Nature and the Lessons It Offers

1. When I was young, my sphere of activities was very broad. As far as my eyes could see, across the fields and to the mountaintops, there was nowhere I didn't explore. I had to go even over the mountains.

Seeing the morning sun peeking over the mountains, I would wonder what was out there. And so wherever I went, you would never find me sitting down to rest. In this way, my heart of faith was cultivated in the mountains and rivers of my hometown. I still remember the water, the trees, the land, and the spring breeze in my hometown.

All these vivid memories live in my mind and heart. Even the dialogue with God that I experienced through my prayers is still vivid and clear.
(221-071, 1991.10.23)

My childhood immersed in nature

2. When I was a child roaming through the mountains, I carefully observed every flower. There was no flower I did not know. I loved nature so much that I would forget to go home.

Sometimes, after playing until sunset, I would fall asleep on the hillside, and my mother and father had to come and find me and carry me home, even at midnight. I was that fond of nature. (203-185, 1990.06.24)

3. I could identify all the birds in the mountains. When a new migrating bird came through, I wanted to know what the male and female looked like, but at that time there were no books available about birds.

So I had to follow these new birds and do my research. All week long, forgetting mealtimes, I would wait until a bird appeared. Then I would follow it until I found its nest. I would see its eggs, and confirm, “Aha! This bird has this kind of egg!” My heart would not rest until I had satisfied my curiosity; only then could it settle down. (162-213, 1987.04.12)

4. There was a big tree in front of our house. It was quite a large tree, and there was a magpie's nest in it. Once I knew the bird had laid its eggs, I wanted to see the eggs. I could not rest until I saw them.

Finally, I climbed the tree in the evening to look, and then I climbed the tree again at dawn to look at the eggs before the mother bird left the nest. For several days, each time I climbed up I found one more egg.

Since I climbed so often, eventually, I became good friends with the magpie. Originally, the magpie would screech and threaten to peck me with her beak. But since I went up every day and did not harm her eggs, finally she grew quiet and didn't mind me. In this way, I observed what she was doing in the nest and what kind of food she fed her young. (051-270, 1971.11.28)

5. Magpies build rather large nests. They apply mud to the inside of their nests to make them very solid, Also, they know from which direction the wind blows, and they make the entrance to their nests on the opposite side.

The first time I climbed to see a magpie's nest, the mother magpie cried out noisily. But after I had been up once or twice, I saw her lay her eggs. I climbed the tree every day twice a day, in the morning and at lunchtime. At first, the bird caused quite a commotion, but after I climbed up and down the tree like that for a week, she realized I wouldn't harm her and calmed down.

During rainy periods, I could not climb the tree for a few days. When the sun returned and dried everything out, I would climb and the magpie would be so happy to see me, chattering, “Caw, caw, please come up!” When you are intimate with things, you can go anywhere. What would happen if you loved the things God created more than you loved God?

If you love a painter's art more than you love the painter, you win the artist's heart. It's the same between you and God. When you love God's handiwork in nature, He will come to you. He will teach you, “Here is why this is like this.” Nature is that precious. (278-119, 1996.05.01)

6. When I was a child, there was a chestnut tree just outside my room. It stood next to the outhouse. It was a very tall tree, its leaves so fresh and brilliant and shiny green. Cicadas clung to the branches; it was the highest place around. They seemed to know that the highest place was the best place to sing.

They needed to sing from a high place for their song to be effective. You cannot imagine how happy I felt whenever I heard that sound. It's so refreshing. You should stop and listen to their song sometime. Village women would often stop their sewing to listen, drawn into a dreamlike state by the sound.
(233-144, 1992.08.01)

7. When a bee buries its head deep in an acacia flower, totally engaged in sucking the nectar, with its abdomen jutting out, even if you pull on its abdomen with tweezers, it will not let go, even if its body is pulled apart. Isn't that incredible?

It is shocking to think that someone would pull a bee apart, but it is even more shocking that the nectar's taste keeps the bee sucking anyway. When I saw this I thought, “Oh, this teaches me something. I must be like this.”
(186-303, 1989.02.06)

8. When I go to the ocean, I can do all kinds of work. I know what kinds of crabs and what kinds of fish live in the sea. The ocean is quite far from my hometown, so I could go there only when vacation time came, and then I went to the ocean every day. I caught crabs and eels, searching everywhere along the shore.

I learned about everything that was going on there. Next, I tried fishing. I found out what kinds of fish lived in different locations, and I began fishing in those areas. In particular, I was the champion at catching creatures like eels.
(144-294, 1986.04.26)

9. During summer vacation I caught more than forty eels every day. Eels live in rather deep water. They don't like to show themselves. Instead, they stay inside deep holes to protect themselves.

