CSG 11.1
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1You should live a life of attendance and encourage each other to be strong in doing so. Up to now you received salvation through a life of faith, but from now on you will find salvation through attendance. If humankind had not fallen at the outset, you would attend God as your way of life. Attending God is something you do with your whole heart in your daily life. Wherever you go, you should always feel that your father is in front of you and your mother is behind you, and that Heaven is with you at every moment, to your right and left, above you and below you. When you, as Unification Church members, carry out your mission, your public responsibility in the church, you may run into difficulties that you cannot resolve on your own. When this happens, you should purify your mind, cleanse your body with a bath, and pray sincerely to Heaven. When you pray, ask God for His guidance, and He will show you the way to go. If He does not, it is only because your heart does not reach the standard of God's heart; if it does, He will surely answer you. If you entrust everything to God and rely on Him when you face difficulties, keeping a prayerful heart, God will guide you in the right direction through your intuition.
2In this age you are justified by living in attendance to God. You attain salvation through attendance. Previously, you were saved through paying indemnity. However, you must now enter the age when you attend Heaven. There must be a nation where everyone lives in attendance to Heaven. Jesus was chased out because he did not have such a nation. It is the same for you. You must go forth holding on to the Word that I am conveying to you. Satan has no power to deny the Word. Since even Satan recognizes God, if you substantially build a family that is aligned with the Word and with the heavenly world, then centering on your family you can freely expand your foundation. How can a nation emerge without families? It is from our families that our tribes can emerge. Centering on our tribes we can create our nation, and from that point God's world will emerge naturally. This is the expansion that will take place starting from blessed families.
3The Unification Church does not talk about the kingdom of heaven based on faith alone. We say that the righteous are justified by attendance, that we are saved through attendance. But to attend God you need to know Him. It is not a problem to attend Him once you understand the teachings of the Unification Church. Once you truly understand them, you will know God and find it natural to attend Him. Having said that, I ask you: how regularly do you feel God's presence? How many times during your twenty-four hour day do you feel His presence? Can you expect to be saved through attendance if you attend God two hours a day? You should need God more than you need to breathe and seek Him more desperately than a choking person gasps for air or a dehydrated person craves a drink of water. God is more essential than food.
4You have to know God's situation and circumstances, understand His heart, and then think of Him as you would your father. He is your Father, my Father and our Father. Why should learning about God, listening to Him and attending Him be our way of life? It is so we can come to understand God's circumstances and heart as they were expressed in the pages of the Bible. It is to understand that God is our own Father, who has been wounded, trampled upon, rejected and torn to pieces.
5The standard for true relationships is the parent-child bond of heart between God and human beings. No one in authority can undermine this bond of heart, for it is eternal, unchanging and unique. It is a bond with absolute authority. When you come forth with this authority, all beings bow their heads before you. When you move with the authority of this bond of heart, the entire universe follows you. This is an ironclad rule of the universe.
6If you do not have the courage to embrace people of all different colors and live with them as family, you will not be able to attend God in the future ideal world, the kingdom of heaven. That is why in the Unification Church there is interracial marriage among members of different skin colors. I encourage Koreans, Japanese and Americans to intermarry. If I did not do that, I would not be able to take the lead responsibility in helping all humankind enter the world of the heart. If I did not do so, people would ask why, among the people of different colors, I only loved people of one color and did not make the condition to love people of another color, so I encourage Koreans to marry people of all colors.
7A life of attendance is not easy. It is not easy for you, and it is not easy for me either. If I have to deal with an issue concerning attendance, I cannot sleep. I know that unless I attend God, He will be restricted; that without me He cannot be liberated. It should be the same for you in attending me. You should make me feel that I am powerless without you, because only when you expand the scope of your activities can I broaden the stage of my activities. Therefore, you should understand that you determine the circumstances that surround me, and you should have a heart to create an expansive environment for me in all spheres of life. Again, a life of attendance is not easy. You must attend God with more heart than the heart of parents who love their children. Your parents took care of you for twenty years or more, but God has been raising His children for tens of millions of years. Tens of millions of years have passed since humankind emerged. For tens of millions of years God invested Himself and devoted Himself to meet the Son whom He has yearned for. Just because you have devoted yourself, do not think that you have offered all that you have. Even after devoting yourself you should think it is still not enough.
