Lotte Hotel, Seoul, Korea
Distinguished Chairman, world leaders representing many regions and disciplines, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen! As founder of the World Culture and Sports Festival, I would like to offer my sincere appreciation to all of you respected leaders who have come from 185 countries on the occasion of the 1999 Festival.
I believe that humankind, now standing on the threshold of a new millennium, must move toward the realization of a culture of love, a global culture of the heart, for the sake of peace and prosperity. Given this, I believe that this convocation, with its theme “Family Ethics and World Peace,” is of great significance.
Establishing a true culture of love will require the alignment of many factors, but most imperative will be the realization of the stability and harmony of the family through the revival of ethical and spiritual values.
To establish an ethical standard of life for the individual, or an ethical standard for the family or society based on absolute values, one must realize a correct view of the world and universe. I would like to take this opportunity to speak to you on the subject of life and death, which all people have struggled to understand since the beginning of history.
We live in the physical world, but we know that this is not the only world that exists. There is also the spirit world. The spirit world is a definite reality. We also know that these two worlds, the physical world and the spirit world, are not meant to be disconnected from each other. They should be linked together as one single world.
We human beings, who were born from the spirit world, eventually return to that world. In Korea, we commonly use an interesting idiom about death: when someone dies, we say, “he has returned.” To where does he return? It is not a cemetery. We mean that we return to the point of life's origin.
We return across the vast expanses of history. In the process, we shed our nationality. We return to the world that brought forth the human ancestors. If a Creator exists, then we are returning to the world of the Creator. That is where we originated, so it is there that we finally return.
The universe is engaged in circular motion everywhere. For example, when the snow melts on the mountain, it forms a small stream. As it flows down, its volume increases until it becomes a river. Eventually, it reaches the ocean. From the ocean, it evaporates, completing the circle by returning into the atmosphere.
Sun Myung Moon
The School of Life
All beings desire to reach a higher ground, a better place, through circular motion. Where, then, is the better place we go to live eternally? While in the physical world, we live in our physical body.
Our mind, though, is headed toward the eternal world. We are born into this world, and we pass through our teenage years, our twenties, thirties, middle age, and eventually reach old age.
Ultimately, we come to the end of our lives, just as the sun finally sets on the horizon. Those who know that the spirit world exists, however, know very well that the time spent in our physical body is relatively short, and that the world we face after we die is eternal. They know that our life on earth is a period of preparation for the eternal world.
We are like students who must earn credits in all our classes so that we can fulfill our school's requirements. The school determines the extent to which its students meet its standards and decides whether it can recognize them.
The further a student's credits fall short of the standard, the more removed that student is from the school's standard of value. Similarly, the value of all beings is measured against a standard.
Our life in the physical world is a period of preparation comparable to the time a student spends trying to earn good marks at school. In other words, we spend our entire life on earth preparing and striving to make good marks.
Sun Myung Moon
We live each day of our lives centering on a measurement. That measurement is in accord with a particular standard. We are accountable to that standard for our entire life on earth.
The Unity of the Spirit World
Most people in society do not know with certainty about the original world where we go after life in this world. They do not know whether there is life after death, or even whether God exists.
Eventually, everyone goes to the spirit world. It turns out that the spirit world is a single realm. It is not divided into many countries, as is the physical world. Then, what is it like in the spirit world? We can compare it with the water that serves as the environment for fish.
Water is an absolute condition for fish to live. That doesn't mean, however, that a fish will spend its entire life in one place. A fish that lives in freshwater cannot spawn if it remains in its river.
It has to leave the freshwater and come into contact with saltwater to lay its eggs. It thus passes through two worlds. In the same way, our mind, part of the spiritual world, and body, part of the physical world, must be interconnected.
At the beginning of human history, a realm of global unity should have formed in honor of Adam's birthday, the anniversary of his holy marriage, and the anniversary of his death.
Then humanity could have united people by sharing in the commemoration of those days. Instead of dividing, humanity could have lived in a single realm. If this had happened, then Adam and Eve's way of life would have passed down through human history. The culture formed would have endured as long as human beings continued to exist.
Hak Ja Han Moon
The Value of Hope
Each of us goes through life ignorant of when we will die. We do not know that we won't die in a traffic accident. I think some people will die saying, “Oh, Reverend Moon was right!” expressing regret only at that moment.
