?

Where did true love originate?

First, there must be life, for without life nothing can happen.  You must come into existence before you are able to do something.

For God, the most important thing is life.

He does not want a temporary existence but eternal.

After there is life, then we can speak about true love, which is the culminating point. Therefore, a temporal life is not enough.

Love is not a stationary subject, but is only generated out of a complimentary relationship.

Nothing can be perfect independently.

There has to be a subject and object together to make a pair that creates a circuit which generates love.  The pair system is the beauty of the universe.  

Men and women both have life, and God is the same.  Without life, nothing is able to begin.  Love cannot be activated outside of the pair system, so, in order to fulfill love, you need the pair system.  

Each individual also exists within the pair system which is called dual essentialities.  This is needed to create a circuit for give and take of love.

What if you take one of your arms and link it to your other one to make one long arm and hand.  Is this utilitarian?  This would not pass the love examination.

Even your teeth are part of the pair system.  There is an upper and lower set of teeth.  They snap at each other.

But they must behave this way within Principle.  Love is only activated within a complimentary, reciprocal circuit.  Each finger on one hand represent a season, and has three segments which the total of twelve represents twelve months.  The thumbs have two segments, so they represent duality.

You have two types of nervous systems, plus two types of blood vessels.

A baby is able to make a fist with his hands, with the thumb inside while he is still in his mother's womb.  The thumb is the number one finger representing God.

The center, or subject, should be inside. 

The messiah is the center of God's dispensation to bring about a world of peace, with members surrounding him.  All of these relationships derive from the pair system, in order to fulfill love.

Do you think that insects have a pair system, too?

What about the grass and flowers?

Everything exists in pairs and they all like love. 

There is no exception, because God's main goal is to fulfill love.

God needs eternal life and eternal love.  In order to fulfill this eternal love, God is in search for His eternal object, so He can live in an eternal pair.

Who would be God's permanent object?   Only a perfect man.

Eternal life is your goal.

Many fables speak of ways to obtain eternal life or immortality on earth through dreams of vampires and the fountain of youth.  Why is it necessary to live forever?

Because God is an eternal being that lives forever.  Therefore, He gave us eternal life to pursue eternal permanent love through the subject-object circuit system.

Therefore, we are God's objects.  Just as much as God is eternal, we shall be eternal.  As a person of faith, you can be sure you are living for eternity.

Many people just live their life everyday for the purpose of fun, but from here on out, have complete conviction that you will live forever.  Upon this foundation, our next concern will be ideals.

Does God have ideals?

If you love someone, then you want to be proud of him or her?  You want to shower him with gifts, and tell people about him.  You want to be able to demonstrate every capability and be recognized by your lover?

In the same way, when God loves someone, He also wants to show off what He has done for them.  "Look at the creation I made, look what I created."  He would say look not just at the ocean and mountains, but the small planet Earth, the stars and the galaxies.

He would want to give it all to you.  Then His child would be proud and say that God was number one.  They would embrace and become one.

What if God only created His children with nothing to show and they just sat together in the empty sky, looking at each other for eternity?  That would be no fun.

We need an ideal, something to aspire to.  God has an ideal that He wished to accomplish after created humanity.  To fulfill that ideal, we have a vast universe in which to travel.  We need to enjoy the world and ideal things.

With this clumsy body you can't even travel to one planet, yet God has created millions of planets. 

In order to travel around God's big world, you have to travel faster than the speed of light, faster than electricity.  Without this idea of speed, you are unable to travel throughout the universe.  Did you know that you have the ability to travel as fast as the thoughts that come?

We have already traveled to the moon.

That's why God can control the universe.

With love's power, He can travel even faster.  Therefore, even God needs an ideal.

We need the four seasons and the changing weather, the great beauty of the universe to praise God for.

Some people may complain about spring, and like only autumn.  Other people say they hate winter or summer.  If you want to be in the image of God, you will go through all these seasons.  You may like winter, but you have to go through spring, summer and fall.

Would God only like comedy and not a serious drama?

Does God have a sense of humor and joke with loved ones?

If God was to disappear briefly, you become sad.  This sadness is not bad, because it gives additional stimulation when your loved one returns.  Love is never boring.

Over the course of history all peoples will be treated fairly. 

