CSG 6.3
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1It is a misunderstanding to think we belong to ourselves, even though we proclaim ourselves to be the lords of creation with dominion over all things in the visible world. Our body is not our own. Our mind is not our own either. If we were asked on what grounds we claim these as ours, we would not be able to answer. If the question of our ownership were resolved, it would mark a historical starting point for the resolution of all problems. However, today people live on earth without even thinking about this matter. Seeing that people today have become so disconnected from their origin, God's sorrow now is greater than the sorrow He felt at the loss of the whole universe through the Fall. If there were anyone who felt this sorrowful heart of Heavenly Father, and shared His heart, the providence centered on religion could begin from that person. The way to rediscover God is to pioneer from that point of connection to His Heart. All beings have the earth as their parent, the universe as their parent and the Creator as their parent. Therefore, you are not just one individual existing on your own.
2It is the earth that nurtures our body. The earth is our parent, providing all the essential elements that the body needs. However, no one on earth recognizes this. In addition to the earth, we also have parents who gave us birth, the parents of our mind and body. However, humankind doesn't have only two kinds of parents. Beyond these, we have our absolute, eternal Parent, from whom we derive our innermost value. But if we are unable to recognize and understand that we have an eternal Parent, humanity will remain in a lamentable state. Therefore, if we do not have one moment, one period of time during the course of history in which we can understand the eternal, absolute Parent, we will not be able to take our place in the garden of rest. We need to understand that we have an eternal Parent with a deep heart. This is not our earthly parents, who will fade back into the earth, but the Parent who can shake up and guide earth's history and the history of all humankind. This is our Parent in heaven, in other words, the One who created us. Thus, we have three great parents.
3We think it is only our parents who gave birth to us, but that is not the case. The origin of the body is the earth. We are born from our parents but we resemble not only them. Therefore, we seek something beyond our parents, something new and greater. It is a fundamental principle that reason and motive are behind a divine outcome; therefore our longing for absolute values must derive from such a parent. A true person should be able to communicate in heart with the earth. If the earth, as our parent, gave birth to us, then we should become people of heart who live on the earth for its sake. Furthermore, a true person is one who knows Heaven and is concerned with our Heavenly Parent's Will. Such a person will work hard today and tomorrow to reach the destination of goodness. A true person endeavors to understand absolute relationships.
4The body is made entirely of elements borrowed from the universe. Therefore, if all things in the universe demanded to recover what was theirs from the human body, everything would be taken away from us. From this we can deduce, "I am made from the universe; the universe gave birth to me." Thus the universe is the parent of your body. What follows is, "I am the substantial form, the encapsulation of all the elements of the universe." Then we can all say, "I am the universe in motion" or "I am the universe in action." Given that we are the living manifestations of the universe, we must love the universe.
5When we sit in nature and gaze upon our surroundings, we feel something mystical. If your heart flows with love for nature, loving people will come naturally. Gazing at flowers, butterflies and all created things in nature gives us hope. You should think, "I am begotten from nature. You too are begotten from nature. Therefore the whole universe exists for you and me." How wonderful it would be if you could feel this!
6The earth is the field in which we can sow and harvest the seeds of love. We grow by absorbing life elements from the earth. A mother's body is like that field. Just as we absorb life elements from the earth, a baby is born after growing in its mother's body and absorbing nutrition from her flesh and blood. On earth the child grows, becomes a perfected individual through life in a family, and is harvested when he or she passes into the spirit world. The spirit world is like a storehouse for things harvested in autumn, while the earth is like a field from which the harvest comes. To become a good fruit, you must fully mature in the field. Only when you have experienced the realm of ideal love through loving relationships of all kinds -- up and down, right and left, and front and back -- can you go into the storehouse of God's kingdom. There, immersed in God's love, you live with God eternally as His ideal object partner of love. This great universe, the cosmos, is our home. The great universe is our home, and being able to govern it as we wish, living eternally with God in His love, is the greatest happiness, the greatest liberation, and the greatest freedom.
7The human body is about three-fourths water. The earth sustains its children with invisible air and visible water. This is why we say the earth is our second mother. Because the earth provides all the elements for our life, we must love the earth more than we love our own mother. After growing up this way, we fly into the spirit world. First we pass through our mother's womb, then through the world of air. At last we enter the spirit world and are liberated there. This is our final destination. This is the kingdom of heaven centered on God.
8God created the beautiful and intricate natural world of creation to provide a safe environment for Adam and Eve and to serve as a foundation for their external biological development. Within this safe environment, human beings were to grow and develop. God's deepest interest, however, is that human beings develop their inner nature and loving character. Human beings are meant to resemble God's true love and become fully spiritually mature through experiencing true love. Therefore, God created the power of love as the strongest among all inner, intangible forms of energy.
9The Korean expression, "In all creation, human beings are the most precious," is indeed correct. Like us, God also needs an object partner of His love. That is why He created human beings. Because of His ideal of love, which places human beings at the center, God created all things in the universe to resemble us so that they could harmonize and be absorbed by us. When we look at the created world, we can see that everything exists in pairs. The mineral, plant, animal and human worlds all exist in pairs. In the mineral world, positive and negative ions interact. Among the elements there are none that combine randomly. If the reciprocal conditions do not match, even if God Himself commands it, they will not unite. Conversely, if the reciprocal conditions are right, even God cannot stop them from coming together. On a minute level, even in the mineral kingdom everything is designed to correspond to God's model of ideal love, combining and functioning within this model.
10The fundamental order of the universe is based on the principle of existing for the sake of the other. The creations ideal, as well as the hope of human beings, is a world of true ideals, true love and true peace. Therefore, the principle of living for the sake of others is the starting point of God's ideal, and for all happiness and love. When looking at the universe, we can see that nothing exists for its own sake. The animal world exists for the plant world; the mineral world and plant world exist for the animal world; and all of these together exist for human beings. Then for whom do human beings exist? We exist for God. Yet God too exists for all things, since He made them and is the source of their growth and development.
