In the lives of us human beings, standing still and advancing become the motive that determines success and failure.
Moreover, we often see in the surroundings of our lives that these govern the whole question of whether one prospers or perishes.
The Highest Limit Line of Advance That God and Man Desire
Anyone, whatever, wishes to prosper. There is no one who wishes to perish.
Everyone wishes to develop forward and forward and to be manifested in his environment. This is so for the individual, and it is so for the family as well. Because it is so of the family, a nation formed by the connecting of families also desires such a thing.
Since it is so of the nation, it is so of the world as well is a fact that needs no saying twice. Again, since we human beings are like this, God, who made human beings, will likewise be the same.
In God’s moving human history forward, probably, He does not desire that the actual state of the history He moves forward, if it be the actual state, or the situation, if it be the situation, should stand still. We must know the fact that God is one who desires that it go beyond standing still and advance or develop.
Then what sort of place will the limit line of advance be, the highest limit line to which one can go forward? It must not be a place in which God and man are set apart. That highest limit line of advance is undoubtedly a place in which God and we can be joined more strongly and can become one more strongly. If it is asked what sort of place that is, it is a world made one.
Then centering upon it, what must it be, a world made one?
That it must be a world-made one centering upon God’s love needs no saying twice. However good a thing there may be in this world, if it does not form a relationship with oneself, it has no value.
However precious a thing there may be, it is of no use. Only when it forms a relationship with itself does it at last shine. Again, even though that precious thing has formed a relationship with itself, that relationship must not be temporary but must be eternal.
However valuable a being it may be, if there is no content by which it can be eternal, it cannot but fall into a valueless position. It means that even though there is a precious thing and it has become one with me, if eternity is not contained within it, it is of no use whatever.
Only when crossing beyond the temporal limit line and centering upon eternity can one love more and can find a more elevated bond of love and a more elevated content of love can be connected; only then does one there at last become bound as a being of infinite value.
In the world, beloved children are commonly taken as the standard of what is most precious. When we look centering upon what is called love, where will the limit point of the parents’ love toward the child be? Parents do not seek to love the child only when he is young but seek to love him throughout their lifetime and, further, throughout eternity.
If a relationship of father and son is formed in which one can feel worth through loving and can feel value all the more through loving, it means that infinite power and infinite stimulation and something infinitely new arise within the sphere of that relationship. A relationship of father and son that is not equipped with such a bond is bound at some point without fail to be broken off.
In this way, when a relationship that had been bound as something true, as something perfect, as something of infinite value, comes to be broken off, unless one exchanges it and takes in its place something more that can support it, the value that was in that relationship rather ends by becoming a condition of sorrow.
Therefore, when one embraces or possesses something of precious value, how to develop it into something of even more precious value becomes the problem. Something precious and of infinite value cannot be obtained by any material or external bond of the human world. It cannot be done except through a bond of love that possesses a content more precious than that. And this bond of love too must be formed not through a third party but through a direct relationship if one is to feel infinite value.
What sort of place is the highest limit line of advance that God and man desire? As has just been said, it is a place where one becomes one, centering upon love. And in becoming one, it does not end within some point, within some limited sphere, or within some sphere of time, but must develop more and more, crossing beyond time and beyond time. Unless that love is equipped with such a factor, one cannot feel infinite happiness.
If one were to assert happiness without reaching such a limit line, that cannot but be a happiness below the limit line. The highest limit point that God desires to find together with man is one that crosses beyond a point at which, centering upon infinite love, one can stimulate infinitely. The conclusion comes out that such a standard must become the highest standard of advance.
When we criticize ourselves centering upon such a standard, the question is whether we have become selves who can be such. Even if one has not become a self who can be such, one must strive to become a self who can be such. And if one is not even making the effort to become so, one ought at least to prepare to do so. We must know that if one does not even have a mind that wishes to do so, one will without fail collide with the problem called standing still.
In Love, a Bond of Life Must Without Fail Be Invested
Standing still in the sense of resting a moment while working is good, but if one leaves the road ahead unwalked and, without preparing to go and without making effort, simply stands still just as one is, such a person comes to his end there.
However excellent a person may say he is in a position of standing still, however much he seeks to form a relationship with all phenomena or with any world of existence, the existing world itself does not seek to form a relationship with him. We can discover such a fact in the surroundings of our lives.
When you seek to make friends with someone, whether he is a friend who can develop or a friend who has no hope becomes the problem. The more one forms a relationship with a friend who has no hope, the more the result of no value cannot but appear to oneself. Therefore, one must form a relationship with a better friend and prepare and strive for a better tomorrow.
Then by what will one make such an effort? One must strive with a loving mind. And so how much that loving mind is invested becomes the problem.
Love cannot be accomplished alone. Without life being invested, love is not established. Even looking at the love in the relationship of father and son, a bond of life dwells there. In this way, as long as a bond of life remains and as long as one holds a longing within a bond of life, a bond of love without fail remains there. It means that apart from a bond of life, one cannot form a relationship of love.
Therefore, in love, a bond of life must without fail be invested. Moreover, according to how much life one invests and loves, whether one feels it as more valuable or not is decided.
