The Words of the Beutl Family
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The Words of the Beutl Family |
My dear brothers and sisters,
I think all of us can agree that we are members of one worldwide family because we have a common origin in our Creator who stands in a parental position towards mankind. We find this expressed in some Jewish and especially in Christian scriptures which call God our Heavenly Father or even in other religious traditions. In the Lotus Sutra Buddha is called Father of the World. Similar statements can be found in the Vedas and the Confucian classics while in Islam expressions of God's love can be found with both the fatherly aspect of love (Creator, Teacher, Guide, and Savior) and motherly way of loving (Nurturer, Fount of compassion, and Sustainer).
As members of the Unification Movement we understand that the root of love can ultimately be found in the parent child relationship, starting from the connection of heart between God as our eternal Parent and us as His beloved sons and daughters. Let us ask ourselves honestly from this viewpoint, to which extent are we experiencing such a bond of heart with God as our Divine Father -- Mother?
Most of us will probably have had heartistic encounters in our life in which we felt a deeply loving embrace in the depths of our souls, accompanied with a very profound sense of a peace of mind in which we felt strongly the presence of an unending parental love protecting our life. But such experiences are generally rare and cannot just be repeated as we like but rather reach us as a special blessing from above.
Through the teaching of the Bible and the Divine Principle we know of the fall of man resulting in our separation from God which needs to be restored with the help of the messiah as our mediator. The ones who have accepted Jesus as their personal messiah can usually feel God's love in a special way, including the grace of forgiveness with the chance to make a new beginning again and again after having failed in one way or another.
This corresponds to what children experience in a loving family, where parents forgive any mistake and do their best to help their children not to repeat them, but to learn from failure and to turn even weak points into strong aspects of one's personality. Such internal changes are supported best through a warm atmosphere of unconditionally loving parents who want their children to be better than themselves.
Can we sense that this is also the desire of our Heavenly Father, that He would like to see us as His sons and daughters of whom he can be proud because we have learned to love truly without any border or limitations? If we center our attention on our reality, how hard it is to love unconditionally, we may not be too hopeful that such a level of heart is possible, that we reach a standard in which we will be able to love as much as our Father in Heaven loves His children.
I suppose most of us feel that we could be in a better inner situation if we were able to love others more. Reality shows often how limited we are in our ability to love, letting us easily feel discouraged and therefore not ready to invest ourselves completely full of hope that practicing true love can be our daily reality. As it is probably true for most of us that we are rarely overwhelmed by the love of God we do not feel too much inspiration to invest ourselves completely in response to such deep emotions of being uplifted through such a Divine love.
Why are we in such a miserable position from the viewpoint that we have been created to live intoxicated by the love of God? Why do we have some inner barriers which hinder us from receiving the abundant love of the eternal Parent of all Mankind? We can refer to some fall of man and the consequences from which we suffer. But there are also the solutions which are taught in the various religions, with the Divine Principle providing outstanding logical explanations of the cause of our separation from God and how to overcome it.
The ones among us who are long time Unification Church members tried for many years to apply this teaching in our own daily life, but how close have we come to reach perfection, which has been declared already by Jesus as the ultimate personal goal when he stated in the sermon on the mount that we have to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
We can think of our fallen nature as the core reason why we do not experience more of God's love, which is certainly true. Here I would like to mention especially the first aspect, referring to look at reality from God's viewpoint. How well are we familiar with how our Heavenly Father sees us and the situation of mankind?
This is a very important question to which we need to receive many answers in the course of our life in order to recognize His standpoint clearly in the various situations we meet along the way until we are finally able to be fully aligned with the will of God 24 hours a day, a goal that can be realistically achieved by each one of us if we invest ourselves with all of our heart and soul and strength for this most precious purpose which will bring the deepest fulfillment for which we long in our innermost selves as sons and daughter of our Heavenly Parent.
In order to reach this point of ultimate fulfillment the first step is surely the purification of our souls so that they are a wonderful temple for God’s spirit to dwell in us constantly. Our first essential task in the course of restoration is to repent, to turn away from wrong concepts and emotions and to prepare a fertile soil for the all embracing love of our Divine Creator to bear beautiful fruits in ourselves as a true manifestation of the eternal truth that man is born to live in the joy of experiencing loving relationships all throughout one’s life.
We know these facts about which I am talking here, we have all learned them, but the question remains how deeply we allowed it to reach our innermost hearts. To which extent did we remove all traces of fallen nature from our souls to that they are a crystal clear base respond to the love of our Divine Father / Mother who longs ever so much for us as His beloved sons and daughters?
The sad reality is that many of us are still stuck in one way or another, not listening attentively enough to our conscience and not responding to its call wholeheartedly, because otherwise we would be day and night dedicated to bringing comfort to our Heavenly Parent, doing our absolute best to live under the dominion of His love so that we can be a direct channel for the warmth of His love to flow through us as we reach out to others day by day in an unceasing desire to bring liberation to the hearts of God’s children.
The essence of our situation is clear: We live in a new era in which we can achieve complete freedom and total liberation which means in reality to become free to love. We ourselves block the flow of love by our not being ready to apply consequently what our True Parents and members of their family have taught us. We make still false compromises and have some excuses as to not live up to the absolute standard which is indeed possible to be practiced by each one of us.
I don’t know how many of you have read the reflection on familyfed.org about the 50th True Parents’ Day celebration in which he tells us instead of a glorious occasion it was a time of great seriousness in which True Father had to scold leaders severely: “Father continued scolding leaders while everyone stood listening and watching as much as they could. Though it was not easy to behold, it was an important time of education for the world leaders in attendance. If we don’t truly understand the heart of our parents, we can’t truly attend them. Father is so serious in front of God to fulfill his mission…
As Blessed Central Families, we have such a great responsibility to represent True Parents to the world. In order to do that, we must first connect to True Parents in heart. How can one truly connect with True Parents in heart? Is it through hearing Father telling us about God’s ideal, about the Fall, about restoration? Of course, that is part of it, but the real deal is when Father is going all out and expressing everything he is really feeling. What happened yesterday at the Cheon Hwa Goong was that kind of day. Altogether, Father spoke for over 10 hours, in total control not only of his spirit and body but over the entire spiritual atmosphere in the building. I believe that he was fighting with the evil spirit world over the leaders…
How can any of us know God’s heart? Father had to go through an unimaginable course, through which he could not only understand and resonate with God’s heart but also could liberate and establish the liberated authority of God. We have no right to ever judge Father or what he does. If we feel the inclination to judge him, that is a sign that we have to do some serious self-examination and find out where we went wrong -- what thought or feeling we let grow unchecked in our minds and hearts that allowed us to build a wall between us and True Father in our hearts.”
Knowing about how serious our True Parents are in front of God let us indeed check our own mindset and attitude towards our Heavenly Parent to recognize clearly in which points a change is needed in order to contribute more to bring an end to His pain and the one in the hearts of our beloved Father and Mother.
Sincerely yours,
Nikolaus