Creating a World of Peace - The Thought and Works of Sun Myung Moon by Joon Ho Seuk

Volume 1 - The Life and Teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon [Part 18 / 20]

2. The Original Ideal

Reverend Moon's teachings are divided into three parts: The Principle of Creation which describes the original ideal, the deviation from that ideal, known as The Fall of Humankind, and the solution to this deviation, called The Principle of Restoration.

The Principle of Creation describes the original ideal of God's creation, including the existence and nature of God, the purpose of creation, the relationship of human beings to God, and the existence and nature of the spiritual world.

A. The Existence and Nature of God

Reverend Moon has directly experienced God throughout his life. These experiences are one source of his understanding of our creator. Another resource is his observation of the world in which we live.

Harmony, precision and order are evident everywhere in nature. It cannot be that this marvelous universe was formed as the result of an accident. Everything that exists, even the smallest particle or cell, has some meaning and purpose. There must be an origin, a first cause, which gives purpose to everything and maintains harmony in the universe. This first cause is God.

Dual Purposes of Existence and God

From "The Re-Evaluation of Existing Values and the Search for Absolute Values," The Seventh International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, Boston, Massachusetts, November 24, 1978.
Every being embodies dual purposes of existence: both a purpose for individual self-maintenance, and a purpose for creation of a higher dimension through interaction with other beings. Within each individual being there are subject and object components which interact in harmonious unity.
In addition, any being existing in internal harmony also interacts with other beings and thus achieves a being of higher dimension. This occurs when a being takes a position as either subject or object with another being and has give and take with it.
As a result, the universe is a hierarchy of beings of increasingly higher and more universal dimensions of direction and purpose. It is composed of subjects and objects interconnected through mutual interest, and it has inherently a common and universal power or force toward the promotion of a common universal purpose.
What then is the content of the powerful and mutual relationships that help achieve the eternal harmony of subject and object? It is none other than give and take relationship centering on love. Love does not originate from mankind; the ultimate origin of love is the absolute, unchanging causal subject.
As you no doubt realize, in religion this first causal subject or being is called God. Throughout my own life I have continued to have varied and numerous experiences of this God's love and will, and I have been teaching of these.

Reverend Moon describes how God's divine nature is revealed through the common factors found throughout His creation.

All entities have the attributes of masculinity and femininity, or of positivity and negativity. These paired attributes are called dual characteristics. We see men and women, male and female animals, stamens and pistils in plants, all exemplifying the pair system.

In the mineral world, we discover polarities such as protons and electrons, cations and anions, plus and minus charges. The world is made in such a way that everything exists and multiplies through the reciprocal relationship of give and take action between male and female, positive and negative.

Since these dual characteristics exist everywhere in the universe, then God, who is the cause, must embody not only the essence of masculine nature but the essence of feminine nature as well. Thus, man and woman are equally essential expressions of God. In fact, the most complete human expression of the heart and personality of God would require a man and a woman together.

Dual Characteristics of Masculinity and Femininity

From "In Search of the Origin of the Universe," Family Federation for World Peace Farewell Banquet, Washington, DC, August 1, 1996.
If we go deeper and deeper in our search for the origin of the universe, we arrive at God.
We come to know that God possesses dual characteristics of male and female. It is clear that humankind is comprised of man and woman, or subject and object. In the mineral kingdom, molecules are composed of anion and cation.
Plants reproduce through stamen and pistil.
Animals live as male and female, and human beings as man and woman. If we examine creation, whether the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom or animal kingdom, we observe that plus and minus on a higher level exist and develop by absorbing plus and minus from the lower level. In the mineral kingdom, plus and minus, that is, subject and object, unite centering on the ideal of love and thus exist.
In the same way, in the plant kingdom, stamen and pistil, that is, subject and object, unite centering on love and thus also exist.
God Himself has the characteristics of masculinity and femininity, or positivity and negativity. Human beings, who were created as the substantial object of God, were created as man and woman. When man and woman marry, they become substantial plus and minus representing God. It is God's will that when we marry we completely unite horizontally centering on God's vertical love.

There is a second duality which all created entities share: everything has an internal character as well as an external form. The internal character gives purpose and value to the external form. Consciousness, reason and law shape the behavior of energy on every level of existence. Particles, atoms, and molecules are made of energy, but are guided by the invisible laws of nature.

