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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Two - God and the Work of Creation
Section 1. God's Motivation for Creating Is Love
1.1. The Work of Creation Required Complete Investment
God's creating heaven and earth was not aimed primarily at sustaining life; it was to realize the ideal of love. (188-196, 1989.2.26)
Scientists say that the universe is made of energy, and that it originated from energy. But this is not so. An electric current does not flow just because there is potential energy. Electricity is generated through action. And before action, there must be a plus and a minus -- that is, a subject partner and an object partner. Action cannot occur by itself; therefore a subject partner and an object partner are necessary.
Considering all the above, action requires a plus and a minus, and that action then generates electricity. Thus, in the same way, energy arises only through the interaction of subject and object partners. Hence, the universe did not originate from energy, as today's scientists say it did. Action comes first, not energy. (111-126, 1981.2.8)
Which is most important, love or life? Love is most important. We do not say life is most important just because our world came from God's life. We say that love is most important. Although God began the creation of heaven and earth with life, the source of life and the motivation for life is love. The reason life came into being is because of love. Why did God create heaven and earth?
Although He is the Absolute Being, He cannot feel joy alone. Even if He were placed in a joyful atmosphere, He could not feel the stimulation of joy if He were alone; this is why He created. No matter how much the Absolute Being may say, "I am the Absolute Being, the Master of love and Master of life," while He is all alone, He cannot feel the stimulation of love. Alone, God cannot feel the stimulation of life that makes Him sense that heaven and earth are within His own body. (38-152, 1971.1.3)
If God had been thinking only about Himself, would He have created heaven and earth? Creation requires an investment of energy. An artist's great hope is to create a masterpiece. An artist invests all his effort into making great works of art. A masterpiece appears only when the artist gives everything, and feels he cannot give any more. Creation starts with investing oneself. Creation is possible only when energy is poured out. Without contributing energy, there is no result. According to the principle that a perfect object partner appears only through total investment, God as the Subject partner completely invested Himself into making His object partner. The creation was the beginning of God's work through which He determined not to exist for His own sake, but for the sake of His object partner. (78-111, 1975.5.6)
Creation requires giving out energy. God invested Himself. But how much did He invest? Some people think that when God created through the Word, saying, "Let there be this, let there be that," it was like a game. But no, God completely poured out His true life, true love and true ideals. We do not love something unless we have worked hard and invested our flesh and blood into it. So the period before creating and the period after creating were therefore different. Before creating, God thought about everything centered on Himself, but after starting to create, He existed for His object partner. We do not exist for ourselves but for our partners, for our sons and daughters. That is how it is. (69-81, 1973.10.20)
God had to pour out His very essence to create heaven and earth. This required that He give out energy, and investing energy normally would entail depleting His essence. God created the world through love to be His partner, and He devoted Himself to fulfilling this will. God arranged for His investment to bear fruit in His partner rather than in Himself. By investing, God does not feel diminished, but satisfied. This is because God created through love. (60-85, 1972.8.6)
After eating breakfast, when we work strenuously we get hungry and tired quickly. Why is this so? It is because when energy is poured out, it is depleted. Whatever we do, we cannot be satisfied with a negative result. For things to be good there must be a plus. So for God's creation to be good, it must have something that can be a plus. Then, when can God retrieve something with that plus? Here is where the standard for the perfection of created beings must lie. There is a point where all the investment up to that point will start bringing returns.
The same thing happens when you have a deep desire to accomplish something and you make effort and stretch beyond your limitations -- the result comes without fail. This is the law of the universe. It is the same with God. When He created humankind, God invested energy. He depleted Himself. However, after God created humankind by giving out everything that He could possibly give, perfected human beings will not run away somewhere. When they reach perfection, they will return to God. When they return, they will not return with a value less than the amount of investment made, but with a value that enhances that of God's creation. (65-20, 1972.11.13)
How did the universe begin? It started with God serving and pouring Himself out for the sake of the other. It started with God expending Himself. Then, what is the purpose in devoting oneself to creating one's partner? After both have given all they have, what we gain is love. As long as we have love, we are happy, no matter how much we have invested. Since this is the love principle, God started the creation based on love. God would not invest in anything that would not produce a benefit. Giving all one has creates a minus, so why do you think He did it? Because love has the power to more than fill up any void, after expending and investing Himself, God gained love in return. True love does not become smaller as it is invested, but grows bigger and bigger the more it moves. Conversely, if the principle were that true love would grow smaller, God would be depleted through His investment. But the opposite is the case. True love grows bigger and bigger the more it is invested. (237-124, 1992.11.13)
Since love has the capacity to create, it never grows tired. With a heart of love, you never get tired, because you have the power of love. The energy spent is always replenished by more energy than is used up, no matter how much is invested. This is why you don't mind making that effort, although to do so is hard and painful. How could you continue if you did not like it? On the path of true love, you cannot have an eternally unwilling heart. God's essence does not include the concept of an enemy or the concept of evil. This is because His essence dwells within true love. (237-130, 1992.11.13)
So invest, invest and invest based on God's ideal of creation. When you invest, circular motion occurs. Take air, for example. If there is a very low-pressure mass of air and a very high-pressure mass of air and they mix, a mid-level pressure mass of air results. God comes down, although no one calls Him. So those who want to invest more than a hundred percent are always filled by God. The principle of the universe is like this. Completely giving yourself out and forgetting what you have given is connected to eternal motion; at that level the underlying principle of eternal life emerges. Eternal life. Otherwise, from where will you derive the principle of unification? When living for the sake of others, circular motion occurs, doesn't it? What happens with something moving in a spiral motion? It becomes smaller and smaller and rises. As the base of something moving with cyclonic rotation broadens out, its height decreases. But eternal life rises up more and more, and therefore automatically God will stand on Adam and Eve's shoulders and go up as they go up. (205-95, 1990.7.7)
Why did God create heaven and earth? Acts of creation consume energy. They require an investment of energy. Investing energy means expending oneself. However omniscient and omnipotent God may be, if His abundant endowment of energy did not produce a return, it inevitably would be exhausted. (65-20, 1972.11.13)