History does not flow in a straight line, but in waves.

A person may have a tragic history, but will experience glory at some time.  Stronger nations may conquer smaller nations, but at another time, the smaller nations and oppressed people will conquer the great nations.


That is why I do not come from a big country. I came from the small country of Korea to bring to America the ideology which can conquer. So far in the materialistic, scientific world, America has led the way. But the small country of Korea has a new spiritual ideology that will control the world. It is only fair. History is turning around.



These events are not happening separate from the rules of the principle.

Most of the problems that are occurring today, began because American society is very wealthy.

American homes enjoy so much that they do not appreciate it.  In essence, family members are not experiencing true spiritual love between each other.  Therefore, there must be a change that comes about throughout the nation.

Our planet earth even breathes.  It also expands and contracts.

This amount of change that comes about is very small compared to the size of the planet.  Still the earth swells and shrinks.  Do you think your cells in your body also breathe?

Scientists today are trying to prove that you do not need love to create a human being through a test tube, but every cell carries life.  Would you like to live on this clumsy earth forever as many dream, or would you want to become the central element of love and live forever without any limitation?

Well, does that mean you want to go to spirit world immediately?

Even with the Concorde, it would be difficult to stay up with the speed of God with our clumsy bodies.
 Does that mean you want to go to the spirit world very quickly?

Our real, true body is our spirit body, and our real world is spirit world.  This is reality.

God who is a spirit, created the body only to help the spirit become perfected while on earth, following Him looking over the universe enjoying eternal life.

God created man in spirit and body.  This is how God designed it.

Then you may wonder why would God need to make the external world and our clumsy, fragile bodies in the first place.

God's creation is the manifestation of spirit through the visible material.  God is the ultimate spirit like the north pole, and creation is the south pole.  That's man.

In other words, man is the visible image of God.

The central line where God can look down to the other extreme is the line of love.  God dwells in the center.  There, life, love and God's ideal world are all concentrated on this line.  That is the axis which turns.

You also want to live forever.  You want to have love.

You also want to have ideals which these things you crave are concentrated on this line.  This is the universal center for everyone.  It does not matter whether you are yellow, white or black.

God will be proud of His creation when man also rejoices over it. 

When you look at grass, you know that God made each beautiful green blade for you.  When you hear birds singing, you can think, "God created them for me.  Thank you God."

If you do not have this fundamental understanding about God's creation, you will not have gratitude.  \

Once you understand that everything was created in the pair system, God is the subject looking for His true object, and all the universe is the object to man, then you know that things are created for you.

Then you will understand that the central spirit behind all of creation is love.

Who is God and what is God?

God is the one who created life as a foundation.  He is searching after perfection in love, and he has a great ideal.

You and I are God's object, so therefore you pursue the same thing God pursues.  First of all, I must be an eternal being because my Creator is one.  Once you have eternal life, then what?

You fulfill love.

God's ideal is to fulfill love, therefore you want to make that circuit of love with God.  God is sacrificial and unselfish.  You want to truly give everything to God and God wants to give all He has to you.

In this respect, you want to own the entire world.  Within the spirit of love, you are able to do that.

God has a desire to love men, but how is that possible with men who do not possess love?

Man has the possibility to give and take in love, and then God can freely exchange His love with man.  The blessing will only come after a man or woman learn the true value of love and experience that love.

From this point of view, we know that the fall of man meant that man became numb to love when they did not follow God's word.  They did not grow to understand true, Godly love.

Christians always speak about being saved and how they want to have their little corner in heaven.  Most of them do not care about the world or about loving all people.  Being comfortable in their own lives and the few people they may meet, they do not waste their energy on world affairs.

Heaven is not a place. Heaven is love. 

It is a popular notion that heaven is a place in the sky and just by mere belief in Jesus as God's son you will enter the pearly gates.  Preachers may tell members of their congregation that when they pass on, all of their sins are automatically cleansed and they become perfect to live with God for eternity.

If you do not perfect your love or possess God's ideal and practice it on earth, you cannot speak about heaven.  Salvation becomes a visible image of God from the extreme of the material world.

If you yearn to go somewhere, you do not get there by just lying down and sleeping or hoping to get there.  God's desire is to perfect His visible image of man.

