Tokyo Church, Japan.
A cultivation lecture? To put it in old words, it is the hour of self-cultivation (修身). What shall the Teacher talk about?
Please speak about the size of the Cosmos (천주).
Unless you make your own mind large, you cannot know it. (laughter)
How did the Teacher come to find the Principle of Creation?
That is not a thing to ask. When I receive such a question, I become a little weak. Before that, the question is rather how one came to acknowledge the existence of God. It is because the Principle of Creation began only after God existed.
Does God exist? Or does He not?
When one thinks of such things, one becomes earnest. When one gropes back through the old memory of wondering whether God exists, one becomes earnest.
To think of God, one must first think of oneself. Where did I come from? I came from my mother. Then where did my mother come from? From my mother’s mother… . How far back does it go? How did the beginning of the human being come to be?
Did God really create it?
Among the countless races living, to which lineage do I belong? In what relationship do I stand with people? These are all problems one must experience for oneself. From one to ten, it is all so.
Then, in forming the relationship between God and oneself, under what relationship is it formed? Is it a historical relationship, a relationship of the age, a relationship of the future—what relationship is it? The relationship between the human being and God—what does that relationship center on, and what does it take as its key point? That is the problem.
If one knows God, one comes to know one’s own position and value. One can also confirm the relationship exactly. If God exists, what is God Himself? What is God’s hope?
What is God’s desire?
Just as in our lives, God, too, must have circumstances. What are God’s circumstances? On what does the heart (심정) of the world in which God rejoices center?
What is God’s purpose?
All these become problems. If one gathers together all these problems of hope and heart and draws a conclusion, it comes to be the human being.
Then, what is the relationship between the human being and God?
That one cannot know unless one passes through the standard of the heart. Enter deep within and try praying. Pray and ask. What is the root of the universe? It is parent and child (父子). Parent and child. As the first standard, the human being and God are said to be in a parent-child relationship.
The parent-child relationship centered on the heavenly heart and the heavenly lineage is the root of the universe.
Then are the parents who bore you the real parents? What must one do to enter that realm of the heart that, by no logic, can be denied? That problem one cannot know except by heart. When one cries out, “Heavenly Father!”, everything in the universe gathers there. “Father,” “Father”—this word is a single definition for the whole. It comes to be felt as the central word of the representation of all things.
One must even enter into such a position. There, however, whatever thought wells up in one’s own mind, one cannot deny that God is one’s own parent. And God too says, “It is so,” concerning oneself. Reaching there, one goes on forming an undeniable parent-child relationship.
Therefore, the root of the universe is parent and child. All things are a garden for the children. If one knows God clearly, the Principle of Creation comes out naturally. “My mind and body are in such a relationship. By forming a reciprocal standard centered on God, I can maintain the Four Position Foundation. To maintain it perpetually, I must carry out give-and-take action.” Thus, if one knows God clearly, one naturally realizes the Principle of Creation.
You are learning the Principle, but you must know that the Principle you hear only in words was obtained after the Teacher fought, groping through countless footsteps—after that battle. Speaking in terms of Adam’s family, unless one enters a stage beyond that at which Eve fell, centered on the Teacher, one cannot set right what Eve did wrong. And unless we console God’s sorrow caused by Adam’s fall, God cannot give us the standard of true joy.
Therefore, one must resolve the standard of indemnity at heart. In the realm of the heart in history, one must enter even into God’s deep realm of the inner heart (內心圈), console God, and make a standard by which God can relate to us. The Teacher is the pioneer of that path, the forerunner.
Until now, the Teacher has done that work alone. It is a splendid thing. To have shouldered thousands of years of history, untied all that was wrongly tied, and made a single path—that is a worldwide contribution. It amounts to the supreme success in human history. He has set up a standard of victory from the spiritual world and connected it to the earth.
From when did the Teacher begin to think of God?
