Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 77

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 3: True Love
Chapter 3: The Practice of True Love
Section 1: The True Way of Life, 01-16

 

CHAPTER 3 The Practice of True Love

Section 1.  The True Way of Life

1 Originally the relationship between God and human beings was to have been as parent and child, with God in the position of parent and each person in the position of a child. God the Parent and we as His children would have been bound together by love. Children born from the love of their mother and father begin their life as participants in their parents' love. That is a great thing. But even more, from the beginning of our existence, we would have been participants in our Heavenly Parent's love. Had we been born from our Heavenly Parent's love, we would have connected to our Heavenly Parent's life path centering on love. Yet, no one living on earth today fully relates to the Heavenly Parent's life or life path. That is why even human parents walk a path of life that goes over mountain passes of sorrow mixed with joy, as they struggle amid the suffering of human land.

The path of love that human beings must follow

2 We human beings come into this world through love. After growing up in love, we are to connect to another dimension of love. This is because we leave the love of our parents to find love with our life partner.  We can call living in the love of our parents, format ion-stage love, and conjugal love, growth-stage love. Yet, no matter how much a couple may love each other, their love is not complete until they have children. This is why couples want to have children; it is to know completion-stage love. Therefore, the core of human life is to go through the course of love—love from our parents, love for our spouse and love for our children. This is the fundamental path of love, to realize the ideal of God's creation. The purpose of a true love family is not only for the family but is also to build the kingdom of heaven.  To achieve the goal of oneness throughout the universe, a family must expand its purpose to the people, nation, world, and cosmos.  It must go out all the way to the world and then return.

3 Which comes first, life or love? Life does not come first. Love comes first.  Because what comes second must adjust to what comes first, it is natural that we devote our life for the sake of love. We human beings should be born in love, walk the way of love, and die for love. If we live, love and die in such a way that God, the angels, all the things of creation and all human beings—that is, the entire universe—publicly recognize us, then the whole universe will welcome our love. This is the purpose for which we were born.

4 We are born in love, and so we have to go the way of love. When it comes time to die, we also have to die for the sake of love. Love is not only more precious than life; it precedes life. This is why we willingly sacrifice our life for the sake of love.  Love is eternal. That is why there are many literary works, novels, and poems about unchanging love, eternal love. This makes it plain that the love we want is not momentary or temporary.  We want eternal love.

5 Love has such an authority that even God is totally captivated by it. By that, I mean that God is weak in front of love. The fragrance of human love makes God’s face light up with a smile. God delights in stories of love. If God so delights in stories of love, how much more would He delight in the real thing? The various organs of the human body were made for one purpose, love. The eyes were made to see, but to see what? To look for love. This is the common purpose of all the sensory organs. The nose was made to smell, but the most important fragrance is the fragrance of love. The ears were made to listen for the sounds of love. Of all the sounds we hear, the ones we never tire of are the sounds of love.  It is the same whether we are young or old.

6 We were born in love, raised by our parents in love, and we learn to love our spouse. We give birth to our children and raise them in love; we love our family and then our tribe. In this way, we connect to the wider world of love, from our individual love all the way to the love of God. In other words, love is like the water that begins as a small mountain stream, flows to the sea and becomes a great ocean current that rejuvenates the globe. It makes for a world of love, which rejuvenates nations of love, tribes of love, families of love and individuals of love.

7 Man symbolizes heaven and woman symbolizes earth. As for men, since they are in the position of subject partner, they do not like anyone to interfere with him. As for women, they prefer to respond to love more than to initiate it. Since men symbolize heaven and women symbolize earth, their union is analogous to the union of heaven and earth—the cosmos. Since love alone can govern the cosmos, and since through love alone can we become the subject partner of the cosmos, we should respect our partner as greater than heaven and earth. The only thing that can exist forever and connect these two worlds is unchanging love. Because the spirit world centers on love, people who live amid ties of love on earth will go to heaven.

8 When God and human beings unite completely, man and woman will unite naturally. When a perfect couple appears, heaven and earth become one. Where does God wish to dwell? Since love arises between a man and a woman, He wants to dwell where a true man and a true woman love each other.  Since God is with them, their love can last forever. They can achieve eternal unity as God bestows on them the ideal of eternal life. Those who attain that love can possess everything.

