Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 180
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 4: The True Family Movement
Speech 13: God’s Model for Absoluteness, Peace and the Ideal Is the Family and Global Kingdom Upholding Absolute Sexual Morality, pg 634-638
The spirit world really exists
Ladies and gentlemen, each person has a mind and body, and a spirit self that is more elevated than the mind. God resides in the world in which we live with our physical bodies and also in the spirit world, where our spirits are destined to go. Therefore, we are complete only when we have become completely one with God in true love. Such a perfected person might be a relatively insignificant individual; however, as a representative of all of history and all potential future relationships, this person could be said to possess infinite value. Once we are aware of our cosmic value, we realize that we need to lead our lives in service to our minds for the sake of perfecting a standard of absolute sexual morality.
This is why your conscience knows and perceives every action you have performed, and also every thought you have entertained. Your conscience is aware of these things before your own teachers, parents or even God. Hence, if you were to live in absolute obedience to the commands of your conscience, which is your teacher for eternity, you would be absolutely guaranteed to have eternal life. Such is the way of God’s creation.
Consider the structure of a human being from a different perspective. We can recognize that God created us as beings with dual characteristics. He created our physical bodies as miniatures of the corporeal, physical world; likewise, He created our spiritual bodies as representatives of the incorporeal, spirit world. We are meant to take dominion of love over both worlds. Accordingly, God intended each person to live for a hundred years or so in the physical world and, once the physical body ceases to function, pass on naturally and automatically into the incorporeal, spirit world. In this way, the spirit world is the automatic and inevitable extension of our lives on earth, even though our physical eyes cannot perceive it. That world is humankind’s eternal, original homeland created by God.
The spirit world actually does exist. It is not a world that has been fantasized or imagined into existence. We do not have the right to choose; it is not a world we can go to if we please or refuse to go to if we would rather not. Just as God is eternal and unchanging, the spirit world He created is also eternal and unchanging. Just as we live in the physical world in our physical bodies and form all sorts of relationships with the things of this world, likewise in the spirit world we are destined to continue living in our spiritual bodies, forming and maintaining close relationships with all phenomena of the spirit world.
Although everyone has both a spirit and a body, the spirit is the more important of the two. The physical body lasts for about a hundred years before it ceases to function, yet the spirit lasts eternally, transcending time and space. Isn’t even a person who dresses and fares well in the physical world bound to die? Therefore, before you pass on to the next world, you have to achieve unity between your spirit and your physical body by living your earthly life in such a way that you meet the standards of both the physical and spirit worlds.
In other words, you have the responsibility to perfect your spirit within your physical body based on the finite life you live in the tangible, physical world. This does not mean, however, that your spirit self automatically grows to perfection. Your spirit self can mature fully only on the foundation of your having achieved complete unity between your mind and body during your earthly life, by expressing true love through action.
Ladies and gentlemen, in order for fruit to ripen and be put into storage in autumn, it must first pass through the growing process during spring and summer and be provided with the nutrients supplied by nature and the tender loving care of its owner. Fruit grown in an orchard by a lazy and ignorant owner will be afflicted with all kinds of diseases and be affected by foul weather.
Eventually it will fall from the tree before it is ripe, or be classified as worm-infested. Though it will still be fruit, it will be different from other fruit because it will never be good enough to sell in the market. Fruit that has fully matured on the tree will automatically go into the owner’s storehouse. Similarly, only when a person’s spirit has reached perfection during life in the physical world, which can be likened to the tree, will it automatically enter the incorporeal spirit world of the kingdom of heaven. In other words, a person will enter the kingdom of God in the spirit world automatically only after qualifying for and enjoying the kingdom of heaven on earth by living as a fully mature person while in his or her physical body.
During your life on earth, your every action and movement, without exception, is recorded on your spirit self, with the public laws of Heaven as the standard. Accordingly, you will enter the spirit world in the form of your spirit self, which has recorded your life on earth with 100 percent accuracy. Your spirit will show plainly whether you have led a ripe life of goodness, or a wormy, rotten life of sinfulness. What this means is that it is not God who will judge you; you will be your own judge. If you are aware of this astonishing rule from Heaven, will you spend the remaining days of your life on earth in selfishness and immorality, succumbing to all the temptations of Satan, in pursuit of only pleasure? No. Rather you will abstain from injuring and scarring your spirit bodies, even at the risk of your earthly life. Please bear this truth in mind: Whether you are bound for heaven or for hell is determined by your thoughts, speech and behavior in each moment.