From when I was little. The Teacher was different from childhood. Drawn to something in mysterious and simple places, he would go into nature rather than among people and spend the whole day, from morning until night. And when he heard the words people used and spoke with them, he came to feel that the environment of those who spoke so was not good.
Thinking that one who spoke in such a way must have a good heart, he would listen, and that person’s heart would echo back. According to its depth, he felt whether that person was speaking from a good position or an evil position. Even as a child, he disliked becoming friends with children.
Somehow, his mind was not drawn to them. But toward one who gave his utmost sincerity to Heaven, it was not so. Just sitting beside such a one, or watching his conduct, felt good. It became so.
Even going to a place like a mountain, there are good places and bad places. One comes to know that. “If I go this way, it will be the edge,” one goes, and without fail it is the edge. “Ah! Tomorrow it will rain!” one feels, and it really rains. The sense of touch and other senses are a little different from those of other people.
If there is someone in the family about to fall ill, one feels the signs of it. The human being has such an interesting organ. You are the same. Because you live with your head full of unnecessary thoughts, all such functions have become blocked. If one cultivates oneself ceaselessly, one becomes sharp.
The head becomes clear. At certain times, one can even feel by a spiritual wave that a guest is coming from afar. Until I became so, I prayed a great deal. There is nothing obtained without toil.
Do you think, “Several years have passed since I entered the Unification Church, so I am a respectable Unification Church young person”?
The Teacher did not think so. It is so even now. I do not think, “I am the teacher who holds the absolute authority of the Unification Church.” It is the feeling of having come to seek a lost friend, far, far away.
So even sitting still, if that person is good, the mind arises to embrace that person and talk with a feeling of closeness. There are many things to talk about. From one to ten, all day long, talking all night, one would not tire of it. It is fascinating.
The Teacher listens well to one’s actual experiences. Even pressing forehead to forehead with an aged grandmother and talking all night, the Teacher listens as though that were the only mission of his lifetime.
At such a time, God too says, “Ah! Was it so?” He likes such a person. Everyone, the parent is so, is he not? Even as the son grows up and grows ever more distant, however much he grows, the parent desires the heart to become one with that son. That is what longing is. To think it lonely when one grows distant is the parent’s mind.
The Heavenly Father’s mind is so too. “Where have you been working? Did good things happen as you went out witnessing?” “Yes. Today, such a thing happened, and I did such work. So and so, and thus. It is lonely. I am lonely. God, I am lonely”—if you pray, shedding tears, God consoles you. Everyone!
Do you pray such a prayer?
Such a prayer that says, “Father, wast Thou lonely?” is truly the feeling of speaking face to face. It is not something that feels somehow far off. The Teacher sometimes prays like a child. Rolling about, singing songs, and at times even dancing, saying, “Father! It is not bad to do this, is it?”
Praying by song is the most moving. One chooses a tune one likes, sets words to it, and prays. Doing so, one is moved by one’s own voice. One forgets that one is singing and enters a state like listening to another’s song.
As for experience too, the supreme experience lies where it centers on God’s heart. A child dances on its father’s knee. This is the child having the supreme experience from its parent. For a child who cannot speak with its father, is not such a thing the supreme experience?
By nature, once the Teacher says he will do something, he absolutely does not give it up.
Once I say I will do it, even if this does not work and that does not work and nothing works, I push it through to the end. Once I set my hand to it, I become one with it.
By the Teacher’s explanation alone, you cannot know the path the Teacher goes. “Well, can such a thing be true?” — If you cannot believe it, try praying with your life at stake.
If you say, “Father, I am dying,” at first He says, “Die, then, die.” If you pray that you truly, sincerely want to die, the Teacher shows you what work he has done.
The Teacher pioneered this path in that way. Countless beings of the spiritual world were mobilized and opposed the Teacher.
The final victory must be won by strength, fighting one-on-one like a wrestling match. One must win with real ability.
If one wins by receiving God’s help, Satan accuses. So one cannot but fight. Because the Teacher decided victory there, countless spirit-communing individuals cannot but bear witness to the Teacher. By what standard do they testify? The motive becomes the standard.