9 You should love your family, but you should love your country even more. You ought to love your nation more than your family; you ought to love the world more than your nation, and you ought to love God more than you love the world. This is the path of a true human being. It is the exemplary and direct route that human beings should have gone as human history unfolded. If you go this way, you will never stumble and fall.  With the family as your foundation, you will move forward to the nation, from the nation to the world, and from the world to God. By doing so, you will become filial children, patriots, and saints who will be remembered in history. After that, you can become God's sons and daughters. Human beings' ultimate purpose is to become God's sons and daughters. When you reach this position, you can attain the highest peak of your desire. It is a sublime happiness without limit, not only for you but also for the whole. When you reach that point, the whole will support you and live for you.  Let us follow this way, going straight ahead.

10 Humankind is walking a path that began with God and should end with God. In order for us to return to God as an individual, a family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos, we need to be linked to true love. Without being linked to true love it is impossible. Neither can we achieve mind-body unity without true love. This is why our mind prompts us to sacrifice ourselves to discipline the body. It does its utmost for the body and repeatedly forgets what it did. The mind's position represents God; hence, it is our greatest teacher. The mind is the center of the self, sent by God on His behalf. It is the vertical self.

11 On the path of life, our final goal should be to possess God's love. Whatever we have, our mind drives us to continue seeking something higher. Even if we possessed the whole world, since God is in a still higher place, we would want to possess God too. But even if we were to possess God, we would lose Him if we failed to possess His love. Thus our highest desire should not be to conquer the world, not even to conquer God, but to win God's love. Winning God's love has nothing to do with external talents or skills. Anyone can become a son or daughter of God and possess God's love if only they follow the right way. In the end, the best life is a life by which we become God's sons and daughters.

12 We came from our mother and father's love. We came from our mother and father's life. Because we are connected to our parents' love, we can say, "Father and mother, you are mine!" And our parents can say, "You are the extension of my love and life, so you are mine.” Likewise, anything that has God's love and life force belongs to God. The hope of fallen human beings is to become God's object partners and to belong to God. However, in order to become God's object partners, we need God's life and God's love. This is our cherished hope. Such is the path of human life; we must walk it whether we live or die.  This is the path that we should find, and this is our final destination.

13 The original way of love will lead us to the place where the ideal abides. That ideal was God's original ideal when He created human beings. Love is a most mysterious thing. Because of love, even if we possessed God, our hearts would not rest. Merely to possess God would not make us happy or satisfied. We want to possess everything in the core of God's heart, even the love in His secret treasure house. Only when we completely possess this love will our heart's hunger subside. Human beings are like warriors standing at the starting gate of a competition to possess God's love.

14  In order to get to the kingdom of heaven, we first need to collect all kinds of God-centered love. We must gather the love of the family, the love of the nation and the love of the world, and then go to the kingdom of heaven and unite with God. When we unite with God on this foundation, everything will orbit around God.  How do we human beings arrive at the place where God's love dwells? We must go the way of a filial child, the way of a patriot, the way of a world saint, and the way of a son or daughter of God. Then when we arrive at the place where God's greatest love dwells, we will settle there. For anyone born as a human being, this is the happiest way and the way of ultimate perfection. Everything is designed to reach this realm.

The true path to life that fallen people must walk

15 God has been leading His long providential history through good individuals, good families, and good peoples. In the past, ascetics followed a path that Satan could not go. They went a path that no one wanted to go. They went the path of suffering in order to discover what the mind is, what love is and what truth is.  All people need to go this path.

16 Human beings should be receiving God's love and blessings and enjoying a happy life. So how on earth did we end up this miserable? Human beings should be walking paths of hope and victory, so how on earth did we end up going the way of defeat and death? If you think that it is your fault, and therefore you want to take responsibility on God's behalf, and if your heart is bursting with compassion for the suffering of humanity, you will surely gain victory. Although you may have to suffer on the way, God will be with you throughout your life, and you will live ever grateful to Him.