To give an example, the parents’ love for a child is not a love done merely through a bond of living just as it is, but a love that wells up from the marrow of the bones. Parents possess a loving mind that cannot be forgotten even if they would forget it and cannot be severed even if they would sever it. And so, as long as any remaining strength of life remains, parents love their child.
When they feel that a bond of life is formed with the child, a mind of loving the child wells up naturally in the parents. It means that they do not love with a conscious mind coming first that says, “Since that child is my son, I shall love him,” but rather they cannot but love, even if they would not, because their own vital force, which precedes that mind and precedes that bond, is connected with the child. Such a fact makes us feel well in family life.
The love of husband and wife is likewise the same. To say that one loves because there is a certain bond, because that person and I have the bond of husband and wife, is not love. Only a love in which one invests one’s own life in the wife if it be the wife, in the husband if it be the husband, and in which a vital force capable of surpassing oneself is given and received from a position where it can stimulate love in one another, can sustain that love of husband and wife eternally.
Loving a nation too is likewise the same. Within the words “loving the country” and within the word “patriot,” life is without fail forming a relationship. The loyal subject, too, if it be a loyal subject, is determined only after he has transcended life. Within the inner bond of what is called “precious,” such as loyalty or filial piety or love, life is without fail joined. Again, according to the degree to which the bond is joined with life, whether it is valuable or valueless or whether it is eternal or bounded in time is determined.
Seen from this perspective, it is likewise the same with God’s loving man. It means that according to how much God’s infinite love, or God’s infinite life, has reached me, whether I possess infinite value or do not possess it is determined. We must know this.
It is likewise the same in our advancing today. Love without life ends by being encircled within a bounded sphere of time. We do not need love encircled within a sphere of time. That is, love done while setting a limit line, such as “I love only until such and such a time” and “Since I was born as his son and he is my parent, I love only while my parent is alive” or “I love while I live,” is not love. One must love not with a mind of deliberately seeking to cross beyond that limit line but naturally by one's own vital force. Only when one loves from a place where, transcending one's consciousness, a bond of life is already connected is an eternal bond at last formed.
The Problem That Religious People Have Sought to Resolve Until Now
That God loves the world means that, even looking centering upon some particular individual, He loves him not only within the period in which he lives, which is seventy years if it be seventy years, or eighty years if it be eighty years, of his lifetime. He loves that individual through countless forebears and through the present humanity. And He loves even his descendants eternally. Therefore, God’s love is needed.
Moreover, it means that love does not end merely as that love, but because at its very tip a bond of life is without fail connected; God’s love is needed.
In the place where one collides with God’s love, God’s life is without fail accompanying it. We must know the fact that by standing in a position in which life accompanies it, Heaven’s love is connected, together with that life, which both God can like and the self can like.
Even between friends, if there is a friendly affection in which they like one another, one can discern the greatness or smallness of that friendship according to how much a bond in which they can share life is contained within it.
Seen in this way, the limit line taken as the standard in advancing may be said to be the highest place in which life and love are joined. Except in such a place, one can hope neither for advance nor for the value of advance.
If humanity at this present point today holds a longing that it must develop or advance, where will the limit line of that longing be? It is a place where, centering upon me, the world becomes one, more than a place where, centering upon me, one becomes one with some people.
Again, it does not end with the world’s becoming one centering upon me; it is a place where God’s love and the bond of God’s life are connected to the world together with me. Only when our humanity stands in such a place can it be seen that advance has reached its limit point.
When one reaches such a standard, my rejoicing there does not end merely as my joy. Nor does it end as God’s joy. If God and I rejoice, everything existing within this sphere of environment is without fail steeped in joy.
Even considering yourselves, when I say I am joyful, that joy is felt not only in my mind but throughout the whole of my body and mind. Likewise, when a bond of love is formed between God and us human beings, God’s love and God’s life collide there, and one feels a love of infinite value. We must know the fact that it does not end as belonging only to God and man themselves but can become the vital force of the whole of existence and can become love.
When such a bond is formed, the bond of life of the entire whole comes to be set in motion within it. Even though it is a bond of giving and receiving in a straight line in the relative relationship of subject and object, it means that plane and solid content is interposed there, and that whole environment is resurrected into the sphere of love and the sphere of life.
Seen in this way, is not that sphere a state in which one can experience infinite value overflowing with cosmic-historical life and cosmic-historical love? It is the greatest place, of which it can be said that there is no place of value beyond it. It is the limit point of the greatest longing, a place where one can feel infinite value. We must know that such a place is the most precious place for us human beings.
Then how one goes seeking such a place has been the problem that countless religious people and people walking the road of the Way have sought to resolve. Is it not for the sake of resolving such a problem that they have toiled until now? Setting such a limit point before us, we must once again examine in what sort of place you yourselves are placed today.
Have you ever had a mind that loves humanity?
Or, if you have no mind that loves humanity, do you have a mind that loves your people? If you have no mind that loves your people, do you have a mind that loves your tribe and relatives?
If you have no mind that loves your relatives, do you have a mind that loves your brothers?
