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1. I have mentioned before that the body represents the earth. If we seek a place where our body can rest in comfort, we must go through the pain of rebirth.
The longer this takes, the more anxious and fearful we become. However, once we get through it, we will find happiness. As the time of delivery draws near, a pregnant mother endures birth pangs that gradually increase.
However, once she goes beyond that pain, she experiences tremendous joy. We need to go through a similar process. God loves human beings. After creating us, God blessed us, saying, “Your body will govern the earth and your mind will govern the heavens.” (8-021, 1959.10.25)
2. Satan is erecting walls of death, using our body as a foundation for these walls. Satan became God's enemy, but originally, he was just an archangel. God is the subject partner and the archangel is a spiritual object partner.
However, since a person's mind represents heaven and his or her body represents the earth, the object partner, Satan uses the human body as a launch pad for his activities. This is why every religion advocates castigating the flesh. The aim of religion is not to conquer a nation or advance a particular ideology; it is to conquer the body.
Therefore, religions seek to reach the original standard of conscience. Peace begins when we ignore our bodily cravings, open wide the gates of the mind, and ascend to the level of conscience that Adam and Eve were meant to reach had they not fallen. (10-095, 1960.07.17)
Maintaining purity
3. Men and women must both preserve their purity. They must not stain themselves before marriage. After chastity, next comes the purity of lineage, of the bloodline. Every person who seeks love has to maintain sexual purity and know about the renewed lineage, the lineage of purity.
This is why we speak of chastity, pure love, and pure lineage. When a man and a woman preserve these three, become one through marriage, continuously live for others, do not keep a record of their good deeds, are not swayed left and right, and persevere in sacrificing while forgetting those sacrifices, they will liberate the world for tens of thousands of years, even if the four corners of the earth relocate, even if up and down reverse, and even if front and back exchange positions. They will bring everything into harmony and realize a world of peace.
(439-309, 2004.02.24)
4. The course of indemnity remains before us. Even if we lose all our relatives and family members in one fell swoop, we have to sacrifice everything for the providence, preserve our purity, and follow God's Will.
Even if all of our family members and relatives oppose us, we have to follow God's Will. Historically, Noah, Abraham, and Moses followed this course. However, they did not lose.
They exchanged whatever they lost for what is eternal. Nonetheless, they were unaware that by losing everything they would gain what is eternal. They had a vague idea, but they had no inkling of the specifics of what they stood to gain.
(21-209, 1968.11.20)
5. You have to be able to overcome the world's temptations, including the most debonair man or enticing woman. To achieve this, become a man or woman for whom obedience and chastity are of the highest importance.
You are to raise descendants who will preserve the lineage of the Blessing for tens of thousands of years. Your task is to protect sexual purity for thousands of generations. The greater the number of such descendants you raise, the greater the number of your relatives who will become part of the royal family.
(251-205, 1993.10.17)
6. Love is unique; it is only one. Love is unique and absolute. Since this is the love we desire, each husband has to engage his wife through absolute sex. It is undeniable that heaven comes to a husband through the encounter with his wife. A husband may walk a tortuous path, but unless he seeks the path of love and its righteousness, he cannot enter heaven.
The person who comes to introduce heaven to the husband is the wife, and vice versa. The day the couple splits apart is the day heaven disintegrates. It is also the day the couple's original ideals and dreams shatter into nothingness.
(139-064, 1986.01.26)
7. The past and the future are linked together through today. The past, present, and future are connected. The fortunes of heaven and earth revolve continuously around the past, present, and future.
When God renders His final judgment, He will examine our individual lives as He does in the Bible, by the Law. Accordingly, we can be completely restored as individuals only if we cultivate in ourselves absolute flawlessness, which is beyond accusation. Now is also the time we have to complete our family based on having perfected ourselves.
Our entire family history will be the object of judgment. This is why, at the time of judgment, our family has to be pure, leaving Satan unable to accuse. This is the only way we can redeem the family and complete the foundation for the people. When we complete the victorious foundation for the people, all peoples of Satan's world will be judged. God will personally stand in the position of judge.
Only when all the peoples throughout the world turn against Satan and lay the victorious foundation, against which Satan cannot protest, can we say that we have completed the restoration of the people. The person who leads us to these victories will become the Lord who redeems all humankind – the nation, the world, and all the heaven and earth. (13-210, 1964.03.15)
Achieving mastery over the body
8. What are the limits of the body? When the mind and body fight, over which hurdle do we most need to leap? It is the hurdle of appetite, the hurdle of food. The issue of how we deal with appetite comes with a religious life. We need to eat to live, but we cannot live to eat.
After Jesus had fasted forty days in the wilderness, Satan tempted him: "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." (Matt. 4:3)
Jesus gave the masterful response: "It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matt. 4:4) Jesus said that we live by the Word of God.
Living by the Word means living according to truth, reason, and law. Accordingly, Jesus' response to Satan was a strong rebuke, admonishing Satan for living in opposition to God's law. (037-124, 1970.12.23)
9. We have to conquer the twenty-four hours of the day; that is, we have to conquer time. Love has to transcend the limits of time. Next, we need to achieve dominion over our behavior. Love has to conquer behavior.