Therefore, we are not the subject, but the object.  Do you want to live by your own will and fallen ideals?  Live by your own motivation?

Americans practices too much individualism where each does not worry about others except their own position, situations and happiness.

How can they be harmonized with the universe with that kind of mindset?

With that kind of selfish motivation, the more you move, the more you become distant from the universe and further from unity.  You are separate from the universe and do not harmonize.  Is the American ideal a step forward or backward from establishing world peace?


Every day I am working to cut out all the old ideas and give you clean new ideas. But the old ideas tend to creep back in again! Think about yourself-how many times do you have to keep cleaning out the old ideas? You want me to do things the American way. If the American method would build the Kingdom of Heaven at once, I would be happy to do that. I am a logical person. I look at the truth, and if there is a better and faster way to achieve it, I would take it. 


Our problem is that we never threw out the old way of thinking that came with sin.  We just keep carrying them around.


But I devised a new way to get rid of them: It will be you a very narrow gate and a crooked road, and as you go along your luggage will get worn out and you will throw it away. I will push you faster and faster, and soon you will lose your old ideas.


Honestly, have you had to keep re-examining your old ideals?  To go God's way toward world restoration, you must be pushed out the narrow gate in order to be hardened and disciplined.

You will be tested and you can thank those who persecute you because you will find out how tough you are.

People come from all over the world with big bundles of ideas.  Satan would excuse if we just leave them alone or cut them from the dispensation.

The best way is to leave your luggage behind on your own.  We should make a pledge among ourselves to get rid of our baggage.

When you fundraise door-to-door, you can think of it like visiting another planet for the day.  Some planets will give you the cold shoulder and some people may shout or accuse you.  When you visit such a planet, you can think of that house as the winter season.

When you get a hot welcome, think of it as summertime house.

Through this type of work, you can rehearse everything in your life.  You should be able to be a rounded character that can like all season, weather and atmosphere.  This is your goal while you are here on earth.

By digesting with love everything happening here on earth, you become successful in your life.

Satan will naturally surrender in competition of love and has no defense when you practice intense love.

Love is your best offense and your best defense.  You can make love wider and wider because it has no limit and can break all barriers.  This is the original concept of God's creation.

For the first time in history, the concept of creation which is God's ideal is being followed.

Through the fall, man lost the knowledge of true love and love's order.  Man has remained in the dark of self-centeredness.  We must liberate mankind from its selfish lifestyle and behavior.  Wherever you go, you should be the crossroads where love, life and ideal are concentrated.

With it, there is nothing you cannot win.  Without it, there is nothing you can win.  Therefore, you must always defend these three points.  This is what God's strategy has been all of this time.

Is it right to refuse to go to a home because they are atheists and do not believe there is a God?  You should embrace such a family and be sacrificial toward them.

God always sacrifices Abel for the sake of restoring Cain.

For this reason, you are pushed strongly.

As people of faith, you are in the position of Abel, so you must demonstrate sacrificial love to save those in the Cain world.  The more you practice this greater love, the wider your horizon becomes.


 I have lived this principle all my life. I always forgave the people who mistreated me, and sacrificially loved them. Eventually they were conquered by love, and my own horizons became wider. Do you think I am very tough, or vulnerable and easy to break? I will never break. 


You, too should also have that kind of toughness that Father has that nothing can stop your life power.  If you are not able to demonstrate that power of life, love and ideal, God will not be able to have a good rapport with you.

God is eternal and tough.  When you resemble the Messiah, God will know He can trust you and deal with you.


When I issue a direction, how do you answer? Pushing you out and making you hard does not benefit me; it only brings criticism to me. I don't need your fund raising because I do not spend American money for my purpose. I can take care of myself. It is not for my own benefit that I push you.


If someone was trying to take your life power away from you, would you just give up in defeat?  What if your former boyfriend or girlfriend wants you to come back to them, will you just say, "To heck with eternal life, I just want to have fun"?

Do not do things that cheapen your life.

You are not able to swap the extreme value of your life for even the whole universe.  Your life is connected to God and is there for eternity.

Your life should be full of give and take with God.  Would you give up this pure relationship over a girl nagging you?

Are you able to sell your life cheaply?