11Human beings are the most advanced beings and contain within themselves all the building blocks of the mineral, plant and animal worlds. Thus human beings are the fruit, microcosm and model for everything in the existing world. Nevertheless, since humans are resultant beings, we can deduce that we came to exist because of a first causal being, and that we resemble that being. This means there must be an absolute subject being who created human beings as His object partners. If we are beings of character, then the subject being must also be a being of character. The field of philosophy defines this subject partner as the First Cause and Absolute Being. Religion refers to this absolute being as God.
12All things in creation have dual purposes, an individual purpose and a higher purpose that serves the greater whole. Therefore the universe is like one massive organic entity with dual purposes. Within the universe, an entity that has completed its individual purpose by uniting with a subject or object partner cannot exist in isolation or in a fixed state. Every individual entity assumes either a subject or object position in relation to a partner and moves toward a higher direction and purpose. The universe is an entity that unites everything within itself as subject-object partners, with shared interests and a common purpose, and contains within itself an energy and universal power that serves the common purpose of the whole. Then what is the nature of the strongest, most perfect mutual relationship that creates eternal harmony and unity between a subject partner and an object partner? It is the relationship of giving and receiving grounded in love. The motivation of love, however, does not originate from human beings. The fundamental origin of love is the absolute, unchanging, causal subject being. In religion, this first causal being is called God.
13When we examine the process of God's creation, we see that first God made all things of creation as the foundation upon which to create human beings. We were God's final masterpiece. Everything began from God. Culminating with the creation of human beings, God wanted to experience unity and equilibrium with human beings and all things of the natural world. Human beings' mission is to stand as mediators, connecting God, the spirit world and the physical world.
14God made all things as a foundation upon which to create His sons and daughters. On this foundation everything is related and connected. This is true from the animal kingdom to the mineral kingdom. Plus and minus exist in the mineral world, just as stamen and pistil are found in the plant kingdom, and male and female in the animal kingdom. The greatest masterpiece of all, created by amalgamating all things of creation, is human beings, with internal nature and external form. All entities appear in symbol, image and substance so they can connect and relate with all of creation.
15The world functions harmoniously through various systems and relationships. In this complicated and diverse world, we need an ideology that can teach us how to become true owners. This ideology should apply not only to human relationships but also to our relationship with all things of creation. What kind of person is a true owner? A true owner is one who considers the welfare of others before his or her own, practicing a life of service and devotion to others. He or she leads a life of true love. A true person is a true owner who loves, protects and nurtures all things with true love.
16Things that are woven together through love become one. This is the phenomenon of connection. A single strand of my hair and I resemble each other. When you look at a strand of your hair, it looks like nothing special. You may think it has no relationship with you, but it does. All things of creation are like that strand of hair. Love functions in mysterious ways. All things of creation have their own capacity to respond to emotions, such as love. If you raise flowers in a caring environment with music, they will grow well. The buds will not fade before they bloom; they will blossom fully. If you let chickens listen to music, they too will grow well. Everything grows well when in harmony with its surroundings, but if there is discord, it wilts.
17Why did God create the environment? He created the environment as a place for plants and all things of creation to grow so they could provide nutrition for human beings. The fish in the ocean, the plants in the fields and mountains, the grass and trees, all provide us with nutrition. For example, many things can be used as medicine when we are sick. There is nothing that is not useful. In fact, the most distasteful thing could prove to be highly medicinal. In some instances, the poison of venomous snakes is considered to be the best medicine.
1In Satan's world, all things of creation are under his dominion in the name of his children. The nations in Satan's world are also under his dominion. This is why God and the creation are lamenting. This is why we need to restore the creation to God through indemnity and liberation. In order to do this, God's son and daughter need to establish dominion over the creation. Adam and Eve together should govern the creation, which desires to be ruled by God. In turn, Adam and Eve's descendants need to unite and take dominion over all things.
2The Fall of human beings caused the fall of the created world, causing all created entities to lament. There are two realms of lamentation, that of the human world and that of the creation. In the created world, the state of the world is determined by the state of the people. It is because of the human Fall that the creation entered the realm of lamentation, consequently bringing human beings into that realm also. Thus we need to liberate the creation first. The process of recreation needs to be done in this order because God created the natural world first. We must first liberate creation from its lamentation. Then, upon that foundation, we can return to the original state in which God created us.
3In the creation we have the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. Lamentation begins from the mineral kingdom. Because Satan's lineage permeated the creation, all things are trapped and cannot relate to God as their master. Everything is blocked. That is why all creation and all human beings are in distress. In the spirit world God laments, as do the angels.
4Because of the human Fall, God has never experienced a single day of the ideal for which our ancestors longed. God has not had a single day of joy based on His original ideal. The creation was lost and could not receive God's love. We can only restore the world and recover the world of God's love by correcting this. In the Bible, Chapter 8 of Romans says that because of the human Fall, God, humanity and all of creation came to lament. How did all this lamentation come about? As a result of the Fall, God lost His loving sons and daughters, human beings lost their loving Parent, and all creation lost the master from whom it was meant to receive love. In this way, lamentation befell the universe.
5It is true that the creation is lamenting. It laments not because of its own pain, but because God is lamenting. In all directions, all things of creation grieve. People should realize that they too are in a position to grieve. But who among humankind understands this? Who can resolve this agonizing situation? God cannot do it alone. The things of creation also cannot resolve it. Satan certainly cannot do it. Only human beings can resolve this painful situation. At the very least, we should share the sorrow of the creation.