Plants are made of cells, but are guided by inherent laws, which direct the physiological functions of the plant. Plants are sensitive to their environment, responding not only to sunlight, gravity, and water, but also to music and human emotions. Animals are made of tissues, but are guided by their invisible instincts.

The human being also has a body that consists of cells, but, in addition, we possess a unique human mind, which enables us to think and feel in a distinctly human way.

Dual Characteristics of Mind and Matter

From "The Role of Unified Science in the Moral Orientation of the World," The First International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, New York, NY, November 23, 1972.
No one can deny that every creature, including man, is a unified being with two natures -- a material nature and a mind-like nature. Man is the unified being of body and mind; animals are the unified beings of body and instinct; plants are the unified beings of matter and directive life; and inorganic bodies are the unified beings of matter and directive energy.
From the standpoint of ontology, the cosmos is a world of effect and it must therefore have an ultimate cause. Materialism says this ultimate cause is matter and idealism insists that it is spirit. However, because the world of effect is made of unified beings with two natures, the cause must also be a monistic being with the potential of the two natures of matter and mind unified into one.

Since everything God created has an external form and internal character, He Himself must have external and internal aspects.

The external aspect of God is the source of all physical energy, for example solar and electric power, the force of gravity, magnetism, etc., and hence is the cause of all matter.

To understand the internal aspects of God we must first look at ourselves. The main attributes of the human mind are emotion, intellect and will. We have the impulse to pursue beauty, truth and goodness. We value the beauty of nature, we are delighted at the arrival of a newborn baby, we enjoy the harmony of music and dance, and we like to express our own creativity. We aspire to become knowledgeable and wise. Our conscience urges us to do good and reject evil. Everyone dreams of a world of peace and harmony. We have the capacity for selfless love.

The Object of God's Love

From "The Role of Unified Science in the Moral Orientation of the World," The First International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, New York, NY, November 23, 1972.
Let us consider what might be most important and necessary for this God. It is certainly not knowledge, power, money, nor life; the magnificence of the universe which He created testifies to His possession of all these. The only thing He might need, as the origin of love, is an object to whom He can give love and from whom He can receive love.
The created world was made by Him as that object. Since man is the center of and combines within himself the elements of all other created beings, he is that most precious being who is to be the object of the love of the original absolute being. Thus only through man can the absolute being realize or accomplish His ideal of love.
Therefore, that point where the ideal of absolute love centering on man is realized is also the point where man is perfected as the object of the absolute being. In other words, the point where the ideal of love is ignited is the point where created subject and object are united into harmony, responding together as one united object to the love of the absolute subject.

Our creator, God, is the source of these values we all cherish: love, truth, beauty and goodness. God's power is guided always by reason and principle, but it is expressed above all in His impulse to love. Heart is the essence of God's being. Heart is the impulse to love and seek an object to love. God feels joy when He can give and receive love with His beloved.

Recognizing that the essence of God is love, it is clear that the common purpose of all created beings is the realization of love.

The Purpose of Creation

From "The Role of Unified Science in the Moral Orientation of the World," The First International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, New York, NY, November 23, 1972.
Then how could God create the cosmos and man? God could do it because God has heart.
And where there is heart, life appears; where there is life, development and creation can take place. For creation there must always be purpose. This is because heart directs towards purpose. The purpose of creation could only be joy, which fulfills the desire of heart.
This joy comes when the creation, especially man, comes to resemble God. God's goal of creation is to have man and the world of happiness -- the Kingdom of Heaven -- reflecting the love and creativity of God. The love and creativity of God relate to mind and matter respectively. We know this is true from the fact that man's ideal is actually to seek after such a man and world.
The ideal is the world which was originally given to man as his home. The fact that man seeks a joyful world as his ideal means a joyful world is the one God planned for man. Such a world reflects God's love and creativity and thus becomes joyful.

B. The Purpose of Creation

Since God's essential nature is love, He created objects of love for the purpose of the realization of joy both for Himself, as creator, and for all His creation.

Reverend Moon testifies to the love God has for human beings. Unlike all other creatures, human beings were created as God's direct objects of love, to resemble God and to respond to God's love and will from the position of children.