God put all His energy into creating all things and human beings. He invested everything and then gave still more. Other things are depleted when they are poured out, but with true love, the more you give, the more your creation prospers and the more it gives back. If you invest 100 units of true love, 120 will come back. Therefore, although those who practice true love seem like they are going to perish, they will not perish; rather, they will prosper eternally and live forever. (219-118, 1991.8.28)
Why does God exist? For what does He want to exist? He wants to exist for the sake of love. This is why He needs a love partner. This is why the omniscient and omnipotent God had to create a love partner. Until now we have not known that God began the creation based on love as His essential ideal. The entire universe was created for the sake of love. (208-235, 1990.11.20)
God wants to have a global platform for true giving. God wants to see a free, peaceful and happy place where giving has no accusers and receiving has no conditions attached. God's goal is to expand that place worldwide and have all humankind settle down to live there. (13-249, 1964.4.12)
1.2. Realizing the ideal of creation through love
God created the world in order to realize love. He created the universe so that He could rejoice over people and all things as they become one centering on His love and making a harmonious world of love. In so doing, He could rejoice over people as they become true husbands and wives centering on God's love, creating families, tribes, races and a world of true love. He would be able to taste the joy of love by becoming one in love with such people. This was God's ideal of creation. (Blessed Family - 302)
Heart is the foundation of the original mind. Through heart God can pour out His infinite love centering on His purpose. Its value never changes. To discuss the value of God's existence, we must discuss it by holding on to this love. Value is determined when the conditions are established for a reciprocal relationship. Joy starts from God's heart, and its purpose is realized in human beings. The heart of the invisible God manifests itself in the heart of a visible human being. When people with such a heart multiply horizontally and form families, these families become the center of the world. God blessed Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply so that they could have such a family. The ideal of the cosmos is established on the basis of being fruitful, multiplying and having dominion over all things. (27-28, 1969.11.15)
Why do you think God created the universe? God wanted to experience joy through it. Although God is the Absolute Being, He cannot feel joy alone, because joy arises only when you have someone to relate to. God does not need knowledge, money or power, because He is himself absolute, omniscient and omnipotent. No matter how advanced science may be, it cannot catch up with or go beyond what God has made. The immense universe operates in an orderly way according to laws. Considering that God has created and governs this immense universe, which is beyond the reach of human thought and science, God is absolutely scientific as well. (Blessed Family - 302)
Do you think someone who has tied himself to and tasted God's original love will want to be separated from it? When a bee is sucking nectar from a flower and you pull on its abdomen, it will not stop sucking the nectar even if its abdomen is pulled off. What if you experienced the taste of such love? You might leave, but you would turn around and come back, trying to cling to it. (137-57, 1985.12.18)
The Principle of the Unification Church concludes that God's love requires fulfilling the four-position foundation. Then, what does fulfilling the four-position foundation mean? Parental love should be expressed to and felt by the children. Centered on parental love, which lies at the center of the four-position foundation, the parents become one with the children, the man and woman become one in love, and finally they become one with God's love. This is the four-position foundation. (Blessed Family-302)
Adam must be one with God, and what unites them is love. Human beings are the two-dimensional representatives of the world of existence, and its three-dimensional representative is God. Love is the central point, the rope that binds them together eternally. When human beings, who have a body, attain oneness with God, their heart and feelings will be immersed in a boundless state of deep experience and happiness. (35-156, 1970.10.13)
Ultimately, God and people become one through love. Human beings and the world become one through love, and the realization of the ideal world of God's purpose of creation starts here. The realization of God's ideal finally emerges in the place where new love centered on God, or love according to the law of creation, is settled. (Blessed Family - 302)
What is it that we human beings want after waking up in the morning? Eating breakfast, going out to work and worrying about the whole world are not most important for us. What we want is to have an unchanging heart of love day and night, through all four seasons and throughout our life. God created heaven and earth for the sake of the ideal realm of love, where such men and women form a completely horizontal line and become connected to God at a perfect ninety-degree angle. This is a place of love where human emotion and heavenly emotion become one. (213-157, 1991.1.20)
God began His creation from His own essence, giving and giving for the sake of love and forgetting about it. Therefore, if God's partner is to receive, he likewise must pour himself out. This is like investment coming from above and also from below. In this way, heaven and earth join together harmoniously and become one. They become one centering on the love that can embrace and move heaven and earth. This generates great power. (237-130, 1992.11.13)
To occupy love, you must give and forget what you have given and give again and forget again. Why do you have to have such love? Because the more love moves, the more it expands, rather than diminishes. According to the laws of dynamics in nature, the more things move and operate, the less you have, right? In nature, things diminish the more they move, but in the world of true love, things expand the more they move. Because God knew this, He began the Creation with true love. (237-127, 1992.11.13)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. God's Purpose for Creating Human Beings . |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Two - God and the Work of Creation
Section 2. God's Purpose for Creating Human Beings
2.1. God created human beings as His object partners in love
God created human beings because of love. Why were we created? We were created because of love. We differ from other things in creation because we were created as God's sons and daughters. In other words, we were created as God's object partners who can receive God's direct love. This is the privilege of human beings. (132-244, 1984.6.20)
God, who is a perfect plus, was bound to create a perfect minus. Then, who is God's object partner who stands as the subject partner of the universe? This is the issue. Why did God create us? We are beings with a physical body who are the partners of the invisible and internal God. (129-138, 1983.10.9)
Having created people, God's intention was to nurture them and elevate them -- as individuals who possess love on behalf of God, the Lord of the cosmos -- to a place higher than Him, and to make them owners. (204-221, 1990.7.11)
Who is the center of all creation? Human beings. What kind of beings are we? We are beings who have appeared before the all-knowing, all-powerful God having the value of being His partners. This is how I see it. A human being is a symbol of the love of all creation, a being who has appeared as a central point and who can beam light like a lighthouse. That is the kind of beings we are. (115-182, 1981.11.15)
What are human beings? We are God's love object partners. God is a subject partner who has dual characteristics of positivity and negativity. Therefore, to be object partners before this subject partner, we need to have a form consisting of positive and negative dual characteristics. This form is not contradictory to the characteristics of the subject partner; rather, it is a form that relates with all His characteristics -- a form that fits exactly into the essence of love. It is a corresponding existence that harmonizes with other things only in love.