6From a historical perspective, during the Old Testament Age the providence of restoration was advanced through the offering of sacrifices. Initially God led His providence to unite people and the creation by requiring sacrifices. Later He led the providence to unite people with Himself. This has been the history of the providence of restoration until the present. From now on, however, the providence will advance through your initiative. Thus you need to be the one in the position of a sacrifice who unites with the creation. Then, upon that foundation, you should unite with God. Through this process, history, which has been flowing in a vertical line, will unfold horizontally in your family.
7To have dominion over creation, man and woman must first unite in love. Only after this can they have dominion over all things of creation. This is the Principle. When God created and blessed Adam and Eve, He said, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over all things." This means that you can have dominion over the creation only after you have a family.
8Human beings cannot have dominion over all creation until they become bride and bridegroom and have a true family. To have dominion over creation, they must wait until the original standard of Adam and Eve is restored. Creation was supposed to be governed by human beings who had attained original love. In order to grow properly, all of creation wants to receive love and respect from original human beings. That is the eternal place where all created things want to dwell.
9The entire creation laments because the human Fall turned everything upside down. This is the reason all things of creation have been waiting for the sons of God who have the authority to overcome the realm of lamentation. The creation can finally be governed only through the families of the sons of God The creation has been waiting for this time, and the mission of religion is to bring about this time. Until then human beings have no authority to take dominion over the creation.
10No one today has earned the privilege of taking dominion over the creation based on love. Until we mature enough to embrace all things with the original heart of love, we are not entitled to eat and digest the things of creation. All of creation should be governed by true families. If all things of creation lived with loving families, do you think they would lament? No, they would not. All things of the creation want to be governed in a place where love flourishes. Human beings have never been able to elevate their level of heart enough to create that kind of place. If we don't advance to that place of spiritual maturity, we will never have dominion over the creation. In order to be owners of that place of love, we must unite as bride and bridegroom. According to the original law, a bride and a bridegroom form a family, and then govern all of creation based on true love in their family. To do that, we must restore the lost position of all humankind. Because we have not been able to restore our original position, we do not have the privilege of governing the creation.
11All your basic necessities, even the domes on your back, came from the creation, so you should not treat them merely as objects for your daily life. You should treat each item as a microcosm of the whole created world and recognize its value. Likewise, you need to make your life an offering and create an environment where God can dwell with you. Unless we live this way, we cannot establish the foundation to become true families who govern creation.
12Since Satan's children have control over all of creation, all things belong to Satan. We must restore all things to God. According to the Principle of Restoration, all created things should first have belonged to the ancestors of humankind. Of course, all things should belong to God, but from the viewpoint of God's blessing to human beings, all created things should have belonged to the ancestors of humankind. First they should belong to the parents of goodness, who have no relationship to the Fall. Afterwards they can belong to the children of goodness.
13Restoring myself alone does not complete restoration. First I must be united with God, and then I must unite with all things of creation in order to be in a position to declare, "All creation belongs to God." After that I can say, "These created things belong to me." Before something belongs to me, it should belong to God and to True Parents. Otherwise it cannot be mine. Everything that belongs to me must first be offered to the public. In order to lay the foundation to restore Korea, I must consider all material things from a greater perspective, beyond my individual self. I must treat all material things as public.
14To capture God's heart, the heart that existed before the creation and will remain forever, is the condition required for us to earn our value as lords of creation. Once you possess God's heart, you are ahead of everything. Our value is determined by our relationship with the center, the root, the heart. This has been God's heart from the very beginning. When you issue commands with this heart of God, all creation will respond, "Yes! You are right! Thank you!" That's the way it will be. So why are God and all things of creation sorrowful? It is because this relationship of heart was cut off. The history of restoration and the history of resurrection have progressed to reestablish this severed relationship of heart. Once we own God's heart, no one can oppose us when we say, "You are our Father, and we are your sons and daughters." No one will deny it. There is no way to deny the relationship of heart between parent and child.
15We need to learn what kind of people we must become in order to restore the lost original standard and live in the kingdom of heaven. We should understand that all created things have a love relationship with God. Furthermore, we should feel that all things of creation are a reflection of the Parent. All creation is a reflection of the heart of the Parent, whose entire heart and soul went into the creation of all things. All things expect to be loved, valued and treated well as the representatives of the One whose hands created them. However, since the human Fall, no one has treated the creation in this way. How could all things of creation not lament? That is why the Bible says, "The whole creation has been groaning."
16Since we are responsible to liberate creation, which is sighing and lamenting in sorrow, we should be able to touch a single tree or even a single blade of grass and experience the heart and care that God invested in its creation six thousand years ago. We must be able to shed tears at the sight of one solitary plant along the road, or while holding onto a tree, and say, "How lonely you must be, having lost your master!" I have wept profusely while grasping a rock. I have shed tears while feeling the blowing wind.
17We need to love and be proud of all creation in heaven and earth that was created by God with His whole heart. God made all things of creation for the wellbeing of His children. Creation is our inheritance, which cannot be bought for any treasure, not for silver or gold. Yet this precious heritage has been neglected and treated with contempt. That is why all created beings are lamenting. When I look at the mountains, I can sense their sorrow, I can sense the grieving of the fields and the lamentation in the blowing wind.
18You need to become sons and daughters who attend God. After earning the title of God's sons and daughters, you should become lords of creation who can take responsibility for all created things. You should love the creation with your whole heart, just as God has loved us for six thousand years, without discarding us in our sinfulness. Regardless of whether or not somebody is watching, you should be able to hold a single blade of grass and say, "Father, how hopeful You must have been when You created this blade of grass! Isn't that right? How You must have longed to show this proudly to Your beloved children? How long this single blade of grass has been waiting for the moment You could proudly show it to Your beloved children! How sorrowful has this poor blade of grass been, not being able to experience that day?"