8God is near you. His concern for each of you exceeds that of anyone else. Everyone thinks that their own parents love them the most, but God's love is greater and deeper than that love; it is deeper and greater than any human love in this world. Hence, you should become people who can feel God's loving embrace and call Him Father. You should become true sons and daughters who can experience God's internal heart, in the position where you can say, "Now I know my Father's sorrow." If you can become such sons and daughters, you will become the owners of the kingdom of heaven in which you attend God. No one will be able to take that kingdom away from you.
9God is not a fantasy. He is not just an idea or an abstract concept. He leads and guides our daily lives. He is always with us as the master of our daily circumstances. He does not exist just so that we can attend Him, but to live together with us, sharing love. All my life I have been fighting battles in circumstances where God could not be properly attended. No matter how hard the world opposes a person like me, and no matter how hard Satan strikes me or tries to undermine me, they cannot prevail as long as Heaven approves of me. Since I have this foundation, whoever attacks me ends up toppling over.
10In order to attend God, we need to begin by placing Him in the midst of our heart and mind and then become completely one with Him in our body. Without doing so, there is no way for us to liquidate the devil's world. That is why we view this time as the age of attendance, the age when we are justified by attendance. We are saved through attendance. God is not a distant God way up in the sky. We should attend God as our subject partner in our daily life. How do we attend Him? By using the law of indemnity, we must unravel all the sorrowful and painful circumstances that God has endured throughout the ages of history.
11Why do we seek justification through deeds, justification through faith, and justification through attendance? Without justification, good and evil cannot be distinguished. The evil world cannot be separated from the world of goodness. God is the standard of righteousness and goodness. The way God believes, the way God works, the way He attends -- God must always be at the center. Satan cannot accuse righteous people who resemble God.
12God believes, works and lives in attendance; if we live with the same standard, then we will create an environment where Satan cannot intervene in our life. Although we may be within Satan's realm, if we establish the standard of righteousness that makes an environment where we can be with God, then Satan will withdraw. That does not mean that attendance in the Completed Testament Age is the only thing that will remain after the Old Testament Age based on deeds and the New Testament Age based on faith have passed. We need all three: the works of the Old Testament Age, the faith of the New Testament Age, and the attendance of the Completed Testament Age. Even in the Completed Testament Age we need to have faith and do good works. They are inseparable, by the same logic that tells us that growth occurs based on the formation stage, and completion happens based on the growth stage. This is particularly so at this time because justification by attendance means developing our lives in order to usher in the era of the kingdom of heaven.
13In the Old Testament Age, sacrificial offerings were made to lay the path for the Son to come. In the New Testament Age, the Son was sent and sacrificed to lay the path for the Parents to come. The blood of Christians was shed for the Second Advent of the Lord, paving the way for the True Parents to come. The age of the Unification Church is the age of the True Parents. It must pave the path for God to descend to the earth and dwell upon it. Because God has come to the earth, we can obtain salvation through attending God. This is how history is developing. We sacrifice things of a lower level in order to recover the Son. The Son has to live, even if it means sacrificing the creation. All things of creation are in lamentation because they cannot experience the glory of God's love and the realm of His children's love.
14What kind of devotion should true sons and daughters offer? It should not stem from a life of mundane reality. Instead, you should offer devotion of hope, glory, loyalty and attendance. If this is the kind of legacy you leave behind when you pass over to the next world, the kingdom of heaven will belong to you and Heavenly Father will be your Father. Until now, you have offered devotion while going the course of indemnity. However, from now on you should offer devotion to join the realm of attendance, so that you can offer attendance to Heaven. Those who are able to do this will join the first resurrection. In order to join the realm of attendance, you must have the heart to comfort God. God is a grieving God, and you can comfort Him by making painful conditions of devotion through which you can participate in God's sorrowful circumstances. The providence of restoration introduces us to these circumstances, by revealing the indemnity conditions that people have made before God.