Even if millions of Americans were to come against you, you still cannot sell it.  Even if the entire earth came after you, still you cannot sell it because it is more precious than the entire cosmos, equal to God.

Ungodly love brought about the fall of man below God's ideal and brought death and misery.  Through restoration, we have found true life.  Eternal life.

In order to restore the original love before it was lost through the fall, you should not hesitate to do anything that will bring you closer to the ideal.  Therefore, it is your pride to be persecuted, condemned and spit upon for the sake of restoration of true love.  Many saints, people of faith and conscientious people went this way of love for the world.

God created original love and now you are restoring it into wholeness.  You are doing the things that are as important as God is doing.  How great is this sacred work we are doing?


 Until God and the world are united in rejoicing over God's one principle, I shall not relax one minute. No matter what, you must defend the central point where life, love and ideal all come into the center.


We are pursuing that kind of eternal life here in the church and that kind of God-centered love and ideal.  The world is our stage.  If we are not victorious on earth, we shall never prevail eternally.  We have not been able to win the ultimate victory yet.

Instead of running many races, just think about being victorious all at once.  Think how to condense everything into one race.  You'd want to participate in that kind of game and that is why you become a champion for all seasons, in all areas.


I have a good brain and I am always thinking about what the one game is in which I can win everything. God wants to see His son win that kind of certificate. 


Think of that one game where you can win the championship.  That game is Home Church.  That is the place where you can run with your life, love and ideal.

No matter what people will say about you will not make a difference.  Go ahead and run in all directions with this principle.

If others sleep for five hours, you will sleep for four hours.  If they sleep four, you sleep three.  If they sleep for one hour, then you get no sleep at all.  You  must have strong life power.

Father lived by that high standard.  Many people think that he is like superman with an iron body as he was was in his 80s giving 10-hour speeches, playing sports and talking with leaders from around the world all day and night.

He may not be Superman, but he has an iron spirit.

Our mind tends to be unfocused and jump all around, but his mind is like a rock that stays firmly in place, period.  Once he set a goal and marched forward, there was nothing under the sun that could move him away from it.  He is determined that no matter what hits him, he would not shatter.

 I will not slow down at all. That is the kind of teacher and leader you have.

Whether you go to Africa, South America or Asia it does not make a difference where you are persecuted, how can you forget what you represent?

Wherever you go in the world, you stand on Principle.  God gave you Home Church as the stage to practice the principle with the people there representing the world.

Therefore, season your life with life power, love power and ideal power in your home church.

If you want to get a Ph.D, you have to work day and night.  Sometimes people may spend many years on their dissertation.

This work cannot be done in your own way,  it must be accomplished based on the Principle, in God's way.  You want to meet the three criteria of life, love and ideal.

When you think you have passed, then you will be given an exam to test how you did.  Then God will examine it and add the final signature.  Unless your certificate is signed and completed, it will not be accepted anywhere.

Go ahead and create the power of life, love and ideal so that your cup will completely overflow.

If you say this task is easy to do, then you are faking.  Life, love and ideal are important to us.


I know that it is not easy because I have been suffering all my life. What I had to obtain was so important that there was nothing I could not endure. I have already graduated, and now the next seven years are your course. I have become the school principal and now I can put my signature upon your certificate.


From the bottom of your heart, do you believe that this is the most important thing to practice?  Would you do this work of restoration if you were blinded, and your ears were cut off and you could not hear?

The Bible uses very severe language such as if your arm or leg hinders your work for God to cut it off because sin is detrimental.  With sin there is no way out.

If you pledge that today is a new day to begin practicing the Principle raise your hands.  Let us pray.

Return for Tomorrows Post: Even an Atom Has Aspirations

This post was rewritten from the speech Things That are Important to You

Life of Faith Toughest School

If you say that a school is good, usually it has an intense and demanding curriculum.  Religious life can be compared to going to school. Do you want to join a very simple, easy-going religion?

Members of other churches go to church Sunday morning and sit on cushioned seats. All they have to do is write out their contribution card and tithe weekly, and that's it. But here you have to raise funds. Some of you have been kidnapped by deprogrammers. There are incredible differences.