1God is the owner of the world. So who should control this earth? Naturally God, the owner of the world, should rule over it. If not God, then those who represent the owner and receive His love should rule the earth. Since God is the owner of this world, those who follow the way of loyalty to God must rule the world. To sustain humankind forever on earth, we need an ideology that teaches us to accept God as the owner of the world and build a world of greater value, the eternal world. What is that ideology? It is Godism. When we become the sons and daughters who receive God's love, we can say, "This world is mine."
2All things of creation should be governed by public law. Creation is in the domain of public law. People, as well as all things of creation, are in the domain of public law. A nation also exists only within this domain. When people put self-interest before the greater good, the nation cannot endure.
3A public person can manage and rule all things of creation according to the public law that governs the universe. That law is heavenly law. Once you master these heavenly principles, your actions will not be sinful even if you need to be forceful. It is not a sin to take action against evil. If someone doing evil refuses to listen to your admonition three times, it is not unlawful to use the force necessary to stop him. Therefore, you need to live for the greater purpose, always distinguishing between good and evil. No one is more fearsome than one who lives for heaven and earth.
4If you ask all things of creation, "Do you want to be governed by public or private law?" they will answer, "We want to be governed by public law." Why is this so? Just as people want to rise to the highest realm of goodness, created things long for this also. Then by whom do the world and all things of creation want to be governed? They want to be ruled by the more public-minded being.
5You must become a person who can manage all things of creation in a public-minded way. When you eat, you need to know the value of the food you are eating. As you eat, you should ask the food, "What kind of person's mouth do you want to enter? What kind of face should I have for you to become my flesh, my bones and energy, and what do you want to leave behind for the sake of the world?" Even though when rice is eaten it ends up inside someone's stomach, every grain of rice wants to be eaten by a good person. It wants to be consumed by the more public-minded person.
6That which is public should never be considered lightly. That which is public can even kill someone. Today people are trying to stop air pollution in the cities. This is natural, since an unclean environment is harmful. Water should be kept clean, too. Like air and water, all of creation is public. The sun, for example, is the prerequisite for life on earth; its value is infinite. Yet we receive the suns priceless light for free. Have you ever seen anyone with money in his hand, trying to buy the light of the sun or eat the light of the sun? Have you ever seen anyone pay a single cent to receive the suns light? If somebody sold the sunlight, would you buy it, yes or no? Water, air and light -- none of these natural things belongs to the individual.
7Your management of the things you have owned so far, your material possessions, is only temporary. You are just the manager. In order to manage things properly, all your things should be dedicated to God by offering them to Him through the True Parents. In other words, only after going through the process of belonging to God and True Parents can everything become truly yours. You should clearly understand this concept. Through historical experience, we may be used to the concept that certain things belong to certain people, but things cannot remain like that. All material things must go through the name of True Parents, and go through God's name. By going through this process, all material things can be restored for the first time. You are not the real owner of things until they are restored; you are merely the manager of your possessions. Until the time comes when all material things are returned to their true owner, you need to be responsible as a manager. From this point of view, we must distinguish clearly between public and private things.
8We must distinguish between public and private things according to a clear hierarchy. Through the process of establishing a hierarchy of public to private things, we should then clarify the standard of public and private things, and lead our lives based on firm principles. However, in this world everything is usually upside down. Commonly, private things are treated as valuable while public things are neglected. This is absolutely not acceptable. We must treat public things as precious. If we want to complete the restoration of material things into private possessions, we first need to make them public by changing them into church possessions, then national possessions and finally, world possessions. In this manner we should treat public things with greater care. Using this paradigm, people are higher than all created things, while God is higher than people. People often say, "I am first," centering on themselves. However, the restoration of the world is unthinkable centered on the individual. Although people are higher than their possessions, God is higher than people. We must be able to relate with all things of the material world focused on God's love.
9What you have now is not yours. The house you live in is not yours, the food you eat is not yours, the daily necessities you use are not yours. You should not forget that all of these are public things and have a permanent relationship with the world centered on a public figure, God, our Father, and should be bequeathed generation after generation, eternally. You should think to yourself, "The clothes I am wearing, my lifelong foundation, and even my own body, are not mine"
10Misuse of public things is a sin. Unification Church members must be absolutely clear regarding public things. The Father's things are holy. If all created things are holy, then your body, which consumes these things, is holy. If all created things have unlimited value, then your body, which lives by consuming those things, has unlimited value. When you recognize your value as a public being, you can create a unified family with great public value. Based on this family we can move on to the tribal level; based on the tribe, we move on to a people; based on a people we can build a nation; and based on that nation, we march toward the world level. Smaller things are absorbed into the bigger field. We should move forward through sacrificing lesser things.
11We should strive day and night to make the Father's country our country, the Father's people our people, and the Father's possessions our own. This means you are meant to act, live and exist harmonizing two reciprocal bases while experiencing God's heart. Because this is God's act of creation, relationship without heart is a sin; being separated from heart is a sin. Whenever we meet our brothers and sisters, we should invite God to be present with us and connect with His heart. Whenever we deal with material things we must also relate to them with God's heart.
12Are my possessions public or private? This is the problem. All of us must go beyond the concept that things belong to us. This is one of the greatest lessons we must teach humankind from now on. We should reject the concept that things are "mine" and replace it with the realization that things are "public." Nothing in the created world belongs to a certain individual as his own possession. If you boast, "This is my land," you will be ruined, because it is public land. You are just the manager. If you care for it as a public manager according to the universal principles of governance, you will be able to manage it forever. Otherwise, you will lose it.
