Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon |
The teacher closest to you is none other than your own original mind. More precious than even the closest of friends is your original mind, even more precious than your own mother or father. You need to consult your original mind. God dwells there. You should learn to listen to what your original mind tells you. You need to enter into such a state. In Buddhist terms, you need to purify your inner nature. What Buddha meant by the words, "I am my own Lord throughout heaven and earth," is that once you look into your own heart, you will find that the Lord God dwells inside you. Nothing would be impossible. (133-178, 1984.7.10)
Loving minds always try to sacrifice, to concede, and to give, and give again. For instance, if I had ten billion dollars in my possession and went out into the street to give it all to others, I would still not have helped every person in the world, and so my mind would not rest easy in its desire to give out more. There is no end to it. God's heart is too great to be fathomed. Therefore, you cannot boast of yourselves. Even if you performed the most generous act of all, and then checked with your loving mind, it would answer, "You need to do more!" (133-180, 1984.7.10)
You need to purify your mind. You need to cleanse it. Your original mind is better than I am. It is your eternal master. Hence, you should not harbor evil thoughts in it. Instead, you should always be of the mindset to contribute to the common good from a public position. (133-178, 1984.7.10)
Looking at someone, your mind can know what kind of a person he or she is just at a glance. In a moment, you would already have formed an opinion. Hence, the closest teacher to you is your own mind. Thus, you should not torment it. You should not make it unhappy. If you do, you make the Owner of the universe and me unhappy. Your mind is the master of your life. Consequently, when you make your mind sad, you make the master of your life sad. You should follow a path that gives it joy. (133-180, 1984.7.10)
You should set aside some time to experience joy with your mind. To others it may seem as if you are all alone, but during that time, you would become friends with your mind. Sit with your mind at some tranquil place and meditate. Then you will enter a state of deep prayerfulness. You will thus enter a world unknown to anyone else but you. You need such experiences. (133-181, 1984.7.10)
The Unification Church emphasizes a mind-body unity that can only be achieved through true love. Delving deeper into the questions of concept and reality, you will find many stories behind them. Once you clarify all these stories, you will find out that this path toward unity is the correct one; it will be borne out by experience. (227-12, 1992.2.10)
What are a righteous conscience, righteous actions, and mind-body unity based on? Words alone are not enough. Actions alone are not enough. Where is the place where complete mind-body unity occurs? The answer lies first in achieving perpendicularity. To achieve that, establish a standard that can stand upright as the center of the worldwide horizontal plane. Become exemplary people who can be connected to the world wherever you go, be it the East or the West. You should set the standard that can be proclaimed as correct at any time in history, whether past, present or future. (205-49, 1990.7.7)
The precious value of a perfect score can be awarded to people only when they have attained oneness with true love. Mind-body unity refers to the state in which the body resonates in harmony with the conscience. When you strike one prong of a tuning fork, the other prong vibrates at the same frequency. In a similar manner, if you strike the conscience with true love, the body will resonate. Alternatively, when you strike the body with true love, the conscience will resonate. There is no need for you to be taught all this. Once you find yourself in the center of all this, you will know without being taught. (223-355, 1991.11.20)
The brave soldiers of the Unification Church must achieve mind-body unity in whatever circumstances. How can you achieve this unity during your lifetime? Those who cannot achieve it, and yet think of love and the ideal, should feel ashamed of themselves because it is contrary to God's will. The new path of hope opens only to those who wish for it after having achieved perfect mind-body unity. If you stagnate in your current position, the path leading to God's new kingdom of hope will not open up before you. (205-45, 1990.7.7)
How do you achieve mind-body unity? Throughout history, the mind and body have been in constant conflict. If God had intended it at the time of creation, such a god would be the enemy of humankind. Bearing in mind the fact that your own mind and body are in constant conflict, if you were to ask God, "Do Your mind and body also fight each other as ours do?" what would be His response? Is there anyone who ever considered such a situation? If you were to ask God if His conscience and body were not united but instead in constant battle, He would definitely answer that it is not so. You have never attained such a state, and so there is no way for you to know, but as the founder of the Unification Church I have reached that state and can connect to Him whenever I so desire. Therefore, I can plainly answer on His behalf, that God's mind and body are completely united. (223-349, 1991.11.20)
Religious life involves having control over your body. You need to make it habitual within three to five years. If this is not the case, and after all those years you still find yourself uncomfortable, however much you desired it, you could never achieve perfect mind-body unity. My number one goal is, "Before desiring to dominate the universe, first achieve dominion over the self!" If people cannot achieve total oneness within themselves, there is no way that they can relate to the universe, however much they may have gone around the world in their endeavors. (222-340, 1991.11.7)
The human body inherited Satan's lineage. Your conscience must attain the standard of God's conscience, developing to the top of the growth stage reached by Adam and Eve. That requires having faith. Our first ancestors were deceived by Satan, and strayed in the opposite direction due to a force stronger than their conscience, that is, the power of love. At that moment, the conscience had no choice but to follow where the body led it. It must become stronger.