If so, you must be able to feel that within that love, one’s own life is without fail poured out and one’s own bone and flesh are invested. When the bond with what one loves comes to be severed, one must feel pain. One must feel sorrow. The greatness or smallness of sorrow is determined proportionally to the emotion expended from oneself. Where lies the cause that, when people who love one another are separated, they seek to recover that bond even at the cost of casting away life?
It is because love is that which lies in a place beyond the connecting of life.
In What Position Are We Today
Then do you today, within the sphere of life centering upon yourselves, live with a mind of love that has crossed beyond the bond of life, or are you moving forward toward the world of tomorrow’s hope, toward tomorrow’s world of God’s love?
That is, whether you are upon the road of development or in a position of standing still is the problem.
I know that you often experience such things even within your sphere of habitual living. Yet we know that there are many who live a life in which they receive no stimulation at all and do not know whether such a thing exists or not. A person who lives such a habitual life of washing his face because he has risen in the morning, eating breakfast, and going out to the company is a valueless person.
Such a person cannot become a patriot who loves the country. We must know that their life is one lived without even loving themselves. In living the life of a day and in living a social life, according to how much content in which one’s own love and life are concentrated, one invests in human relations or business relations within the company if it be a company or within the institution if it be an institution; whether one is a person who lives a worthwhile social life or a person who lives a worthless social life is governed.
From this perspective, the question is, in what sort of position is each of us individually now? Still more, in the position of living a life of faith, this can become an even greater problem. Pursuing the world of eternal life is the life of faith.
Pursuing God’s eternal love is faith. To become one with eternal love together with eternal life, seeking the point of adhesion at which God’s joy and my joy meet and can be felt not as two joys but as one joy is the road of faith.
Therefore, how much of an advancing love and vital force each of us who lives the life of faith possesses cannot but be a more important problem than anything else.
According to how far we live, forming a relationship with this life, or with love, integrating the whole of the sensations we feel through the five senses, the question of how much value we possess as human beings is governed. Therefore, we cannot but think once again upon whether we ourselves have formed human relations and lived a social life with a vital force and an aggravated mind of love. We must know that if we cannot stand in such a place, then if it is not standing still, it is retreating.
No one, whatever the case, welcomes retreat. No one becomes a friend to one who retreats or seeks to join with him. Only in a place of advancement does one seek to join and seek to become a friend. Then are we ourselves today standing still? Or are we advancing? Or else are we retreating? More than anything else, this is the problem we must think about.
Today, in living the life of faith too, some have lived one year and some ten years since the day they knew the Will until now, and there will also be those who have lived half a lifetime together with the Will; and the question is whether the life of that interval was a position of standing still or a position of advancing, or else a position of retreating. You must without fail make clear to which of these you belong and then pass on.
However much one advanced in the past, if one is standing still today, God’s vital force cannot be there. God’s bond of love cannot be there. Even though in the past one advanced and lived, possessing infinite value and infinite vital force and infinite power of love, if one is now in a position of standing still, one must know that one is parted from God.
Then in what sort of place are you who have attended here?
Are you standing still, or are you advancing? Or else are you retreating? You must know the fact that the scales of destiny are weighing you, saying that in the past one retreated or stood still, but at this present point today one is advancing, or that in the past one advanced, but at this hour today one is standing still or retreating.
Standing still is close to retreat, and advancing is close to the point of destination. Because a place of standing still is close to retreat, it is close to the line of death; and when one overcomes the position of standing still and advances, one is close to the line of life. It is the story of our human life that we walk the course of our lives, leading our lives between these two boundary lines.
God’s Love, Which Advances Eternally
Then what of God’s love?
Has God’s infinite love stood still in the historical ages?
Is it advancing? Or is it retreating? If God’s love is an infinite love and God’s life is an infinite life, then until reaching such a point, that life and that love cannot stand still even if they would.
If that love and life have a power that cannot stand still, that can extend infinitely, that can advance, then there can be nothing but development upon God’s providential course; but if that love and vital force stood still, God’s providence of salvation too could not but fall below the limit line.
Yet we know the historical fact that God’s Providence has developed until now.
Therefore, we can draw the conclusion that in God’s world of love there can be no such thing as standing still. Accordingly, the statement that God’s vital force is standing still must be denied. Upon the road of God’s Providence, in which He has led history from the day man fell until now, there has been no time when God’s vital force stood still; and since God’s vital force did not stand still, there has been no time when God’s love stood still.
We must know the fact that if we, as individuals, stand still today before the heavenly order (천륜), which goes forward beholding the hope of such a history, before God’s love and God’s life, which have come forward until now not knowing how to be cut off, there is no greater treason than this before God.
Even though there is God’s providential hand, which for thousands of years has not rested but has sought and established us ourselves today with vital force and love to lead us to the limit point of the world of purpose, if I forget that hand and deny it and stand still, I become a self who cannot be accepted before God. We must know that if it is unfilial, there is no greater unfilial act; and if it is disloyal, there is no greater disloyalty; and if it is evil, there is no greater evil.
If there is anyone in whom the thought arises, “God’s vital force and love do not stand still, so how is it that I am so apt to stand still?” he must repent beyond words.