When people go to the spirit world, they can be divided into two general types. The first comprises those who live out their natural life in this world, and the second comprises those who experience an untimely death.
Among the latter, some die as a result of punishment, and others die to pay indemnity for the nation or the world. Suppose God established one person in a central position with the value of a thousand people. What if God made that one person go the way of death in the place of those thousand people?
In such an instance, the grace and virtue of the one who died in their place would move the hearts of the thousand people. They would determine to live as that person, model their lives after that person, and live as he lived.
If they did this, the thousand people would enter the same realm of grace as the one who died for them. The reason we try to follow the philosophy of patriots and model our lives after wise men is that we desire to enter the same realm of grace as these people.
Some people live with hope while others live without hope. We can divide people's hope and aspiration into two general types: those centered on human beings and those centered on Heaven.
A newborn infant thinks that his mother's bosom is the most wonderful place in the world. At a certain point in its development, however, the child leaves its mother's bosom. As the child grows, he or she forms friendships, thinking himself happiest when he is with his friends.
Eventually, though, the young person will leave their friends behind. During our life course, we come to discover that neither loving parents nor a loving spouse, nor even loving children can completely satisfy our hopes.
People have many kinds of hopes. Eventually, all these hopes pass away. We have hopes for our family, hopes for our country, and hopes for the world. But the reality is that as we grow older, our hope grows weaker.
Some people boast that their hope represents the hope of all humankind, but find they lack the conviction to pursue it at the sacrifice of their lives. People fervently entertain many hopes during their lives. But when they face death, they abandon all their hopes. They desire to stay alive one more day.
Day after day, they wander searching for something new in which to place their hope. When they finally face death, though, all hope fades away, and they fall into despair as they set out on their final path. We know all too well that this is true.
Viewed as an individual, a person may possess worthy aspirations. But no individual hopes live beyond death. In my view, it is important for all people on earth today to give serious consideration to one question.
How can we find hope that will not collapse in front of death, but will transcend it?
All things of this world will pass away. Our families, nations, and even the world itself will pass away. Ideologies and philosophies will pass away. What is it that remains? Whatever remains is the hope that can defeat death.
We can consider a person who does not possess such a hope or aspiration to be defeated in life. There are people who, from the time they are born, reject all the hopes and aspirations of the secular world.
Sun Myung Moon
These people embrace aspirations not of the human world but of Heaven, eternal hopes. Heaven helps these people. A life of faith does not embrace any aspiration that exists on earth.
Instead, it embraces the hopes that surpass even the gates of death. It dreams of the world of eternal hope.
Overcoming the Fear of Death
Someday I, too, will die. When we are young, we don't think much about death. But we become increasingly serious about death as we grow older. This is because death is a gate through which we are inevitably destined to pass. But what happens to us after we die?
Do you know why I am talking about death?
I talk about death to teach the meaning of life. Who knows the value of life? It is not the person who is going all out to preserve his life. The only person who knows about life is the one who goes into the valley of death. He confirms the meaning of life as he desperately cries out to Heaven at the crossroads of life and death.
Why do people fear death?
It is because they do not know the purpose for which we are born. Those who do not know why we are born do not know why we die. Therefore, the first question philosophers ask ME, “What is life? Why are we born?”
If we think about it, we realize that when we die, we are reborn into the midst of God's love. But in the human world, people cry out, “Oh no, I'm going to die! What am I to do?”
They make a big fuss. Do you think that God laughs, “Ho ho ho!” when we die? Or do you think God cries out, “Oh no!” and is overwhelmed with sorrow? The truth is, He is happy.
This is because the moment of the physical body's death is the moment we experience the joy of leaving the finite realm of love to enter the infinite realm of love. It is the moment of our second birth.
Is God happier on the day we are born into the physical world, or at that moment we leave our physical body behind? At that moment, we are born a second time into the realm of the infinite expansion of love.
Sun Myung Moon
We become His new children through death. Of course, God is happier at the second birth. I am telling you this because you need to know that you cannot have a relationship with God unless you are released from the fear of death.
Our Two Births
It makes God happy to watch and directly take part in our lives. Consider how a baby is born and wets its diapers as it begins the process of growth. God is happy because as the child grows, the pulse of love that is in God's heart also grows.
When God makes a face, babies imitate Him and make the same face. When God smiles, babies also smile, and when He is sad, they also are sad. This is how babies gradually grow to resemble God.