Reverend Sun Myung Moon


Of course a person that is healthy is able to digest things that a sick person would not be able to handle.  By the same token, when you have a healthy mind, you, also, can digest anything: democracy, communism, and any philosophy.

Which -ism do you think a movement such as this belongs?  Godism.  Also, Unificationism, which is concerned with uniting things.

Is it easy to unite things?

We each have five senses, plus the limbs, and the beauty of each component comes from its harmony with the whole.  The eyes do not say, "I do not want to belong to that community.  I want to be all by myself."

Even nature observes such laws of the Principle while humanity has turned away from it through choice.

Here, we have five different colors of skin coming from all different parts of the world.  Our goal is to unite them into one family of man.

This church-life of fundraising, witnessing and working around the world for world restoration is complex.

We are into boat building, the fishing industry, and later we will go to the deep mountains digging miles into the earth for minerals.  What are the goals through pushing members into these incredible experiences?

You are being made into people who cannot be defeated.  That is people who are so capable that there is no one who can keep up with you.

Through this difficult training, you are learning how to totally digest many ways of living.  Through the hardships and incredible experiences, you will become great teachers whom people ask for advice.

Then our question boils down to one central point: Is there a God?

We broke down in three previous points how the theory of evolution leaves out God in the answer to the origin of the universe.

Ultimately, our question boils down to one central point: Is there a God?

There are two contrasting "blocs" in our world today.

The two worlds are the democratic world, also called the free world, and the other is the communist world. There are a few basic differences.

People of the free world assert that all of creation began with a thought, through the invisible world of the mind, or God.  The communists on the other hand insist that matter is the essence of everything, and thought is formed from matter.

This is the fundamental difference between them.

However, because of the communistic influence that has captured the world, many people in the free world are not aware of the existence of the mind, or spirit because it cannot be seen.

When such a person gets up in the morning they know that they need warm clothing because it is cold, they don't need spirit.

If they could choose an overcoat, they would like mink or sable.  Is it easy to obtain high-quality, expensive things or is it difficult?

If God does exist in the universe, then He would be important to the existence of the creation.  But if this God was only good for fulfilling the external daily requirements such as meals and necessities, what kind of God would He be?

If God was on a mountain, He would not only be on the highest mountain, He would be at the peak of that mountain.  If there was a tree there, God would be at the very top of that tree.

Is it easy to find and discover God?  If God has hidden himself on the earth, if He dwelt in the desert, He would look for the largest desert, like the Sahara.  This is how we reason.

If God was in the midst of the Sahara, even though many people have died along the way in search of Him, there would be many other people who will never stop searching to find Him.

God is that precious.

If He is the most precious thing, and you knew you can find Him in the desert, would you like to go there?  Even if it was at the risk of your lives?

This is the way human nature is.

If God is at the highest point of the mountain, people would not stop climbing up until they reach that pinnacle.

That is the way man is created.  If He was hidden in a cave miles beneath the earth, men will dig and dig and not give up until they reach Him.  This is what man's spiritual nature is inclined to achieve.

Why is that?

While man is in the process of reaching that highest, deepest and widest point, we overcome everything in between.  Once we finally reach the top we become conquerors. Thinking men always feel they want to conquer something which ordinary people do not reach.

It is mans spiritual nature to reach and strive for the utmost.

Would God place Himself where it was easy or difficult to reach?  God would be at the pinnacle, where people could ultimately reach Him through an extraordinary way.  What place are we?


I really want to give people the most precious thing under the sun. Then should I devise a way of life which is easy to live? Or should it be a path full of overwhelming experiences?  Everyone wants to get a Lincoln, if possible, instead of a Ford or Chevrolet. The most beautiful car is the easiest thing to create in the factory, right? No, the most expensive car requires the most care to make.


A lot of investment, extra effort and all kinds of tests went into making a car.

People who buy cars do not think about how difficult it was to build;they just simply enjoy the car.  Even though one created the automobile and wants to ride it, the owner would tell him that he does not belong there.

But, if his car breaks down, who will he need?  He will need an auto mechanic.

The well-dressed rich man who bought the car and the oily mechanic are both connected to that automobile.  What does this analogy mean for us as people of faith?

Would you want to be the passenger in the expensive car, or would you like to be the dirty, oily laborer who made the car?  Anyone can get dressed up and sit in a nice car, but not everyone can create a car from nothing.