15From now on, you must lead a life of righteousness through attendance. By leading a life of attendance we can become a family of filial children, patriots, saints and divine sons and daughters. In the Era before the Coming of Heaven we fought with Satan. That time has now passed, giving way to the Era after the Coming of Heaven, the era of the kingship of peace. This is inevitable. It is necessary for each one of us to follow this path. It is not someone else's path, but yours. If you do not follow this path, you will have trouble in the next world.
1As you receive more of God's love, you become larger, gradually leading more people and organizations. If you have laid a foundation to receive love from the people of a whole nation, you can make that nation one that can move the world. Because of this principle, you must lead a life of attendance. You need to lead a life of attendance in order to receive God's love. You must serve and attend God first. What must you do if you wish to receive God's love? God comes to us with perfect love, so we too must invest something that is perfect. The Korean maxim "Sincerity moves Heaven" expresses this heavenly law. To offer devotion means to do your utmost internally and externally. You must offer everything, combining your words, your attitude, your mind and thoughts, all your actions, everything in the internal and external realities of your life. In Korean this offering of devotion is called Jeong Seong.
2When you get out of bed in the morning, you should offer your first words to Heaven, and you should offer your first step out of the house to Heaven as well, by stepping first with your right foot. By cultivating habits like these, your life becomes a life of attendance. In your attitude every day, you have to adopt a principled standard.
3Where are you now? You should be aligned with me day and night, wherever you are and wherever you go. I live with God, totally investing my life for Him, totally aligned with Him, moving in the same direction as He moves, in step with Him. Now, the three -- God, True Parents and you -- must become one. We need to act in concert. It is a matter of life and death, so all three of us must come together and unite at one point. That point is the beginning of the realm of resurrection. It is the connecting point where the Father and I become one, and where you and I become one. It is where we three unite with one mind and one heart. Therefore, you must lead your life in accord with the Will. In order to do so, you have to understand what the Will is. Since you do not, I am asking you to pray. If you pray, I will surely appear to you and teach you.
4We cannot claim even a single square inch of land as our own property. God gave everything we have. Since God gave it, it must be returned to Him. No matter how small, everything came from God, and therefore we must return everything to God as things He values. The fruits of history will appear when we do. Since we received them as God's gifts, we should give them back the same way. You should become a person who can do this. Until the world belongs to such people, this earth cannot become the kingdom of God. Why do you think I meet people and listen to them twenty-four hours a day? It is for God. Therefore, you too must meet people and listen to them, on God's behalf. You must feel their difficulties for His sake. Even while we live on earth, we have to connect to life in the heavenly world.
5When you went pioneering alone in the remote countryside, you wished fervently that Unification Church members would visit you. You were anxious whether someone among the church members might have fallen sick. Your heart yearned to see the members closest to you, wishing to see a church pastor or me. You should yearn for God in this same way. If you do not yearn for God every day, you cannot attend Him. Whomever you yearn for, that yearning should always pierce you to the bone. When it gets late, if you say, "It's already midnight, let's go to bed," this will cause God to worry. There is no day or night in the kingdom of heaven. The lateness of the hour is not an issue for those who live in the world of heart.
6"When you are hungry you say, "I'm hungry! I want something to eat!" But for whom do you want to eat? Do you want to eat for God, or for yourself? You must eat for God. By doing this, you make your body a perfect holy temple of God. You should think, "God inside me is hungry and is telling me to eat." When you eat with this mindset, your meal becomes sacred. It is the same when you breathe, when you go to the restroom, or when you do anything else. When you listen, you are not listening alone. Likewise when you see or touch something, do not think that you are doing it alone. When you relate to people, even when you relate to Satan's world, you need to think that it is God who is relating to them through you. When you talk, you should think that God is speaking through you. When you are totally one with God, you can live. Even though your living, thinking and loving are centered on yourself, it will still be lawful. Even though you live, think and love centered on yourself, your living, thinking and loving will be centered on God. That is the principle.
7As a person who is attending God, how much does your happiness bring joy to God? When you are hungry you are grateful to eat, and when you attend God, you should have even greater gratitude. You should always attend God -- when you eat, when you wear something nice, even when you are sad or face difficulties. By living this way, you will leave behind good stories that God will keep in His heart.