God has no need for the likes of knowledge or other things; He needs love. The reason we say that human beings are the center of this universe is that the world was created to manifest the ideal of love. The saying "Human beings are the lords of all creation" makes sense then because human beings, as the representatives of the loving God, have the privilege to receive love first in the central place before the Lord. (132-244, 1984.6.20)
For what reason did God create human beings? He did not create them just to watch His sons and daughters live their lives. He created them in order to share love with them. This is the only conclusion I can come to, however deeply I think about it. The purpose of our creation is love. Life was created based on God's love; God did not generate love by first creating life. In other words, life began because love started budding in God's heart. Since life started from love, the result must also be produced through love. Since the beginning was love, the end must also be love. This is why we human beings are miserable when love is taken away. (57-21, 1972.5.21)
What does God need? God does not need even life. As the initiator of life, why would He need that? Then what does He need? He needs love. Why does God need love? He needs love because love is something that exists only in a reciprocal relationship. Without being a God who needs love, He would be unable to make a relationship with the created world and human world. Since the conclusion is that God cannot make a relationship with the world of existence without coming with a heart of love, He fixed love as the standard. (121-100, 1982.10.24)
God values human beings most. Why does He value them so? Because He needs an object partner for His love. No matter how much love God may have, He is unable to feel love without having a love partner. God can experience love only in a relationship with a partner. The reason God values human beings most is that they are His object partners whom He can love. (143-309, 1986.3.21)
Why did God create human beings? It was in order to fulfill love. This love does not start with God; it is found in His love partner. Without a partner, it cannot be found. For God to attain the most precious thing, He needs a partner. God cannot experience it without a partner, which is why He created one. God seeks a partner so that He can realize absolute love through that partner. Therefore, God exists for the sake of love. Even God exists for the sake of love. This is why love is so amazing. (143- 310, 1986.3.21)
People exist for God, and God exists for people. Therefore, true love begins from the point where one lives for the sake of others. From what were human beings born? They began from God's love; in other words, they were born because of love. Love is the origin. (143-309, 1986.3.21)
God created people in order to love, because He needed someone with whom to share His love. You cannot be in love all by yourself; without a relationship with a partner, love cannot be experienced. Because God absolutely needs love, He created all things and then human beings as the lords of creation, representing all things. God gave people the value of His object partners in absolute love because God absolutely needs them. Human beings were created as His object partners so that love would be under joint ownership. Hence, people themselves are God's bodies. When Adam and Eve -- the bodies of God -- become a couple, it means that God becomes a couple. Then, in the heavenly world, God, in the form of Adam and Eve, becomes the ancestor of humankind and rules over the spiritual and physical worlds. (138-212, 1986.1.21)
2.2. God invests the essence of His love and life
God created all things in the Garden of Eden and then created the first ancestors as their masters. When He created human beings, He did not do so for His amusement, or as a hobby. It is impossible to express with words how hard God worked and the efforts He devoted to creating human beings and establishing them as the center of all things in the creation.
In creating human beings, God utterly devoted Himself in His many efforts, giving all His heart and soul and the essence of His life. He totally poured out all His love and affection. He created human beings to exist in a relationship with Him that no force could ever undo or sever. Because God created people in such a way, He can feel peaceful as He beholds them. All affection and happiness can dwell within God only through them. (20-205, 1968.6.9)
God is the Father of human beings, and human beings are God's sons and daughters. Since God created them by investing the core of His bone, core of His flesh and core of His bone marrow, when such people pull on God, He cannot help being pulled along. And when God pulls them, they cannot help being pulled along. God created human beings in such a way that, within this relationship, they have shared His essence and purpose. If there were prose or poetry with which God could praise human beings whom He had created in this way, it would be the greatest work of art, far beyond the level of any poets or writers of this world. The object of this praise is neither God nor all things of creation, but the representatives of all things, human beings. (20-207, 1968.6.9)
Out of everything in God's creation, we human beings are the only ones that can become the complete object partners of God's love. God devoted all His heart and energy, totally investing Himself, to create the object partners of His love. What does God want to achieve by giving Himself out completely? He wants to establish the core of love in the universe. This is the ideal of creation. (166-147, 1987.6.5)
God does not have a love organ. It exists in God's creation, but not in God. Even if it were to exist, it would exist internally, in His heart, and would not appear with a form. What would He need it for? The ones who have love organs are Adam and Eve, human beings. Thus, you should know that human beings have something that is more precious than what God has. (206-125, 1990.10.3)
There is a force that moves us toward the final destination of our desire and our desire's greatest standard of perfection. We need to discover the fact that this force is operating within us. The Bible says that our body is God's temple, but we do not understand what this means. These are words of great importance. This is because however great God may be, when we form a partnership of love with God in which we can whisper words of love, and when we become one with God in that love partnership, we receive the right to inherit the universe. Through the principled foundation of love, this world, the spirit world, the incorporeal world and the world of substance, all created by God, can attain the right to inherit from the universe. Unfortunately, people are ignorant of this amazing fact. (137-67, 1985.12.18)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 3. The Ideal of Love to Be Attained Through Adam and Eve .