In living the life of faith, within your minds there is a remaining strength that, with an explosive and stimulating power, wishes to go unceasingly toward the world of the Will. If there is such a mind, that is proof that God is together with you. On the other hand, if there is no such power, it is proof that God is separated from you.
That a mind of loving humanity surges up in you and a mind of wishing to share your life with humanity does not cease bears witness that you belong to Heaven; but you must know that if it ends as a love centered upon oneself and a vital force that boasts of one’s own value, it bears witness to the fact that God has already parted from you. The road such a person walks is not Heaven. Such a person will reach the limit point centered upon himself. A world of limits centering upon me is different from the world of God’s Will.
You must criticize whether you yourselves are people who can go to the Kingdom of Heaven, or people who must go to hell, or people who must remain in the intermediate spirit world. This can be known clearly if seen from the point of view of standing still and advancing.
If you are filled with a mind of love together with vital force and forget your body and love your people and humanity, you are undoubtedly heavenly citizens who can go toward the Kingdom of Heaven, undoubtedly heavenly citizens who can go toward the world.
But a person who forgets all such things as people or Will and centers upon himself, who takes himself as the limit point, comes to be in a state of standing still. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven will depart from him. A Kingdom of Heaven within a sphere of limits centered upon oneself is not needed. A Kingdom of Heaven that comes within one’s own sphere is not needed. It must be a Kingdom of Heaven in which one can enter and live within God’s sphere of love, within God’s sphere of life. That Kingdom of Heaven is, to the very end, a Kingdom of Heaven that has crossed beyond the world. A person who gropes for a Kingdom of Heaven centered upon himself asserts a Kingdom of Heaven within a sphere centering upon himself. According to such an assertion, it means that God must come into that sphere and live. So such a Kingdom of Heaven cannot exist.
The Life of Faith Cannot Be Lived Without Repentance
We hope for a Kingdom of Heaven in which a greater world can be present within such a sphere of love. There can be no Kingdom of Heaven centered upon a person who is in a position of standing still at his limit point, within his sphere, agonizing because he cannot himself resolve his own stifling problems. There is no way to deny that a person belonging to a place below is a being belonging to hell.
Therefore, you must know that the word “standing still” is exceedingly fearful.
When you began church life, that is, when you set out upon this road following the Will, you came forth holding the holy watchword of national restoration. A person who, hoping for the day when, once that national restoration reaches its limit point, he can cross beyond that limit line and step forth raising the new flag of world restoration, breaks through every adversity and overcomes every environment. A person who has such capacity is a person who goes straight to the Kingdom of Heaven.
A person who cannot do so and is in a position of standing still, or a person who retreats, that is, a person who is in a position of turning back the steps that were advancing within the sphere of the national Kingdom of Heaven and going toward a world of individual longing, is undoubtedly a person going toward hell.
Today, if within our sphere of life some responsible person gives an order or a direction, saying, “Let us go for the sake of the Will,” and there is no power within you yourselves to say, “Let us go!” that becomes proof that you are already standing still.
If the order comes down, “Let us make a general advance toward the purpose,” and yet one is unmoved before that order and one’s own life-emotion is not connected to it, he is already in a state of standing still.
Let us think about what is to be done with people who are in such a state of standing still. A person who, however much he is exhorted and however much stimulation is given, says that it has nothing to do with him is a person who has fallen into a position from which he cannot rise again even if he would. To raise such people again, a massive war of attrition must be waged. It means that a person who is unmoved even though a power of ten was given cannot be moved without adding a power of more than a hundred.
Then what must be done to make such people move of themselves?
One must know that they cannot be made to rise again without inflicting loss centering upon God. Such a person must himself feel that, because he has inflicted loss before God, he must pay the price of that loss. Such a place must be a place where one feels infinite sorrow. Yet a person who, while being in such a place, has forgotten even the mind of grieving, will be a person with no hope eternally.
The question is whether, deep within your breasts, a mind that wishes to go together with the Will, or together with the world, or together with Heaven, centering upon such a standard, surges up or does not. A person who goes to church unavoidably because of a bond with a friend and who says he walks the road of the Will because he cannot resist a friend’s urging, a person who is moved by a horizontal third party, bears witness that he does not himself possess vital force.
Then are you now advancing? Are you standing still? Are you retreating?
Such a problem is the problem you must resolve from now on. If there is a person now advancing, it means do not slacken the spur of advance. If a mind of love toward an individual blazes up, one must not end it as a mind directed toward an individual alone. One must consider the problem of how to connect that mind to the people and the world’s humanity.
If a mind of loving an individual is not connected to a mind of loving the world, one must connect it by whatever means. Further, how to bring that mind into contact with God’s love and God’s life is the problem.
In order for us who are fallen to enter within God’s sphere of life and sphere of love, repentance is without fail necessary. If a quantity of sin amounting to one hundred has been committed by the forebears until now, one must try to repent beyond that. Therefore, it means that repentance cannot be left out of the life of faith. We were born through a thousand generations and ten thousand generations of forebears.