As babies grow, they also begin to resemble their parents. From their parents, they learn language and the rules for daily life. Of course, all these things have their origin in God.
So, after God has lived with us on earth and goes whoosh over to the other side, what are we supposed to do? If we say, “Wait, God, I want to go with You,” will He reply, “Who are you? I don't know you?” Is he likely to leave us behind like that?
Or will He want to take us with Him? Of course, He will want to take us with Him. But when God says, “I can't take you with me now. I'll take you with me after you have grown a little more.
I want you to work a bit more on your perfection,” we can reply, “Well, we can't go now, but we are certain that there will come a time when we can go.” Then we can wait for that day.
In our physical body, we are unable to follow God wherever He goes. It is only natural that we would aspire to resemble God. On His part, God also would want His sons and daughters to resemble Him.
We must conclude, then, that God designed us to be born again into a body that enables us to resemble Him. God and human beings long for that eternal day when we can soar through the heavens together.
The day we are born as beings who can take wing with God, the day we are born into that body, that is the day of our physical death. On that day, we cast off the physical body like an old coat. Then, should we welcome death or fear death? The answer, of course, is that we should welcome death.
For what purpose, then, should we die?
We should die for the sake of God's true love. That is the love whereby we seek to sacrifice ourselves for others.
We can conclude that the reason we cast off our physical body is so that we can participate in the realm of God's work of love. We die for the sake of the world of God's love.
Wouldn't you like to be born as God's real sons and daughters, who can receive and practice true love? If we could measure God's wealth, how rich do you think He would be? Have you ever thought about that?
With all those stars in the universe, isn't it likely that there is one star that is a solid diamond?
How about a star of pure gold? God is truly omniscient and omnipotent.
Wouldn't He want His children to have everything? What do you think? God can go from one end of the vast universe to the other instantly. Is this something that you would find interesting to do?
To gain that ability, what do we need to do? We must keep the laws that God has established for us. Only when we do so is it possible for us to be with Him. It is impossible if we just behave anyway we want.
Sun Myung Moon
Are you confident that you can refrain from doing what God tells you not to do? Human beings have a dual structure. The mind is the subject partner, and the body is the object partner. The two must become one, with the body subordinating itself to the mind.
The Three Stages of Life
We go through three realms that correspond to the stages of formation, growth, and completion. We go through the realm of water in our mother's womb, then the realm of the planet earth, and finally the heavenly realm of floating in air.
We go through the period in the water of the womb and are born into the world. We live in our physical body in this world for about a hundred years, until we enter the world in which we fly. We pass through these three realms.
When a fetus is in the womb, it resists leaving the womb for the outside world. It fights as hard as it can to stay in the womb. The reason is that when the fetus leaves the womb, its home is destroyed.
All its nourishment and everything else it had in the womb broke apart and flowed away. Furthermore, its head and the body increase in size during the birth process. Who would want to go through something like that? Every fetus cries, “No!” until the moment of birth. Eventually, the water breaks, and the infant follows soon after.
As you watch a woman give birth to a child, you have to feel sorry for her. Women who have given birth know what I am talking about. When the mother is pushing, it makes no difference how beautiful she may be.
Her face contorts into all sorts of strange shapes. She makes such terrible faces that even her husband can't stand to watch and leaves the room. She makes just about every possible face. So, the mother, too, goes through tremendous pain up to the last moment for the baby to be born.
Sun Myung Moon
After birth, is it necessary to leave the umbilical cord connected to the baby's navel? Or is the umbilical cord chopped off without a second thought? Maybe someone should object, saying, “That cord is someone's lifeline. How can you cut a lifeline that connects one human being to another?”
The newborn infant, too, cries at the top of its lungs because it thinks it is about to die. As God looks on, though, He can't help but break into a happy smile. From the viewpoint of the new life that has just been born, one world has just disappeared completely. Now it must breathe the air of its new world. A child is conceived in the depths of water.
The period in the womb is a period of existence in water. As long as the fetus is in its mother's womb, it is floating in water. At first thought, you might think the time in the womb would be difficult because the fetus cannot breathe. You would think that it would need a process of taking in and sending out water.
This function is fulfilled by something like a hose attached to the baby's belly. How does a fetus in the womb receive nourishment? It receives nourishment through its navel.
For the child in the womb, the navel functions as a mouth. So, we should not be disdainful of our belly buttons. Give your belly button a little rub and say, “Hey, belly button. Thanks for working so hard back then.”