Book One - True God
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Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 4. The Ideal of Love is Fulfilled in the Family. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Two - God and the Work of Creation
Section 4. The Ideal of Love is Fulfilled in the Family
4.1. God's ideal of creation is the completion of the four-position foundation
What is God's purpose of creation? He did not create Adam and Eve just to look at them. He did not create men and women just so they could get old on their own and die. It was so that they could grow to maturity and, through their hearts that long to relate to the opposite sex, build the true Kingdom of Heaven on earth with God at the center. It was so that they could create a love nest with God in the middle. Here a man, Adam, represents heaven, and a woman, Eve, the earth; this is heaven and earth. Thus, although they are two, their horizontal union unifies heaven and earth. When they achieve unity through God's love, the cosmos will be unified automatically. (21-43, 1968.9.1)
God had greater expectations for the future that would unfold through Adam and Eve than He had for the time He created them. He aimed for the most noble and precious result. This was to fulfill the purpose of creation, and to complete the four-position foundation centered on love. (God's Will - 533)
God created His son, Adam, as the representative of the positive characteristic between the two characteristics and loved him most dearly. In loving him, He included the feminine aspect of His love. Also, in loving His daughter, Eve, He included the masculine aspect of His love. As these two separate people became one, the basis for a third new beginning was to emerge, and this was to be their children. For this reason, we say that children are object partners of love who stimulate new hope. Adam and Eve were born as embodiments of God's love and parental love. This is why God likes His children, and Adam and Eve like their children. You know the three-object purpose. This is how the three-object purpose is fulfilled. (32-238, 1970.7.19)
God's will for human beings is to fulfill the purpose of the ideal of creation. The ideal of creation is not completed simply by a man and a woman marrying each other and becoming one. They must then have children. This is because the principle of heaven and earth connects the relationship of above and below, and front and back. If there is a yesterday, there is a today, and if there is a today, there is a tomorrow. These must all be connected. But for a husband and wife alone there is only today, and no tomorrow. However, without another day everything will end. If we say couples are above, they must have something below, namely children. Without something below, it ends there.
Hence, the principle of heaven and earth is that when the positions of upper and lower are established, left and right can emerge.
Only after they hold marriage ceremonies for their children do parents feel that they have fulfilled their responsibility. A relationship of upper and lower is established only when a couple who are parents experience the marriage of their children. Only when the relationship of upper and lower is established can the ideal be attained.
Husband and wife are joined as left and right; parents and children must have a relationship of upper and lower to connect the vertical and horizontal and thereby form the ideal spherical realm within the universe. In addition to that, only when there are brothers and sisters will a sphere finally be formed.
When the ideal is realized this way, you can draw a circle around the vertical and horizontal lines meeting at the center. Ultimately, only when a man and a woman experience the realization of the ideal in the vertical and the horizontal can they say they are living within the ideal realm.
This constitutes the four-position foundation that the Unification Church teaches about. This is why we say that the completion of the four-position foundation is the fulfillment of the ideal of creation. (85-178, 1976.3.3)
A person should not remain alone but rather go through three stages, beginning with the individual, then the partner stage, and finally the stage with children. The God-centered relationship between a person, the spouse and their children is the four-position foundation. The completion of this four-position foundation is God's purpose of creation. (19-106, 1967.12.31)
To establish the four-position foundation, you first must go through the heart of a husband and wife; only then can you experience the heart of children and the heart of parents. (13-67, 1963.10.17)
4.2. The ideal of creation is fulfilled through the completion of the family
The ideal that God wanted to see fulfilled through our first ancestors was for a man and a woman to become one and create an ideal family. Then, the center of the ideal family is neither the man nor the woman. The family is a bundle created by the union of parents, children, husband and wife, and the center of this bundle is God's love itself. The conclusion is that God's will is to realize the completion of a family centered on God's love. (127-9, 1983.5.1)
The family is the origin and basic foundation that is unchanging throughout the ages. It cannot be changed by a father, by a brother or sister, or even by a nation's institutions. Moreover, it cannot be changed by the world, by heaven and earth, or even by God. Hence, the concept of revolution is not needed for the family. (25-85, 1969.9.30)
Human beings need to be in parent-child relationships, husband-wife relationships, and brother-sister relationships. In other words, these three relationships must meet at one point. There is one central point. The central points for above and below, left and right, and front and back should not be separate. If the central points are different, the balance between the relationships of above and below, left and right, and front and back will be shattered.