Nevertheless, when you look into your lives, your outer self and inner self are undeniably in a relationship of ongoing conflict and struggle. How much longer will you allow this fighting to continue? Ten years? A hundred years? In contrast, there is undeniably a proper order for all forms of existence in the universe. This indicates that God did not create us in this state of conflict and disorder. You have to know that it is your duty and responsibility as a human being to dispel all temptations directed at your outer self, your physical body, to work to perfect absolute sexual morality, and to gain victory in life by following the way of your inner self, your conscience. Heavenly fortune will be with those who lead their lives in such a way. They will attain perfection of their spirit selves.
The kingdom of heaven and the family
Ladies and gentlemen, what kind of place is the kingdom of heaven? In brief, it is a world overflowing with God’s true love. True love is its axis. True love is everywhere, in the outward expression as well as in the inward thought. Everyone’s life is filled with true love from beginning to end. In the kingdom of heaven, people are born through true love, live in the embrace of true love and follow the way of true love until the day they pass on into the next world, the spirit world.
The kingdom of heaven is a natural world where all people live for the sake of one another. Consequently, antagonism and jealousy cannot be found anywhere in that world. It is not a world governed by money, position or power. In that world, the success of every person represents the success of the whole, the likes of every person represent the likes of the whole, and the joy of every person represents the joy of the whole.
The kingdom of heaven is a world filled with the air of true love, where everyone breathes true love. Its life throbs with love, everywhere and all the time. The citizens of that kingdom are all linked together through their common membership in God’s lineage. There, the whole world and its people are connected in an inseparable relationship, like the cells in our bodies. True love, the love that is God’s essence, is the kingdom of heaven’s only governing power. Accordingly, God also exists for true love.
When seeking after the lost ideal of the original family, there has to be someone in the position of perfected Adam, someone in the position of Jesus, and someone in the position of the Lord at his second coming. From that starting point, we can establish the family in which God will dwell. The three generations in that family—grandparents, parents and children—will live in harmony. Parents and children will serve and attend the grandparents because they represent the family’s ancestors, its historical root.
Ladies and gentlemen, the family sets the pattern for living together in harmony and unity. In the model, ideal family, there is love and respect between parents and children, mutual fidelity and love between husband and wife, and trust and mutual reliance among siblings. This means that you are to establish a true family wherein the stem of true love emerges from the root of true love and bears the fruit of true love.
In this manner, the three generations of grandparents, parents, and children live together as one family and serve the eternal God. God desires to see such families, and it is your responsibility as tribal messiahs and ambassadors for peace to seek after and establish these families of Cheon Il Guk, the kingdom of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, you need to form families that God will miss and yearn to return to after He has been away. He wants to feel comfortable visiting your home, like any parent coming to visit his or her children. This is what it means to live in service to God.
Within such a family, God is the vertical subject partner of your conscience, and your conscience is the vertical subject partner of your body. Thus, unity with God brings your mind and body into unity. Family members who have established that vertical axis can perfect the four realms of love and heart: parental love, conjugal love, children’s love and siblings’ love. That family links all directions: up and down, front and rear, right and left. They revolve around each other in everlasting spherical motion. This is God’s eternal, model, ideal family, which is the foundation for ideal model nations and God’s peace kingdom. If only the entire world were filled with such true families! It would be an orderly world where people governed themselves by the heavenly way and heavenly laws, with no need for lawyers, prosecutors or even judges.
Who would be most fully aware of your good and bad deeds? It would be your grandparents, parents, spouse and children. Is there anything that cannot be resolved within the family? When parents and children, husband and wife, and elder siblings and younger siblings set an example of living for the sake of one another, how could they do anything unforgivable? What reason would they have to commit crimes? A world governed by the heavenly way and heavenly laws is a natural world, an unobstructed world of truth and pure reason. It is a world at the “high noon” of absolute values, without any dark shadows.