Once you endow more power to the conscience than to the body, the latter, however strong, would have to obey the former. If you fail to do so, and the body remains stronger than the conscience, you will fall even lower than where you are currently situated. There are two paths lying before you.
Thus, people choose to fast, take cold showers, sacrifice, and engage in voluntary service. There is no other way. Those gathered here, do you perform these actions too? Are you following this path? Do you pledge to sacrifice and serve others even at the cost of your own lives? If so, you need to follow the path of subjugation at the risk of your lives. The path of religion is that of submission. It transcends the mind-body conflict. Unless you tread the sacrificial path, you will not be able to achieve mind-body unity. (222-333, 1991.11.7)
No matter how long you have been in the Unification Church, you should not leave your sins buried as they are. They need to be cleansed. You need to start afresh with a clean slate, be resurrected anew, and become men and women who can live in the Garden of Eden without sinning. You need the awareness of God's intention for the complete unity in love of your mind and body, as created by Him. Do you understand? Otherwise, you cannot return to the homeland.
You need to find the way back to your house in the homeland, where our original house is located, and where God, our original Parent, dwells. That is where the descendants of the nation who have the birthright of the firstborn should live and reign over all other nations based on the life of the imperial family. That place is your new home. How shall you go about finding your way back, not to your birthplace but your new homeland, the original home? First, you need to acquire the qualification to enter that homeland. In order to do so, you must achieve a realm of oneness through total mind-body unity. (233-168, 1992.8.1)
No matter how great your sin is, admit it frankly to God, saying, "Heavenly Father, I have committed such a wrong thing!" In confessing your sins to Him in your prayer, you can declare to Him, "Shouldn't the original mind, the heart of a father, the heart of a teacher, and the heart of the citizens of a nation be like this? With such a heart, I will be filial and loyal and be connected to Your love. My heart will never waver. Please take into consideration this resolution, and forgive me for all the wrongs that I have done as I have now made this resolution. Won't you forgive me?" Then God would reply, "Hmm.…" You need to know how to pray. Do you understand? (149-37, 1986.11.1)
Where on earth is God? Where would His dwelling place be? God settles in the most precious thing of all, namely love. Then if this love happened to be that between a man and a woman, where would He reside? He lives perpendicularly in the deepest part of the love that is completely united and unchanging. The central place of His residence would be the place where man and woman attain oneness.
When you reach a mystical state while praying, such that you undergo spiritual experiences, then if you call out to God, "Heavenly Father," you will hear the answer coming from inside you, "Why are you calling me? I am right here!" "Here" would be the center of your heart. He would be at the central point of love, in a perpendicular position, inside the person whose mind and body are completely united. If you consider God's point to be the intersection of two perpendicular lines, it would be a position of complete self-denial. (224-148, 1991.11.24)
When your mind and body have attained oneness, the force of the universe will protect you. In such a state, your parents, as well as your siblings, would also be protected. Everyone would be connected to each other in such a relationship. The race and the nation must also form a relationship. This is an excellent conclusion. Thus, if you were to go to another nation, having achieved mind-body unity, you would be connected to that nation also. It will work wherever you are.
