Now, this brings Me to a third point. You remember that you started to have profound prayer when you were really in a desperate state. Do you remember the story that Mr. "X" told about the man who was on the sinking ship and then he was in the lifeboat - he was an atheist, but he started praying to Me in this stormy sea in the lifeboat? And then another man in the lifeboat, who had known him for a long time, looked at him and said, "Hmmm, your atheism is only good for the land." You remember that story? Well, this is the point: That man had gone beyond all his rational atheism and his arguments and was facing perhaps the end of his physical life; and so he had gone to a completely different level of his being or his consciousness by being in this state of threat to his life. And that's why suddenly I became very real to him. It's the same thing as when you came home from the hospital and you and "H" began to pray.

You were facing a situation completely unprecedented in your lives and one in which you didn't know what was coming next. And so you were at a completely different level than, let us say, if both of you are feeling fine, everything's good, there's enough money in the bank, and you're just planning to come to your hometown, there was no physical problem, nothing. You could not have the same prayer! I tell you, tell you, tell you, you could never have that same prayer! Never! You cannot manufacture that kind of seriousness simply by hearing someone's sermon telling you "You must be serious" or "You should pray with tears" or whatever.

That's not enough. You have to really look into the face of death and that's the only time that you can truly feel that kind of seriousness. Father has faced that face of death so many times in his life, knowing that Satan meant to kill him in one moment in the prison camp or at various times. He's lived his life facing that kind of reality so, truly, he couldn't go forward without Me. And that was your state too. And that is why, as I've said many times, it is good for you to continue in a rather critical situation. Okay, you know the pain doesn't feel good, but you are constantly having to reach out to go beyond it and this is good for you. I'm not saying you need to have the pain the rest of your life, but it's a very good point of understanding

"W" comments: "It's either mind over body or body over mind. It's a constant, realistic struggle, and I'm much more alert in that realm of struggle than just the concept of mind over body."

It's just simply true that many people, even in the Unification movement, are looking for a comfortable place. They might be working hard externally, making a good effort, but internally everyone's looking for that place where they can fit in and feel rather nice, but that's exactly the place they don't need to be. That's why, for example, Father is always kicking people, pushing them, because that's the only way, some way, that he can get them to the edge of the cliff where they're looking down to that deep, deep place where they can start to have that real relationship with Me. I told you a year ago that by sending members to their hometowns, Father knew that he was pushing people to the place where they have to really call out to Me, and he knew I would be there, that truly some spiritual giants can come out of the hometown providence. And, in a sense, the church, as with church centers and living in a community together and everything, had become too dependent on people, on structure, on concept, and not on Me. That's why there needs to be challenge and suffering. That suffering is always the bringer of life. And so, this is another key point of developing that relationship with Me.

It's so interesting how many young people many years ago in the hippie movement wanted to meditate and to become enlightened, and it was very romantic. But many of those people, after the hippie movement, either they forgot about it or they came back and became an insurance salesman. Or perhaps after that time they really went through a very difficult time in their life where it was no longer just romantic to be in contact with Me, but it was life or death

It's only then that a person begins to recognize the level at which we need to communicate. So your situation, too, was critical in bringing this relationship

A fourth point is how open are you to what I would like to suggest? If you are open to Me in prayer, it means you're open for anything I might want to say, but if you're afraid of hearing, even though you may have confidence that I'm there and that you're going to get an answer, but if you already have a concept of what you want for an answer, then this limits Me very much. You know your own feeling in facing your children if, for example, your youngest son asks if he can go here or there and he's absolutely waiting for you to give only one answer, but you know a much different reality, then it's very hard for you to speak at the moment.

The same thing. It's where your heart is that's important. Another factor that made it easy for you to open up to Me during the early time after you came back from the hospital was that you really, simply wanted to know what I wanted to do with your situation. You wanted to know My will. That was important. If you had your plan made, then it would have been difficult for Me to communicate to you. So, when many people pray, the strength of the ego, even though they may believe Me completely, creates the kind of situation where they're already stuck on the answer they want, and this, too, limits Me. So as you pray to Me, pray with an open mind to hear and to know whatever I may say.

The Christians who would pray about the identity of Reverend and Mrs. Moon, for example, many of them, though they say they have prayed about it, already have their minds made up before the prayer. And that's why they don't hear Me; they hear themselves. They can't give up that ego to really listen to what I want to say about this man and woman. And this is a very extreme example of your own ability, sometimes, to let go of your own ego. If you have a preconceived notion of what you want to hear, that may be what you hear, but you will be hearing yourself

"W" comments: "In that way, following Father is extremely uncomfortable for us. I always had a fear that Father would stir up a whole situation, change things around, and I would be sent here or sent there, or be asked to do something that I had never done before, you know. His mission was continuous. But even after so many years of that pattern, always you find much meaning, you find that it was, indeed, good for your growth as an individual and at the same time collectively helped the work that you were accomplishing.