13Nobody understands the law of public management of the created world. We will finally reach the era of liberation of all things that the Bible talks about when we establish the true value of all things of the created world. Unless we know their value, our use of things is not management; it is abuse. Therefore, all things of creation need a true owner. Until today, the things of creation have never had public value or authority. All things want to be governed from that position. This means that they should be ruled by true love. That which is true is not self-centered.
14A wife lives for her husband, children live for their parents, parents, grandparents and grandchildren all live for the family. Living in love like this, for the sake of others, is happiness. When everyone in a family tries to make everything "ours" rather than "mine," the family will prosper. When the grandfather conserves everything without wasting anything, and the father, mother and children do the same to expand what belongs to all of them, the family will prosper. Thus when family members use money and save it for the sake of the whole, the environment of love in that family will expand. That ideal becomes real when we expand it to the society and world on the foundation of such families. We must not center on ourselves.
15Unification Church missionaries are trained to live without the luxuries of Western civilized society. We have a new culture called "the sleeping bag culture." Wherever they go, our young people do not feel they are strangers. Our Unification Church missionaries live without luxurious furnishings and use only the most basic household goods. When you become a missionary, as you witness to sorrowful people, you must have a tearful heart. You should allow them to recognize that God is a God of sorrow. God is yearning to cry with people who suffer in sorrow.
16I have seen you throw away things you should not throw away and consume things that you should not consume. By every possible means, we have to find a way to save even a single cent for the sake of the world, for the sake of God's Will, and for the restoration of this country. We need to develop a way to save and become more efficient in financial management.
17From the viewpoint of the Principle, wasting is a sin. From the time we are born, we are supposed to consume a certain quantity of things. If we consume more than we should it is considered a sin. When we die, there should be something left over. If not, our descendants will be indebted. Is there anybody who can speak and teach about this? Before our schooling, the Divine Principle is our teacher. Nature is our teacher; even the ocean is our teacher.
18What are we striving to do by saving, economizing and suffering? We are trying to do something good for the next generation. Consequently, we are striving for a system of thought that can create a foundation we can be proud of in front of the world. After ten years, a hundred years, or a thousand years of bequeathing a tradition based on thought, Koreans will surely become a venerated people throughout the world. Therefore, I ponder how to guide people based on this principle. Although this approach may seem to be the worst one at this particular moment while we are being persecuted, I predict that this thought system alone will remain and prevail as time goes by. For this reason, I embarked on this path.
19When you are fasting, you realize how much time you really have. You realize just how much time you spend eating three meals a day. How much effort is wasted just thinking about what to eat, constantly going back and forth opening the refrigerator door to eat an apple or drink a Coke? It is important to get accustomed to eating only at mealtimes. If you do this, you will not get sick; rather, you will become healthier.
20Even when hungry, you should not completely fill your plate with food. You should be satisfied eating three-fifths of your plateful. Only then are you a wise person. You should learn how to be frugal in everything. You should save the maximum and then find out the minimum you can live with. Train yourself to use only the minimum for at least three months until you reach your limit. After you do this, you will see what happens.
21Before loving God you must love everything in front of you -- the food you eat, all different types of material things, the creation, and your own body. You love your body by absorbing the creation into your body with love. Your first parents are the parents who gave birth to you; your second parent is the earth. Because you receive all the elements your body needs from the land, you should love the land.
22You have heard the saying that if you release animals and fish with love, your descendants will prosper. This is correct. If you live in your homeland you don't catch local diseases. The saying, "A body and the soil are not separable," means you walk on the land, breathe the air, eat the grains and vegetables, and drink the water. If you find one, two, three, four, five, six, seven or even several hundred places just like your homeland, you can travel to those places during your life. The time will come to make the whole world your own liberated homeland. In the ocean, water currents flow to balance east and west, so fish grow well. Air also does not flow randomly; it flows according to differences in temperature to achieve equilibrium. We too need to learn how to attain balance. For example, starting in primary school we should learn how to care for plants and animals so they do not become extinct. When we learn this kind of balance and care for the natural world, it will be possible to achieve one unified world.
23According to the Principle, a completely mature person must be healthy, united in mind and body, and in harmony with God's heart and absolute value. No matter how strong your spirit, if your body is not healthy you cannot be a sound person. Conversely, no matter how strong your body is, if your spirit is not correct you cannot embody a completely mature person. Realizing this, you need to make constant effort to maintain proper unity between your mind and body.
24All creation is precious, like God's fine, soft hair. Even those particles we pick up from touching objects or petting animals, which mix with our bodies' sweat and fall off, were once part of God. Likewise, if we love everything that we eat, we will not get sick. God created all things in the universe as object partners of His love. If we love the things God created just as God loves them, consume them on behalf of God, and become people who reflect God's personality, then they will provide us with nutrition and keep us healthy. We are not meant to get sick and die. To avoid this, we must become one with God's love, life and lineage. We need to become God's representatives.
25How fortunate human beings are! We conduct an orchestra of love, and in accord with the rhythm of love, we live eating the animals and plants that maintain life in the universe. This means that we live off the fruits of love. Flowers and leaves are the fruits of love. How happy are we who eat these fruits! Those who eat the fruits of love suffer no disease. They know no illness. Even if there were just one piece of bread remaining in the cafeteria when you got there, you would think, "This bread passed through countless hands throughout the world, many means of transportation, and prevailed over great hardships to get here. This bread has been made and given to me as the fruit of the efforts of many people, as the fruit of their love. As the owner of love, I shall eat this bread thinking of it as my partner." Those who have no such appreciation are bound to fall ill, while those who eat with appreciation can resist all illness. People who eat the fruits of a world filled with love possess miraculous energy.
26If you eat with a heart of appreciation and love, the food that enters your mouth will say, "I deeply appreciate being absorbed into your body, becoming your flesh and blood and giving you energy to love God." When you eat beef you must think, "This beef has come to me as the fruit of love, after being raised from a calf with its mother's love, and raised by its owner with love." You will never know illness if you consume the fruit of love while appreciating it in oneness with God's original love.