If those forebears were good, I am automatically at a near distance from which I can come into contact with God’s sphere of life. But if they were evil forebears, I am at a far distance from God’s sphere of life. It means that if a person who is at a far distance would form a bond with God’s sphere of life, a period of repentance capable of crossing beyond the whole quantity in which the forebears were evil is absolutely necessary. Without filling this, one cannot come into contact with a world of vital force beyond oneself. Therefore, you must know that upon the road of faith, tears of repentance are without fail necessary.
The Highest Gift of Love That God Has Given to Man
If one cannot repent and advance on one's own, there must without fail be a comrade in faith. There must be a person who can hold me up. One must demand of him, “If the place you must go is a Kingdom of Heaven that has crossed beyond the world, then to go to that world, must you not love me?” This is a fitting demand.
If among the friends one loves there is a good friend, one must hold fast to him and go. If, honoring him more than one’s own life and holding a mind of absolute obedience to his words, one makes every effort to follow when he gives direction, one can through that person escape one’s own present position. It means that if that person is in a place amounting to a hundred, one too can go to that place amounting to a hundred. Therefore, if there is a person in a place amounting to a thousand, anyone who wishes to become one with that person. That is why we demand a better friend and a better teacher.
Because God knows that man needs a companion, He cannot but send a Messiah more precious than anyone. Because God loves humanity, it means that He must send one representative being who can come into contact with humanity, one representative being most precious, who is like a friend and like a teacher and, further, in a position like a father. If it is asked who this representative being is, it is the Messiah.
We must know that the Messiah is for us human beings a friend without a second, a teacher without a second, and a father without a second. It means that the one sent upon this earth with a mission as the greatest being, of whom there is but one alone, is the Messiah. And so, if one holds fast to that Messiah and sheds tears and invests one’s life for that Messiah and loves him like one’s own life, one can rush into God’s sphere of life and sphere of love, which are world-historical and cosmic-historical. We must know that this is the highest gift of love that God has given to man.
Therefore, until now, the countless believers who believe in Jesus, centering upon Christianity, have invested their lives for Jesus. They invested not only their lives but even all their love. Those who died in that way are not extinguished with death but are resurrected with Jesus’ love and together with Jesus’ life. We must know that this is the grace of resurrection through the Christianity that God loves.
You yourselves must be able to invest your lives for the Messiah. Such a person is a wise person. If there is a person who can invest not only his life but even all his love, he is an exceedingly wise person.
Why is that?
Humanity has until now pursued a course of advance upon advance to become one subject being who can love the world or one subject being who can love heaven and earth. To become such a being was the purpose for which man has pursued a course of advance. The only road by which that purpose can be attained at a stroke, or attained within one generation, is to greet that person and leave behind the bond of having invested all of one’s own life and one’s own love. Then it does not end with that. Because one has given all, one comes to stand in a place where one can receive all. Thereby, the privilege is granted of reaching at a stroke, in a form that is not shameful, the place of Christ’s glory, the world of Christ’s life, and the sphere of love.
If One Would Advance Once Again From a Position of Retreat
Then what sort of road is the road we fallen human beings must walk today?
It is the road of repentance. Therefore, it means that we must go seeking the road of repentance. There can be no such thing as one who does not repent saying that he loves the country, and there can be no such thing as one who does not repent saying that he loves the world.
Then from where does one seek the bond by which one can repent?
One seeks it through a person. Because one must seek it through a person, the Messiah is needed. He is one who appears as the friend among friends, the teacher among teachers, and the parent among parents. To love him wholly is to rush into a sphere in which one can love the world he will love and the heaven and earth he must love. We must bear in mind that we fallen descendants are such that we cannot love, even if we would, without forming a bond with him.
Therefore, to grope out such a road, God has sent countless religious leaders to this earth. Among those religious leaders, the one who comes together in the name of a father, in the name of the highest teacher, in the name of the highest friend, is the Messiah. We must know that meeting that Messiah is the greatest happiness for fallen man, and the place where one meets him is the place of highest glory.
And so human history has come seeking toward that place. Before finding the world, one must attend to him. If a family attends him and lives, that family can become a sphere of the Kingdom of Heaven.
If, centering upon the nation, one attends to him and fulfills the way of loyalty, one can find the nation through that bond of loyalty. We must know the fact that when, centering upon him, one fulfills the way of filial piety and the way of loyalty before God together with the world, the world is found.
If there is such a person, the question is how clearly one knows him and, again, if he gives an order, how much I will accept and follow that order. If he gives an order of a value amounting to a hundred, that is not an order given from a place of a value of a hundred. You must know that he orders possessing a value amounting to a thousand. And within that order there is a mind of love and a vital force. Yet you must know the fact that if one cannot move according to that order and cannot advance together with that order, conditions of unspeakable misfortune block the road ahead.
It means that if some order is given down and one cannot carry it out, that failure to carry it out forms a relationship with him and blocks all the roads that one must walk with him. Therefore, even though he gave an order of a value amounting to a hundred, because he gave the order possessing a value amounting to a thousand, if one disbelieves and disobeys it, one suffers a very great loss. To make up for this loss, one must repent infinitely for not having kept that order. Otherwise, one cannot walk any further down the road. This is a proper reason.