If it is all right, would the Teacher speak about his upbringing?
If I explain in detail, your condition of indemnity grows large.
If you look at the Bible, only a little is recorded about Jesus. Why? Because that condition of indemnity grows large.
For that reason, the Teacher’s life too cannot be spoken of. Do you still want to hear? Then will you take responsibility for the indemnity of the whole world? Asking for such a vast thing without even confidence—really.
The Teacher went through much hardship. He endured hardship that the human body cannot bear, to a degree that no one. Physically and mentally, he suffered to a degree, losing to no one.
Even associating with the Teacher, you cannot know him. At some times he is fearsome, and at some times he does not speak the whole day. Therefore, you must study the Teacher. But wherever the Teacher goes, he cannot be known.
The Teacher always does as he wishes. Yet he does not do what goes against (反) the environment. He does it as though it wells up naturally.
Question: How should one connect the Principle of Restoration, the history of Japan, and Western history that does not appear directly in the Principle?
Their positions differ. The history of each nation develops, taking charge of a part of the principle of indemnity. But the history of each people fully carries out a historical mission of supplementing one realm of purpose.
The history of a certain nation has the history of all nations as its background. Even in the satanic world, it is treading a principle-type process.
If one turns it in the opposite direction, it becomes the Principle.
So one needs only to change the direction. Therefore, while making a satanic view of history, in its background, some bond of providence also remains.
So, with that background, it can connect with the worldwide fortune. The overall providence is connected. Without that, the position of the present age could not have a relationship with God.
Question: In that connecting relationship, is there also some degree of relationship among the history of Israel, the history of Christianity, and the history of Japan?
In the positions of the direct line and the collateral line, there is a relationship in all.
Why does a worldwide trend arise?
It is so that those in the collateral position may connect with those in the direct position. Therefore, the more humankind comes and goes, the more the world history hereafter is integrated, centered on the good. The bad is winnowed out, and the good remains. And so one good and fine view of the world naturally remains, and everything is integrated into it and gets on track. Good things come to stay.
Then the course of restoration the Japanese people have passed through—for example, its national position at the time of the Second World War, and that relationship too—would be explained by the people-level Principle of Restoration, and there would be a point of resolution for the question of why Japan came to be in such a position?
So, while Israel has carried out the providence for six thousand years of history, some nations have a providence of three hundred years or a providence of five hundred years—the period is all different. It is because there is a difference in developing toward the standard of purpose by age.
The term of years (年限) is also governed by the people’s condition of indemnity. And it is governed by what condition of indemnity that people have left behind upon Heaven’s carrying out of the overall providence.
Therefore, in some nations, a national central figure or a hero appears. Each nation has its period. That such a hero appears is to integrate that nation in a certain direction and make it progress. It is to keep pace with God’s providence.
So in Japan, a national hero appears, and an Eastern hero also comes forth. To complete the purpose of restoration, even now you are, without knowing it yourselves, fully carrying out a mission of indemnity. Various people are doing various works. God is having you do things you cannot understand.
Does Shakyamuni of the East know God?
Now he knows. Meanwhile, he did not clearly know. Why? Because when one says “God!” within the mind, it says, “What?” If one listens, within one’s own mind, the conscience and oneself are speaking. That it says, “You must not do thus,” one feels as though oneself is saying it. Shakyamuni too entered such a realm. His saying, “In the heavens above and on the earth below, I alone am the honored one,” lies there. What one said without knowing it oneself comes to be felt as though one said it oneself.
Without even knowing that God has entered within the spirit-self (영인체), the consciousness works so. But it is not that there is no God. There are many people who have had such a spiritual experience. The conscience keeps on preaching. Things like the neurosis phenomenon that often appear in modern women are all spiritual phenomena.
Such a phenomenon occurred an hour ago, but at this present hour it cannot be done. It is not within one’s own jurisdiction. Because it appears by the demand of that side, one must be able to discern it.