If you pat your belly button often, it is good for your health. No, seriously. It's a good way to exercise. It's good for your health to exercise your belly button. For example, a person sleeping in a cold room can avoid coming down with diarrhea as long as they keep their belly button well covered.
The Breath of Love
We can refer to our belly button as our former mouth. Someone might say, “How foolish. Whoever heard of a former mouth?” There's no denying the fact, though, that your belly button once functioned as your mouth.
The belly button also acted as a breathing apparatus. Your present mouth fulfills that function here on earth. The function has moved up your body. The same function is as necessary for the spirit self as it is for the fetus in the womb.
The spirit self is attached to the physical body that lives on earth by breathing air. It lives off the physical body until the body grows old. Then the spirit self kicks the body away and tries to separate.
If at that moment, the body cries out, “No, I don't want to die! I won't die!” how will God react? Will he feel sorry for the physical body, because of the pain it is enduring? Or will He quietly smile?
The child who experiences pain to emerges from its mother's womb grows to become the object of its parents' love. In the same way, our spirit self must leave behind our crying physical body to be born anew as the eternal object of the God who is a spiritual being.
This is a conclusion based on Principle. On earth, too, the baby can become the friend of its father and mother after it is born.
This is because it is born into the physical world, where it can share love with its father and mother. In the same way that the fetus swims around the mother's womb, life on earth is breathing and living in the swaddling clothes of air.
Sun Myung Moon
Only when the baby shares love with its mother and father as it breathes air can we say it is alive. In the same way, we can share love with God, our Parent, who exists as an eternal spiritual being, after we are born again into the spirit world.
What kind of place is the spirit world?
When we enter the spirit world, we begin to breathe through a hole on the top of our head and through our cells. The air in the spirit world is not the air we have on Earth. Instead, it is love.
When a spirit person breathes, he or she inhales and exhales the nourishing elements of love.
On Earth, eating alone does not sustain our lives. When we eat and drink, all we are doing is filling our stomachs with food and water. Eventually, we will die. The form we take during life on earth is our second existence. While on earth, we need to develop our character of love.
Therefore, on Earth, the thing we need most is love.
What is an orphan?
Why do we call a child who cannot receive love from a father or mother an orphan? It is because such a child lacks the love by which he or she can connect eternally with the spirit world. Absent love, we are lonely. That is why we feel sorry for a person who lives without a spouse.
Death destroys our ability to breathe in the second stage, and connects us with the nourishment of love. We eventually have no choice but to leave the physical body behind.
We cannot see love, but our internal structure develops centering on the love of parents, of husband and wife, and of children.
Sun Myung Moon
Just as there is a normal development for a child in its mother's womb, there is a normal course of development on earth. We follow it by living by the laws of God. We cannot do it by living just any way we want.
Human Flight
If we examine the world of nature, we see that insignificant insects, seeds of trees, and even baby birds can fly. Does it make sense that human beings, the greatest of all creations, cannot fly? Look at the dandelion.
It is made so that its seeds will fly away when the wind blows. Birds fly, insects fly, and the seeds of plants fly. Surely, human beings also must have been created with a way to fly.
Someone might be tempted to complain, “God, why did you create us without the ability to fly when everything else in creation can fly?” God's reply probably would be, “Wait a few decades until you reach completion, and then I will let you fly.”
So, what should we be doing until then?
We need to train ourselves to be able to adapt to the spirit world. We need to train ourselves by loving our parents, our spouse, and our children. Then, when the time comes, we will enter the eternal world and live in the presence of God.
For that to take place, we must put aside this physical body and die. Look at the life cycle of the cicada. Before a cicada can fly, it goes through a larval stage.
What would happen if the cicada said, “I want to go on living as a larva. I would rather not shed my skin. I'm not concerned about land and air?” Even if it were resisting its transformation, once it shed its skin, it would fly away.
A similar situation obtains with the dragonfly. First, it exists as a larva, swimming around in water. Then it crawls on land for a time. Thereafter, it sheds its skin and flies away.
It begins to eat insects that it never would have thought of eating while it was living on land. As it flies around, the entire world becomes its home. Many insects pass through three stages like this. That is why insects have wings. They develop wings through their life in the water, on land, and finally in the air.
Human beings are the highest beings in creation, but do we have wings? Does living only on the earth satisfy us? Human beings have wings, but they are wings of a higher order.