27All the foods we eat are fruits. We are eating the fruits of the creation, the original bodies containing the seeds of beauty, the microcosms of all living things of beauty. We need to be mindful of their value as we eat them, and that we are doing so in order to grow and become complete through this valuable love. If we eat with this attitude, there is no reason that we should fall ill. In fact, we will surely grow in good health.
1When we wake up and open our eyes, we see all of creation unfolding before us. From the creation we indirectly and intuitively receive certain impressions and by responding to them, we develop our senses. Even the smallest creatures are connected to us. Even though we ignore them, these seemingly insignificant creatures are connected to us and lead their lives every day according to the ideal of the heavenly principle. Why is this so? From the perspective of the purpose of existence, all creatures from the smallest to the greatest, that is, human beings -- who are the lords of creation and rule over all things - - everything lies within the realm of the ideal of love and can embrace God's ideal for this vast universe. Movement occurs as small things are absorbed by larger entities governing larger spheres, thus fulfilling the purpose of the universe. Small things are absorbed by bigger things, becoming the building blocks of their material form. This relationship leads to the realization of one purpose based on one great ideal. We cannot deny that this is the way history has been progressing, and the way the physical world has been following the principle of heaven toward the fulfillment of one purpose.
2Throughout my life I have thought, "Even if I am the only one, I should understand the sorrow of the precious things of creation made by God. We value national treasures housed in palaces, yet we do not cherish the precious things of creation made by God." Those with the heart to say, "Though everyone living on this earth may be ignorant, I will understand," can become a new people able to govern humankind in the future. This is not a concept, but a fact. Who values all things of creation more than they value the family treasure handed down through generations? Diamonds are considered to be the most valuable and precious stones in the world. People hold on to them and refuse to let them go. Who in this world values creation more than diamonds? Where can we find such people? God will say, "I hear you!" upon seeing those who understand in their hearts what He has created, and who weep when they hold the things of creation.
3Nature is an exhibit that God has given us as a magnificent gift. He prepared this gift for the birth of His beloved sons and daughters, who were to live in love for others. Every bird and plant was a decoration to bring beauty into the lives of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the pebbles along the road were created as decorations for a nation, since God knew that His sons and daughters would be the owners who would rule over the nation. It is the same with flowing water. God did not want things to be dry and monotonous, so He created the natural world fit for a prince of dreams and hope who would inherit this infinitely colorful and harmonious garden, this world of love. Hence we learn from all things of creation.
4No matter how precious a work of art in a museum, can it have more value than a living work of art? Who has loved this earth, the museum of all things and the work of God, more than God has? Has anyone loved the earth more than they loved their national treasures? Can a gold crown from the Silla Dynasty sitting in a museum compare with one dandelion growing alongside the road? If there were a king who understood God's heart and who took care of the creation with a heart that said, "I feel sorry and ashamed because I cannot love you from the position of an original king whom God has loved," the tufts of grass would want to follow that king and be with him eternally. This is how people should live.
5You should have such a mind that, when observing nature imbued with God's love, you say, "Can the precious items possessed by the kings of this world, or by people of great fame, compare with this? Can any artifact compare with this? Can a glamorous dress worn by a famous lady compare with this? Without that heart, we are committing sin before the natural world without even realizing it. Is there anyone who looks at a living creature and asks, "What items produced by human hands could compare with this? No matter how great someone might be, could he or she ever be greater than God?" A person who deeply cherished all creation, in which God totally invested His heart, would surely be a child of God. Such a person would not need to pray, for he or she would live with God. God guides people into such a position.
6Pollution is destroying nature. Since World War II, fish have been dying from water pollution and birds have been falling to the ground from air pollution. We have to protect the water and the air. Water, air and sunlight are the most important. People today live without knowing the value of these things.
7Nowadays, pollution is a serious problem for humankind. Since World War II, because of pollution the oceans are becoming dirty and fish are dying. The same is happening to the animals in the mountains and to the birds. Some countries are selfishly dumping their waste into international waters and the oceans are dying. Because of worsening pollution year after year, fish are deserting shallow waters and moving into deeper waters, where they are eaten by deep-water fish. Then the deep-water fish die after eating these smaller fish. This is why the food supply for fish is diminishing. This is a big problem. We need to purify the polluted ocean waters. We need to purify the water so that the fish can live.
8Pollution is hastening the destruction of humankind. The worst kind of pollution is water pollution. Before people die, animals die first. The fish in the oceans are dying, the birds are dying, and the small insects are dying. Since World War II, because of air pollution, birds have been dying and because of water pollution, fish have been dying. Now because of pesticides, small and large animals are dying. In the future, if people are fighting, what will happen? We are producing more carbon dioxide than oxygen. The situation could worsen until humankind perishes. No matter how great you are, if you have no water and air is scarce, you will die. What use would the land be? No grass would grow. Therefore we need to love the water and the land, and we need to protect the fish and the animals.
9People have ravaged our God-given environment, causing the death of many animals. We have killed the best gift God has given to His sons and daughters. Therefore I teach that we should become second creators, loving the gifts God has given us on His behalf. After living such a life of love we can go to heaven. Recently I heard that in Korea people are killing magpies, thinking they are harmful. I don't think we should worry about that kind of thing. Instead, we should prepare one year's food supply for the magpies and raise them with kindness. Then let's see what happens. I used to prepare and give food to pigeons and other birds, and I found that the birds recognized my kindness. The magpies would greet me with a "caw, caw, caw" when they flew by; the pigeons would greet me with a "coo, coo, coo"; and the sparrows would say, "chirp, chirp, chirp." If you become a true owner, birds will not pass you by without greeting you. Because I fed them every day, they expressed their thanks.