We often hear it said that the Heavenly Father is a Father of love; please speak of that deeply.
You know well that you love yourselves. The Teacher knows well that realm of the heart in which, at certain times, the Heavenly Father and the Teacher embraced each other and could not express it. Even trying to explain, it cannot be explained.
When one draws near to God, that person’s power is infinite. Because instantly one feels that it is infinite, it cannot be expressed. To what degree does God love the Teacher? This, only God and the Teacher know. Entering that realm, one becomes intoxicated. The intoxication at this time is different from being intoxicated by drinking liquor.
To yearn and long is a mind just like when a maiden loves. So when one thinks of it, it is always the feeling of adolescence. It is the feeling of burning with hope. Without such a feeling, the mind grows old. The Teacher need not pray. Even riding a train, he knows that God is with him.
Passing straight through a certain place, from the difference in sensitivity, one knows what age it is. Looking around a country, one knows how that country is.
The human being is truly delicately made. You will not know. Because I have gone around the world and know such things, I plan in various ways.
Question: Please speak about the phenomenon of the strong preying upon the weak and the concept of love.
From the position of a child to the stage of clearly knowing God and the concept of love, there is a considerable distance. To fill that distance, time is required. To shorten this time, even if one shortens it by catching and killing a thousand insects, it is not a sin.
For the purpose of shortening the path of God’s love, one does it even by sacrificing everything. If, even sacrificing everything, one can quickly achieve that purpose and set up such a standard, God rejoices at it. That is not a sacrifice.
What do you think of the act of killing all animals?
If your mind does not permit it, you need not do it. Only every existing thing has a dual purpose. The plant, too, has its purpose and, at the same time, has an all-cosmic purpose. As an individual entity called a plant, it treads the ordinary stage of bearing fruit without being eaten by animals. But for the accomplishment of the second purpose, it must even sacrifice itself.
Our purpose, too, is a dual purpose, is it not?
By rejoicing alone by oneself, one cannot achieve the nation’s purpose. If one accords with the nation’s purpose and completes it, the individual’s purpose naturally enters the completed stage.
And between animal and animal?
Among animals, too, it is the same. That principle was made the same. If you look at the fangs (齒) of a beast of prey, they are made so that it can certainly catch and eat animals. How could it not eat? Would it eat grass with that mouth? It is made so that the small is sacrificed for the great.
Then is not the relationship of mutual conflict something that by no means accords with what is called God’s love?
It is not so. It is only made that way. If one were to say so, then a person’s eating rice too would be a sin. So one would have to seal one’s mouth. Grass is, among all living things, a living thing one stage lower. It is because animals move while plants cannot move. But the plant, too, when cut, gives off water. Like tears. Among the plants one stage lower, there is rice, and it too has a life spirit.
Then is it all right for the higher to catch and eat the lower?
The higher must take the lower as its base. To take it as a base, one must draw it into oneself. And the lower must enter into the higher. That is not sacrifice but construction.
So the Teacher takes young people to the mountains to train them. They catch roe deer and such. They are truly cute.
When the Teacher sees such a thing, his mind wishes to embrace it and speak with it. But to train young people—that is, to sacrifice one roe deer and thereby train the young people to gain absolute courage and grasp the heart of heaven and earth through experience—he does so.
It is said that created things have eternity, uniqueness, and universality, but does that which has form necessarily collapse?
How should one think of the relationship between that and uniqueness and eternity?
That differs according to the element. When seen centered on the element, it is unique and universal. That is decided by the element. According to the element, it is the main element on Earth; its nature has differed.
And the eternity of that which has form, and its standard?
Its original nature is the problem. If it is a tree, it has eternity centered on the tree; if a poplar, centered on the poplar.
Does that which is of the phenomenal world change into something formless?
The element is constituted as an individual entity. The element itself cannot return to the standard of God’s formless nature (無形性相). It has a retrogressive nature (逆行性), but to return there, one must transcend a long distance. To us, it appears near, but it is connected across a long distance.