How is it that you who have set foot upon the road of the Will have now become exhausted and have come to stand upon a path of retreat below standing still?
Where lies the cause of that?
When the Teacher gave a direction of a value amounting to a hundred, he gave that direction not with a value amounting to a hundred but possessing a more elevated value amounting to a thousand; and yet if one betrays it, grace beyond that is blocked. And you must know that God’s infinite vital force cannot but depart.
What must we, who have realized that we are selves standing in such a position, do?
One must go to a place beyond what was lost. Yet how to go out to this place is the problem.
When God gave me an order from a place amounting to a hundred, and I could not carry it out, what must be done?
One must go seeking a place where God can give an order from a place beyond a hundred. And so one must repent of the past and take a place beyond a hundred as one’s hope and pour out there one’s own life and all the love one has. Only then does a road arise by which one can advance once again into the world of God’s eternal life and love.
Think once upon your past when you set foot upon the road of the Will. When you first knew the Will, you followed without knowing whether you would die or live.
At that time you went before the order came down, and when you were told, “Go,” toward a place where you had to cast away your life, you went with a mind that could invest your life. Because at that time you loved and adored the Will more than your life, God was together with you.
If one stands in a position where one cannot regard the Will as more important than life, God departs. Why? Because God has invested eternal life and eternal love in the Will. Eternity is not something that has a limit line. God has invested in this Will a love and life that cross beyond the limit line. God, who must connect the road of the Will that possesses the content of love and life, cannot come seeking, even if He would, when man stands in a place not made one with that Will.
That is why Jesus said, “Pray without ceasing.”
And even in praying, it means not to do it while laughing. It means to do it while holding fast to the people and the world and shedding tears. Even though one prayed from a place amounting to a hundred and God accepted it, the next time He cannot accept it if one enters that same place and prays. Because God is one who cannot stand still in a place amounting to a hundred, because He is a God who must advance, one must offer devotion from a place beyond a hundred. Then one must know that a higher vital force and power of love naturally come to us from God.
If among you there is one who feels that he has lost grace and is at a far distance from God, he must recall once again that age in which he was loyal in former days and recall once again that place in which he poured out devotion and go seeking that battlefield again and invest devotion beyond that and vital force beyond that and invest love. Before going seeking such a place, one cannot take possession of an advancing vital force, a developing sphere of grace.
Is the Unification Church Advancing?
Then is our Unification Church today advancing, or standing still, or retreating?
Let us analyze the Unification Church itself. If the Unification Church is advancing, who is setting forth the content by which it can advance becomes the problem. It is a thankful thing if you set this forth, but if you do not, the one who has taken responsibility for it must set it forth.
In the age of national restoration, if there is no one among the Unification Church members who can offer devotion beyond the devotion offered in the age of family restoration, then the responsible person who bears the responsibility must offer devotion. Otherwise, the Unification Church cannot cross beyond that limit line, leaving behind the destiny of the people.
If even one person crosses beyond that limit line and, just as God invests His infinite vital force, invests his life and invests every mind of love, as long as even one person invests, the Unification Church will develop through him. But when there is no such person, it will stand still or retreat.
Yet, although you yourselves today have not escaped a position of standing still or retreating, the Unification Church is developing. In the Unification Church’s thus developing, there is without fail a motive behind it that causes it to develop. That is, there will be a person who invests their own vital force to carry the Unification Church beyond the nation and the people and even to the world. You must know who that person is. There must be a person who invests and sacrifices not only vital force but also all his love. Without such a person, there cannot be a Unification Church that can develop worldwide. Seen from a Principled position, this is a natural reason.
You who have come following the road of the Will must invest your own vital force and power of love beyond the people and beyond the world, even to a place beyond that. The vital force and power of love that you invest become the factor that pioneers the course of the church’s development. Then are you in a position of cooperating with this or in a position of opposing it? A person who feels that he is in a position of opposing must repent with tears, bearing the circumstances of a thousand years and ten thousand years.
If some writhe while bearing the destiny of the Unification Church, which goes colliding while embracing the sorrowful circumstances of the earth, although it would not be enough even to offer every devotion and give thanks and commendation for them, if one criticizes centering upon oneself and treats them with indifference because they are not connected with oneself, you must know that there is the end.
You must, while feeling infinite gratitude at beholding the fact that the Unification Church is developing, at the same time feel your insufficiency and say, “Today it is thus, but give strength to me also.”
You must know that if one does not end autumn merely as autumn, and end winter merely as winter, but fails to find the vital force and power of love dwelling deep within oneself by which one can bloom fully upon greeting the spring day of tomorrow, the road you walk is at an end.
If you are in such a position, you must feel once again that you are a pitiful self who has lost all at once the most precious thing in the world. When one realizes that one is such a self, one must feel sorrow beyond the sorrow of grieving over a child’s death, or beyond the sorrow of grieving over a husband’s or wife’s death, or beyond the sorrow of grieving over the ruin of one’s family, or beyond the sorrow of grieving over the ruin of the nation or the world; and, embracing an unspeakable sorrow at having lost the greatest thing, one must go to that place of saying, “O Heaven, take pity upon these pitiful people,” to a place where that figure seeking pity is more forlorn and more wretched than anyone. Only then can God, who departed from the standard one had faced, come seeking again.