Eventually, therefore, the positions of above and below, left and right, and front and back, together with the one central point, form the number seven. Forming the number seven means to become one with God through perfect true love and to form a family in which everything becomes a perfect sphere and achieves harmony and unification. (299-114, 1999.2.7)
The place where parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters all want to join together in true love is the ideal family. Here, as eternal worldwide equalization commences, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth begins and the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven automatically comes to be realized. (300-226, 1999.3.14)
Since God is the Original Being of true love, when one is connected to true love, everyone becomes part of one body. Parents are gods living in place of God on earth, husband and wife are mutual counterpart gods, and sons and daughters are little gods. A family structure comprising three generations centering on true love in this manner is the basis of the Kingdom of Heaven. Without achieving such a basis, the kingdom cannot be established. The family is the center of the universe. The perfection of the family is the basis for the perfection of the universe. And so, if there is love in a family and love for the universe, we can go anywhere freely. In this case, God stands in the combined central position of love as the Parent of the whole universe. (298-306, 1999.1.17)
A man's love, a woman's love, a son's love, a daughter's love, parents' love and God's love are all contained in the family foundation of the original creation with God at the center. Any place where these different kinds of love are demonstrated, anyone who loves his parents, his spouse and his children is practicing the lifestyle of the Kingdom of Heaven. (Blessed Family - 942)
One such family establishes the ethical foundation for society; it is the best model and the fundamental and primary organization for the human world. In that family, love is the best standard for each person. (Blessed Family - 942)
The most important times in a person's life are the time of birth, the time of marriage and the time of death. Then, at the time of birth, how should one be born? One should be born healthy. Next comes the time of marriage. One gets married in order to live; that is, to establish a four-position foundation. Only when such common governing principles of the universe are established on the earth will God's will and the will of humankind be fulfilled. The family is where we seek to embody such universal laws and manifest that form. (24-230, 1969.8.17)
God's ideal of creation was that Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, multiply children of goodness and build one world centered on God. (God's Will - 137)
We have a saying, "Family harmony brings success to everything." This means that peace in the family makes everything go well. A perfected family is a family of peace and the foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven. The driving force in such a family is true love. True love is the pure and beautiful love that loves God and my partner more than my own self, with all my life. In this universe, God has not created a power greater than the power of true love. True love is the love of God. (219-118, 1991.8.28)
If God's will had been carried out on this earth, a single cultural realm would have been created with Adam at the center. Instead of countless races, each forming its own different culture and civilization, as we see today, we would have a world with a single culture, single philosophy and single civilization centered on Adam. Then everything, including culture, history, customs, language and tradition, would be unified. In God's love, we would have established ideal families, tribes, peoples and nations, and these would have expanded to realize an ideal world of Adam's ideal. Just as a tree's root, trunk and leaves are all connected with one life, viewing the world from God's will means centering on love. Looking upward, we would attend God as the Father and, looking downward, we would change all people into one living body. This would be a living body of love, like brothers and sisters building an eternal, God-centered, ideal world. People living in such a world would not need salvation or a Messiah, for they would be God's good sons and daughters. (110-213,1980.11.18)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 5. God's Will in Creating All Things. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book One - True God
Chapter Two - God and the Work of Creation
Section 5. God's Will in Creating All Things
5.1. The purpose for creating all things
God did not originally create all things of heaven and earth as a plaything or a hobby. He did not create them without a purpose or direction, or without a certain philosophy. Rather, He created them with a great purpose, based on the philosophy of the great universe. Therefore, we cannot deny that the philosophy based on God's heart is present in all existing things, from the most insignificant creatures to the entire universe. Then, for what purpose did God create them with such a philosophy? Undoubtedly, His aim was to see an ideal world based on God's love, that is, a world where we communicate with love, are joyful with love, live with love, and die with love. When we wake up and open our eyes, we see everything unfolding before us. From all the things we see we receive some mysterious, indirect impression, and by the way our senses respond, these things are enhanced through our daily life.
Even the smallest creatures around us are surely connected to us and have a relationship with us. Even though we may ignore them, these insignificant creatures make a connection with humankind, revealing the value of their existence each day according to the ideal of the heavenly principle. This is because, from the viewpoint of the purpose of existence, from the smallest existence to human beings -- who are called the lords of creation and who can rule over all things -- everything lies within the realm of the ideal of love where they can embrace God's ideal for this vast universe. So in fulfilling the purpose of the universe, movement occurs as small things are absorbed by those that govern a larger sphere. Small things are absorbed by big things, becoming a part of their material form and elements. This leads to the realization of one purpose based on one great ideal.
We cannot deny that history has been advancing this way, and that the world of existence has been moving along the track of a heavenly principle for the sake of one purpose. (9-163, 1960.5.8)
Why did God create all things? It was to have a love object, a partner, and to create a loving relationship. He wanted people to be able to live and then return to the original world and dwell in God's eternal, original homeland of love. (142-75, 1986.3.1)
The Bible describes God's creation of heaven and earth in simple terms, saying that God created heaven and earth through the Word. Stars appeared when God said, "Let there be stars," and the earth appeared when God said, "Let there be earth." But you must be aware that in this process God maintained the principle of progression, developing small things into big things according to infinite order and law.
According to this principle, after creating all things, God created our ancestors, Adam and Eve, by concentrating the essences of everything in the universe. (65-20, 1972.11.13)
Today's Christians say that since God is omniscient and omnipotent, everything came into being by God merely saying, "Let there be such a heaven and earth." But this is not the case. God invested everything, all the energy He had. By investing the full power of His love, He created all things as a gift for His beloved sons and daughters to come, His beloved future family. Everything was created like that. So we should look at all things keeping this in mind. (112-306, 1981.4.25)
With what did God create? In the beginning, there was God's will and there was God's thought. Together with God's thought there was a plan. We can see that there was God's original will and plan to build some kind of human world after the creation of human beings. (76-91, 1975.2.1)
One thing you should know is that in creating the world, God first created the environment. This is the world that resulted from the relations of subject and object partners. The natural world has developed as a world of phenomena where subject partners and object partners act in conjunction with one another. (131-217, 1984.5.4)
When we consider the principles used in the creation of heaven and earth, God did not make the central beings and then the environment for them. Rather, before creating human beings, God prepared an environment based on relationships. In order to create human beings, He first made soil. He established the internal based on the external. This is the principle by which heaven and earth were created. Things that existed at one time have given way to bigger things, and things without value have given rise to things of value. This is the principle underlying the creation of heaven and earth. In creating human beings, God first made the human body and then the spirit. (152-318, 1963.8.18)
When God saw everything He had created during the six days, He was filled with pride and He wanted to display them proudly. His joy was infinite as He looked at His creation. When God said, "It is good, it is good," over and over again with such a joyful heart, to whom was He speaking? He was speaking to all the things of creation. We have to understand that He was talking to all things with such an eager heart. (5-238, 1959.2.8)
When God created the world, there was joy there. After creating it, He said that it was good to behold. He felt joy. What is joy? It is what you feel when you accomplish a certain purpose. God felt joyful over all the things He had created because God's sense of purpose was embedded in them.