10People are dying because of pollution. We need to protect the animals and insects so they can survive. Who can take responsibility for this? God cannot take on this responsibility. We have to take measures to balance the food chain. On the national level, we must establish long-term legal measures to ensure a sustainable food supply. All the regions of the world should do the same.
11In order to survive, human beings need air, water, sunlight and soil. We therefore must be grateful for these things. Even when we release something dirty into the air, it eventually falls to the ground. Therefore, we need to protect the earth and fertilize the land. When we provide fertilizer to the earth, seeds of life emerge there. A mother is like the earth; she always takes care of the dirty things at home. The members of the family rely on the mother for cleanliness. In contrast, men, in the process of initiating things, often ignore the value of the earth and just randomly stomp on it.
12When you love nature and protect it, your behavior becomes a model for how to love people. Children are the same. They learn how to love people by playing with their toys and loving their pets. Those who live like that with nature often go to a higher level of spirit world than those who lead a religious life because they have reached a higher level of heart. When you reach your seventies or eighties you had better go back to nature. When your memory grows dim and your physical body becomes weaker, you had better go live in nature. Living among all the natural things created by God, loving them and managing them as their master, you will be able to go to a higher level of heart, the kingdom of heaven.
13In the garden where people of true love and husband and wife of true love are living, beautiful flowers want to blossom, and lovely birds and beautiful animals want to come and live close by. You should understand that their original nature drives them to do this. All things naturally follow such people, who are destined to prosper.
14We have to go back to nature, live there, and love all the things of God's creation. When we feel the heart of God, who created the soil, water, plants and animals for us, we inherit all the things that belong to Heavenly Father. By doing so, we return joy and glory to the original heart of God, Creator of all these things. For instance, we harvest the grains that we grow through our year-round toil and during the winter, we rest. Year after year we gather the harvest, offer it to God, and return glory to Him, as we do on Thanksgiving Day. When spring comes the next year, we begin again. When we live this way, based on a desire to return glory to God, God will bless us and we will prosper.
15God is working to save humankind. If God is a big tree we, as the branches, should resemble the tree. Therefore, we must assist God in His work and help Him find lost humankind. So wherever you go, east or west, you should foster loving relationships with people. Those who don't know how to love other people don't know how to love nature. Also, people who don't know how to love nature cannot truly like others. Saving humankind is God's work. However, we should be able to love people and nature, living with God's love in our hearts. Liking something is not enough. We need to live in love.
16You should know how to love nature and love people. Those who cannot love people or love nature cannot truly love God. Because all things of creation are symbols of God, and people are beings of His substance, those who learn to love all things of creation and to love people will come to love God.
17When you love the mountains, love water and love all things of creation on God's behalf, everything will be fine; you will be healthy. These are the three conditions. That is why I chose the name Sansuwon, "the garden of mountains and waters" for our hiking club. I like mountains and often go where there are beautiful mountains and water. We need to love the creation on behalf of God. We also need to love the ocean. By loving all things of creation, we can become their loving master. The person who loves something most is its owner; this is the unmistakable conclusion.
18When you love all things on earth on behalf of God, you will naturally receive as much love from God as you give to the things of creation. This is why you need to love the creation. By loving all things of creation and by loving people, you are entitled to receive God's love. Those who dedicate their lives to loving the world, the universe, and all humankind, who love these more than they love their own lives, will naturally receive the same amount of love from God.
1Whenever we think about the original garden of Eden before the Fall, we immediately think about God. Then we associate it with Adam and Eve, whom God blessed after He finished His six days of creation. The garden of Eden was home to our original, sinless ancestors and all things of creation, which had not been invaded by evil or sin. All things were created for human beings and human beings were created for God. Sadly, human beings have not lived for God and as a consequence, all things of creation have been unable to harmonize with us. Because of this, when we think of the garden of Eden we feel profoundly sad and sorrowful; our mind and body are pervaded with the feeling of how everything has been mistreated.
2We should not look at the things of creation with a hollow heart. Since every being in this world of God's great creation lives and moves based on the purpose of one love, God's energy indwells even the tiniest, most insignificant being. God created all things in six biblical days. Yet even the beings He created on the first and second days were related to God's larger vision of the great universe that would appear after the six days of His creation were completed. From this we can firmly conclude that nothing was created without being deeply rooted in God's heart.
3We value the relics left behind by famous people in history. We value the items they cherished during their lifetimes. But if a single grain of sand falls in front of you, you should realize that it is connected to God's heart. It is the work of the Creator, who is higher and greater than anyone else, made lovingly with His own hands. It is the fruit of His heart. Anyone who understands its worth and treats a grain of sand as if it were as valuable as the entire universe is certainly a son or daughter of God.
4In a field, no single blade of grass is untouched by the hand of God. When we look at a tree, we can see God's unlimited inner heart growing and flowing through that tree. Not only the grass and trees, but the animals playing in the fields, the insects, and every kind of bird -- they were all created by the hands of God who invested His inner heart completely.
5How should we think about all the things that God created and loved so much? God created all things and said, "This is good to behold!" But we should consider, if God loved a blade of grass the most, which kind of grass would He love best? If you could think about this without any time constraints, you would feel the grace of God's heart as He created all things, before the creation of human beings. Holding a single blade of grass, you would feel joy in your heart, realizing that it was an object of hope and that it had been created by God's hand. If there were someone like that, even a fallen person, who shared God's heart at the time of creation, he or she could be God's friend.
6From among the people who revere God's heart, await God's ideal and seek His restored garden, there are many people of true heart who sing God's praises and strive to attain divine joy. Yet few remember that God's inner heart is connected to every blade of grass, every insect and all things of creation, and that He feels joy through them. If someone invested all his energy to make an insect, and someone else loved and appreciated it with all his heart and mind, more highly than even its creator, nothing would delight the creator more.