8God wants to caress the things of creation through the hands of the person whose heart is one with His. God wants to embrace all His children through the Son and Daughter whose hearts are one with His. God eagerly waits for His sovereignty to be established by the bride who is one in heart with Him. God is eager to see the day when this world will be governed by sons and daughters who are one in heart with Him. Have you ever thought about all this? The more you think about it, the more awe-inspiring it becomes. When you think about how God's desire is not only connected to you but also to the world and even the cosmos, you cannot deny that you belong to God the Father. Therefore, you should think that your mind belongs to the Father, your heart belongs to the Father, your consciousness, your intuition and all your senses belong to the Father. You should establish the viewpoint that everything you feel and perceive belongs to the Father. You should do everything in your power to realize God's desire. Our path may lead to death, but no matter how fearful it is, we must overcome with a strong heart and conviction. We will have the power to laugh at death and go beyond it.
9There are laws for attending God. When you violate them, God is very displeased. Parents can be affected by one word from the child they love. With just one word a child can drive a nail into his or her parents' heart, or remove a nail from their heart. Likewise, because God loves humankind that much, if His children offend Him with even the slightest mistake, He can become hurt or angry. That is why I constantly strive to make God happy.
10When we look at six thousand years of history from a vertical perspective, we see that in the Old Testament Age, God gathered His people, and in the New Testament Age, God gathered His children. In this way, history has been flowing in reverse. In the world today there are people trying to build the kingdom of heaven centering on the concept of the people of God. There are also people who are trying to build the kingdom of heaven based upon the idea of heavenly children, the idea of heavenly siblings, and the idea of heavenly couples. You should know how to observe the laws of the kingdom of heaven in your daily life. To build the kingdom of heaven, you must observe the laws of the kingdom of heaven as required by Heaven. Based on the laws of the kingdom of heaven, you must also live the lifestyle of the kingdom of heaven. And based on the lifestyle of the kingdom of heaven, you become one through the love of the kingdom of heaven. The Word is the standard for the laws of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore you need to live based on the Word. This is the path you should walk.
11You may be able to experience God's grace through prayer or the work of the Holy Spirit because of the cooperation of spirits in the spirit world. Originally, human beings were created to mature spiritually as life spirits and then divine spirits. We are meant to have the Spirit within us. If we cultivate our spirituality centering on the power of the Spirit of God within us, we will gain the ability as divine spirits to perceive things spiritually, even when we are not helped or guided by spirits from the spirit world. Once you reach that spiritual level, whenever God feels sorrow, you too will experience indescribable sorrow welling up within. For instance, if you feel indescribable sadness when bidding good-bye to somebody, it means that person is entering a path of sacrificial offering or another path for which God feels great compassion. It will be one or the other. If you can actually feel that, and stand in the position where you have this kind of intuition and communication in your sphere of life, it means you are a person who experiences the Spirit.
12When the True Parents live together with human beings on earth bound together by relationships based on the heavenly principles of natural law, on that day the work of God to establish morals and ethics based on the original human nature will spread throughout heaven and earth. Why are so many unhappy young men and women fleeing from their families? It is because love based on Heaven's law was lost. Hence, to save all families, the Parents of Heaven and Earth must emerge who can enable God to dwell within their own family. Jesus cannot become the Savior if he lives alone when he returns to earth. How can he save fallen humankind? He can do it only from the position of a parent. God is the Father of true love. Therefore, Jesus must come to the earth as the Father, and with the qualifications of a parent, He must personally save humankind. He comes with the heart of a parent, to save his children, whom he can hear groaning in the world of death and calling out to be saved.
13As object partners of the subject partner, we must not complain. To complain is rash and selfdestructive. Therefore there is no place for complaint in our life of faith. In our life of faith there must be only gratitude. God is our eternal subject partner. Therefore, as long as we are destined to live our life along with Him, we should not deviate from His law and His way of life.
14Heavenly principles of natural law are established when we human beings observe the proper order. Among subject partner -- object partner relationships, God stands in the position of the absolute subject partner. Anyone who ignores that subject partner cannot become His object partner. If you want to become an absolute object partner before the absolute subject partner, you must become absolutely one with Him. If you do so, everything you see, hear and feel, even the love you feel toward your family members after returning home from work, must be for God, because you stand as an object partner before Him as the subject partner. This is what it means to become one. If you do this, your family will never perish.