Question: In the phenomenal world, there are the formless and the formed, but can the formed change again into the formless?
Such a thing cannot be. That becomes the logic that the element must disappear. If so, the conclusion becomes that the whole universe disappears. The element remains as an eternal existence as an element. It is because one element does not have elemental power by itself, but the power of the formless God is the center and forms one element. In it, there is a limited power that we do not know.
All elements are made holding temporality, and when force is applied, the directionality goes awry. By the difference in the direction and quantity of force, the form of that element differs.
This is something one is asked when going out to witness. In the universe, there are many things like the solar system; is it not that higher living beings like humans live there?
Ah! There are none. That will be proven before long. Might there be something on Mars? But there is not. This Earth is delicately made and has atmospheric pressure. Only within this realm of atmospheric pressure can living things exist. That is the mystery of the earth. If this atmospheric pressure were strong or weak, living things could not exist.
From where should one prove the ground for saying that the human being is the supreme existence in the universe?
It is God’s heart. Only by knowing God’s heart can one naturally speak of it. If one accords with God’s heart, when I go north, everything turns north. It is because the human being is the lord of all things. So, even as the Teacher is here, the spiritual world is centered on the earth. All face toward the earth. It has become so without one’s knowing. By holding the standard that can be accomplished together with God’s love, one has, for the first time, the authority of the lord of all things.
If there is bright light and darkness, which way will one face? One faces toward the bright side. This is a natural phenomenon. God’s heart is the source of all life.
Will there not be a change in the solar system that confronts humankind with a crisis?
About five years ago, was it, a certain scientist said that a comet would appear and collide with the Earth and the Earth would be wholly destroyed, did he not? But the earth has a repulsive force—that is, a force that pushes away—when such an existing thing comes. You too, when you meet a dangerous thing, give off a reactive force without knowing it, do you not? It cannot be that there is a head-on collision and the world disappears. As long as this earth continues the same motion, its degree of heat does not change.
That our blood maintains 36.7 degrees is because the blood circulates at the same speed.
If the speed of the Earth’s revolution does not change, the Earth’s heat does not change either. If the sun too turns, then as its speed changes, the sun’s heat too changes.
The Earth is slightly tilted, but is this necessary for maintaining the existence of the Sun and the Earth?
That has become so according to the overall influence. It did not become so as its own individual entity. That a typhoon blows on the earth or an earthquake occurs is not made so by the earth’s own action. It is because a certain gravitational force (引力) is at work. If one draws up the data, it agrees statistically.
Is there no other heavenly body in this universe that has living organisms?
If there were, God would be a pitiful God. If there were a satellite greater than the Earth in this universe, God would complete the purpose of creation there. Going to the spiritual world and seeing certain angels, they are like people.
If one asks him, “Where did you come from?” he says, “I came from Mars” or “I came from Jupiter.” Then one thinks whether people lived on Mars too and died and came here. But it is not so. In the spiritual world, the whole universe is our stage of activity. One can even go to the sun. However far one enters into the sun, one does not burn. The whole universe becomes one’s own.
Even though it is a long, vast universe of hundreds of billions of light-years, because spirits can travel and be active throughout the whole universe instantly, things like light are no problem. That God made the spirit-self for us is for such a purpose. The spirit-self can slip through even a wall and has no inconvenience at all.
Among the stars in the solar system, which star draws the Teacher’s mind?
The Teacher is the sun. (laughter) The sunlight.
We must offer beauty to God, but in daily life, how should one concretely express that?
One must always stand in the position of object-partner. Such a conception must always be engraved in one’s own mind. One must always think of it. Like a dancer dancing, one must hold the mind always wishing to manifest the beauty of art.
One’s own self must always maintain a reciprocal position and hold the standard by which one can be embraced in God’s bosom. From that standard, a handsome man or a beautiful woman is decided. For example, love is dynamic, and beauty is static. There is stillness and motion, and they form harmony.