Dumb Reverend Moon took the difficult road instead of the easy one, becoming the dirty mechanic. The mechanic who had the ability to create the expensive car has nothing to worry about. If the car breaks down, he can fix it. Even if there isn't a car, he can create one. He has confidence in himself.


Many Americans are proud of the Empire State Building and the once World Trade Center and so forth, but who built them?  Who designed them?

The Trade Center was designed by Japanese and built by the unwealthy.  Americans are proud of such structures, but are they able to build them on their own?

Even if your ancestors were great, working hard to build the things America is now proud of, what abut you?

Descendants of many great people do not care about such things and rather go clubbing and just enjoy life dancing and having a good time.  What can they be proud of other than that?

Young people today are going after fun with no purpose in life. 

No matter how great their past may have been, these young people will decline.

The children of those who had built such great monuments should be able to do something even greater and bigger to leave for the next generations.  Thus, the nation and people will be able to prosper.  We pledge to be people who will be purposeful and prosper.

We shall be the remnant.

Father speaks about growing up in North Korea and the process of activities that work toward restoring the ideal world:

I was born deep in the mountain country of Korea in a little house. I talked about mankind, the universe, and salvation of the nation. My parents thought I must be crazy.

They said, "You are the son of humble peasants.  Think about how to take care of the fields, how to raise the animals."

People around there couldn't comprehend the things that the little boy was talking about, so they said I was a crazy child, and when I became a little older, they said I was a crazy young man, then a crazy adult.

That crazy boy grew up to be a crazy man, then came to the United States, and is still talking about crazy things. I act like a crazy person. People look at me and say that something must be wrong with my brain.

Recently I have been saying that America cannot afford to have Jimmy Carter as President for another four years. Attacking Carter was almost like hitting a stone wall with my own fist. Who would get hurt?

Even if my hand got hurt, I wouldn't stop. But finally the stone wall gave in.

From the average person's point of view, my ideas are a little crazy. You are the followers of that crazy man. Amazing, though you aren't bothered by being called crazy men and women. You became so crazy that you gave up drugs, gave up discos, and you stopped any promiscuous behavior. You are liberated from that.

We are looking at the entire world and are trying to do something about its problem. If I tell you to gather on the East coast, you hop into vans and drive all day and night, and in three days you are all here. If one driver's eyes keep closing, someone else will open his eyes and drive.

Do you think I am so dumb that I don't know anything about these realities? You fundraising members, for example, go out into the streets every day and people yell at you and spit at you. Sometimes you are even shot at.

The best attitude is to go do fundraising as a researcher who is studying the people who hate Moonies. I am also researching all the fundraising members. I push you out, and in the meantime I study what kind of person you are.

The material fundraising members get to study is the extraordinary treatment they receive.

Some are kicked, some are stabbed, and some are hit. I want to see these records. What makes the men and women who can withstand this remain committed to their purpose?

People do not like to suffer, even for themselves, but here my fundraising people are suffering for the sake of others. Not a single benefit comes to them, but they are doing it for the sake of others and for the sake of the world. This is either extremely bad or extremely good; it cannot be in between.

Certainly I don't enjoy tribulation.

I would much rather go to an easy church. But I discovered that an easy path was not going to bring the solution. An extraordinary route had to be found, and I found it.

Once I found that route, I asked you to go all the way and not give up. Do it until it is finished. What you are doing now is becoming dirty, oily car-makers. You have started to build an automobile, so don't stop in the middle; go all the way.

Your fundraising record will remain.

People will recognize your deeds and your certificate will come. Later, a signature will be placed on that certificate, acknowledging you as a master in your field of fundraising, for instance, and then you become a teacher. When you complete a most beautiful car and then you drive it, nobody will say anything critical to you.

Would you rather build a 1981 Lincoln Continental, or buy one from a dealer?

If you build one, when you drive it you are not just driving a car. You are demonstrating what you are and you can be proud of yourself. But if you only talk about your idea and never carry it out, no one will trust your word.

You may buy a car and be proud of it, but people will say that you are just being snobbish, that you really have no right to be proud. But, when you make it and drive it, then you can be proud of your accomplishment and no one will say anything.