15What is it that will last until the end? It is the way of life that God and human beings share, a viewpoint that they share regarding how to live. That viewpoint on life itself should also be the same; there should be a view of life and a worldview shared by God and humankind. Our relationship with God should not be based on only a vague understanding. This forges an eternal bond, an inseparable relationship. It never should have happened, but God and human beings separated and now must reach a level of relationship higher than what it was before the Fall. This requires that we advance our quality of life to where we are one with God every day, all the way to the world level.
16Now the quantity of indemnity you have paid will be transformed into love and be connected to your very essence. The time has come when you must observe the laws of a life of attendance. As a woman, if you have received the Blessing, your husband is necessary for love. Saying your husband is necessary centers on the mind that loves your husband. Your love is the measure. How much do you need to love him? If you say that you need to do so absolutely, then you need to stand in the position of an absolute object partner centered on absolute love. This is the exact position in which God is situated. Everything about God is absolute. The beginning and the end, and even the process, are absolute.
17What does it mean to serve someone with all your heart and all your will, and offer your utmost devotion to that person? It means you are willing to offer your life for that person. That is the full measure of devotion. Where is the limit of your heart and mind? When you devote yourself to someone with all your heart, it means you surrender your life for that person. To serve with all your will and devotion means to put your life on the line. The saying, "Sincerity moves Heaven," refers to what happens when your sincerity transcends all limits and you put your life on the line in offering devotion for the other. God cannot ignore those who offer devotion at the risk of their lives, putting their life on the line.
18What is the core thought that we find on the path of the providence of restoration? It is to follow the path of a sacrificial offering. What is a sacrificial offering? We were told to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37) The outcome of loving with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind is simple. It means that you put your life on the line out of your love for God. It does not mean that you are forced to do it. It means that you do it willingly, feeling an inexpressible joy.
19When I prayed kneeling down on the floor, my tears never dried. I even had calluses on my knees. In Korea there is a saying, "A tower built with devotion will not collapse." We must offer devotion to God. We must reach a state where we are crazy with yearning for God. If God dwelt on Earth, He would want to visit His children a thousand times a day. But because He does not dwell on Earth, He cannot do so. That is why He sent me to you on His behalf. This is the special reason that you cannot help but love me. You would not feel like loving me without a reason. During the three months of bitter cold in the winter, the tears of my prayers would completely soak through all the cotton insulation in my clothes. Think about how desperate I was. I had showdown prayers with God, face-to-face, stabbing the floor with a dagger, and not just once or twice.
20Whatever you do, whether eating or drinking, sitting or standing, and regardless of whom you are with, what is most essential is that you demonstrate a childlike heart before your parents. You don't receive this through knowledge. Are you going to live in God's presence, bragging, "I am Dr. So-andSo"? That is something He doesn't need. The question is how you can stimulate God to love you. There is only one path: "Sincerity moves Heaven." There is no other way.
21You should not complain. There is no room for complaint. What I am saying is, you should not think of yourself. You should not hold on to concepts like "my possessions" or "my love." Thinking about God, you should have the heart that if you complain, it would cause great pain to our Heavenly Parent, and that because you have the chance to understand His circumstances and inherit His tradition, you will inherit it, follow Him, and comfort Him. If you shed tears with such a heart, God will be with you. But God will not be with you if you shed tears centered on yourself. You should shed tears for God and the Parents. Such is the altar of the Unification Church. Such is the life of attendance in the Unification Church.
22Even though I might collapse from hunger and exhaustion, my only thought has been how I can walk the path to fulfill what God needs me to fulfill, and how I can shoulder the cross that I might be required to carry along the way. You, however, are not even preparing yourselves to go on such a path. Although you know that you can be saved through attendance, you are just brazenly watching me. You should not be standing still with that kind of mindset. Whether we are asleep or awake, we should move forward for Heavenly Father and His nation. We must dissolve His bitter sorrow, even if it means that we die tens of thousands of times. Whoever has the courage to do that should be able to carry a cross on behalf of God in addition to his or her own cross. That is why at this time we must work for Heavenly Father and His nation, and become the filial sons and daughters whom the Father can summon. We are the people who were born for God's sake; therefore we must become filial sons, filial daughters, patriots and righteous men and women. This is our mission.