Question: It is said that the human being is a miniature of the universe; then, if one studies the human body and the spirit-self, can one know the secret of the whole Cosmos?
That is a corresponding relationship. Even the standard of substance, image, and symbol can correspond. The human being is a microcosm, not the substance of the universe. It holds the internal-nature form of a microcosm. That cannot be unraveled except by substance. The human being and the universe hold a standard that must correspond.
How should one go about gathering the power of the whole universe into one’s own soul?
If power gathers, what will you do?
Even if the power of the whole gathers to you, it is troublesome.
If it pulls the whole universe and falls upon you, what will you do? Rather than pulling and moving all humankind by force, if one pulls by the heart, one can move anything a hundred percent with one word. To do so is far more precious. To gather power physically, one must oneself hold such a motive standard. One must possess the subject element of a hundred units of power.
Are you yourselves able to decide the plus subject that draws in all the power of the whole universe?
That is impossible. One can stand in the position of commanding such work itself. Do you understand what I mean? If one stands at the standard of God’s heart, one can stand in the position of commanding.
What works is God and all things, and we are in the position of observers. But if a standard of heart is set up by which, from God’s position, one can direct the Cosmos in God’s stead, then centered on him, this solar system is changed, and from there it begins to turn.
It is not that the Teacher is precious because he has become the center of all the standards of the universal original power. He is noble because he is in a reciprocal position that can act before the consciousness-viewpoint of God, the Master of the will that made the universe.
If one stands at a standard from which one can act, He governs me, and one feels the joy and delight of the conception of purpose. When it becomes so, only the elements of peace form a relationship with me.
Seen through the spiritual world, it is said, “If one becomes God’s beloved child, one can move everything in the Cosmos.” Even so, telling the now-turning earth, “Turn the opposite way!” it does not become so. What this means is that, holding the realm of the heart and adapting all standards of purpose to the object thing, the power that can change it is permitted to us.
Even if God advances with the conception of the purpose of going east, He grants us, who can correspond to it, the authority to act, standing at the western standard. Because everything operates according to the Principle, there can be no disorder.
Only by holding the realm of the heart and commanding does it change. Only by the heart can one move God, the source of the universe.
So astrologers think, “Oh, if I command, the solar system is really turned the opposite way.” Among those who commune with the spiritual world, there are many such people. They think that if they command, the world changes overnight. But it does not become so.
Within a certain fixed limit, such a thing can happen. Borrowing the power of spirits, one even flies from a rock here to a mountain peak tens of li away. But to do such a thing, one must pay a corresponding condition of indemnity.
There are times when, once in several hundred years, such an action is temporarily permitted, but even then it is possible only by paying a condition of indemnity.
If one does a non-principled activity, one must pay a corresponding indemnity. Therefore, that a spiritually capable person performs a miracle is not a good phenomenon. One must, without fail, make a significant compensation.
Question: In Buddhism, for example, it is said that being born disabled and the like, though there is a cause in the parents too, is a result of one’s own past—how is it?
It is not so.
Question: I understand that the theory of reincarnation does not accord with reason, but is not being born so because there is some cause in oneself?
It is not so. Such a phenomenon appears for the sake of the resurrection. Such a thing occurs for the sake of the overall purpose.
Question: Then is there absolutely no responsibility of the person himself in the phenomenon that appeared in such a state?
There is responsibility. So, in being born, one is born holding responsibility, and the past standard and the present one are connected. Therefore, what is called the merit of the ancestors becomes the problem. According to whether it is much or little, it acts upon the present process.
So the one who is born holds that motive. One inherits that motive. If one is born with a good seed, it becomes a good result; if a bad seed, it bears a bad result.
Question: What becomes of the responsibility of the one who is born?
Suppose someone is rice, someone is millet, and someone is corn. One may think of it this way. One is born according to that quality.
Since it takes time until completion, one must quickly rise to that complete standard. Many people are all different. But all must, adapting to the quality of their nature, complete themselves as the center of an organization.
Why did one have to be born under such parents?