Even though I had that experience, still, to face a new thing I always felt butterflies inside - Where is Father going to send me now? Am I going to be sent out someplace? What if I can't fulfill? What if I can't do it? It was always like that, and I didn't like it, but it's very hard to let go and just face Father innocently, without being confronted internally. Because Father is, in one way, always determined to keep us uncomfortable for the sake of our growth, I think, so that we will not be settled somewhere as a small perfectionist. I know that in my mind, but my heart was always in conflict, my emotion was always filled up. So I was just thinking about that as you were speaking."

Yes. If your prayer life is already open in that direction to whatever I might say, that's a good foundation for listening to Father. But if it's not, then Father becomes a threat to security

So that's the fifth point that's important. Now these points are rather long and they could be boiled down, but they could be very important for the people who hear this tape or who may read the transcription

We've covered these five points, do you feel that they are relevant? It's prayer in a whole different way. In the past many people have prayed through church concepts, church doctrine. Some people's prayers are like a lecture on Divine Principle. Some people pray to be heard by others. As Jesus said about the high priest in the temple, they pray to be heard of men but not of God; they have their reward. They may be admired for their wonderful and very holy prayers, but truly did they open themselves to God? So, as I said, if you hold a concept about yourself, whether it's too good or too bad, your concept itself is a problem. But truly, that one who prays without concept, like a child, this is the most precious person. It's true, very, very true.

You can gain this as you simplify yourself. A spiritually mature person is not someone who just knows all things and then gobbles up all kinds of books and knows more and more and more, but it's a person who has a different quality of knowledge, not all kinds of concepts, but knowledge of himself or herself and knowledge of that point where that self meets Me. That meeting point, that's very important. Where is that point in your awareness and how can you come to that point day by day? That meeting place is the place where you go beyond all the knowledge, all the concepts on the earthly level, and you come to a new kind of knowledge. And so I'd like you to practice that. Don't do it just because I said, but this is part of pioneering for the sake of other people.

And it's not merely as if you aren't good enough or deep enough. No, No. You and "H" both are in a pioneering role and so I want you to work on pioneering that openness. As I say, there is a fear of openness because some people feel that by being open they may lose their judgment about what's right and wrong. Many people within the Divine Principle movement are stuck in the realm of legalism, so it's very hard for them to let go. Like "I can always do the right thing because I know what's black and what's white, and if I let go of all that I may be betrayed or I may be stupid or somehow I'll lose my clear judgment." But this is the thing, to truly be able to go beyond all those concepts is to come into a different level of understanding of what's right and what's wrong

"W" says, "Because I am Japanese, in my experience Japanese people in particular are extremely afraid of doing anything different from other people, especially the collective others, like a group. So, in our church if you are Japanese, in the category of the Japanese community let's say, then if you do something a little bit different from the rest of the group, you'll be immediately labeled as an outcast. Though I am not working with the Japanese community day by day, I think this is something age old that has been built up in me very strongly, and I am always worried about letting go of myself and not knowing where I am going to end up. So I think that because of that that fear, we always want to be in control because we are afraid that if we lose control, then what's going to happen? Who will take over? Even though God has taken me over and God did enough trustworthy things for me to believe and let go, still I think it's something that I have to really, conscientiously work on. And I realized that as you were talking about it."

Yes. The problem of the Japanese historical culture, or Confucian culture you might say, is that the God is like a God-man - for example the Emperor in traditional culture - so that he stands at the top of the society but he's not transcendent. He's human form. And so the whole society, from the bottom to the top, is limited by that physical man who is in the place of God. Everything under him is in order from the higher to the lower people, and so it's all very hierarchical. It limits each person because that man, the Emperor, is external to each person, and they can only worship him in the sense of an outer being.