23You should not leave yourself even a moment to think about saving face, keeping your dignity or even feeling hunger. You should focus on activities for God's Will even more than on a child that is sick. But if you can't, you should at least have the kind of absolute obedience that won't let you sleep at night when you don't understand what I am doing, and sets you running to me at 2 a.m. to ask about it until you do understand. This is the kind of life you must live. That's what I mean when I say that salvation comes through attendance. It's how I have always lived out my relationship to God. I cannot relax even for a second. After my body was struck, I was even more determined to stay on the path of indemnity to comfort God.
24If you are in difficulty and in pain, go and pray in a quiet room with the door closed. If you still cannot find an answer, pray even more deeply and more seriously. Invest more time in prayer. As I walked this path, it was normal for me to pray more than twelve hours a day. Imagine that you are diving thousands of feet deep into the ocean. What would you have to overcome? What would you have to endure? Prayerful people seldom make mistakes. They can find the answers within themselves. Once you experience the taste of prayer, you will find it more delicious than any meal and more fun than any hobby. When you reach that level of spirituality, you will immediately know what is good and what is bad in your environment.
25Unification Church members must pray. Pray to set aside your desires about the clothes you wear, the food you eat and where you live, and pray for humility. How much prayer do you think is needed in order to liberate humankind and God? We should pray as if we were facing the most serious situation in human history. Prayer solidifies your resolve to follow the path, no matter how difficult it may be. Constant prayer, twenty-four hours a day, will bring God to you. If someone is thinking about you, you will want to go and visit that person. It is the same for God. God seeks those who are thinking about Him more than about anyone or anything else, and who are striving to dedicate themselves to Him.
26In longing for God, you should shed so many tears that your eyes are blinded and your nose is clogged with mucous. Your uncontrollable weeping should make your chest ache. That is how much you must long for God. A son may desperately cry out, "Father!" as he is being dragged to his execution. Another may mournfully call out, "Father!" as he is leaving for a far-off country. When we call out "My Heavenly Father!" our standard must be higher than that.
27God is suffering hardships because of me, because of my family, because of my nation, and because of my world. So it makes sense that I too should suffer hardships because of myself, because of my family, my society, my nation and my world, and that I should do it for God. I am saying that, together with the Republic of Korea, we should suffer hardships on behalf of God. That is my philosophy, and it is also God's philosophy. Some people look for chances to secretly impose burdens on others, even when everyone is already suffering hardships. These spineless people think that others should shoulder all the burdens instead of them, and if they could, they would sell even God for their own personal benefit. You have to be somewhat foolish to follow God's path. In a certain sense, patriots appear to be rather foolish people, even somewhat stupid. They have the character of a bear, with a kind of slow-witted generosity that, if someone took a piece of their arm, they would say, "Oh, that's not enough, go ahead and take some more!"
28To this day, I have been enduring hardship for the Will, day and night, and I am not about to stop. Those who have not attended me closely do not know me well. As soon as I open my eyes from sleep I kneel on the floor and pray. Why do I live this way? It is because, even in the middle of the night, my beloved children who are spread all across the world are depending on me. If I cannot be there to offer devotion with them when they pray to God, shouldn't I at least keep up with them and not fall behind them? Because I pray immediately upon waking up, God forgives me for not praying with them while I was asleep.
29What kind of person am I? I am a person who possesses only one talent: I just go straight ahead no matter what. Some people ask why I always do things that everybody vilifies and scorns, instead of quietly going a more convenient way. It is because I can reach the pinnacle only by overcoming the opposition of many people. On the other hand, most of you are thinking only about how to take detours around the difficulties. Why do we need to separate from the world? It is because even the love of our natural parents will take us off target. God has been following a straight path, and we must do the same.
30I am a lonely and solitary man. I could come this far only because I understand that God is as lonely and solitary as I am, and that He understands me. I know that the mission I must pursue until I die is to fulfill even a portion of God's Will and desire -- to expand His foundation in even one area. That is why I am gathering together people who can live for God. Because I was born as God's son and because I feel responsible to establish His Will, I have not accused those who mocked me, nor have I sought revenge against those who beat me. Instead, I have persevered with love and fought my way forward, sometimes staggering, sometimes trudging ahead with my back bent over, and sometimes crawling on my belly. Through all of this I have maintained only one thought: how to establish God's tradition and bequeath it to the world.