The basic difference between you and me is that you would prefer to buy a car from the dealer while I would rather build the car myself. The Unification movement is like that car. I can be proud of it and no one can say I am taking too much credit.

However, I am still working on this car because I haven't gotten the certificate yet from the US government, for example. But eventually the certificate will be processed and the signature will be put on, and then I will proudly testify and proclaim it to the people. Then they will say they are ready to hear me.

My ambition is to make each one of you my coworkers in the factory. Are you the auto buyer, or a coworker? That means you want to get down to work, don't you? Doing this hard work means being disciplined, pushed and taught. As the foreman of the factory, I will not compliment you too much.

I will always discipline and criticize you instead. This is the only way I can make you into top-notch workers. I want to push you so hard that no one is able to compete with me. I want all customers to agree that the best automobile comes from the Moon factory. Would you like that reputation?

The same principle is being applied to boat making. I told our people to make the best boat under the sun, but to make it the cheapest. The only way they can do that is by sacrificially giving themselves. But through this process the most beautiful boat is created, and no one else has a boat that can compete.

With the same spirit we make a society, a nation. If we Moonies make the best kind of nation for the cheapest price, there won't be room for communism to creep in."


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Become Ideal People for Liberation


This Post was rewritten from the speech Things That Are Important to You

Divine Inspiration, Get It

"Before you dominate the world, first dominate yourself."


Actually, I dedicate this post to an experience that recently happened to me a little over a month ago.  After 35 years telling and writing stories, even becoming a journalist, I received divine inspiration and wrote my book in a 24-hour period. 

When I came across this text for this post, I was able to align myself to God's will as "more than imaginary" things were starting to develop, now are explained to me after reading this.  When it happens, you will know for sure that a good, high-level spirit or angel is guiding you along and it will not be a question. The same for the person God sends you to be the one, there is no question that God is guiding you.  But, with a gift comes responsibility.

When you establish in yourself the proper relationship between your mind as subject partner and your body as its object partner, you become the microcosm that resonates with the macrocosm, the spirit world and the physical world. You stand as the mediator and center of harmony between the two worlds because you have set up that harmony within yourself.

For its part, the spirit world rejoices to find in you a channel to work its will on the physical world. Although countless spirits long to do good works on earth, they require a responsive mediator through whom to act. By establishing yourself in the proper position, centered on God, you can meet the needs of the spirit world and become the focus of its attention.


Spiritual Inspiration and Our Response

Let us take some examples. It is well known that the abilities of psychics vary according to their emotional state and the spiritual environment. In the presence of skeptics, they are often disarmed and unable to show their powers. Healers testify that their healing works best when the patient is open and welcomes the work.

Even Jesus, the greatest of healers, said to the ones who were healed, "your faith has made you well" (Mark j:34), and could not do many healings in the face of pervasive unbelief. (Mark 6:5-6) This illustrates the principle that the subject-object relationship between the spirit world and the physical world is mediated through human beings. Doubt and skepticism block the relationship, and hence block the spiritual work. Faith opens the door for receiving spiritual help.

Spiritual inspiration lies behind the creative work of all great inventors, scientists and artists. In Dr. Sung Lee's tour of the spirit world, he saw spirits working in laboratories creating the stuff of invention that would be communicated to earthly scientists years later. Why is it that so many inventions and scientific discoveries are made almost simultaneously by several researchers in different parts of the world working in isolation from each other? When the time arrives for a new invention to be bequeathed to the earth, the spirit world will work through several channels at once.

Numerous accounts abound of scientists receiving the key to new discoveries in dreams or in flashes of unearthly insight. One celebrated example is the elucidation of the structure of benzene by the German chemist Friedrich August Kekule. He had puzzled for years over how its six carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms link together. (Ordinary hydrocarbons are built of straight chains of carbon atoms, but a chain of six carbon atoms with the stability of benzene would require fourteen hydrogen atoms).

One night Kekule fell asleep in his chair, and in a dream he saw snakes biting their tails and whirling around like hoops. He awoke and immediately realized that the six carbon atoms of benzene link together in a ring. With that discovery, all the facts of organic chemistry known up to that time fell into place.