They feel safe and comfortable with their bodies covered in the hole, even though their heads or tails may poke out. That is their instinct. Their holes look something like crab holes, but I can tell at a glance if it is an eel hole. I am an expert at that. (180-242, 1988.08.22)

10. When a hen is sitting on her eggs to hatch them, she keeps her eyes wide open and keeps turning the eggs with her feet. By the end, she loses most of the white feathers on her underside.

That is how intently she focuses on hatching her eggs. Do you think she would feel good or bad, sitting like that for such a long time? I was so interested in this when I was young that I looked into the hen house every day. Initially, the hen tried to chase me away, but when I looked in three times every day, eventually, the hen just accepted it.

When you watch a hen hatching her eggs, she is adamant about protecting them, as if saying, “No one can touch my eggs! I will never forgive that.” The hen behaves like a queen with great authority, and she will not forgive anyone who harms her eggs.

Even the rooster does not dare to challenge the authority of the hen. If you asked a rooster to sit on the eggs, he would surely run away after less than three hours. The hen's instinctive power to sit and hatch her eggs is the power of love.
(175-241, 1988.04.24)

11. Magpies always make their nests in big trees. Magpies are considered auspicious birds. When a

magpie chatters, “kawk, kawk, kawk!” we say good news is coming. It is interesting to observe a magpie's behavior. When you see a magpie's nest, you can tell from which direction the wind will blow this year.

If the winds are from the east, the magpie prepares by building its next entrance to the west. No one teaches a magpie how to build its nest, but each one is a masterpiece made of twigs. You might think such a nest would leak when it rains, right? But as a final touch, the magpie plasters the inside of the nest with mud.

This blocks the wind. Furthermore, the magpie arranges the twigs to slope in one direction so that when it rains, the raindrops will flow outward rather than into the nest. The twigs are also arranged in layers to prevent rain from flowing into the nest. I wonder who taught the magpie such wonderful workmanship.
(141-033, 1986.02.16)

Nature's lessons in true love

12. When we think about all things of creation, we can see that everything has been prepared for the time when True Parents and God's true love will appear. Everything in the mineral kingdom is in love; everything in the plant kingdom is in love.

Butterflies, bees, animals – all are bound together in love. The flowers emitting their fragrance and putting forth their blossoms, together with the many sounds of nature – all are symbolic expressions of love. What is the relationship between a butterfly and a flower?

A butterfly flits around looking for the flower, while the flower opens itself and displays its beauty to the world. This is how all things play together and move to the rhythm of the universe.

Considering that God created the whole universe with love at its center, we realize how wonderful God is who made all this – this beautiful garden and harmonious museum of nature – for me. In summer, the cicadas sing in pairs, responding to each other. This is like a song of love. Everything is a textbook for us.
(132-158, 1984.05.31)

13. When I was in prison in Danbury, there was an area where the ground had been leveled by a bulldozer to make a sports field. During the rainy season, construction had to stop for a while.

Near the construction site was some wetland, and during the break from construction, a waterfowl laid her eggs and hatched her young. The bird might have thought that was a safe place since no one was present at the time. However, after the rain ended, people began to walk around there.

The bird's nest was less than two meters from the path. At that time, I noticed a very mysterious thing. When people passed by without noticing her or her nest, the mother bird kept silent. But if anyone caught her eye, she would rush out with a noisy fuss, “Caw! Caw! Caw!”

If someone took one step closer to her, she was ready to die to fight off the intruder. She was minimal but not afraid of attacking a big person. She was ready to fight to the death, with all her might.

This was wonderful to me. Who taught her to do this? Did she learn this through the educational system or some academic theory? She responded this way because of love. Love needs no education. (139-197, 1986.01.31)

14. Among fish, the model of love between male and female is the salmon. That's why I love salmon very much. This fish leaves its birthplace and travels thousands of miles through the oceans.

When they are about four years old, they return to their birthplace. In Alaska, because of the cold weather, there are not many insects for the baby fish to eat, so the parents die and let their young eat their bodies so they can grow well.

What about human beings? We are meant to be the lords of creation. So if we are inferior to a fish, is that acceptable?

If love has such great power in the animal kingdom, what should it be like among human beings, the lords of creation and masters of true love? The issue for us as human beings is how to attain the highest ideal of conjugal love.

Not all the principles I discovered are from the Bible; I found out many things from nature. (279-049, 1996.06.09)

15. The salmon dies after laying its eggs. The salmon's love for its young is greater than the mutual affection of a condemned couple facing the day of their execution. Before the female fish lays her eggs, she and the male make a hole in the streambed to protect them.

This is truly an ideal couple. After the eggs are laid, and after they tend them, the couple dies, When I saw the male and female salmon dying, I was shocked. Their bodies become food for their young.

If there is a Creator, why do you think He created the salmon in this way?