31Here is what True Parents have to do. They need to win every battle, enter the deepest place in God's heart, liberate Him from bitter pain and sorrow, and establish His realm of victory on earth. You need to feel grateful to God that the True Parents have emerged on earth. You need to be aware of the misery of God, our vertical True Parent, which has been dissipated finally, because He has sent the Lord of the Second Advent to earth to liberate all humankind. Now we have entered an incredible era. Because of True Parents, we can pledge to become God's filial sons and daughters and we can then strive to realize that pledge.
32How serious are you about following the way of the Will? I have been walking it all my life without even my wife and children knowing what it involves. Only God and I know that. It has been lonely. No one knows the path I had to follow. With God's help, I, a solitary man, have brought amazing results. With this achievement I have raised issues fundamental to society. I have triggered a wave of innovative thought in this world of declining democracies. This has made me a controversial figure. What I have accomplished is not because I am great, but because God has been with me.
1From now on, you must live with True Parents. God is in the position of the grandparents. True Parents are in the position of the mother and the father, and you are in the position of the first son. The lesson is that three generations should live together. You should live with the feeling resounding in your heart that God is with you and True Parents are with you.
2Are you True Parents' true sons and daughters? What are true sons and daughters? Being true children means a connection based on the true lineage. Of course a relationship with true children is formed through true love, but we should be connected through true lineage. If you are connected through lineage, you must take after your mother and father. Do you resemble me? Your eyes are blue, mine are black, and our hair color is different. I have a round, Oriental face. So for you to take after True Parents, what really matters is how much you resemble our essence. You should be able to say, "I resemble you in defeating Satan and in loving God absolutely." That is how you should resemble me.
3How much should you love me? You should not love me from a position that has traces of Satan's world and is tainted with love from that world. Go beyond that by loving me more than you love your parents, spouse and children who were born in Satan's world. That is why in the Bible, Jesus said, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matt. 10:37) This conclusion applies to all of us. He also said, "Take up your cross and follow me." (Luke 9:23) Each of us carries our own cross. To carry the cross means to resist and overcome the power that pulls us in the opposite direction. When we reach this point we shed bitter tears.
4The Blessing is the culmination of everything. So, at that moment, with whom should you establish your relationship? You couples cannot move forward to perfection on your own. You can do so only through True Parents' love. Everyone, whether good-looking or not, takes after their parents. In the Unification Church I am teaching the way of the True Parents. This is your blessing of all blessings. The hope of humankind is to meet the True Parents. Even at the cost of your life, you must meet the True Parents. Even if you lose all of history, all of the present age and all your descendants, when you meet the True Parents you will regain history, the present age and the future. Meeting the True Parents is a blessing.
5Everything comes down to meeting the True Parents. The coming of the True Parents of humankind is the desire of history, the desire of all nations, the desire of all ideologies, and the desire of the entire providence. Their appearance is unprecedented and will never happen again. It is the turning point of history and comes only once. From the perspective of eternity, a person's lifespan is just one breath.
6Carry my picture at all times. It will protect you and empower you to withstand any hardship. Moses performed miracles and signs to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, away from the Pharaoh, and guide them to Canaan. When the Egyptians' firstborn suffered afflictions and were killed, the Israelites marked their doorposts with the blood of a lamb for protection. Likewise, when you carry my picture with you, the spirit world will watch over you and protect you.
7When the Israelites were about to leave Egypt, they were able to avoid calamity by marking their doorposts with the blood of a lamb. In the same way, carrying my picture can protect you. The spirit world can recognize it even if it is in your pocket. It serves as a mediator by which your ancestors can connect to you. They understand that it is a good channel by which they can do this. If you carry this picture with you, you will not have accidents or trouble. Without it, you are more likely to run into problems. Such incidents will occur all the time, and by that, you will recognize the value of my picture.
