Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 144
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 3: The Mission of Religion in Achieving God’s Ideal
Speech 16: The Path of Life for All Humankind, pg 504-508
God and humankind are in a parent-child relationship
Ladies and gentlemen, because human beings fell, our life course is not a smooth path. The Fall of the first human ancestors led to misery for human beings. God also suffered misery. For this reason, we do not dedicate our lives only to the accomplishment of the ideal world. An even more important goal for our life is to clear away the sorrow and agony in the heart of God, who is the origin of all life. Thus, when human beings finally attain happiness, then God too will be happy.
God and humankind have gone through the course of history in the same situation, pursuing the same goal. As a result of losing Adam and Eve, God has walked the most difficult path, a path that no one would choose to walk. Human beings too have walked this inevitable path of destiny brought about by the Fall, always hoping for the coming day of salvation.
Humankind’s most fervent hope is to become sons and daughters of God. This is because no relationship is more intimate than that of parent and child. We were born when the love and life of our parents converged, and thus we represent their ideals. However, words like love and ideals do not make sense in reference to just one person. Life comes from a love relationship between a husband and wife; it cannot be created by one person alone. When God created human beings, He created us to be the object partners of His own love, life and ideals. This is amazing and incredible.
If I did not exist, my parents’ love would not have become visible. The love, life and ideals of my parents exist in relation to me. I am the fruit of my parents’ love, life and ideals. That is why the child’s position is the most precious of all.
It is remarkable that we started from a point where our parents’ love was our love, our parents’ life was our life, and our parents’ ideals were our ideals. That is why parents look at their children and say, “These are the sons and daughters we love.” Parents sense, realize and know that their children are the substantiation of their love, their lives and their hopes.
A single day cannot pass without parents missing their beloved children. Even if it has been only a few minutes since they last saw them, they want to see them again. If someone were to try to sever this relationship, they would find it impossible to break, for children are the bone of their parents’ bones and the flesh of their flesh. If their children disappear, parents feel as if they want to die. Their ideals are fulfilled when their children succeed.
Even parents born into this world deprived of true love, true life and true ideals due to the Fall know what it is like to love their children like this. How much more, then, would this be true for God, who is the subject partner of all parents!
Completion of the providence of salvation
Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have been the children and royal descendants of God’s direct lineage. Adam and Eve were in the position of prince and princess who stood to inherit the kingdom of heaven in the spirit world and on earth. At the same time, because they were created as the object partners of the invisible God, who is the subject partner, Adam and Eve were substantial beings who could receive God’s love. They were substantial manifestations of the invisible God.
It is the special privilege of a child of God to say, “God is mine. All that is God’s is also mine. Even God’s love, life and ideals are mine.” It is up to human beings to recover this amazing and incredible value that was originally ours.
If God is the subject partner of love who exists eternally, then the reciprocal partners of God’s love also exist eternally. When I become one with God’s love, God becomes me. Had Adam and Eve not fallen, their bodies would have been the homes where God could dwell. They would have placed God at the center of their hearts and become entities of love, life, and lineage who would be united eternally through true love. If they had done this, our mind and body would not be in conflict today.
The Fall means that we inherited the life and lineage of evil, centering on evil love. We were born from false parents, false olive trees. We must, therefore, rebuild the lineage by changing that false olive tree into a true olive tree. We have to be engrafted onto the true olive tree, go through at least three generations, and produce fruit that itself becomes true olive trees representing the original standard. Then the providence of salvation will be completed, and fallen people will be restored to their original state. In this way, God is trying to make us into children of the Parents of goodness, based on loving oneness with God. This is why God sends the Messiah to earth as the True Parents. The Messiah is the one who comes to restore the lineage of all of humankind to God and establish the original ideal of creation.
All people desire to be the best. We want to be God’s sons and daughters, God’s princes and princesses, heirs to God’s kingship. Everyone has this original desire, yet we have inherited a different lineage. We say that life is an ocean of suffering as we lament at our birth, lament over our lives and lament even as we die.
