Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 237

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 8: Life of Faith and Training
Chapter 2: Training the Mind and Body
Section 4: Training the Mind, 12-24

(12)  All the pain and suffering God has borne on our behalf is reflected in our mind and body. The mind works tirelessly to guide every action of the body toward the goal of goodness, while checking the environment. When the body loses the objective and direction the mind prescribes, and falls into the pit of death, the mind looks to what is good and recommends it to the body. Therefore, everything begins with me. As our mind represents Heaven, the objective sought by our mind and the objective sought by Heaven have to be in accord.

(13)  If God is the center of your mind, the objective of God and the objective of your mind must be the same. Furthermore, your mind should be united with the direction on which God is focused. In order to have mind and body unity, your body should accord with the ideal standard of the earth. In the historical Last Days, the ideal world of goodness will absolutely come. Your body and your daily life should connect with the world that is in tune with the ideology of goodness. When the standard of your mind and the standard of God separate, you face difficulties. When the standard of your physical life is in conflict with the concept of the whole earth, difficulties arise. In that case, where should you begin to mend your ways? The answer lies with you, not with others.

The path of devotion, faith and prayer

(14)  You have resolved even to face death in walking this new path of faith.  Therefore, if you advance in the direction God's wishes with absolute faith, your path of faith will lead you to discover divine value. Hence, you need to feel the responsibility that accompanies such faith, and become true sons and daughters who practice this faith. Unless you do so, there is no way you can stand before the Father. You will not be able to stand before the absolute Father as a true son or daughter, and a patriot.

(15)  If you look from a historical perspective at how God has searched for people, you will see that He has found people through their conditions of faith. On the one hand, God has asked people to establish conditions of faith, but on the other hand He has demanded that people put their faith into action. After you create a bond of heart with God, in order to gain a foothold to erase feelings of sadness, you need to forge the path of putting faith into practice. Only in this way can you establish history-shaping connections.

(16)  In order to resolve any awkward situation, you have to report about yourself honestly and truthfully. Sincerely report, "I am this kind of person" and request, "I am a wayward person but You are good; if only You would sympathize with a person like me and kindly show me the path of rectitude I need to follow, I would be grateful." If you engage people with a prayerful heart, your environment will become natural. However, if you persist in your ways, whatever effort you make will not settle your mind. Rather than settling in that environment, you will leave. Therefore, to be able to say, "I am such and such a person and I wish to build a relationship with you," you need to report about yourself sincerely and truthfully. This takes place through prayer. Prayers help rectify your course when you are going astray. If you reflect on your daily life, you will see that your words and actions vacillate and your feelings go up and down. Every moment, as you live and breathe, you are weighing this and that. In weighing your options, you have to be sincere.

(17)  Normal people do not understand my prayers. They need to read them a hundred times to grasp them. When you hear the mysterious sounds of heaven, in order to resonate with them, you need profound reverence and feeling. Therefore, you need to connect with nature, with everything. Unless you have that connection, you will not know. The Buddha said the same: "In heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one." He could say that from his being in that state. It is like this when you overcome boundaries.

(18)  You need devotional conditions and prayer. Is your position that of a resurrected person? If you are not standing in that position, are you at least ardently seeking it? Are you confident about taking responsibility for the environment in your path of faith? We have not yet accomplished this. This is why prayer is necessary. Prayer has the power to move the goalposts of life and death. It is difficult to offer the ardent prayer that is necessary. How busy would you be if you had to build a great tower stretching miles upward? Seriously, if you had to build a very wide and tall tower, wouldn't you be incredibly busy? If you resolved to build it and projected that it would take fifty years, you would not have a second to lose.

(19)  I believe that prayer is the greatest power, because it makes possible what is impossible. In the Unification Church we emphasize prayer, but we do not teach a different method of prayer. It is just the contents of our prayers that are different. My teaching has been, "Do not pray for yourself." I teach that you should pray instead for your mission, for others, and to offer words of comfort to God.

(20)  When you face a difficult problem, resolve it with prayer. Why then do we pray? Prayer enables a relationship based on God's standard of heart. When you pray about an issue with a serious heart of concern for God and the nation, God will certainly teach you what was before and what is to come. Such occurrences will take place quite frequently.

(21)  More than expanding outward, we need to unite with our mind and find the path that leads deep within. This is the life of prayer today's Christianity talks about. Prayers that seek to connect with God's mind and profoundly experience the essence of God's Word are more precious than prayers about setting certain objectives and achieving them. This is why we seek a quiet place when we want to pray.

(22)  If you lead a life of prayer, you will feel indescribable joy. This state of joy is the state of God's Thought prior to creation. Having reached this state, if you are able to stand in the position where you can describe such joy, you will be in the state of God after He created the entire universe. This level is the position of God as He created the universe through the Word. From that state, you have to proclaim the Word. If you do so, people certainly will appear wanting to receive the Word.

(23)  If you want to pray, you have to do so before beginning your daily activities. Hence, the most important time is daybreak. Dawn is the most important time. This is the time period that determines the outcome of your day. Pray at this time. In order to offer a profound prayer filled with emotions hitherto unknown and unfelt, do not center your prayers on yourself. Pray for a great objective on the level of the nation or the world.

(24)  You have to lead a profound life of prayer, which means you steep your daily life in the providence. You also have to reflect constantly upon how closely you are tying your daily life to the course the church is going and the path God is walking. To do so, your heart has to yearn for church news to the extent that you just go to church or call the church at any time. God surely will dwell in the family in which He finds such a heart. Without such a heart, there is no root that can sustain what is planted; it is the same as having planted nothing. Understanding this principle, you need to reorganize your life to lay such a foundation.