Observing these fish, we cannot but be led to grasp how important our children are and how important love is. It is only natural to suggest that God created the salmon as a model to show that love and our children are the most precious things.

We also need to be able to offer our lives for the sake of love and our children. (128-260, 1983.08.28)

16. Salmon travel thousands of miles in the ocean, swim around for four years, and then find their way back to their birthplace by scent. They invest the incredible effort to spawn their young, making salmon perhaps even better than human beings, right?

One male and one female meet once lay their eggs and die. In the place where the parents die, the baby salmon eat their mother and father's flesh to grow. Surely, the greatness of love, the greatness of children raised through love, is expressed in this.

Because of this, the reality is truly that “I” is the being who represents my parents' life. Children are one's heirs who can go one step further and move toward a higher love. In this way, love itself moves to an ever-higher place, eventually reaching the realm of God's love. (144-238, 1986.04.25)

17. Every being is from a different lineage, the place of settlement is different, and the foundation of life is different. A river flows into the sea. Water flows to the sea, and then rises into the air, forming clouds.

Through changing weather, it falls to the ground as rain, snow, and hail, becoming water again. Birds catch fish and eat them, and some fish eat birds. The plant and animal kingdoms are all connected through the food chain.

Animals can eat plants, and some plants can eat animals. Both plant and animal plankton exist. These feed all the smaller creatures in the ocean, even minute forms of life. That is how these creatures survive. (614-107, 2009.07.16)

18. What is the basic standard of creation? Even though God is an absolute being, He is looking for the object of His love. That is the beginning of creation. Before He created His object partner in love, He created the environment.

The environment is created so that God's object partners in love can take in nutrition and grow. That intake of nutrition is not by force. Because the objects of God's true love, that is, human beings, take the position of subject partner to all things of creation, all things of creation automatically unite with and are obedient to them. This is the fundamental spirit of creation. (498-259, 2005.06.08)

19. The universe is filled with all beings existing as pairs on their level, but ultimately, they follow the principle of being absorbed into higher levels of love.

Thus, minerals want to be absorbed by plants, plants by animals, and finally all creation by human beings.

Thus, all beings are either eaten or absorbed. They reach a higher level of love and ultimately attain the position closest to God, who is the origin of love. In this way, all beings make this place their ultimate destination. This is the essence of true love.

Darwin's theory of the law of the jungle must be reinterpreted in the context of this logic of true love. Even ants and microorganisms want true love so much that they would die for the sake of the owner who loves them. Based on this principle, human beings, created as the highest partners of God, are in a position where they can consume and possess all creation.

Human beings already eat many things of creation, but | they should do so with the heart that represents the true love of God, the Creator. If they are unable to do this, the universe will be unable to continue its existence. (316-239, 2000.02.13)

20. Certain birds, such as penguins at the South Pole, lay their eggs by the sea. They form groups that travel well over one hundred miles to a distant place where they hatch their young.

They persevere over this long distance even through wind and storms. The females lay their eggs and hold them between their feet. They move them between their feet and cover them with their feathers to keep them warm and remain stationary for long periods, without eating, to hatch them.

During this time, the male and female pass the egg back and forth to each other, persevering in this fashion until the chick hatches. At this point, the parents feed the chicks food from their stomachs.

The male's stomach may be huge, like that of a pregnant woman. The chicks that are born as a result of their parent's love and devotion are truly thankful for the food chain that led to their birth. (415-162, 2003.08.14)

21. To protect comparatively greater things, lesser things may be sacrificed. That is the principle. It is not a sin for human beings to eat plants or beef. This is to protect these foods; they are sacrificed for their protection. This is development. It is a leap upward to something higher from that which is lower plant matter you eat forms human cells. Isn't that a great leap?

This is because human cells afford a broader dimension in which to connect with God's love. Without knowing this, people speak of the law of the jungle and the concept of evolution.

They interpret these through the concepts of struggle and class. The relationship between high and low is that of subject and object partners, but in their concepts, there is no notion of subject and object partners. (118-198, 1982.06.01)

22. The law of the jungle is a concept of struggle. By this interpretation, all things in the universe struggle with one another. There is no understanding of the higher purpose or the ideal of love that moves the whole universe and establishes the foundation for God's ideal of life.

The idea that unity comes through struggle is a result of the Fall. In Hellenistic philosophy, nature was understood as an enemy. The logic of survival of the fittest arose from this mindset. According to this theory, unless you contend with the environment, you cannot survive.

This mindset is the result of the Fall. Marx and Lenin looked only at resultant things. They viewed the human mind as the origin of everything but saw that even the mind was engaged in struggle. Since they viewed everything from the perspective of struggle, they could draw no other conclusion.

This was because they had no concept of the completion of the ideal of love, of the family of God's kingdom, or the unified foundation of God's settlement and kingship in the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven. (415-162, 2003.08.14)