But in the Judeo- Christian tradition, with the personification of the heavenly parent who goes beyond physical being and lives within the heart, only then can each person freely become a mature son and daughter. And they will be very different from one another. They can freely harmonize but that doesn't have to be the source of their identity, that harmonization with the larger order in the society. That does not become the source of their ultimate security or identity; it's just pecking order. You know pecking order? That means the social order in a Confucian style. No, the ultimate source of security is their relationship with Me and their identity as a son or daughter through that relationship. This is the profound difference between Judeo-Christian society and traditional Japanese society. And so you can see why there is such a fear of getting out of line in the traditional Japanese society. It's because the security is entirely based on the social environment. And if you got out of line, it's almost like you're in hell, you're so out of place

"W" says: "Speaking about that central person who represents or is like a human God... I can see why we became more and more sensitive when we ourselves or members talk about True Parents. Or even when True Parents talk about unity with True Parents, and then if God or Heavenly Father is not mentioned, people may easily feel like a danger of this personification of God, limited by one individual - True Father or True Mother. Members try very hard to follow them, but they may be limiting themselves to this one set of human beings, this one couple, and not really going beyond into the realm of God, which is much more vast. So easily we just start looking at True Father's face, at True Mother's face, and asking ourselves if they are happy. And if they are sad, what should we do to make them smile again? And I can see why we become more sensitive about why we are not talking more about God, why we are limiting ourselves by just saying True Parents, True Parents, True Parents. I see that more and more."

Right. And another point here is that by focusing only on True Parents, as with Reverend and Mrs. Moon, then we fail to recognize our own potential as true parents in that lineage ourselves, so that ultimately it turns into a parallel with many Christians who think only Jesus was Divine and they are sinners, that only True Parents are True Parents - "I know I am supposed to be a true parent myself, but I am pretty bad; I didn't do this or that." So then we repeat the problem of Christian history. It's very important to go beyond Christian history and recognize that each person is called upon to grow in that relationship with the Divine Parent and become whatever you want to call it - True Parents or a spiritually complete person or whatever - ultimately the reflection of God as the parent.

So when True Parents are set up only as the messiah and his bride, and one doesn't recognize the opportunity within their own life, this is very serious. Now it's one thing, of course, to testify to the arrival of that first model of True Parents, but it's another thing in your own spiritual life to think that only they are True Parents and you are going to find your salvation by somehow just doing what they told you to do and not really connecting with Me. Do you understand? There's a difference between those two things. And many members of the Unification movement have very poor self-image and a very poor relationship with Me and think their salvation just lies with unity with True Parents, but with no internal unity to Me. What are they thinking?

"W" says, "Because the original ideal of True Parents belonged to You, it came from You, and so if we don't look at the True Parents through our relationship with You, there is no meaning. We are tempted to start creating a kind of personality cult, just worshiping one particular individual or family, and that has a dangerous consequence."

Right. Again, this relationship with Me in each person becomes very important as the inner spirit of your outer relationship with True Parents. It's the difference between life and death, honestly. It's the difference between a cult and a true movement of faith

"W" comments, "So what can we do with the kind of Confucian influence in our church, with the way we operate the church and human relationships in general within the church structure? This situation can be potentially harmful in not allowing each person's divinity to come out because it doesn't allow that freedom. It doesn't allow that space for the individual to come out. And that's why members are rather suppressed, always put down, saying they're not adequate, they're not enough. And though it may sound like a very humble expression before True Parents, in another way it's my responsibility to develop my divinity that God gave me."

Yes, it's worth reflecting on those things we discussed about Confucianism because there is truth within those ideals. It's good to help you get an insight to what you need to do ultimately. That will become more clear to you as we continue

Going back to opening up this way, don't think that you know prayer

Don't think that because you have prayed for all these many years that "Oh yes, I know prayer, but I just don't have a good prayer life." No. Father always talks about the real taste of prayer, that if you have that taste of prayer you can't stop, you really want to have it. Well, you know the taste of our communication. When we have a really rich communication, then for days afterward you feel happy. In the prayer lives of each of you, this is good. But I want to say one more point here: Truly this is a time of couples and so this kind of three-point prayer is very good. "W," there is perhaps a time when you can do this same thing for "H" and go around in a circle. We can all share this way. Ideally, this could be done with twenty or thirty people, working to help each other, one to another

I could express through many people this way. But this is very frightening, I think, for many church members now because it would be seen as channeling or spiritual things going on, and it would be very hard. It takes integrity and it takes process for that to happen, and so that shouldn't be pursued at this time, even with anyone outside of your couple. But the two of you could practice this as you wish to and really allow Me to flow in that way

So, it is a different age of prayer at this time. Maybe even the word "prayer" could be eliminated because it maintains that same image, that same concept you might have. Simply call it "talking with your parents," or whatever, to get beyond these concepts we hold onto and to just cast our mind out like a fishing line, without any holding back. This is really the key, to know that meeting point between you and Me. It's not within your ego. It's not within your fears. It's not within your insecurities. It's beyond all those things. You just lay them aside. Don't even listen to them. Let your mind go out, and that's the key

I want to close tonight. We have talked about many things, but maybe this talk could be boiled down to some very concentrated points when you try to type it out and edit it, because it's quite lengthy. It could be boiled down. Yes. We'll continue as the week goes by

Goodnight