Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 41
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 1: The Principles of True Peace
Speech 12: God is the Origin of Peace, Pg 148-151
We have the responsibility to liberate God
Then what was it that pushed human beings onto the tragic path of the Fall? The Fall of Humankind took place when human beings embraced self-centeredness instead of obeying God's Word. Today the fruit of the Fall is seen clearly in the extremes of selfish thinking and behavior that rage around us with impunity.
I am speaking of the reprehensible behavior of people routinely seeking their own benefit and convenience regardless of others. I refer to the shameless attitudes of people trying to save themselves without concern as to whether others live or die. Such behavior stems from that which brought about the Fall.
This is certainly not the type of conduct envisioned by God at the time of the Creation. God did not desire to bring about such a world, and we never wanted to be born into such a world.
Therefore, God has set His purpose to clear away this tragic, sorrowful, and painful history and build the world of peace, happiness, freedom, and goodness that He originally desired. He is working to set this fallen world right. This is the path of restoration and the path of the providence of salvation.
As the descendants of Adam and Eve, all human beings are fallen. However, within each of us, there still exists an original mind and a conscience that directs us back toward the originally intended world. This is why people throughout history have always desired and longed for the world God originally sought to create. This long-cherished desire remains today as an ideal that cannot be extinguished or ignored.
God has carried out His providence again and again, in each historical period, so that He could inspire fallen human beings to return to His ideal with a new heart. Finally, we need a Savior, for if no central person capable of moving heaven and earth with this ideal appears, then true freedom, peace, and all other ideals will never come about. Humanity will be fated to endure an endless path of sorrow and indemnity of astronomical proportions.
In these circumstances, God cannot appear to us in glory, peace, or freedom, and the path of restoration cannot be an easy one. God appears in the midst of difficulties, and to meet Him, we must first make ourselves a sacrificial offering. This is because the path of restoration is the way of indemnity.
This means that until we are able to wipe away the sorrow in God's heart and dissolve all the grievances there, we cannot hope to accomplish peace among humanity, much less see God's ideal of creation bear fruit on earth. Since God's pain was caused through the Fall, we are responsible to liberate Him from the burden of grief that weighs like a massive stone on His heart.
Yet who among us is truly thinking like that today? Even the most devout believers in Jesus are blind and deaf to this truth, thinking they will simply be forgiven. However, as fallen human beings, we need to return to the state before the Fall.
Having lost God, we must go back to the state of grace we would have enjoyed had we never lost Him. Having lost the True Parents of humanity, we must return to the position we would have held had we not lost them. We must return to live in a garden of peace centered on God and True Parents as their children.
What strategy does the omniscient and almighty God use to change this hellish world into a world of peace? We need to be reminded that in order to accomplish this purpose, God has endured a history of sacrifice and bloodshed and has suffered through so many wearisome religious rituals and rules. This history is referred to as the providence of salvation or the providence of restoration.
Originally, if human beings had not fallen, our mind and body, being centered on God's love, would not contradict each other. Because of the Fall, however, the mind and body came to stand in opposing positions. Therefore, even if it were possible to somehow be transported to an ideal world, without each individual solving this mind-body problem and establishing a true standard of heart, living in such a world would not be ideal.
The Absolute Being, who is the Lord of creation created the entire universe in order to share love and oneness. He formed humans, the highest among created beings, to stand in the position of lords of creation. To do this, we must be able to incarnate God's heart. Becoming one with God's heart does more than establish the parent-child relationship between God and ourselves. It is also the link connecting humanity with the rest of creation.
In restoring the ideal world of peace, the world of the original ideal of creation, it is first necessary to establish certain conditions. We must go through the process of restoration through indemnity.
What is meant by restoration through indemnity? Whenever something or someone loses its original position and state of being, it cannot be restored to its original position and status without first paying a certain price. The setting of such conditions is referred to as restoration through indemnity.
If there were only God and us in heaven and earth, we would not need the word "indemnity." It exists because of Satan, who caused our first ancestors to fall. If Satan and the world of evil did not exist, there would be no need for indemnity. There would also be no need for the phrase "unity of religions," which we now proclaim with all our might, nor would we need expressions such as "the liberation of God" or "the liberation of humanity."
The Fall brought about the degradation of human life and turned history into a record of anguish and failure, a chronicle of war. In order to wipe away this history and unravel all of humanity's fundamental problems, God needs to establish anew the original starting point of human history. He does this through a person who can live a life of true love for the sake of God, humanity, and all creation. This is the mission of the Messiah.
What did Jesus do when he was on this earth? Although he was persecuted and died on the cross, he truly loved all humankind. Jesus left this world giving the supreme example of love through the cross. Throughout his life, Jesus never said he wanted to receive love. Rather he said he came to serve and that he would love even his enemies.
Without that kind of love, we cannot find the origin of peace; and without the origin of peace, we cannot establish a world of peace.
The world of peace can never come to exist as long as we focus only on receiving love. In the realm of true love, our physical parents are not our only parents, nor are our physical siblings our only brothers and sisters. Even our own biological children are not our only children. Once we become people of true character, we will come to feel that every person is our parent, sibling, or child, and we will want to treat them as such. We will not be able to see all the people now wandering in the world of death without tears filling our eyes. With such love, when we see young people thrashing about in a quagmire of drugs and debauchery, we will feel compelled to devote our full heart and soul to saving them, as if they were our own children. This is a manifestation of the love that unconsciously and naturally seeks to give rather than receive.
FFWPU, USA