Now, conquering time means conquering sleep, and conquering our behavior means conquering all desires, including the appetite for food. It also means conquering the sexual urge. Love stands above sexual desire. Thereafter, we have to conquer our worldly desires. (171-022, 1987.12.05)
10. Jesus fasted to achieve dominion over his body. Examining every religion, we will see that not one of them is devoid of believers practicing penance. The higher the religion, the more it emphasizes such practices.
Perfection begins with total denial of this world. True religion advances by denying everything. It differs from the secular world's way of thinking. True religion does not begin by affirming what is of the world. It begins by denying what is of the world.
We can begin to affirm certain aspects of the world only on the foundation of denying everything and establishing a realm of dominion over the self. At that point, we are transformed into beings of value, re-created in heart, and we become good people. (039-201, 1971.01.10)
11. What has religion been teaching? It has been teaching us to save the soul and conquer the body. This is why religions exhort us to sacrifice in the service of others.
Religions also teach us, as we sacrifice to serve others, to go the way of penance, to fast, to inflict pain on the body. Unless we walk this path, we cannot enter heaven. This is the Principle. (48-087, 1971.09.05)
12. Religion is about self-denial. Accordingly, we have to deny everything. Whether it is food, sleep, or other things we like, we deny it all. We overcome sexual urges, appetite, and sleep.
Religions teach us to divest ourselves of cravings for food, sleep, and other bodily attachments. Human beings are conditioned biologically to eat and sleep to stay alive. These are things we are meant to enjoy. Nonetheless, we have to subjugate them because they have led the body on the path of death. (18-067, 1967.05.21)
13. Religion does not begin with approval or affirmation; it begins with denial. We live in an evil world, and if we support evil, we become evil. We each need to begin by judging ourselves.
Each of us needs to deny him or herself. Self-denial does not mean targeting the evil society. Even though we need to reform this evil society, we have to begin with self-abnegation.
The mind and body are fighting each other, and we have to chastise the body into submission. But what does it mean to chastise and subjugate the body? It means to do what is righteous.
When asked, what sets the criteria by which we subjugate the body, we should reply that it is our conscience. Therefore, we have to deny our sexual urges, appetite for food, and other instinctive bodily cravings. We thus need to pray and fast as well as offer vigils. (157-128, 1967.04.02)
14. The various religions established value systems. Why have they collapsed? It is because the religions forsook their original missions, and this resulted in constant disputes and divisions. Thus, they lost their power to guide real life.
The established religions do not teach clearly about life and the universe. They cannot clearly distinguish between good and evil or righteousness and unrighteousness.
In particular, they cannot answer clearly regarding the nature of God and His existence. As the ability of religion to guide people faded, material possessions turned from a means to an end in life.
Chasing pleasure became the norm. Sensual desires and material cravings dehumanize the world. In such tainted soil, love, service, righteousness, holiness, and other traditional values can't flourish. (133-285, 1984.11.03)
15. Where is ascension to heaven or descent into hell determined? It is determined within each of us. The person who feels pangs of conscience together with stimulation coming from the five bodily senses is in hell.
The person who leads a life that brings delight to the mind is in heaven. Therefore, it is wise to cast away one's worldly ambitions and evil min and to observe the heavenly laws centered on the conscience. (7-238, 1959.09.20)
The path that accumulates good deeds
16. You should not be arrogant and boast of yourself. Before your achievements, you should list your family's achievements. But before advertising your family's accomplishments, you need to invest in achieving results in the tribe.
Likewise, before boasting about its successes, the tribe has to invest itself for the sake of the people. But Korean members cannot be proud, even if they were to bestow the Blessing upon everyone within the entire length and breadth of the peninsula.
This is to say, we have to begin with the individual and ascend eight stages up to God, centering on the world. Only when God finally recognizes your achievements can you be proud of yourselves. (579-269, 2007.11.01)
17. Follow the lead of True Parents. True Parents are the first to enter the kingdom of heaven, and they lay the foundation for others to come and reside there. On this foundation, you live in the kingdom of heaven by the accomplishments you accumulate on earth.
In the spirit world, we determine the level at which we live, and our position, by a statistical evaluation of our earthly achievements. This is done scientifically, not according to what you say you believe or say you have done.
(586-012, 2008.02.04)
18. Individuals, while fulfilling their duty to their families, would also like to be able to live for their people and their nation. God is also like that. However, our lot is to choose between these. Fallen human beings' sphere of destiny is that of striving to achieve the greater good.
Even God strives to pursue the fruit of goodness for the people and nation because it is greater than the fruit of goodness for the family. Likewise, one who strives to be a person of character does not restrict him or herself to the family or the tribe.
That person will strive to transcend their people and demonstrate virtue and character on the world level. We cannot deny that we each aspire to become a central person who contributes to the greater good. (28-264, 1970.02.08)
19. Those who display devotion to the world, demonstrate loyalty to God, and fulfill their responsibility to Him can stand as honorable people before the nation, before their people, before their parents, and before everyone.
Such people feel confident when standing before a mirror. They can sing their praise with a clear conscience. “I have done my very best; there is nothing more I could have done. I have gone the path of death and am unable to do any more on this earth.
I have invested all my energy and devoted myself completely. If there is one thing I have not accomplished, it is that I have not guided this people, this nation, and this world to be as close to God, as I am. If this failure constitutes a sin, then I am a sinner.
Nevertheless, I did my very best.” Any person capable of saying this will certainly leave a historic legacy on earth. (045-252, 1971.07.04)
Sun Myung Moon