That is not the problem; the problem is why one fell. Had one not fallen, there would be no such problem. Had there been no fall, all would have been resolved.
What of the correspondence with the Logos?
It is constituted as a substance. What you are saying is, no doubt, the question of why one was not born blessed in the supreme seat but born as the son of an ordinary person. Without the ordinary, there can be no supreme either.
Seen from below, the supreme standard appears good, but the supreme bears a heavy responsibility. There is much hardship. The range one must move in is also wide. And unless one fully accomplishes it, one can do nothing. Therefore, one is not a happy person merely because one is high.
The position need not be made a problem. The problem is how, at the present standard, one makes the nature originally received from God reach the hundred-percent standard; there is no need for us to speak about the standard of departure.
In completing the value of character, all stand in an equal position. Looking at people, they are infinitely varied. That is why it is beautiful.
If all were only great people, it would not be beautiful. All of them together produce the flavor of human taste. The deciding authority that makes them born infinitely varied lies, after all, with God.
Please speak about the time before one is born as one’s own formed self.
Before being born, one only has the bond of father and mother; there is nothing. There is no individual entity at all. Only when father and mother become one is one born for the first time. Before that, there is nothing. It is not that one is born having form. The Logos is for making Adam.
So, once made, it is constituted as the substance of the Logos. And the Logos acts upon that substance and continues the course (行程) of re-creation.
Is the self as Logos entirely what is within the body?
One may consider it to be the conception—that is, the thought—at the time of creating Adam.
And the Logos of the descendants after creation?
All are constituted as the Logos itself. Because it is constituted as a substance, it multiplies like branches. The descendants are the branches of the substance.
Then a disabled child’s being born too has arisen by the condition of indemnity of the dual purpose, both overall and individual. Then how should one resolve such a problem quickly in the present age?
It is that one must seek the path of salvation. For that, God sent the Savior and also sent, age by age, people who would lead humankind to God. So one is to connect with them quickly.
If one connects, what happens?
One cuts off the bond with one’s own parents and connects with the original bond. One cuts off the place where, however much one toiled until now, one could not be saved and forms a relationship connected to the path by which one can be saved.
One must set right all religions, connect such bonds, and keep drawing them up to the final standard. So what did Jesus say? Speaking of the true olive tree and the wild olive tree, he said that one must cut them off and graft them.
This is a question about miracles, but I think there is no miracle that departs from the Principle. Then what about raising the dead again?
To raise the dead, if one breathes the spirit-self in again, it comes alive. But there is a limit there. It must not have decayed. The flesh must not be gone.
If, within three days or not long after death, one calls the spirit in, it revives. That is an easy thing. But there is no necessity for it.
Once God has called a spirit, to make it return, one must compensate something of greater value, or one must be able to bring a heavenly benefit by it; otherwise, it will not do. Because to save one person, three or four people may have to die, one must look at the spiritual value.
If one does not take responsibility for doing such a thing, one is caught by the heavenly law. Therefore, a miracle is not a good thing.
There is also such a thing. A certain grandmother was living in Pyongyang, and that grandmother, having heard about the Teacher from the spiritual world, came to seek the Teacher. And she entered the Unification Church.
That grandmother performed many miracles. She healed the sick and made those who could not stand stand. This rumor spread to every corner of Pyongyang, and many parents from around the world flocked in.
Thus, when one year, two years, or several years passed, and a certain stage was reached, God said, “Now stop such prayer.” Yet thereafter, one day, a certain woman came. She was a mother who had an only son in a well-off household. That son was now stricken with consumption and racing against time. “I will give my utmost and do anything, so certainly pray for this son,” she said.
However earnestly she pleaded, without God’s permission it would not do. Yet hearing that story, the grandmother could not bear it for pity.
Wondering whether there was some way to cure him, she did a hundred-day prayer. Cleansing her body and setting out holy water, she prayed. Until the ninety-ninth day, there was no answer.