Artists, poets and musicians since antiquity have acknowledged the Muse as the source of their creative genius. The words or music just comes to them, as if from a higher source. Take, for instance, this self-description by Mozart:
When I feel well and in a good humor, or when I am taking a drive or walking after a good meal, or in the night when I cannot sleep, thoughts crowd into my mind as easily as you could wish. Whence and how do they come? I do not know and I have nothing to do with it. Those which please me I keep in my head and hum them; at least others have told me that I do so. Once I have my theme, another melody comes, linking itself with the first one, in accordance with the needs of the composition as a whole: the counterpoint, the part of each instrument and all the melodic fragments at last produce the complete work. Then my soul is on fire with inspiration. The work grows; I keep expanding it, conceiving it more and more clearly until I have the entire composition finished in my head though it may be long.
Mozart was graced with the inspiration of music. He received his melodies from the spirit world. Furthermore, he knew what to do with them. He knew what to keep and what to discard, and how to develop them into a composition in accordance with the best of his art. By the time his "soul is on fire with inspiration" he would already be in the midst of co-creating a work of art whose initial seed had come to him as a gift from heaven.
Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual guidance from heaven often arrives cryptic and vague. Even Rev. Moon's directions, which we believe to be accurate in every respect, often are stated in only a few cryptic phrases. How much more uncertain is the guidance through a spiritualist, medium, palm reader or readers of Tarot cards, who has to hazard an interpretation of words and symbols!

The fact is, spiritual guidance must be couched in this way, with meanings hidden in obscure and ambiguous speech. According to the Divine Principle, people must exercise their portion of responsibility to understand the inspiration given from God and the spirit world. We are not meant to be led around by angels-all spiritual guidance is by nature angelic-but to exercise dominion over the angels as responsible agents through our own wisdom.

Otherwise, if spiritual messages were explicit, we would be little more than servants of those angelic beings, only doing their bidding. To give us the dignity of co-creators, God gave us responsibility to chart our own course with limited information, for example:
God could not instruct Cain and Abel on how to properly make their sacrifices because it was their portion of responsibility that Cain make his sacrifice with Abel's help.
God had directly revealed to John [the Baptist] that Jesus was the Messiah, and... he said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord," and declared that he was the one who had been sent before the Christ. Therefore, John should have realized through his own wisdom that he was the returning Elijah. Even if he not did not realize this fact, since God had revealed to him that Jesus was the Messiah, he should have accepted the testimony of Jesus and, in obedience, proclaimed himself to be Elijah. Our responsibility begins with effort to understand heaven's guidance with a public mind. Any selfishness or conceit may blind us to the will of heaven.
Therefore, when Rev. Moon says not to interpret his directions, he means we should not wriggle out of the path of sacrifice by cleverly reducing Heaven's request into something comfortable. We must anyway interpret what we receive in a cryptic and vague form, but we should do so with a public mind, following the Principle, ready and willing to take on whatever burden may be required. Then we will not go wrong. Our responsibility ends with action. In attempting to carry out a spiritual direction according to the best of our understanding, the direction will often become crystal clear.

All spiritual inspiration goes for naught without the training and motivation of the earthly people to make use of it. Everyone has an occasional flash of inspiration, perhaps the theme for a new song or the idea for a new invention. Usually we don't know what to do with them, so they slip in and out of our heads while we carry on with our ordinary lives. On the other hand, those scientists and artists who received the most exceptional gifts of inspiration invariably knew what to do with them. Because they had trained themselves for many years and had mastered the tools of their field, or because they were at such a high level as to be working on the cutting edge of knowledge, their minds could be responsive to the movement of spirit.

When the inspiration came, they understood its meaning and acted upon it. They had the resources and the motivation to work at turning that inspiration into a physical reality. It is said that invention is five percent inspiration and ninety-five percent perspiration. The spirit world looks for such prepared people to entrust with their most precious knowledge. They want to cooperate with earthly people who will strive every day to bring their spiritual design to fruition in the physical world. Such people will complete the link between the spirit world and the physical world as subject and object partners.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Create an Immortal Masterpiece


Photos: Courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net


This text was is based on the teachings of the late Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon and taken from the textbook: True Family Value written by Joong Hyun Pak and Andrew Wilson Chapter 5 - Reaching to the Spirit World Part 1