In soccer, what happens when the ball just stops rolling? At the point of contact between the two surfaces, a perpendicular axis is necessary. Hence, a sphere is considered the most ideal existence. A perpendicular axis can reside at any point on the surface. That is how the ball can roll around on it. Therefore, once your mind and body are united on a perpendicular axis, you will fit in anywhere. Regardless of whether you are a Westerner, an Oriental, a person from the past, present, or future, you can harmonize anywhere. (205-53, 1990.7.7)
What is the mind? It is your master and teacher. Since your body resembles your mind, it is the origin of your body. Thus, on the horizontal level, the mind stands in the place of your mother and father, teachers, and masters. (222-157, 1991.11.3)
Your original mind does not need a teacher. It is your second god. Do not try to follow a teacher or me; instead, try to serve your mind. What about the mind? You wake up at daybreak, all alone, and it is so quiet that you can hear even the squeak of a mouse or the buzz of a fly, and you think to yourself, "Well, I should like such and such a thing. I should try to do a good deed." Your original mind will then tell you, "Good! Good! Do it now!" On the other hand, if you harbor only evil thoughts in your mind, it will chide you with words like "No! No! You fool!" Would it not know what you are thinking? Of course it knows. That is the way it is. It knows only too well. (138-124, 1986.1.19)
Have you ever considered the value of your original mind, how valuable it is of all your attributes? Whenever the body tries to do something wrong, the mind always advises it not to, and tries to block it from doing that. However, the body always attacks, ignores, treads on the mind, and it tries to do as it pleases. Have you ever taken into consideration how your mind inside your body sacrifices time and again in order to fulfill its duties as the subject partner, even amidst persecution, as your comrade and teacher until your death? (217-91, 1991.5.4)
Our master is our conscience. How many times has your conscience advised you whenever you had evil thoughts in your head? How much has it worried about how to lead you over the hill and across the river, untiringly recalling you to the right path? In this way, the conscience tries to protect you in the form of the true master. However, the treacherous body has treated this teacher contemptuously, although it was the one and only honorable teacher sent to you by God and the universe. The body has trampled upon the conscience, which was sent on behalf of the parents in order to connect the body to the mind of original love. Do you love this body, which has become the enemy of the mind? No, you should not! (201-353, 1990.4.30)
Now the time for us to listen to someone else's words has passed. Rather than the words of a brilliant teacher thousands of times greater than you, or any other truth in the world, you should listen to the words of your original mind. No matter how much you have heard from it, you should return repeatedly to listen some more. Then you would receive something of infinite magnitude from it, something unimaginable, which would reveal the greatest secrets of the creation. (7-201, 1959.9.6)
You cannot even begin to fathom how much the conscience has sacrificed itself for the sake of the body. Do you understand the circumstances of the conscience, which has been trampled upon throughout its entire life? It is always tired because it has to manage you night and day. Yet it does not tire of preventing your body from committing any wrongful action. It tells the body, "You have done more than enough. Shouldn't you stop and listen to me now?" It is closest to you, and stands in the place of God, your parents, and teachers. It does not need to be educated. However, the body definitely requires an education. (214-282, 1991.2.3)
When you consider your body and mind, how pitiful is your original mind? It stands in God's stead. It represents all of your ancestors, your antecedents. The original mind represents the teacher as well as the ruler. Yet, it has been disrespected and treated with contempt for an endlessly long time. As the center of the universe, it stands in the position of true parents, true teachers, true masters, and the one Subject Being with true love. It sacrifices itself over and over again to save you while you live on this earth. Isn't that true? Though it sacrifices so much, has it complained even once? Although it is continuously dragged around and treated contemptuously -- to the extent that one would presume it to be dead -- whenever you harbor an evil thought or attempt an evil deed, it comes alive once again to advise you not to do so, calling you to your senses with the words, "Hey, you devil!"