You may say you would rather not put aside your physical body and die. But once we die and leave our physical body behind, our spirit self passes through the blessed gates of our second birth, and whoosh, we fly away.
Crossing the finish line
As I have already said, we cannot avoid death. We have to be prepared to suffer to establish the good that is in us as our second self in the eternal world. A fetus in its mother's womb must receive proper prenatal care if it is to be born healthy and strong.
In the same way, we need to prepare ourselves properly while on Earth. We need to grow by modeling ourselves on the image of God, the heart of God, and the divinity of God.
Once we are grown, we need to invest our lives to pass over the line of life and death. We must pass over, even if we have to brave the fiercest storm. It is not enough if we do well most of the way and then fall just short of the finish line.
What must we do when we find ourselves approaching life's finish line? Even if we run with our minds focused totally on the goal, we can't be confident that we will make it all the way. If we wander at the end, we will be ruined. We win only as we dash across the finish line.
It is an effort worth making for everyone born as a human being. No matter how much opposition there may be from behind, no matter how much persecution comes from the side, you just have to push forward one step at a time.
There is no time to get entangled with the opposition. You have to keep going as quickly as you can, even one step at a time, to traverse your path of destiny to its end and finally cross the finish line. We all must go this way.
The Value of Righteousness
We often say that a person's heart is upright. What does this mean? When a heart is firmly vertical, we say it is upright. If a tree is lying on the ground, we don't say it is upright. The same is true when we refer to a heart as upright. The expression means that the heart is standing vertically.
That is why human beings walk upright. An object must be vertical to be upright. We must set our hearts in a completely vertical position. Then the body will be horizontal about this.
When the vertical and horizontal are set within us, the pulling power of the vertical and the pushing power of the horizontal will be in balance. There will arise centripetal and centrifugal forces. So, we need to find ourselves.
When we assert ourselves, we should say that God and true parents are also this way. On this foundation, we can expand our sphere of life through relatives, one clan, and one nation.
Doctors quarantine patients who have dangerous communicable diseases. For the same reason, the time is not far off when we will send people who know the Will of God but continue to sin despite this knowledge into isolation near the North Pole or other arctic areas.
Sun Myung Moon
People thrown into such a place might not have a place to sleep or food to eat. They may go through immense suffering until they can genuinely repent.
There is one thing that makes me sad. God gave me the responsibility to accomplish His will, so during my lifetime, I need to accomplish His will to a level He finds acceptable. Until I have done that, I cannot die. For that reason, when I am in the valley of the shadow of death, God leads me out of danger.
Whether I am eating or fasting, whether I am asleep or awake, I am always praying for the world and humankind. My suffering is not for the sake of a particular country or people. My objective is the salvation of the world. I have worked to this day, and I am ready to die if necessary.
I have sacrificed my life so that this objective might be achieved. You, also, should live and die for the sake of the world. If it is for the sake of world salvation, you must even be prepared to die with your wife, your family, your clan, and even your entire people.
Face to Face with Death
Some day in the future, you will die. When you stand face to face with death, you will look back upon your life. You need to think about what final words you will leave behind at that moment.
On the path of death, your friends will not be with you. Your loving parents will not be there, nor will your loving brothers and sisters. Your spouse and children, whom you love so much, will not be with you. It is a path that you will take alone.
No one can go down that path twice. Once you have gone, there is no coming back. Once you take that path, you cannot return for all eternity. The heart that you have as you walk that path is important.
When that moment arrives, face to face with death, if you do not possess the hope that can transcend death, that will be the end of you.
In history, there have been many people who upheld and established God's will. They did not retreat when they faced death. Instead, they laughed in the face of death and valiantly transcended death. We know well that these people paved our way to Heaven.
What kind of person is it who is joyful even when passing over the hill of death, the moment that drives most of us into heartfelt sorrow? This is the kind of person who has heartfelt hope and aspirations for Heaven.
For this reason, we must not reproach the world and lament when we face death. Instead, we should feel joy as we stand before heaven with pride in the value of our death.
What happens to us when we die? Up to the moment we die, we belong to ourselves. But as soon as we die, we belong to God. This is because we are born of a fallen lineage. Until our death, we cannot cut our ties with Satan. After death, though, we establish ties with God. There is no resurrection without death. It is impossible to enter into the next period without first passing through the preceding one.
