Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 265. The Three Stages of Life
1 We were born through three great parents. The first parent is the material world. We were created as the center of the material realm, as composite material beings made from every essential element extracted from the material world. From this viewpoint, these material elements are our ancestors that gave us birth and the material world is an expansion of each of us. The universe is such that material entities can reach fruition only when aligned with the ideal of love. All cells are meant to live comfortably, regulated by the ideal of love. If they were to get upset at each other, everything would go awry. The second parent is the term for our natural parents who gave us birth in the flesh. They enabled us to be born with a definite form. However, no matter how hard they try, those parents cannot become the owners of love. They can be the owners of our life but not the owners of love. The owner of love is God. God exists in the universality and eternality of love, because He is the subject partner of love, the Parent centered on love. Thus, our third Parent is God. In this way, we have three great parents. (298-304, 1999.01.17)
Life goes through three periods 2 Human beings live for ten months in the womb, a hundred years in this physical world and for eternity in the spirit world. Our face has three levels: the mouth, the nose and the eyes. These represent the three ages of human life. Our mouth symbolizes the age in the womb, the material world. Our nose represents the age on the earth, the earthly, human world, and our eyes represent the age of heaven, the spirit world. The water in the womb of the mother is a universe of freedom for the baby. Even though the baby has to stay hunched up at all times and cannot kick wherever it pleases, and its nose and mouth are blocked, that place is still a universe of freedom for the baby. The vessel that supplies the baby with all that it needs joins at the navel, and the baby can breathe only through that umbilical cord. Yet that world is still a universe of freedom for the baby. (298-304, 1999.01.17)
3 When you were in the womb, did you have thoughts such as, “I will go out into the world and eat honey, rice cakes, rice, beef and everything else with this mouth”? No, in fact, you were breathing through the umbilical cord and thinking, “If I leave this place, I will die!” To us it seems that a fetus should feel stifled and yet the baby in the womb is anxious about going out, and says, “I wish I didn’t have to leave.” Nevertheless, when the time comes and the water breaks, everything comes rushing out. Naturally, along with the gush of the amniotic fluid, the baby is safely delivered and everything is fine. (49-287, 1971.10.17)
4 Life on earth is analogous to life in the womb, for here we are surrounded by air, just as we lived bathing in the waters of the womb. We are living in an air pocket. The very moment we think of as the hour of death is actually our birth into our third life. Dragonflies start out as larva, and as such they swim in the water; then they come out onto the land and crawl for a time. Then they fly freely to and fro, feeding on insects they had never even thought of eating while they were living on land. They fly around with the entire world as their stage. Many insects develop through three stages of life. Most insects have wings. Considering the fact that even insects live in the water, on land and in the air, would it do if we human beings, who are the lords of creation, lived only on land? We have wings of a higher dimension. (49-288, 1971.10.17)
5 The period in the womb is the age of water. A baby inside the mother’s womb is floating in water. Simply considered, we may feel that the baby would find it difficult to live in the mother’s womb because it is constricted. Isn’t it obvious that the baby would have to take in and pass water, since it is living in water? For that reason, babies in the womb live by virtue of the conduit connected to their stomach. By what means is the baby in the womb supplied with nutrients? It is through the umbilical cord connected to the navel. For the baby in the womb, its navel is its mouth. (299-069, 1999.02.04)
6 A baby in its mother’s womb breathes, but through what? It is through the umbilical cord, which is connected to the mother’s body. However, we know that the baby is also connected to the second world, the world of air. After its time in the womb the baby pushes out, and everything behind it is destroyed. At the moment the baby cries for the first time its windpipe and nostrils, designed for breathing air, embrace that world of air. The nostrils are the wonderful supply route. While in the womb the baby prepared for the world of air, but in the process of coming out and connecting to that world, the umbilical cord and the amniotic sac—in short, everything that enabled it to live in the womb—are destroyed. The umbilical cord used in the womb is destroyed. At the same time, the baby appears in this universe and meets its Mother Earth. Then it begins to live on elements supplied through its mouth. The body breathed through the umbilical cord while in the womb. To be able to breathe through the nostrils, the air pipes, the body prepares them in advance so that when the baby comes out into the world of air it can change its mode of respiration. (139-213, 1986.01.31)
7 You are born on earth in order to experience love. You need to breathe in the air we call love. You need to breathe the air of love from your mother and father. You should go through everything in life while being supplied with the air of love. Once you are born as a baby in a family, you need to follow a path similar to a sine curve, going up along the curve and coming down. You are born as a baby and eventually, over time, your body breaks down. You are born as a baby, and you go back to being a baby again. When this takes place, what is about to happen? You will detach yourself from the world of the second womb and connect yourself to the respiratory organs of the third world of love. You leave behind your loving parents and siblings and enter the world of love that is in total harmony with the Original Being of the great cosmos, God. The spirit world is filled with air of love. Therefore, while you live in the earthly world, you should equip yourself with a supply line that will enable you to breathe that love. Hence, you need to have experiences with the spirit world. You need to develop into someone who can feel love spiritually and breathe the air of love. (139-213, 1986.01.31)