In the Bible (Gen. 1:27-28) it is recorded that God created the first human beings, male and female, and gave them three blessings: to be fruitful, to multiply, and to have dominion over the earth. If these first human ancestors, known as Adam and Eve, had established a true family based on their individual maturity (fruitfulness), and had then expanded their family (multiplied) throughout the world and taken care of the earth (dominion), this would have been the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

God Is Our Parent

From "God Is Our King and True Parent," Canaan Baptist Church, Harlem, New York, May 8, 2001.
Let us ask then, who is God to us? What is His relationship with humankind? We refer to Him as "Father," because He is our source of true love, true life and true lineage. Thus, the original relationship between God and humanity is that of parent and child.

God's love is to be expressed most completely in the family. In the ideal family, a mature man and woman, who directly experience the vertical love of God, unite eternally as husband and wife, perfecting the horizontal love of God, and then bear children, thus substantiating vertical love between parent and child in the created world.

The Ideal of True Love

From "True Parents and the Completed Testament Age," North American Speaking Tour, 1993.
God's ideal in creating the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, was that they perfect themselves through true love so that they could then create a good family of true love, true life and true lineage. Such a good family would have been formed on the basis of unified heart and mind among family members in front of God.
When God created Adam and Eve, His first son and daughter, God wanted them to be better than Himself. Traditional thinking would say that this is absurd. But please take a moment to think about this. When we as parents look into the faces of our children, we wish upon them an infinite amount of love and hope. We want them to grow and achieve things we ourselves only dreamed of.
Similarly, God wants to give limitlessly to His children. God is not content in giving just 100 percent. God's desire is to give a thousand times more than what He has. The nature of God's love is to give completely and then forget what He has given. Unlike some who calculate how much they have given and then decide that it is enough, for God enough is never enough.
Moreover, God's purpose in creating the world was to have an object of love. His purpose in creating parents and children, husbands and wives, and all things in this world in complementary pairs was to substantiate true love throughout His creation.

Through living in such families, human beings can experience love in the four realms of heart: the child's realm of love children have for their parents, the sibling's realm of love among brothers and sisters, the spouse's realm of love between husband and wife, and the parent's realm of love parents have for their children.

In such families, they can also experience the past (grandparents), present (parents) and future (children) generations living together.

Reverend Moon refers to these three generations as the "Three Great Kingships."

This is God's original ideal of creation for His children.

Four Spheres of Love

From "True Parents and the Completed Testament Age," North American Speaking Tour, 1993.
Looking from the vertical perspective of love, Adam and Eve should have related directly with God by developing in themselves the four types of love: children's love, brother- sister love, conjugal love and parental love.
Therefore, Adam and Eve should have originally grown through the four spheres of the heart, centering on God's true love, as completed children, completed brother and sister, loving couple and perfected parents.
They would have, thus, achieved the completed family. Adam and Eve should have become the role models for all in their family.
Their children would have looked to their parents as ideal role models. They would have become brothers and sisters who loved each other as their parents loved them. They would have become a married couple resembling the husband-wife relationship of their parents.
Finally, with the birth of children, they would have established another completed family, identical to that of their parents.
Thus, all the families in the world, originating from the same God-centered ancestors, Adam and Eve, would have had equal, divine value. By establishing ideal, unbreakable families that fulfill the vertical and horizontal unity between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and husbands and wives, we will finally build the eternal basis for God's kingdom on earth as well as in heaven.
In every completed family, grandparents will be in the position of kings and queens, representing God and good ancestors. Parents will be in the position of kings and queens, representing present humanity, and children will be in the position of princes and princesses representing all future descendants. When all three generations are united, past, present and future will live together in harmony.

C. Eternal Life and the Spirit World

God created us as His children to be the recipients of His love for eternity. All physical bodies naturally age and die. This is why God did not create a physical world alone; He created a spirit world as well. In fact, we were created to go through three stages of life:

First in the watery environment of the womb as a developing fetus, then as our physical selves on the earth breathing air, and finally as our spiritual selves in the eternal spirit world where we "breathe" love.

Just as the physical world is the environment for our physical self, so the spirit world is the environment for our spirit self. Our life on the earth is temporary, but our life in the spirit world is eternal.