To what kind of death does the Bible refer when it says that those who seek to die will live and those who seek to live will die? (Luke 17:33, John 12:25) This does not mean that we should lose the eternal life given to us by Heaven.
Hyo Jin Nim
It means that we should lose the life that is connected to the satanic world, inherited through the fallen lineage. That is why those who seek to die for the sake of God will live. This seems paradoxical. But from the perspective of the fall, this is the only way restoration can come about. This is the standard for discussing the possibility of restoration.
Wisdom and Foolishness
Success or failure in life is not determined over decades. Rather, it is determined instantly. If you look at the entire course of life, it does not take very long for a baby to be born. Of course, there is a period leading up to the birth when the fetus is in the womb.
Those ten months in the womb are a time of preparation. The birth takes but an instant. The preparation may go well for the entire ten months, but if something goes wrong at the decisive moment of birth, the infant will meet a tragic end.
After living out our lives on earth, we come face to face with our moment of fate. We will see our entire life flash before our eyes. The one who can say, “There was truth in my life, and I am leaving behind something more valuable than my life,” is a person who has worthily spent his life.
On the other hand, the person who starts to recall the past and begins to shake his head over things he would rather not remember is tragic. For some people, the more they remember, the greater the expression of joy on their face. If all their problems can be buried in the ideal, death will be a comfort.
The moment of recalling the past will not be filled with fear. If they are leaving something behind, then that record will not die, and its reality will not die. Instead, these things will be made manifest.
The people whose past allows them to do this are, undoubtedly, people whom the nation can follow. They are the ones whom the people of the world can follow. We need to consider whether we can stand alone before God.
Truth and goodness begin with a particular individual, but they do not end with that individual. Once truth and goodness have begun in a particular person, they must bear fruit in another person. Or, they can begin in another person and bear fruit in me.
If a person spends her life giving to others, then she will have no fear on the path of death. She has given everything and sacrificed herself for others. She has led a life that is close to truth; she has shed tears for others, and she has invested her life in others.
If a man's aspirations are for others, all the life force coming from his pulse is focused and invested for the sake of others. If this is the case, then this person's past is one of glory. The path taken by the wise is different from that taken by the foolish. A wise person tries to live in partnership with history, in partnership with the present world, and partnership with the future.
A foolish person lives for the self and tries to make the world exist for his or her own sake. There is a global environment characteristic of the spirit world, and within it are nations, clans, families, and individuals.
An individual cannot enter Heaven without a self-motivating character, by which he or she is indispensable as an individual. The family or clan cannot enter Heaven unless they can say that they possess a self-motivating character that makes them indispensable on the family or clan level.
Sun Myung Moon
How To Go To Heaven
Compared with the spirit world, Earth is but a speck of dust. The spirit world is eternal, transcending time and space. If a spirit person commands, “The person who lived in such and such an age with such and such a heart, please come forward,” then that person will appear instantly. It is a world in which feelings and intuition turn into reality. There are no factories there to produce food. There are no automobile factories. There is nothing like that.
To register yourself in the spirit world, you need a certificate based on your life on earth. How are you going to obtain it? I'm talking about a certificate of life that will let you say: “This is what I became. This is what I did.”
You cannot just make your certificate. First, Satan has to write one for you. After you receive that certificate, you have to receive one from Jesus. Finally, you have to receive a certificate from God. You will need these three certificates.
When you go to the spirit world, you will find that it is made up of three giant realms. Those who lived for others will go to the highest level. Those who live for themselves, however, will find themselves on the lowest level. They will find that everyone is opposing them, whereas everyone will welcome those who live for others.
Once you are in the spirit world, your parents and spouse cannot help you. The people in the highest levels are those who live for the sake of others. In the uppermost tiers are those who traveled throughout the world, living for others with a heart that expanded their love for their mother and family. With a saintly heart, they are constantly investigating how to save the people of the world from evil.
The one who lives for himself goes to Hell, and the one who lives for others goes to Heaven. People separate into these two worlds at death. So, we must live for the sake of the whole, for the sake of the greater good. Live for the sake of the world, for the sake of God, and the sake of human liberation.
Someday, competitions will take place to see who can live for the sake of others to a greater degree. In the heavenly world, the person who has lived for the sake of others will go to a higher position.
So you can leap to a higher position by living for the person who is higher than you are. Living for that person is the same act as God bringing forth His object through His creative act. Thus, that person comes to stand as your object partner of love.