Be Either Cold or Hot
Then how much sorrow are you feeling?
Are you standing in a place where you can seek God’s pity?
The question is whether you are feeling a stimulation that cannot be expressed in words and carrying on your life while holding hope for tomorrow and standing in a place where you can keep step with Heaven. Only when one stands in such a place can one say that one is within the sphere of the bond of life.
One must not be in an in-between state that is neither this nor that. The in-between state must be blown up. A place that is neither this nor that is a place in a state of standing still.
If one is in such a place, one perishes by oneself. That is why it is said in the third chapter of the Book of Revelation, “Be not lukewarm, but be either cold or hot.” It means either be hot and form a bond with God’s love or be utterly cold and, from an unspeakably chill place, lament and shed tears and pour out blood. Without passing through the places of the two extremes, one cannot receive God’s pity. Heaven does not desire the in-between state.
If one has come to know that one is standing within the sphere of standing still, one must go seeking a place of repentance. One must go seeking a place of prayer. And one must think it over carefully. One must go seeking a place of prayer. And one must think it over carefully. Centering upon whom did I set out, and centering upon whom must I bear a result?
If, setting out centering upon me, who am a human being, I bear a result centering upon me, this is hell. Why? Because the Fall was centered upon me. Man fell, centering upon me, and has woven a history of sin and evil, centering upon me. Therefore, what seeks to reform this and bring revolution to it is the Providence of Restoration.
God’s providence of salvation is thus one that seeks to smash what is centered upon me. It must not begin from me and end in me; it must begin from God and end in God.
One Must Set Out Centering Upon Heaven and Bear Fruit Centering Upon God
What Unification Church believers today must consider is that one must not set out centering upon God and bear a result centering upon me. It means that this is worse than setting out from me and bearing a result in me. It means that setting out from God and ending in me is worse than setting out from me and coming to an end in me. It is for such a reason that Jesus said to Judas Iscariot that it had been better for him if he had not been born. It means, "Would it not have been better not to have known?
If one sets out from God and then comes to an end centering upon oneself, one brings ruin not only upon one’s own single body but even upon one’s whole clan.
That God comes seeking me is not a coming seeking for my individual self alone. He comes seeking for the sake of those people and that nation. Yet to treat God, who has come seeking that nation and that people, as a God who has come seeking centering upon oneself is to sell out that nation and to sell out that people.
From what position did God come seeking me?
Did He come seeking to lay a worldwide responsibility upon me? If so, then I must make a worldwide departure; and if, while going, I deny the world and bear fruit centered upon myself, I cannot escape worldwide judgment. If one has set out from God, one must bring the end to a conclusion centering upon God. The problem lies there.
What is the Fall?
It is that we human beings did not set out from God. And it is that we did not bring the end to a conclusion through God. Therefore, our longing is to begin from God and bring the end to a conclusion centering upon Heaven.
Yet when we look at ourselves, born upon the earth today, the departure was not made from God. We were set out from the earth, from me. Therefore, a person who has much of a past must repent that much more.
Some people say that they will live the life of faith when they are advanced in years, that when they are near death they will believe and go to paradise. But this is far from the truth. One cannot go to paradise in that way. What is important is when one will make a departure centering upon God.
If one sets out when death is near, that means that most of one’s whole life was spent in a position of betraying God. Therefore, proportionally, one must repent beyond that. Despite this, a person who says he will believe when advanced in years and go to paradise is a foolish person.
A Sin Committed Knowingly Is Hard to Be Forgiven
Here, what and how must we think?
One must set out anew, centering upon God. God must be connected here, where one sets out from me. That is not something I do; God must connect it. It is God who connects it. Yet if, even though one has set out anew in that way, one cannot bear a result centering upon God, the responsibility for God’s having connected it remains. That responsibility calls you to account eternally. You must know this.
Therefore, it means that if you set out from me and set out again centering upon me and bear fruit in me, only the Will suffers loss. It means that it would rather have been better not to have believed and better not to have known.
If one goes to the spirit world, it is so. When things go wrong, those who lived a life of faith suffer more reproach of conscience. It means that at that time there is no way to repent. But because a person who lived just as he was, according to the customs of the world, does not suffer reproach of conscience, it means that the distance at which he can be forgiven is near. Yet when things go wrong for those who lived a life of faith, they suffer reproach of conscience. And they suffer it until it pierces the marrow of their bones. Therefore, it means that a sin committed knowingly cannot be forgiven. You must know that there is such content.
Therefore, the road of faith is one in which the further one goes, the more one feels an aggravated burden. The further one goes, the lonelier one is; and the further one goes, the more responsibility one comes to feel. The road of faith is one in which the further one goes, the more one sheds tears, and the further one goes, the more one must repent. When one compares ten years ago and ten years later, if one is more slack toward the Will ten years later than ten years earlier, one without fail returns to the world. If one offers devotion toward the Will with a more earnest mind than ten years ago, one goes to Heaven. This is decisive.
