Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 156

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 6: True Creation
Chapter 1: The Significance of the Creation 
Section 3: Nature and the Lessons It Offers, 13-21

(13)  When I was in prison in Danbury, there was an area where the ground had been leveled by a bulldozer to make a sports field. During the rainy season, the construction had to stop for a while. Near the construction, there was some wetland, and during the break from construction, a waterfowl laid her eggs and hatched her young. The bird might have thought that was a safe place since no one was present at the time. However, after the rain ended, people began to walk around there. The bird's nest was less than two meters from the path. At that time I noticed a very mysterious thing. When people passed by without noticing her or her nest, the mother bird kept silent. But if anyone caught her eye, she would rush out with a noisy fuss, "caw! caw! caw!" If someone took one step closer to her, she was ready to die to fight off the intruder. She was very small but not afraid of attacking a big person. She was ready to fight to the death, with all her might. This was amazing to me. Who taught her to do this? Did she learn this through the educational system or through some academic theory? She responded this way because of love. Love needs no education.

(14)  Among fish, the model of love between male and female is the salmon. That's why I love salmon very much. This fish leaves its birthplace and travels thousands of miles through the oceans. When they are about four years old, they return to their birthplace. In Alaska, because of the cold weather, there are not many insects for the baby fish to eat, so the parents die and let their young eat their bodies so they can grow well. What about human beings? We are meant to be the lords of creation. So if we are inferior to a fish, is that acceptable? If love has such great power in the animal kingdom, what should it be like among human beings, the lords of creation, and masters of true love? The issue for us as human beings is how to attain the highest ideal of conjugal love. Not all the principles I discovered are from the Bible; I found out many things from nature.

(15)  The salmon dies after laying its eggs. The salmon's love for its young is greater than the mutual affection of a condemned couple facing the day of their execution. Before the female fish lays her eggs, she and the male make a hole in the streambed to protect them. This is truly an ideal couple. After the eggs are laid, and after they tend them, the couple dies. When I saw the male and female salmon dying, I was shocked. Their bodies become food for their young. If there is a Creator, why do you think He created the salmon in this way? Observing these fish, we cannot but be led to grasp how important our children are and how important love is. It is only natural to suggest that God created the salmon as a model to show that love and our children are the most precious things. We also need to be able to offer our lives for the sake of love and for our children.

(16)  Salmon travel thousands of miles in the ocean, swim around for four years and then find their way back to their birthplace by scent. They invest incredible effort to spawn their young, making salmon perhaps even better than human beings, right? One male and one female meet once, lay their eggs, and die. In the place where the parents die, the baby salmon eat their mother and father's flesh in order to grow. Surely the greatness of love, the greatness of children raised through love, is expressed in this. Because of this, the reality is truly that "I" am the being who represents my parents’ life. Children are one's heirs who can go one step further and move toward a higher love. In this way, love itself moves to an ever-higher place, eventually reaching the realm of God’s love.

(17)  Every being is from a different lineage, the place of settlement is different and the foundation of life is different. A river flows into the sea. Water flows to the sea and then rises into the air, forming clouds. Through changing weather, it falls to the ground as rain, snow, and hail, becoming water again. Birds catch fish and eat them, and some fish eat birds. The plant and animal kingdoms are all connected through the food chain. Animals can eat plants, and some plants can eat animals. Both plant and animal plankton exist. These feed all the smaller creatures in the ocean, even minute forms of life. That is how these creatures survive.

(18)   What is the basic standard of creation? Even though God is an absolute being, He is looking for the object of His love. That is the beginning of creation. Before He created His object partner in love, He created the environment. The environment is created so that God’s object partners in love can take in nutrition and grow. That intake of nutrition is not by force. Because the objects of God’s true love, that is, human beings, take the position of subject partner to all things of creation, all things of creation automatically unite with and are obedient to them. This is the fundamental spirit of creation.

(19)  The universe is filled with all beings existing as pairs on their own level, but ultimately, they follow the principle of being absorbed into higher levels of love. Thus, minerals want to be absorbed by plants, plants by animals, and finally all of creation by human beings. Thus, all beings are either eaten or absorbed. They reach a higher level of love and ultimately attain the position closest to God who is the origin of love. In this way, all beings make this place their ultimate destination. This is the essence of true love. Darwin's theory of the law of the jungle must be reinterpreted in the context of this logic of true love. Even ants and microorganisms want true love so much that they would die for the sake of the owner who loves them. Based on this principle, human beings, created as the highest partners of God, are in the position where they can consume and possess all creation. Human beings already eat many things of creation, but they should do so with the heart that represents the true love of God, the Creator. If they are unable to do this, the universe will be unable to continue its existence.

(20)  Certain birds, such as penguins at the South Pole, lay their eggs by the sea. They form groups that travel more than one hundred miles to a distant place where they hatch their young. They persevere over this long distance even through wind and storms. The females lay their eggs and hold them between their feet. They move them between their feet and cover them with their feathers to keep them warm and remain stationary for long periods, without eating, to hatch them. During this time, the male and female pass the egg back and forth to each other, persevering in this fashion until the chick hatches. At this point, the parents feed the chicks' food from their own stomachs. The male's stomach may be very large, like that of a pregnant woman. The chicks that are born as a result of their parents' love and devotion are very thankful for the food chain that led to their birth.

(21)  To protect comparatively greater things, lesser things may be sacrificed. That is the principle. It is not a sin for human beings to eat plants or beef. This is to protect these foods; they are sacrificed for their own protection. This is development. It is a leap upward to something higher from that which is lower. The plant matter you eat forms human cells. Isn't that a great leap? This is because human cells afford a broader dimension in which to connect with God's love. Without knowing this, people speak of the law of the jungle and the concept of evolution. They interpret these through the concepts of struggle and class. The relationship between high and low is that of subject and object partners, but in their concepts, there is no notion of subject and object partners.