Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 186

Section 3: The Meaning of Death, 20
Section 4: What is Heaven? 10

(20)  A person who lives cherishing Heavens hopes can joyfully surmount even the peak of death, which is otherwise an object of grief. That is why, when you face death, you should not have resentment, nor grieve over things of this world. Instead, you should rejoice and stand before Heaven speaking boldly of the value of your death. God is looking for such sons and daughters of hope. God cannot help but love a person who feels Heaven's joy in such a situation. If there were a throng of such people raising their voices to Heaven, God could not help but answer their cry.

Section 4.  What Is Heaven?

(1)  Heaven is a vast place. It is a world bigger and wider than this universe. But even though it is a world whose vastness is beyond description, if the people you love are somewhere in that world, no matter where, they appear instantly when you say you want to see them. And they know right away your frame of mind as you yearn for them. As soon as they arrive, they greet you, and knowing what is on your mind, they say, "Thank you for thinking like this about me." That is why there is no need to explain in the world of the mind. Without having an explanation, you can feel it all. When you go there and meet someone, you know right away that he is going to say this or that. You listen to him, even though you know what he is going to say. So how wonderful this world is! True love passes through the shortest route, and true love is the quickest of all. Even if a beloved child is somewhere abroad, as soon as the parents think of that child, they will already have left, seen that child, and returned. Love transcends distance. Because true love travels the fastest, this whole vast universe can be the stage for your life's activities. Since it transcends time and space, there is no sense of distance. It is as if everything is right before your eyes.

The kingdom of heaven is a world abundant with God's love

(2)  The kingdom of heaven is the world of God's love. It is a world where the air you breathe is love. That world is filled with life. There is no place in it that doesn't throb with life, and everyone is bound together through blood ties. Since its people are descendants of God's one lineage, if God feels sorrow over something, the entire spirit world feels that sorrow as if it were one body with God. And when God feels joy, everyone feels that joy. In this way, God's love is moving the vast kingdom of heaven. In response to this love, the living realm of all created things is beautiful art based on the subject-object partner relationship. Just as we are connected by lineage, everything is woven together, so when God is happy, we are happy, and when God is sad, we are sad.

(3)  Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is among you," (Luke 17:21) and that the kingdom of heaven is centered on God's love. Because the love of God is the center, all relationships in the kingdom of heaven are based on God's love, and a universally well-ordered environment comes about. Then, to reside in that realm, what kind of person do you need to be? Only those who harmonize with the essence of God's love can reside there. People who are not like that cannot experience it. What, then, can harmonize with the essence of God's love? Self-centeredness is worthless. Only investment for others, of one's life, one's devotion, and everything one has, allows one to live continuously in the realm of God's love.

(4)  In heaven, we can take satisfaction in what we have prepared and in having led a life of attendance. Then what kind of people can go to heaven? Not those who believed in the Lord in order to receive blessings, that is, those whose main wish was to receive blessings. Heaven is the destination for those who live preparing their hearts to attend God. It is a place where even those who die during their time of preparation can go with joy, for they leave behind a life of attendance. Resurrection takes place there. After preparing to attend, you need to lead a life of attendance. Then how can you lead such a life? Try feeling that which is around you; observe your environment. The details of life do not appear easily. How to lead a life of attendance is the crucial question. We should think about this in our everyday life.

(5)  Heaven is a place we cannot enter without establishing relationships of heart. It is the original nation, the nation of original nature which can govern everything. It cannot belong to you based on personal feelings. Rather, it is based on deeply felt bonds of heart. Ultimately it is where we are to communicate on the level of the heart, rather than on the level of personal sentiments. The purpose of God's providence on earth is to lay the foundation upon which we can go beyond sharing ordinary sentiments and sing out our honest and most poignant emotions from the depth of our hearts.

(6)  Even though Jesus came to establish the original homeland, he was unable to do so before he left this earth. Though he said, "The kingdom of heaven is among you," Jesus was not able to see the kingdom of heaven with his own eyes.  Likewise, our most respected forebears and the martyrs, sages, and wise people who have come and gone in history were unable to see that place or usher in that day. All those who inherited the lineage of evil from the fallen ancestors have yet to establish ties to the original homeland. This is why everyone is in search of the ideal. In reality, people are pursuing the original homeland. What kind of world will that be? Not a world where people are enemies to each other, or envious of others' success, or resentful when others rejoice. In that world, one person doing well represents everyone's success; one person rejoicing represents everyone's joy. The original homeland is where, when one person rejoices, everyone rejoices; and when one person feels content, everyone feels content.

(7)  Make your life a joyful one with God in the center. Make it the kingdom of heaven. In that kingdom, you practice a life of giving. God also has to give. Parents have to give to their children. Even after giving something good, a parent desires to give something even better. As a parent, even if you have dressed your baby in the best clothes and given him or her nice things to eat, you are not satisfied. Instead, you say, "I wish I could give better things." Desiring to give something better after you already have given is the heart of a parent and also the heart of God.

(8)  Heaven is the place where husbands and wives go after raising the sons and daughters to whom they have given birth. It is the place they go while guiding their sons and daughters, their grandchildren, and their clans. Further, it is the destination of the entire nation. Heaven is realized in that way. No matter how much the religious believers of today wish to go to the kingdom of heaven, it is not a place that you can enter alone. You can never go there alone.

(9)  The kingdom of heaven is what you experience after you have been born of the original parents of goodness, formed a husband and wife relationship, given birth to sons and daughters, loved them, and bequeathed everything to them in the harmonious universe where God can rejoice with all creation. The kingdom of heaven is not somewhere the father can go without the mother. It is where everyone—father and mother, sons and daughters—is meant to go.

(10)  What is our greatest desire? It is to possess God's love. Even if we have possessed God, if we cannot possess the love within Him, which is even more precious, God cannot be ours. Thus, we need to possess God's love. When His love first becomes mine and mine becomes His, the internal and the external become one. A nation based on such love becomes an ideal homeland without upper and lower classes. When we lie down in such a place, we feel that there is nothing in the universe that does not appear good and that does not exist for our sake. Since God's love is like that, the heavenly world, that is, the kingdom of heaven, which is to be the destiny of people today, is filled with love.