8Ethical and moral teachings have always held that parents have to love their children, that children have to be filial to their parents, and that there must be a distinction between husband and wife. These virtues, transmitted down to the present day, are the cornerstone of the Three Principles and the Five Moral Disciplines of human relationships as viewed in Confucianism. These days, however, such traditional customs and norms are changing. When we see the changes that are penetrating daily life and the social environment, we know that we are in the Last Days. The Messiah, a global leader, must appear to deal with these problems.
9According to Korean etiquette, you have to receive something from someone older than you with both hands. This signifies that Heaven's love is received only when both parties, symbolized by the two hands, have a perfectly balanced relationship. There is an expression, "A person's mind is Heaven's mind." The purpose of all the rules in human societies is to form relationships based on the way of the conscience. These rules serve to bring balance in relationships. They place man and woman on the same plane, with love as their axis. Therefore, we should always balance our relationships, with the heart of saints who love the world and the heart of divine sons and daughters who love God. This calls us to be humble before others.
10According to the eastern way of thinking, the older person should walk in front of the younger. This is because the older person was born earlier. This is how we create an orderly environment. The person born later should stand behind. Right or left, front or back, above or below; each should take their appropriate position. These views on keeping the proper order in relationships are eternal, and do not change.
11In a Korean family, when the parents rise in the morning, their daughter-in-law, who is already awake, goes to them and pays her respects. Then she folds up their bedding, cleans their room and prepares their meal. This is a norm in Korea. In order to indemnify fallen history, we must establish the law of filial piety as the highest among all laws. In the nation, filial piety should be the highest of all laws.
12In certain cultures of the world, people observe a three-year mourning period after a parent has passed away. The children offer meals to the spirit of their departed parent every morning and evening. Whenever they leave or return home, they pause before the altar set up for their departed parent and greet them. This is a law. You have to do even more than that. From the viewpoint of the Will, your behavior does not meet the standard of Heaven's expectations for propriety. Far from it! A husband and wife should report their daily schedule to God together, before they go out to work. Upon returning home from work, they should again report to God together. Only then should they eat dinner. You need to understand this God-centered standard of life. It regulates all these things very strictly. There are distinct rules of family life for women and for men. You should systematize these incredibly important heavenly norms and live by them. They outline the path you must walk.
13The more difficult your life is, the more valuable your achievements. Younger people naturally look up to the oldest family members as if they were God; so you must demonstrate something different when you get older. The difference should be a deep heart that penetrates the bone marrow. So too, blessed couples should inspire adoration, such that people can't help but think, "How happy the wife of that kind of husband must be! How happy the husband of such a wife must be!"
14You have heard about human moral norms, but not about heavenly moral norms. What is the origin of human moral norms? If you dig into their origin, you will find that they are based on the conscience. Most laws have their basis in Roman law, which may be considered the foundation for the current world civilization. However, moral norms arise from the conscience, not from laws. The foundation of the conscience is goodness itself, so the standard of goodness is the standard of the conscience. When we do something wrong, we are deviating from goodness and our conscience tries to correct us. Of course, we cannot form a universal social system that is in accord with the pure conscience without laws and regulations. But, in the end, human norms are fundamentally rooted in heavenly principles.
15In order to establish human norms for relationships, we need the original principled way. In order to establish the original principled way, we need the heavenly norms of relationships. Centering on what do they emerge? They emerge centering on absolute love. Centering on what does the original principled way emerge? It emerges centering on the authority of life. Today, loyalty is the representative norm of human relationships. Centering on what does it emerge? It must emerge centering on eternal fidelity. Today, do you have a heart to relate with others according to the norms of heavenly relationships? If you have such a desire, you should have friends whom you can trust from the bottom of your heart, just as you would trust God. One step further, you should have at least one sibling, parent, or spouse whom you can trust as you would trust God. With this in place, you need to transcend the family and expand your relationships to the society, nation, and world. This has always been God's hope.
16We are told that there is no greater love than loving your neighbor as yourself. That is the greatest love. If you are pierced by bitter sorrow because you were unable to love your parents, then love your neighbors instead with greater love. If you do, a situation will arise when you will be able to demonstrate filial piety to your neighbors as if they were your parents. Even if you are unable to serve your parents with filial piety, Heaven will recognize your investment of filial piety toward your neighbors as having greater value than filial piety to your parents.
End of The Etiquette of Attendance