Thus, it is important to know how to end the struggle between our mind and body and unite them as one. A person who cannot unite his or her own mind and body will not be able to play a role in uniting the nation, the world or the spirit world.
Once a subject partner and object partner form a reciprocal relationship, they need to become one with a greater entity. Once a man and woman become one as reciprocal partners, that couple has to become an object partner to a greater subject partner, serving their nation as patriots. Likewise, a patriot who enters into an even greater partnership with the world will be engrafted onto the way of saints. A saint becomes part of a greater partnership with the cosmos and is engrafted onto the way of divine sons and daughters. Only after we have achieved the way of divine sons and daughters can we be engrafted onto God.
Before seeking to excel on the world stage, humans first have to excel as the original family of Adam and Eve. Had Adam and Eve taken their places as the lineal prince and princess before God, they would have been the most exalted among all men and women. However, they fell and lost their rightful positions of the elder son and daughter, the crown prince and princess. This tragedy has remained throughout human history. That is why humankind has traveled a path of life in search of the positions of first son and first daughter so that we might recover God’s true love.
If we are to receive God’s true love, we cannot live selfishly, centering on our own interests. Instead, we need to live for the sake of God and humankind as our brothers and sisters. The more a person sheds blood and tears for his or her brothers and sisters in place of their parents, the deeper, wider and higher will be the love he or she receives. This is the son and daughter we have to become if we are to inherit everything from our parents. Every man and woman will walk this path. Even if we have to face death ten times or a hundred times, we have to continue our search for God’s true love. This is the supreme path of life.
The Divine Principle of the Unification Church teaches that the Fall occurred when human beings left the realm of God’s true love. Restoration means to return to that realm. When a person enters the realm of such love, that person can merely look at his or her body and praise it tens of thou- sands of times. In that world, you know that your own body is what receives God’s true love. Words cannot express such joy. This wonderful world is called the kingdom of heaven.
The mission of religion
On the day that the hearts of men and women can take hold of God’s true love, we will be inspired to sing and dance for tens of thousands of years. The state of intoxication with God’s true love is so wonderful; alcohol or drugs pale to nothingness in comparison. A person can call on any being under heaven and it will respond. Just the sight of water flowing in a river will inspire us to sing for a thousand years. In heaven, even a simple whisper will convey unfathomable tenderness. Everything will have been accomplished, so there will be no need for treasures of gold or anything like that. From this perspective, the value of human beings is that we are in the position of owners who can commune with the universe through true love and feel the sensations of love. Fulfilling this is the path of life that humanity travels.
Until now, people have known relatively little about the spirit world. It is a world where people are recognized depending on how closely they followed God’s principle of existence—the principle of living for the sake of others. A world built on this content is the ideal kingdom of heaven. This is the original homeland for which all humankind searches. Today, we live as fallen people who have been expelled from our homeland, so it is our destiny to return there. However, we cannot do this on our own.
God has worked through history to resolve this problem by establishing numerous religions in accordance with the different cultural backgrounds, respecting the customs and traditions of various nations. God has done this so that human beings would have a path to find their way back. Religion is the training ground where we can cultivate the qualifications that enable us to return to our homeland. In accordance with the cultural background of each region, God is guiding us toward one united world religion that can advance us to higher ground.
Since religion is supposed to lead us to this homeland, it has to teach us to live for others. The more advanced a religion is, the more it emphasizes the principle of living for others, with humility and modesty. Religion teaches us to exalt all people and to live for others in service and sacrifice. Let us make the new millennium an age of true peace and true ideals, in which people will practice the way of true love. I hope we will recover the value of true original human beings, establish true families, and live for others eternally, centering on God and the True Parents. May your families and country be filled with an ever-increasing abundance of God’s love and blessings.
Thank you very much.
FFWPU, USA