Then, what kind of world is the restored world? Simply stated, it is a world where people live having multidimensional connections of heart through which they can praise God as they behold each individual entity in the universe. This is where, from Heaven's viewpoint, the value of character lies. So the story that St. Francis preached to animals and birds is not a lie. It sounds like a dream, but it is reality. (9-166, 1960.5.8)
Although love exists even when you are alone, it cannot function until you have a partner. Even God cannot love without a partner. Even though love is what God likes most, that love cannot be manifested when He is alone. When one is alone, one can feel neither the joy nor the impulse of love. This is why God created the universe as a partner with which He can share love and joy. After creating the universe, God created Adam and Eve as its owners. (143-81, 1986.3.16)
5.2. The size and structure of the mysterious universe
Everything in the created world is prepared like a textbook so that God's beloved sons and daughters can seek out the ideal of love. That is why everything exists in a pair system. The mineral kingdom operates through the relationship of subject partner and object partner. In atoms, too, protons and electrons interact through the relationship of subject partner and object partner. Without this interaction they cannot continue to exist. Without movement, there can be no eternal existence. Hence, the universe is centered on humankind, and it is the sphere created to enable them to reach the central point. (137-59, 1985.12.18)
What is the universe? It is like God's visible body. It is an extension of God's being. This is why the idea emerges that we can truly love. In other words, loving the universe is a very real experience. You stroke your hair like this, don't you? When you get some dirt on your clothes, you brush it off, right? Why do you do this? Because they form a part of you. Because they are one with you, you have that attitude. From now on, you should bring God into the middle of your heart and build a unified world where your mind is one, your body is one, and all things are one. (86-173, 1976.3.28)
If you want to know, the universe is many billions of light-years across. Light travels 300 thousand kilometers a second, and 300 thousand kilometers is seven and a half times the circumference of the earth. In astronomy, the distance that light travels over the course of one year is called one light-year. The universe is so big that the light that moves according to this light-year unit cannot reach its final destination even after billions of years. (127-213, 1983.5.8)
The Greenwich Observatory has so far discovered stars that are ten billion light-years away, and now the time has come when we can see stars that are fifteen billion light-years away and even farther. The size of this universe is a principled number -- 21 billion light-years across. Light travels at the rate of 300 million meters per second. That means that light would circle the earth seven and a half times in one second.
For this high-velocity light, traveling even one day should be back-breaking, numbing the mind and causing it to say, "I don't care anymore." But it speeds along not just for a hundred years, but for billions of years. One hundred million is a hundred times a million. However, even one hundred million years after it started, it is still moving. If a person lives a hundred years, a million people have lived and died during that time period. In other words, one hundred million light-years means that the light is still traveling even after each person lived for a hundred years end to end and this continued for a million people. Then, how long are 21 billion light-years? Each person must live a hundred years from start to finish, so this must continue for 210 million people, and more. Light does not travel this long distance in a straight line, but travels in circles. This is our universe. (181-195, 1988.10.3)
What on earth do we mean by the perfection of the universe? In order to perfect the universe, each of us must become perfect. No matter how perfect the universe may be, this has nothing to do with you if you are not perfect. We know that no matter how wonderful the world may be, and although the world out there may be dancing with joy, if you are in great pain, all the joyful circumstances going on in the external world have nothing to do with you. (166-210, 1987.6.7)
The perfection of the universe must bring joy to the internal you, as well as to the external world. Both your mind and your body must rejoice in a place of happiness. Your cells, for instance, must all rejoice. The cells in your eyes and those in the soles of your feet are different, are they not? Although they are different, the cells in your hands and all your cells must be happy, along with all the parts of your body and mind. Leaving nothing out, everything must be able to rejoice. Rather than remaining in separation, they should join together as one. Only when we have a world that can experience the resonant joy of love based on the reality of this interconnected body, will the universe become perfect. (166-210, 1987.6.7)
5.3. Nature is a textbook teaching the ideal of love
Some people who pray have called nature the number one Bible. It does not take second place. The Bible that describes the history of Israel does not always give a clear message. Do you know how much I shook my head as I read it? It can be very ambiguous; people understand what they want to from it, as if it were a fortune teller telling their fortune. For some it is a way to escape from reality. So the natural world created by God is better than the Bible at carrying out the hard task of judging the facts and clarifying everything from beginning to end. (20-270, 1968.7.7)
Connections are made beginning in extremely small places. Your individual self is also a life in which 400 trillion cells are connected. Among all beings in the ideal world of creation centered on God's love -- that is the great universe -- there is not even one that is born outside God's heart. A poet who feels such a thing must be a great poet. If there were a poet who could feel and express the cosmic heart when he saw a shaking leaf, he would have to be a poet of the universe.
We have not thought about how everything in heaven and earth that unfolds around us without our being aware of it exists together with God's love. When you enter into a mystical state of mind, you can see that the principle of the universe is contained in one small grain of sand and how the endless and inexhaustible harmony of the universe is contained in one atom. We cannot deny that all existence is a result of some unknown yet complex force.
