Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (041) - The Fundamental Truth
8. God, true love and eternal life
Then who is God really? He is our Father. In Buddhism, we do not find a personal God. How could we possibly discover a personal God if we only debate the unitary method of all phenomena in the universe? How could we possibly find this God who can also feel the emotions connected with affection, knowledge and righteousness, both internally and externally? What would the parents of a loving, devoted son do if their son returned to them? Thinking nothing of whether their son is a highly virtuous priest or a moral leader, they will exclaim, “Oh, my son!” and their faces would glow in delight.
Let us return to the root. We will be in serious trouble if we love only for ourselves. The universe does not welcome that. If we love only for our own sake, it is a complete disaster.
God, the basis of the universe, is the Absolute Being. If you were to penetrate to the purpose of God’s creation, you would come to realize that the God you believe in is a greater being than you ever imagined. What is that indisputable thing that the Absolute Being can believe? God also needs absolute peace and absolute happiness.
Then what can bring about such absolute peace and happiness? Is it money? He can create as much money as He likes. Is it knowledge? The omniscient God is the great King of knowledge. Is it power? God is omnipotent. Then what would it be? It is only love. It is true love that even the Absolute God cherishes without question.
No matter how much power God has, when He meets His sons and daughters of true love, He says, “I will give you everything I own.” A true husband says to his wife, “I will give you all I have.” It is not true love if you say, “What is mine is mine.” You need to completely turn around in order to give as well as receive. This is what caused God to create heaven and earth in the first place.
Christian ministers say, “The Creator is holy and the creation is lowly” They say this only because they don’t know any better. Such words result in denying that God is a God of love. Be it the love of God or the love of Jesus, the word “love” cannot be meaningful without a relationship. Who is God’s object partner? It is said, “Of all the creation, humankind is the most precious.” This is only too true.
Why did God create heaven and earth? It was because of love. The way for God Himself to establish that ideal love was by investing Himself thoroughly in humankind and creation. God needed to invest Himself completely. God had to invest more than 100 percent, even 120 percent, of Himself.
Therefore, people who live with true love cannot be dominated, no matter how much they are persecuted, because they are connected to the source of the original nature that can invest 120 percent, and even as much as several hundred percent, of themselves.
Even if a dictator devastates an era, the world revives again. This is akin to the feat that, no matter how old your mother and father are, they always rekindle their love for you. Regardless of how much the dictator oppresses, the world revives, transcending history, and moral authority is reestablished with dignity. Similarly, the world may persecute moral leaders in their time. Subsequent history reveals their greatness, once an environment develops in which what they have invested can be reclaimed. And so society often honors them after their time.
God is a personal God, so if you were to ask whether God has a body and a mind, the answer would be yes. If you were to ask if God has love, the answer would be yes. And if you were to ask if God has life and if God has lineage, the answer to both would be yes. And yet, all these things cannot come to be by themselves. They need an object partner. Since God is vertical, He tries to make a connection centering on the vertical standard. We grow up in the position of the children, which is also a vertical orientation, and become husband and wife. And then we come to learn everything about the world. Thus, we come together as one. Where do we go to unite as one? We go to the vertical orientation. That is the position where the sons and daughters are, and also where God has entered and will remain.
It is the chord in a circle. Becoming the reduced versions of the first quarter and the last quarter of the circle, Adam and Eve come together in a united form. In other words, they become like the bones and the flesh. This is why the title “Heavenly Father” cannot be established if there isn’t a relationship of lineage. If you ask who God is, the answer is that He is our Father. He is our vertical Father centered on true love.
If Adam and Eve had not fallen and instead reached perfection, God would have dwelled with them at that very place of true love. If Adam and Eve had married and become one horizontally as husband and wife, the vertical God would have come down to them. He would have carried out a powerful motion by pushing His way down. Everything is created in such a way to exist by engaging in spherical action. Therefore, if you were to wonder who your body and mind resemble, you would get the answer that they resemble God.
Then would the mind and body of God fight like those of fallen humankind? They would not. Then why do human beings fight? It is because they are broken. They have a terrible flaw. This is what Christianity calls the Fall. What kind of a flaw is it? You can live if one of your arms has been cut off. You can, yet you can’t truly live if the order of love is destroyed. This is what God hates most.
After they fell, Adam and Eve covered their lower parts. This is the problem. God is our vertical Father of true love, the Creator, and if human beings had not fallen, their vertically directed love would have been at right angles to the horizontal. For men as well as for women, the path that leads to true love is the shortest and most direct route. The true love path, which runs through heaven and earth, is the shortest route and so it is perpendicular and at right angles to the horizontal. And in terms of a sphere, if you ask where the prime position is, the answer is that it is at the very center.
You desire to become the central figure of all creation. Why is this so? It is because it is only when you are at that center that you can come in touch with God’s love. What happens when you come in touch with God’s love? God becomes yours, and everything that belongs to Him belongs to you.
Why do men and women marry? It is because of love. What are they trying to do by loving one another? Ultimately, they are trying to go to the center and form a relationship of love with God, thus making Him theirs and His love theirs and His possessions theirs. Therefore, the right of inheritance is connected centering on love. Next comes the right of cohabitation, by which they can live together for all eternity.
Accordingly, you can reason that there is eternal life where true love moves. Where is eternal life? The eternal life of true love is in that world where you breathe the air of love. The being “I” is the one who has inherited love through parents of love. That is why there is not a man or a woman who does not possess love. Whether you are a man or a woman, you have inherited the flesh and blood and the life of your parents, so all of you have love, life and lineage. |