Then within what sphere are you? You must think once again upon the two problems of standing still and advancing. There are some people who went out to the provinces and then retreated. Before such a person, because of that, something like an iron gate is blocked off. The thought, “At such and such a time I went to such and such a province and retreated,” cannot be forgotten. It absolutely cannot be forgotten. If such a person as I would go out to a place beyond that, he must bear a cross beyond that.
A person who was active within the Republic of Korea and, having done wrong, suffers reproach of conscience has no way within the Republic of Korea to escape that reproach of conscience. It is resolved only when, centering upon that condition, he goes abroad at least on a mission and returns.
For people who have set foot upon the road of faith, becoming angry, centering upon oneself, is the most fearful thing of all. So do not become angry. Do not become angry. In going forward believing in God, if one becomes angry, centering upon one’s own greed, one is caught up in it entirely. You are going forward in the course of your lives, tumbling this way and that over such problems and the like. You must know whether you yourselves are standing still, or advancing, or else retreating. Knowing this clearly, you must once again try.
Then how will you connect a mind beyond that mind with which in former days you were anxious and advanced, centering upon the Will? That is not much. One needs only to go seeking the opposite place. It means go along the road opposite to that by which you have lived until now.
If you came forward for ten years centering upon yourself, you must carry on the undertaking of denying yourself, the undertaking of making yourself an offering, for more than ten years. Otherwise, you cannot cross beyond that place.
Set the Standard Differently and Set Out Anew
At this present point today, when the time is near, you must set out anew. And you must become one with the person who fulfills the mission of the Messiah whom God has sent. You must stand in a place where you feel his distress more than your distress, in a place where you feel his sorrow more than your sorrow. And you must share your true life and true love with him.
That is why Jesus said, “Love me more than anyone.”
It means that one must stand in a place of loving him more than anyone, in a place of investing everything for him more than anyone. Though that means that one loses oneself, when it is planted in him and sprouts and bears fruit, it becomes a precious fruit of which there is but one under heaven. That is why Jesus said, “Love me more than anyone.”
From this perspective, you must criticize yourselves coldly. You must consider the problem of whether it is advancing, standing still, or retreating. One must always consider whether our Unification Church, which walks the road of the Will, is advancing or standing still or retreating.
The Teacher too always considers whether the Unification Church is advancing or standing still or retreating and considers what must be done to advance. That is why the subject of prayer differs from that of the past.
Offering devotion for an individual and offering devotion for a people are the same as offering devotion. Therefore, even though one offers devotion amounting to a hundred, the standard of prayer must differ. The goal one beholds must differ.
Then, even though one offers the same devotion, the devotion offered for that goal remains.
Therefore, if one lives a spiritual life, the content of prayer already becomes different. The scope of prayer gradually widens. The form of a person’s offering devotion or of loving is all the same. It means that an individual’s loving one another and loving the whole are the same. Therefore, it means that the standard of offering devotion and of loving must become different.
You who go forward believing in the Unification Church must have a different standard in living the life of faith. You speak of individual restoration, family restoration, tribal restoration, national restoration, restoration of the state, world restoration, and cosmic restoration; but that is not a habitual saying. The stages differ. When crossing beyond these stages, one must without fail present a condition of indemnity. When one presents it, one is turned upside down.
You must know that the Unification Church has been developed while waging such a decisive battle over whether one dies or lives.
If the Teacher’s family or the Teacher himself did not pay indemnity, the Unification Church members without fail paid indemnity. Either the person who took responsibility went, or in some way indemnity was without fail paid. Seeing such things, the law of indemnity cannot be disregarded.
Is the Republic of Korea developing, standing still, or retreating?
Is America developing, standing still, or retreating? Are the communists developing, standing still, or retreating? All such things can be judged by looking at this law of indemnity. Then why is America retreating? Because it cannot love the world more than its country. Therefore, a nation that loves the world more than its country will surpass America.
Why are the communists retreating?
Because they make a communist sphere centering upon the Slavic people and taking the Soviet Union as its principal thing. Only if one can cross beyond the Soviet Union and love the world does one not retreat. A doctrine that transcends people and tribe, a doctrine that has a foundation capable of crossing beyond class, comes to rule the world.
Who is it that can inherit the Unification Church?
If the Unification Church members seem not to be up to it, the Unification Church will be inherited by people who love the Will more than they do. If the Unification Church cannot love the country, Heaven’s Will is developed through a place that loves the country more than the Unification Church.
Therefore, knowing such things, you must set the standard of offering devotion differently according to the time. It means that if one offers devotion for tribal restoration, if it be tribal restoration; for national restoration, if it be national restoration; for restoration of the state, if it be restoration of the state; or for world restoration, if it be world restoration, and if one offers devotion with a different purpose and content, then even though the form of the devotion is similar, one becomes a company that remains.
Knowing this clearly, in going out beyond the people and beyond the nation to the world in the coming decade of the 1970s, you must be able to be more loyal to the Will. I hope that you will know that such a time is drawing near and will offer every devotion. Let us pray.