Beyond the molecules there are atoms, and beyond the atoms there are elementary particles. These things, rather than existing unconsciously, exist with a certain consciousness and purpose. Thus, you should thoroughly understand that all existing beings have come about through God's loving hand. So they are inevitably connected to God in heart. (9-166, 1960.5.8)
What kind of person is a spiritual master? The one who has the heart to exclaim, "God!" while holding just one blade of grass, and who can recognize its value as being equal to his own. That person is the greatest spiritual master. A person who can sing about such a value in that way would be the greatest artist. The person who can discover the various tastes of God's love and heart in the diversity of all things existing around him should represent the entire universe. He or she is the one who has the feeling to become friends with all things and find joy with them.
If there is someone whose each and every cell is moved by such a feeling, he should be the one to represent the entire universe. Such a person is a lord of creation. Could someone who knows nothing other than eating become the lord of creation? (9-166, 1960.5.8)
If you carefully observe children, mainly they like lively creatures such as puppies, insects, birds and wild animals. Why is this? This is basically how people are. What does this mean? Their interests are aroused when they see the natural world and the earth in motion. Although, of course, there can be different levels of partners, people enjoy themselves and find it interesting to contemplate these things. In this way, they learn about all the properties of love within themselves. Observing how bugs, insects and animals live, we see that they all exist in pairs. Considering this, nature is a museum of textbooks built to educate human beings, as the object partners of God's love, about the ideal of reciprocal relationships. (137-211, 1986.1.3)
God made the universe and everything in it to be a textbook to help His beloved sons and daughters find the ideal of love. This is why everything exists in a pair system. The mineral kingdom operates through the relationship of subject partner and object partner. In atoms, which are the structural units of matter, the protons and electrons interact in a relationship of subject partner and object partner. Without this interaction they cannot exist. Without movement, there can be no eternal existence. This is why they must interact.
People observe and learn from nature as they grow up. They learn things and say, "This is what the insect world is like!" When you listen carefully on an autumn night with a radiant moon and shining stars, the sounds of the insects are like an orchestra. Why do they make such sounds? They are singing of their ideal as they search for their partners. They are whispering about love. Birds and all other animals follow the same common denominator of love in making their sad and glad sounds. They are low on the scale, and far from the axis, and yet they are circling around the axis on the same horizontal plane. This is the way all things in existence are. (137-59, 1985.12.18)
There are three kinds of bird songs: first, a song signaling hunger; second, a song sung out of love for its mate; and third, a song sung in time of danger. They are all different. We ordinary people do not know this, but in their own world they know. When they call out of hunger, all their fellow birds understand. But what does their daily life revolve around? Hunger is taken care of simply by eating, and they are not facing danger every day, either. Most of their singing has to do with going back and forth in the give and take relationship with their love partner. (137-211, 1986.1.3)
Human beings were created as a subject partner and object partner, as a pair. The world of all things, too, which exists for the sake of humankind, makes harmony under the principle of love and realizes its purpose in life and ideal through the love of humankind. For humankind, and especially for the maturing Adam and Eve, the world of all things is a textbook of love and a museum that infinitely displays the essence of love. (135-10, 1985.8.20)
All birds and animals exist in pairs. They harmonize with each other in love. Flowers and butterflies relate from two opposite poles, yet harmonize with each other. This reflects the harmonious relationship of heaven and earth. The opposite poles of the universe come into harmony based on love. It's the same with migratory birds. Birds in the south fly to the north, and birds in the north fly to the south, loving each other back and forth across the regions. In so doing, they center on love eternally.
People learn about love through the textbooks in the museum God created. When people and God love each other in joy, everything in heaven and on earth will follow that rhythm and harmonize around them. If God likes this and loves this, the angelic world also will like it. The entire created world will like it too, applauding and offering praise. Songbirds will sing praises, and beautiful flowers will offer praises through their fragrances. This created world exists in order to expand the fragrant atmosphere in which human beings, in the central position, having the highest love, can enjoy themselves. Even the ugly toads croak, "Wook, wook, wook," when they make love. How charming! They kick with their legs and move them up and down while making love. What a delightful scene! This is the highest art. (142-273, 1986.3.13)
As they mature, Adam and Eve will come to understand, saying, "Ah, that's how to make love." God laid out the world of all things to serve as a textbook, to guide the ideal of human love to reach maturity. So they go on learning. As they grow bigger, they will come to have different feelings toward each other, saying, "Aha, we were like a brother and sister in the past, but now it seems..." They will learn, saying, "Aha, that's the way it is." So they will go straight along parallel lines, and then collide, saying, "You and I must meet even at the risk of death. We cannot go anywhere else." (137-59, 1985.12.18)
Born as God's first children, Adam and Eve were to grow from childhood to maturity in the realm of God's protection. Since their intellect was meant to develop through this process, they would have come to realize why God created the world, and God would have educated them through the created world. The created world, with everything in motion, was a textbook to teach Adam and Eve everything they needed to know about how to live. They were to have been our first, original ancestors. You have to understand that since Adam and Eve did not reach perfection, the created world has been a model and a museum showing us how to lead an ideal life. (137-126, 1986.1.1)
5.4. Our attitude toward nature
When you open your eyes in the morning and look at nature, it subtly connects with your original nature and inspires feelings about a new ideal that can sprout forth. On the other hand, you know very well that the more you look at the human world, the more despair and sorrow it arouses in your heart. If the world were populated by people who had not fallen, the value of human beings would not stir up sorrow in the heart of a beholder. Human beings were not created merely to have the value of a blade of grass, a flower or a tree trunk. People were supposed to be noble beings who could not be exchanged for anything in the created world. They were supposed to step forward representing Heaven with incomparable value. (9-97, 1960.4.24)