7Science attempts to explain the formulas, axioms, principles and laws of the created world and of all things in nature, Literature attempts to express the inner lyrical sentiment of nature, while the arts in their various forms express the apparent or hidden beauty of nature. Philosophy also tries to explain the basic principles of nature. Religion, however, is on a higher level than all of these. Then what is it that true religion should explain? It should explain the deep emotional feeling that flows through the heart of nature. This is religion's responsibility.
8It is unimaginable that human culture would exist separate from nature. We cannot speak about human culture apart from nature. No matter how much people boast of their influence or assert their power, if they ignore nature, it is all of no use. Nature not only enriches our lives, it is indispensable to our earthly lives. Therefore, if you cannot feel the heart that flows within all natural things, you cannot enjoy true happiness in your life and you cannot rise to a position of glory where you can relate to God.
9Even when you contemplate a blade of grass, you should be able to do so from God's perspective. When you look at a flower, you should do so with the heart of God. When you look at insects, birds or all other animals, your inner feelings should connect with the heart of God. If there were a person like this who could connect with the heart of God, even one who could not explain nature through the logic of science using formulas and definitions, could not express feelings through literature, could not display the beauty of nature through art, or had no energy to feel the love of nature, still that person would be a great scientist, writer, artist, philosopher and religious leader.
10Every day our eyes are stimulated by the things of creation. However, we often take these things for granted, as if they were commonplace. If we human beings had not fallen, all of nature would have conformed to God's original ideal of nature based on goodness. We should reflect upon how our original ancestors looked at and felt about nature, and upon God's original feeling toward nature.
11Have you ever wished you could enter into a mystical state or into the realm of God's grace and look at a flower from that perspective? Have you ever regarded a flower with the same sincere heart you would express toward an ancestor you longed to meet? Have you ever looked at the mountains and rivers and felt such incredible inspiration from nature that you spontaneously burst forth praising God? If you have never had this kind of experience, I can only conclude that you are not qualified to be a lord of creation.
12When you open your eyes in the morning and look at the natural world, your original nature is stirred and you are inspired with a fresh ideal. As for the human world, the more you see of it, the more despair and sorrow it arouses in your heart. If original people who had not fallen populated the world, the value of human beings would not bestir sorrow in the heart of the beholder. Human beings were not created with the same value as a blade of grass, a flower or a tree. We were meant to be noble beings who could not be exchanged for anything in the created world. Human beings were supposed to be born with incomparable value, representing the glory of heaven.
13We should not frown on or lament the environment we see around us, and we should not despair at social injustice. Instead, we should become people who are able to forget our sorrowful hearts with the joy of looking at a single blade of grass growing. Such a person will remain into the new age. A person who seeks a relationship with God is one who seeks the ideal and the world of heart. When you look at a blade of grass, try to feel the amazing heart behind it. God is there and eternal life is there. You should not look at a mountain peak with the same feeling from one day to the next. If we could experience a different feeling in each season -- spring, summer, autumn and winter -- and could sing of each unique feeling, wouldn't it be wonderful? Such a person is one who can harmonize with all of nature.
14What kind of nature are we looking at; what kind of land are we standing on? Sadly, this land is fallen land. Instead of a land of happiness, it has become a land of sorrow. When we look at the creation, rather than feeling that it is good, we should feel the sad situation of all things of creation, which remain in the realm of lamentation. Even as we enjoy gazing at a place of scenic beauty -- the mountains and rivers, for example -- we should also be able to feel deep sorrow and connect to our Heavenly Father's heart.
15While holding a blade of grass, rather than feeling happy we should be weeping in sorrow. Even though we feel inner joy hugging a tree, we should be able to shed tears. While gazing at mountains and rivers, we should be sighing deeply. We feel such emotion because deep in our hearts we miss the original garden of Eden. God, as the Creator, is the one who feels this most deeply A person who looks at nature with such a heart cannot help but long for the garden of Eden. If we long for the original Eden, we should also long for the original person who can govern all things of creation in that garden.
16If we ask God if He had even one hour in the original garden of Eden together with Adam and Eve, singing and sharing their feelings about nature, the answer would be "No." I'm sure God wanted to say, "My son, look at that mountain! I made it in such-and-such a way. Look at the grass and the trees. I made them like this and like that. See, I made all of this for you, for your happiness." The fact is God never had a chance to speak such words to Adam. Why not? It is because Adam was not yet mature. We should understand God's deep desire to say such things to His children. We need to understand God's heart and situation. Since Adam was emotionally immature, God was unable to speak like this.
17Our hearts should long for the original garden of Eden. We should become people who long for the world that God has loved with boundless love, the world in which God's love continues forever, the world in which we can sing and become forever intoxicated in song, the world in which we leap and want to keep leaping forever with God, the world in which, once we act and take responsibility, our deeds have eternal value and our responsibility endures forever. God's sorrow is that he could not find people with such a heart. God, who is leading the providence on this earth, must eventually find such a person. By loving nature we can elevate our emotions; this is why we often sing about mountains and rivers.
18If there were a person who could stand up for and call out to God, with a deep heart and a sense of mission to restore all things and people, our Father, God, would surely acknowledge that person. If there were a person looking for the original Garden of Eden with such a sincere heart, he or she would be the original, true person whom God, humankind, and all things of creation would be proud of. Then all created things in the original Garden of Eden, the people living there, and God, who would visit there, would not be separate. Instead, centered on this one person, with God above and all things below, they would all live together harmoniously in one home. This person would be the one whom God could love, the one for whom all people could live, and the true owner whom all created things would respect.
End of The Creation's Lament and True Stewardship