Three Stages of Life

From "The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Fatherland," The Washington Times Foundation American Century Awards, Washington, DC, February 2, 2000.
Humans are created to pass through three stages of life: in the mother's womb, on earth, and in the spirit world after death.
The planet Earth, where the physical body lives, is similar to the mother's womb. In the same way that a fetus grows by receiving nutrition through its mother's womb, we grow on earth, by eating food taken from the creation. That is why we should love the earth as our mother.
In the spirit world, light as bright as the sun shines continuously. If a person were in space somewhere in the solar system, the sun would shine on him continuously. That is the way it is in the spirit world. The light of love in the spirit world is constant and unchanging.
Love does not change, whether it is day or night, at the North Pole or the South Pole. The spirit world is the world of love filled with the true love of God. The spirit world is also like a storehouse in which the fruits of our hard work on Earth are stored. Our life in the spirit world will reflect our accomplishments on Earth.

Through our physical life on earth we practice all kinds of love in the family, thus creating within ourselves the basis for eternal relationships with God and human beings. In God's original ideal, human beings on earth would be able to interact with the spirit world through our five spiritual senses. However, because we separated from God and failed to achieve spiritual maturity, our spiritual senses have been impaired to the point where we have become ignorant of the spirit world.

Preparation for the Spirit World

From "The Kingdom of Heaven: Who Will Enter It, and How Will They Get There?" Closing Banquet Address, The 7th World Culture and Sports Festival, New York, NY, January 29, 2001.
Man is to build an ideal family and perfect his spirit self while living on Earth. We then enter Heaven in the spirit world. Our original hometown is the Kingdom of God in Heaven, where our spirit lives in God's love for eternity.
The Fall closed our spiritual senses. This is why we do not know about our spirit self or about Heaven in the spirit world. Unlike animals, we possess a spirit self. We should know about the world of Heaven that we will inevitably enter. The family is the school, the training center in which we can perfect our heart.
Family life guides us to master ourselves for the sake of sharing love with others. Thus, the family is the base upon which we can build the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Heaven is where we are intoxicated in the service of God as our King and Master.
We can enter there, but only as families.

The spirit self needs the physical self for its growth. Our actions provide nourishment for our spirit, which in turn nourishes our physical body. When the spirit self has fully matured and achieved the purpose of life, its attachment to the physical body is no longer necessary. It can continue to live freely and eternally in the spirit world, even after the body returns to the earth.

Our spirit selves grow on the foundation of the good actions performed by our physical bodies.

Our experiences of love, beauty and joy on earth determine our ability to experience them in the spirit world. Reverend Moon explains that God's ideal and His purpose of creation must be realized on earth before we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven in spirit world.

This is why our life on earth is so important. A person who lived an evil life on earth suffers in the spirit world, harvesting only unripe and rotten fruits, whereas the person who lived for the sake of others experiences the joy of love eternally.

Love Is the Standard

From Gathering for Reading and Learning Series, Volume 11: Earthly Life and Spirit World I, FFWPU: Washington, DC, 1998.
How much have you loved humankind? How much have you loved all the creation that God has created centered on love? Can you love them in the way that God loves them?
That is the standard of measurement for everything. It is immediately measured. It is instantly known, faster than a computer. A woman who is married proudly talks about how much her husband loves her. Likewise in the spirit world, you can be proud of how much you receive God's love -- Original Love.
That is love of the highest level. From there, each level is determined. Do you understand?
It is like that when you go to the spirit world.
What constitutes the spirit world? The air of the spirit world is love. Love. Love is air. Your mind and body have to experience love and harmony on earth. Once you create the sphere of experiencing love and harmony, there is no place where you cannot communicate with each other instantly. Only through love. You will be connected with God in the way a bud on a tree branch is connected with the root of the tree. You naturally sense when God is rejoicing.
It is love that you can breathe in the spirit world. Everything comes from love, lives for love, harmonizes with the love principle.
Once you contain love, you will become the substantiation of hope longed for by God throughout human history. You will be welcome anywhere you go in the spirit world.
Your family is the training place for the Kingdom of God. A person expands what he has learned in his family to all directions and lives for the sake of others within the sphere of love. Then he will be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

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