You should have a mind that contemplates nature that is imbued with the love of God and says, "Could anything precious owned by a king of this world or by some famous person compare with this? Could any antique artifact compare with this? Could a glamorous dress worn by a famous lady compare with this?" Without that kind of heart, we are committing a sin before the natural world without even knowing it. If there is someone who can look at a living being and say, "Can anything produced by human hands compare with this? No matter how great someone may be, could he ever be greater than God?" and value most highly all things created through God's hard work, he must surely be a child of God. Such a person does not need to pray. He lives with God. God guides people into such a position. (9-174, 1960.5.8)
People will enjoy and take delight in anything that belongs to someone they love. Nevertheless, they do not know how to take delight in all things created by God, whom they should love the most. Can such people become God's sons and daughters? You are responsible to liberate creation which is sighing and lamenting from its sorrow. You should deeply experience the heart and care that God invested in the creation of even one tree or plant 6,000 years ago. You should have such a heart. So you should be able to shed tears even at the sight of one plant along the road, or holding onto one tree, say, "How lonely you must be to have lost your master!" I myself have wept profusely while grasping a rock; I have shed tears to feel the wind blow. Now, because you have heard my words, you understand why. (9476, 1960.5.8)
I have gone this way while saying to myself, "The precious things of creation, which God made and which have forged an eternal connection with God, are not cherished as much as national treasures or valuables in some kingdoms today. I will understand that sorrow; I alone must understand." If you have a heart that says, "I will understand, though all those living on this earth may be ignorant of it," your people will be a new people who can rule humankind in the future. This is not a concept but a fact. Where are the people who can value all things of creation more than the family treasures that are handed down over the generations, or more than diamonds, supposedly the most precious stone in the world -- so that they hold on to those things and refuse to let them go? Upon seeing those who understand in their hearts what He has created, and who hold those things and shed tears over them, God will say, "My dear children!" (9-176, 1960.5.8)
What is nature? It is an exhibit that God has given us as a gift, something He prepared for the birth of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the song of a bird and a plant growing are decorations prepared to bring beauty into the lives of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the rocks rolling on 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 that nation. It is the same with flowing water. God did not want things to be dry and monotonous, so He created things for a prince of dreams and of hope who could look at this infinitely colorful and harmonious garden -- this world of love -- and inherit it.
Hence, we learn from all things of creation. When the male and female birds sing, the lady who owns them should learn from that. You should be able to sing praises for the beauty of the original world of creation, where everything devotes its entire life to establish a world where each lives for the sake of the other. Then, even baby birds will want to come and live in your home. Birds will want to have their young there. (175-186, 1988.4.16)
No matter how precious a work of art in a museum may be, can it have more value than a living work of art? I am asking who has loved this earth, the museum of all things and the work of God, more than God has. I am asking if anyone has loved it more than the museums in his own country. Can you compare a gold crown from the Silla Dynasty in the museum with a dandelion lying on the road, when that is made directly by God? If there is a king who embodies the heart of such a God and takes care of the creation with a heart that says, "You stand in a position to receive love. I am sorry that I cannot love you from the position of the king for whom the original God could exist," the tufts of grass will want to follow that king and be with him eternally. This is how people should live. (175-186, 1988.4.16)
5.5. Love nature and love people
You should know how to love nature and love people. You should know that those who cannot love people or love nature cannot love God. Because all things of creation are symbols for God and because people are substantial beings, those who know how to love all things of creation and people will come to love God. (70-181, 1974.2.9)
You should always love nature. You should love nature and love people. You should love people of all five colors in the human race. Would God say, "Oh, I like only white people"? Then everyone would have to wear only white clothes. All white people would have to wear only white clothes, and throw away all their colored clothes. Why would you wear black clothes or colored clothes? That would be a contradiction. (133-28,1984.7.1)
Even all the elements and the smallest creatures go toward the way of love. They are moving toward being the cells of humankind that can directly contact the love that is one with God. For this reason, we should sacrifice ourselves for the sake of love. We should invest ourselves.
Since there is a tradition of pouring out one's life and possessions in their entirety, lower entities seek to give their whole being for the sake of higher entities. This is not Darwin's Theory of Evolution but a theory of absorption based on love. The question is how the value of one of the smallest creatures increases as it becomes material to be used in creating the next higher level of value. (204-129, 1990.7.1)
We should feel that all creatures of God are objects of our love. We should be people who can love, and be loved by, even the smallest forms of life, not to mention human beings, as well as everything visible and invisible in heaven. When a bird calls, "Chirp, chirp, chirp" in the morning, instead of saying, "You pesky sparrow, I am trying to sleep late. Why are you chirping?!" say, "Oh, thank you. You came to wake me up. Ha ha, you are telling me that an important guest is coming to see me." The outlook is different. This is a great thing. (112-219, 1981.4.12)
Centered on such people, a myriad of angels in heaven form a subject realm of harmony where they can have give and take with people, as butterflies and bees do with flowers. When that happens, a flowery garden of harmony will surely appear in which God rejoices, people rejoice, angels rejoice and all things are immersed in love. A spring party will then begin. (31-124, 1970.5.3)
God created the angelic world at the same time that He created the human world. What kind of world is the angelic world? Only when human beings appear with beauty and fragrance -- like blossoms that exist for the sake of bearing one fruit -- will the nest of love finally be prepared. Hence, all life starts from there, and all beings that have life can harmonize starting from there. Human beings make this harmony possible.
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 1. The God of the Old Testament Age. |
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