How much have you made sport of the mind? The original mind stands in the stead of parents, teachers, and masters. In the world of the mind, there is no need to hold a court trial, because you yourselves know better than anyone else what you have done. There is no need for third party witnesses. (209-154, 1990.11.28)
No one knew that within oneself is a great teacher. The original mind stands in the stead of the great mother and father. The counsel of the mother and father is never contrary to the original mind. Whenever it counsels you, just as your mother or father would do, you should learn to obey. An orderly life requires a moral standard that can serve as its original reference. Such a formula based on the original mind has yet to be formed. You should not torment your mind. Do any of you like having a dual personality? The original mind stands in the stead of the teacher, parents, and God. There is no teacher who can teach the mind. (207-266, 1990.11.11)
Throughout their lives, all people have within themselves the most important teacher of all. Despite this, they frequently mistreat, abuse, and trample on it. That teacher is none other than our own conscience. It always speaks to us in its efforts to help us, and tries to connect us to true love. Like our parents, it encourages us to become good and unselfish, and guides us to act according to God's will. However, within each of us is a rebel that goes against the words of the conscience. That rebel is our body. (201-208, 1990.4.9)
"Before desiring to dominate the universe, first achieve dominion over the self!" This was the motto at the time when we were pioneering the path of truth. I told everyone, "Before desiring to dominate the universe, before establishing a connection with everything in this world, first dominate the self!" (201-154, 1990.3.30)
The original mind has three great personas. It can be the master, teacher, or parent, and only when the body finds itself dissatisfied and lacking in its service towards the mind, even after serving it for tens of thousands of years, can heavenly fortune finally come and reside within you. The mind wishes to serve the body, but the body does not serve the mind. This is the problem. The problem lies within the self, not society. (201-154, 1990.3.30)
The original mind tries to protect you in the form of the true master. However, the treacherous body has treated this teacher contemptuously, though it is the one and only honorable teacher sent to you from the universe. It has trampled upon the conscience, sent in the place of parents to connect the body to the mind of original love. Do you love this body, which has become the enemy of the mind? No, you should not! Unless you stop the conflict between the mind and body, the Kingdom of Heaven can never be established. Not a single saint thought of this. (201-154, 1990.3.30)
Yin and yang, the internal nature and external form, the positive and negative are complementary; they cannot be conflicting. However, within today's fallen humanity, the voice of the mind as well as that of the body can be heard. They have not been united. How did the mind and body of man and woman, who were created to resemble God, come to be separated? This is the problem.
God is absolute, and therefore the basic human attributes of mind and body should be absolutely united and assimilated into the whole world created by Him. Together, they should act as the center of that world. Instead, however, they were separated. How did this come about? If they were intended to separate from each other, there would be no God, and the basis for such things as ideals, unity, peace, or happiness could never be found. (195-304, 1989.12.17)
God is not far away from us, but within us. Is the original mind your master? When you attempt to carry out an evil deed in the middle of the night, the mind stands in front of you and tells you not to go. It appears whenever and wherever you are as your master; it guides you as would your mother or teacher. Hence, your body is your enemy. (201-74, 1990.3.1)
What is God like? He is both masculine and feminine, like human beings. You cannot see your mind, can you? Do you want to see it or not? The same is true of God. From the spiritual perspective, we understand that God does not have a body. This has been the case until now. Since Adam could not reach perfection, God has been dispossessed of a body. He exists instead as the mind-like master, teacher, or manager, a mind-like parent in a mind-like universe. (197-44, 1990.1.7)
Nothing can be achieved unless mind and body are united. This is what you should focus on. If something weighs on your mind during prayer, you should repent. When repenting, you should not do it alone. The four directions of north, south, east, and west need to be arranged first. You need to speak it aloud in front of those closest to you, such as your parents or your teacher. After doing so, you also need to make public what you have done wrong in front of your children and students. "I have done this thing; do you think I can be forgiven?" In this manner, you need to walk a path where those closest to you can support you with one heart. Do you understand what I am trying to say? (184-301, 1989.1.1)
When can your mind and body be unified? You have never thought of this, have you? This is a very serious matter. They are engaged in a lifelong fight, and who can stop them? This is the problem. Your father or mother, your king or your teacher, even saints cannot stop it. Where is the master who can stop it? Have you ever looked for him seriously? That master is true love. (184-211, 1989.1.1)
The original mind is your watchman; it protects you night and day and gives you no rest by telling you over and over again, "Do good deeds. Do good deeds!" So, can you imagine how exhausted it must be? From the day you are born, from the day you can think for yourselves, from the day you acquire intellectual faculties to analyze every situation in society, the conscience follows you around until death and tells you what to do forever. This is something that not even your own teacher, your mother, or father can do. It tells you to take after God, the saints, the patriots, and the children of filial piety. It orders you to resemble them all and keeps saying, "You, the body, should take after me!" (179-311, 1988.8.14)
Mind-body unity can be brought about only through true love. Hence, the mind sacrifices itself for the sake of the body and forgets it has done so, repeatedly. The original mind stands in God's stead, and is the teacher of all teachers for you. Your original mind is your center, dispatched by God on His behalf. It is the vertical you. (226-60, 1992.2.1)