Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 302
Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 10: The Philosophy of Peace
Chapter 2: How Will Peace Be Realized?
Section 2: Peace between Mind and Body, 04-16
The struggle between mind and body
(4) The world in which division and conflict never end is the opposite of the garden of God’s ideal love. It is not a world of truth that realizes the ideology of peace premised upon love. It is a world that Satan inhabits, in which he destroys the moral laws of family relationships. It is a world in which jealousy and envy sow unending struggle and division. Are you seeking the heavenly castle, in other words, the garden of the original ideal, while you harbor jealousy and envy in your heart? Do you have conflict and division in your mind? If such things remain within, you will never find the garden of the original ideal.
(5) The Fall originated with self-centeredness. The Fall ruined human history, bringing affliction, failure, and war. We need to arrive at an understanding of fundamental issues in order to clear these things away. We need to discover the root of living for the sake of others and all things, grounded in God's love. To do so is to discover the source of peace. Without discovering the source of peace, we will not be able to build a world of peace.
(6) Our bodies, which were to have received God's lineage and God's love eternally, received the blood of the devil Satan, the enemy of both God and original human beings. We are in a bitter situation that will drag us into hell. To this day, people have not known this. What I'm saying is that Satan took a family—a family that could have lived a happy, ideal life in a peaceful kingdom with God as the center—and he violated it, creating a world of misery and hell.
(7) The battle between the mind and body is more hideous than a nuclear war. In a nuclear war there can be a ceasefire, but there are no ceasefires in the battle between the mind and body. That war never ends. From each person's first day of existence on earth until the last, a ceaseless war is fought in the background of the mind. People in this state formed families and then tribes and the fighting increased. Then, people were added upon people, increasing the conflict, after which nations fought against nations. Human history, until now, has continued as a history of war. There has not been a single day when all wars were stopped. Their origin is the mind and body. This point of origin, the body and mind, initiates the conflict. Individuals, families, tribes, peoples, and nations follow this pattern.
(8) No matter how impressive someone may look, if we analyze that person, say, a Mrs. Kim, we will find a struggle between her inner self and outer self. I am telling you that the outer person and inner person are constantly confronting each other. This is undeniable. Within each of you, the good mind and evil body are always fighting each other. This battle is the problem. What is its source? Where is its origin? It originated at the very beginning of human history. It appears as if this battle may continue on for tens of thousands of years.
(9) You are fighting right now. You are firing guns throughout your life. Irrespective of how you arrange things in this world, your body and mind are fighting each other. How can you bring peace between them? Will your body win this battle, or will your mind? You need to become people who can say, "Without a doubt, my mind will be victorious." Those whose minds are victorious are on the side of good, while those whose bodies are victorious are on the side of evil.
(10) To this day, people have endured constant struggles between their own minds and bodies. That is, we have never seen a day of peace and unity, a day that would allow us to run toward a clear goal in accord with moral laws. Since the entire course of history has unfolded while our bodies and minds have been in conflict, there has been no way to avoid a division into two worlds, one oriented spiritually, the other, materially.
(11) If we were originally designed with our body and mind in conflict, things such as ideals, peace, and systems of thought would be nothing but empty words, spoken in vain. If we were created not to struggle internally, then there would be a purpose for ideals, peace, and systems of thought. It is illogical that people born with an inherent inner conflict could come up with the concepts of true ideals and peace. In all respects, we are resultant beings, not causal beings. We were brought into being by a cause and, as resultant beings, our existence must be consistent with that cause. Cause and effect cannot be different; a resultant being is formed from the substance of a causal being. So we can conclude that we, as result, are not inherently different from the cause, and there must be a process by which we can unite. That is scientific.
(12) The original mind, which is God’s base, is the guard post for the kingdom of heaven. The body, which is Satan's base, is the guard post for hell. They are on opposite sides of a border. You can hear gunshots across the border. This is the sound of your original mind fighting with your body. Until you win this war, you cannot become God's children, and you cannot go to the heavenly nation. Without this victory as the starting point, the kingdom of heaven and the ideal world cannot be realized.
(13) Our mind-body relationship is the place of confrontation between the goodness of God and the evil of Satan. A vicious battle is taking place there. I too have struggled with this, and have set up the motto, "Gain mastery over myself before seeking to master the universe." How do we deal with this habitual conflict? Korean people crave to eat red pepper paste and soybean paste. Can you overcome this? During the day, you need to work, and at night, you need to sleep. Is it possible not to sleep? That is the problem. You have to conquer yourself with respect to sleep, hunger, and women, if you are a man, or men, if you are a woman.
(14) Our body is Satan's kingdom. Thus, God teaches us to be victorious over ourselves, to conquer ourselves. Unless we discover the way to become one within ourselves, it is impossible for there to be a peaceful, united world. People today think that the key to uniting the world is found in external systems such as democracy or communism, but this is not correct. It is wrong due to the fact that our minds and bodies are fighting each other. Even if we could create external unity, authentic unity would still be far away if our bodies and minds were to remain at war.
(15) We say that both our original mind and body are alive, but we are Satan's prisoners who cannot live as expressions of goodness alone. So, in truth, we are dead. Therefore, we have to break the iron bars that surround us and escape. As long as we serve two masters in our mind or environment, there cannot be such a thing as peace, so our suffering will continue. As we seek the path of life, what determination and resolutions should we make? The iron bars that surround us are nothing other than our own body. We have to mobilize our conscience to break these iron bars. The time when that can happen is called the Last Days.
(16) Peace and equality are goals shared by the entire human race. What is the starting point toward achieving them in the world? It is a way and a truth that allow for communication, harmonization, and agreement. Then, what is that new truth? It needs to be an absolute truth that can link heaven and earth and that can remain beyond the end of human history. It has to be an ideology with a view of human life that contains a driving force that allows you to connect with any being in the world, whether that being is above or below you, in front of or behind you, to your left or right. History did not begin in communication and harmony but rather in mutual aversion. Such a beginning can only lead to failure and sorrow. Unless there is an absolute being who calls out to humanity with an ideology of communication and harmony, human history will consist of nothing but hopelessness.
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