The Value of Living for Others
In the spirit world, we live for others, centering on true love. If you encounter a person who has dedicated 100 percent of his life to the sake of others, then you have to say, “Please move past me, go ahead.”
It doesn't matter how great the United States seems. A person who dedicates his life to the people of America to a greater extent than your President does can move past the President and be welcomed.
When a person only cares about his interests, he is everyone's enemy. It is the same way in the spirit world. When a person says he will live for something greater, then he will naturally move past others.
One who lives for the sake of the world does not need to worry about living for America because America is included in the world. All countries are included in the world. The conclusion can only be that true love, by which a person lives for the sake of others, is the only content and direction that everyone can welcome.
When you die, you must take with you three accomplishments. One, that you loved God. Two, that you loved yourself and worked hard to establish your essential self. And three, that you worked hard to expand the love you shared with your spouse and your family to the entire world.
This love for humanity and God will remain forever. It will define your right to ownership in the next world. When you enter the spirit world, the number of people you evangelized will determine your right to ownership.
In the spirit world, pride wells up over the extent to which you longed for people with your life. You do not need anything else in the next world. The only thing you need is the record that you loved God more than the world, more than your country, more than your spouse, and more than your children.
If a wife wants her husband to love her with godly love of a higher order, then she has to say, “Please love God more than you love me, and then love me.”
Sun Myung Moon
The Family and Spirit World
I often preach about the realm of the heart. The foundation for the realm of the heart is the love of true parents, the love of true brothers and sisters, and the love of true children.
The world of the heart is one in which we universalize these types of love. In this original world, a person can live by the standard of husband and wife love, but theirs must be a husband and wife love that gives primacy to heaven and earth and the cosmos.
So, where do we go to establish a foundation to qualify for that world? We must lay this foundation in the physical world. We are not to spend our time here for the sake of all those things valued by this world. We are here to qualify ourselves for the next world.
That is the basis for the principle that we live as families in the spirit world. Why do we need to have children? The vertical love of God and the horizontal love of parents bring descendants into this world.
This is a vertical and horizontal mixing of the blood of God and the parents. Thus, people who were unable to have descendants on earth will not be able to harmonize Heaven and Earth in the spirit world. They will be unable to keep step with the rhythm of north, south, east, and west. A person who has no descendants will have no place to rest or play in the next world.
Religions and Nations in the Spirit World
In the spirit world, there is no need for religion, much less for denominations. There is no need for entities such as the Presbyterian Church or the Catholic Church. People there are in the realm of life together with God.
In that realm are people who loved the world, patriots and loyal subjects, women of virtue, and saints. As far as I am aware, however, there is as yet no one who has lived his or her life in the original love of God, centering on the tradition of the realm of the heart.
Whenever you begin a task, you should begin it by centering on God. Whether you go to Hell, the middle spirit world, Paradise, or the Kingdom of Heaven is determined by the extent to which you harmonize with this principle.
The most precious path on earth is that which endures the highest amount of suffering and sheds the most tears for the sake of Heaven. That is the path that will bestow the freedom to enter the next world.
In the next world, people of different nationalities cannot live together, but true followers of all religions can live together. The religious sphere is one of longing for one world and believing in one God. So people of true piety will be together.
The uniqueness of people of faith is in their living their entire life based upon the standard of the spirit world. Religion teaches us how to relate with each other, centering on the eternal world, the transcendent world, the dwelling place of the Divine Being, whether we call Him God or by some other name.
God's Call to World Leaders
Respected leaders! Human beings have strongly pursued prosperity and world peace on a national level and through international organizations. The reality shows us, however, that political, economic, and technological efforts alone have not effectively achieved those goals.
Only if these efforts are supported by the more internal ones of religion, education, and culture, can ideal results be secured.
This is because the true happiness of humankind is not realized by external, physical and material prosperity or comfort alone. The true ideals of humankind are realized through a more internal, spiritual and mental perfection and satisfaction.
This can be possible only within the framework of religious teaching and the cooperation and unified action of all the world's religions. On this occasion today, I would like to advocate for the establishment, within the UN, of a structure amounting to a United Nations of world religions, whose delegates would be the major faiths and their leaders.
Today, for the sake of the future of the world and of humankind, I am sincerely asking all of you, and world leaders in every field-to seriously discuss, from this point on, the establishment of a United Nations of world religions and the importance of that organization's role.
Thank you very much.
Sun Jin Moon