Then, at dawn on the hundredth day, a voice came from heaven, saying, “Do you really wish to save that child?” “Yes, certainly, cure him,” she said. Then again, it said, “Then will you not complain about what I do?”
When she answered, “Yes,” the water held in the cup began to rise. The water welled up. Then it said, “Take this water, telling no one, and give it to that son to drink. Then he will come to walk.”
So, receiving that command, she took the water and gave it to him to drink. That was around three in the morning. And returning home and sleeping a while and rising, her own eldest son got up early from bed and said, “Mother, my stomach hurts.” And then, going into his room, in less than thirty minutes, he died. At that time, the grandmother came to know that her son had gone in place of that young man.
After such a thing, that grandmother became mentally deranged. Yet God had let the grandmother know beforehand the fact that He would take the grandmother’s son in place of that young man. When the grandmother, half out of her mind, was wandering here and there, at a certain crossroads her son clearly appeared before her and said, “Mother, where are you going?
You prayed for that young man, and I was sacrificed in his place—so why are you letting your mind fall apart? However good a human deed I might have done on earth and however I might have served Heaven, I am in an excellent place that I could by no means have reached.”
Why did he go to a good place?
It is because he went to a place combining the place he himself should go and the place the young man should go. He went to a place that completed the purpose of the two people. Yet because his mother only wept every day, he could not bear it.
So he said, “There is no cross greater than this. If you think of me so indulgently as your son, it is troublesome.” Then that grandmother said, “Ah! I did wrong.” Then her son said again, “Unless you love that young man whom you saved more than me, it will bring a great hindrance to my development in the spiritual world, so promise that you will love him more than me.” This is a fact.
When a person with a heavenly mission prays while holding responsibility, it becomes so. To perform a special miracle, one must pay a special sacrifice. It is something the Teacher too often meets with.
Though one wishes to forgive a certain person, before the heavenly law, one cannot forgive, and yet if one forgives by human feeling, one is caught. Such things happen.
Teacher, please speak of the meaning of the words in Matthew 19:30, “The first will be last, and the last will be first.”
There are such people. Christianity has now become so. Famous pastors are those who became first. Even within our church, one who enters first and does nothing is a troublesome person. You are, together with receiving training, competing with one another.
It is said that we have a freedom that neither God nor Satan can interfere with; then at what time can we leave our realm of consciousness and enter God’s world of necessity?
Even what is called self-consciousness—one must know that there are two kinds, the self-consciousness centered on God’s side and the self-consciousness centered on the physical mind, and when it centers on the physical mind, one must resolutely cut it off. But if there is a self-consciousness centered on God, that one must keep. That is a good thing. That is a thing of necessity.
Is that which accords with the original mind a thing of necessity?
It is so. The conscience changes. The original mind does not change, but various environments govern the conscience.
Is prayer necessary to bring the original mind to life?
Prayer, you say?
One must do it, even while imposing restraint on the physical mind. Prayer is the responsibility of fallen humankind; for unfallen humankind, it is not needed.
Well, it has become twelve o’clock. Having talked since the morning, my tongue feels heavy. When I receive such questions from you, the Teacher returns to the old days. My head spins. You will not see it, but because the Teacher becomes earnest, your faces go far away.
So, having to drag the substance that has gone far and see it normally, one is bound to grow tired. In the old days, gathering such people, I absolutely did not speak.
Now, because the time has come, there is no hindrance at all, even without restriction. A certain person, even while looking here, has his mind gone out. The head appears as such a substance. To such a person, however much one teaches….
To speak to such a person is like sowing seed in winter. Such a person, however much one talks, keeps his mouth shut.
Looking at each nation overall, say what one will, the national character of America, its standard of goodness, is high. And behind it, there were countless sacrifices of goodness. Therefore, it has received a worldwide blessing.
Shall we sing a song?
To change the mood overall, singing is good. (all sing “Red Dragonfly) The Root of the Universe and the Value of the Human Being
Shall we sing a song? To change the mood overall, singing is good. (all sing “Red Dragonfly”)