8 When we leave this planet Earth, which is like our mother’s womb, and pass on, we will breathe with the respiratory organs of love, that is, with our windpipe of love. We can gain eternal life only when we connect to the third age of love. By connecting to that love, we can return to God. We return to the spirit world by binding to the respiratory organs of love. Yet we still have some distance to traverse to return to God, the Original Being. Because the Original Being is the origin of the seed, it must return to Him after bearing fruit. (139-214, 1986.01.31)
9 The womb, in which we all spend time, is a world of water. The human body is three-quarters water. This earthly world is the world of air. Yet your eyes, ears, nose and other sensory organs designed for life in this world of air are not needed while you are surrounded by water. Did you breathe even once through your nose during the months you spent growing in the womb? Had you tried to do so, you would have died instantly. Why then does a fetus need a nose? It is there because you are preparing for the next world. In the next world, the earthly world, you live in an air pocket, not a water pocket. What should you do in an air pocket? Just as you prepared your five physical sense organs while living in the water pocket, when you are living in the air pocket you need to prepare your five spiritual sense organs. You prepare the five spiritual sense organs, corresponding to the ears, eyes, nose, and so on, through which you can absorb love when you are in the heavenly world. When you cross the hill of death, those sense organs open up. You will need those five spiritual sense organs in the infinite world. (302-167, 1999.06.13)
10 Water symbolizes the age in the womb. Next, the earth is the age of air. We are born from our mother’s womb and then we live in the age of air. Next, the spirit world is the age of the eyes. It is the age of the sun, the age of sunlight. Love can be said to be light, because it illuminates, and so it is the realm of light. Human life has three stages. A dragonfly first lives in water, emerges and lives on land and then sheds its skin and flies around feeding on other insects. It passes through three distinct periods. This is also true for us as the lords of creation. When our time in our mother’s womb concludes, do we come out embracing everything we used there, or do we separate from it, our connection to it destroyed? If we were to remain tied in any way when we came out, we would be in serious trouble. Conversely, if the umbilical cord were severed while we still needed to eat and breathe through it, we would die. But when we come out of the womb, we need to sever that umbilical cord. It must be cut off without hesitation. We come out destroying everything of the past. (299-038, 1999.02.01)
11 When the time comes, we must all end our life in our mother’s womb and begin our life on earth. Regardless of whether we desire it or not, the law of the universe operates this way. Then a new, vast and boundless world unfolds before us, one which we had never dreamed of or imagined. Our life in water ends and our life on earth begins. A span of ten months in the womb transitions into a span of one hundred years of life on earth. People lead diverse lives and go through changes as they prepare for the spirit world, the world we go to after we die. That is why I tell you not to worry about dying. You are simply moving to a better place. (447-158, 2004.05.01)
12 Just as we never imagined life in the world during our time in the womb, while we are living in the flesh we cannot imagine the very different, eternal and infinite world that is waiting for us. It is not a world of despair. Our life of one hundred years in this limited earthly realm transitions into life in the eternal realm transcendent of time and space. While living in the womb, we are supplied with nutrients from our mother through the umbilical cord, and our earthly life depends on the three basic elements of the universe—water, air and light—as well as nutritive elements. Once we enter the spirit world, however, we no longer need material nutrients; we live breathing love for all eternity. In the eternal world, we eat if we want to and we do not eat if we would rather not. No matter who we are, we live our life in three stages: ten months in water, one hundred years on earth, and eternity in the spirit world. (447-158, 2004.05.01)
13 After the age of water come the age of land and the age of light. In this regard, a person lives through three successive ages. The solar system, with the sun at its center, is always in daylight. On the other hand, night follows day on planet Earth. The spirit world is always in light. There are the ages of water and of air leading to the age of love. Love must never be extinguished. Like the light of the sun, love must be there at all times, night and day; whether morning, afternoon or evening, whether at the North Pole, the tropics, the South Pole or anywhere else, love doesn’t change. We will go to the spirit world to enter the age of love. The spirit world is like a storehouse for fruit grown and harvested during the four seasons. It is bathed in a light like that from the sun. (313-224, 1999.12.19)
14 At first, we were nurtured through our mother’s placenta. The womb is the vessel in which we grew. We kicked away everything completely as we broke away, emerged from that container, and were born. Similarly, our physical body is the container for our spirit self and we will break away from it too, and fly away. Accordingly, human beings pass through the world of water and of land and finally come to live in the eternal world of true love, which is a world of light in the sky. In the spirit world, because love is the life element, we carry out all instructions given through love immediately. Nothing is impossible. In that world, even if a billion people were to have dinner at the same time and place, the amount of food necessary for such a feast could be instantly prepared. (298-313, 1999.01.17)
15 The light that illuminates the spirit world is that of true love. True love is like sunlight both in the earthly world and in the spirit world. That is why we leave behind the regime of living through our nose and come to live through our eyes. When you live through your eyes, you know everything with crystal clarity and nothing escapes you. After the world of the nose we enter the world of the eyes, the world of light. The fact that it is the world of the eyes tells us that our eyes that see this world will also see the spirit world. Through them, we can see whatever we like. We can see the Heavenly Parent; we can see the earthly Parents; we can see the vastness of the heavenly kingdom and how it compares to the earthly kingdom. We come to know that the spirit world and the earth are one reality, not two separate realities. Our eyes are made to see both. (391-161, 2002.08.21) |