Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 404. Peace Is the Hope of God and Humankind
1 In order for humankind to be good, every individual must be good. Unless that happens, humankind cannot become good. In the end each person has to become a good person and stand in the position of a driving force for peace, in the unchanging position of a good fruit for eternity. Otherwise, even though we want the world to become peaceful, it will not. (038-300, 1971.01.08)
Peace and God 2 Because the human ancestors fell, they could not become God’s genuine sons and daughters. Instead they got together as they wished and had children, forming a tribe, people and nation. This should have occurred based on principled love that revolved around God. A peaceful, ideal world of genuine happiness can exist only with God’s love. (021-140, 1968.11.17)
3 The Messiah’s work is carried out with God at the center. Therefore to this day, God and Satan have been opposing one another. God is plus and Lucifer, who should have been a minus, became a plus called Satan that repels God. Conflict leads to war, destruction and ruin. But unity brings peace. Unity cannot come about unless we create a minus realm to God and relate to Satan so as to bring him to submission. Heaven’s side must become Abel and unify this world. Abel comes to unify. Unification brings the beginning of the peaceful world, the garden of Eden. (057-167, 1972.05.31)
4 People seek genuine, unchanging truth. At the same time, humanity pursues love, the ideal, happiness, peace and freedom. No matter how chaotic or hopeless the world may be, our heart and mind yearn for this. This fire of hope continues to burn. The issue here is: what will God do? God has no choice but to pursue a world of true love, true ideals, true happiness, peace and freedom. So what human beings are pursuing and what God is pursuing must be the same thing. Then when we speak about love, ideals, happiness or peace, are we referring to the qualities of one individual or are we speaking about what can be realized only within a mutual relationship? These are not conditions that can be realized by an individual alone. Can you have love by yourself? Can you enter an ideal state by yourself? You cannot have such things as happiness or peace when you are alone. These can be realized only within mutual relationships. (77-286, 1975.04.14)
5 What needs to be settled first, rising above all scholarly pursuits, customs, and established social structures, is the question of God. God must be the beginning point. If God created human beings through a process, from a starting point, we can’t realize a world of peace unless we rediscover the way God intended to actualize His ideal of creation, which is humanity’s destination. The world of peace is a world of oneness. If God and human beings take different directions, then the one world of peace cannot appear. Thus the necessary conclusion is that there must be only one direction for both God and humankind. Therefore, unless we jettison the direction of this human-centered world and set our course toward a world that upholds God as the Supreme Being, we cannot find the way to a unified, peacefiil world. (223-136, 1991.11.10)
6 An individual of perfected character can represent God’s ideal of creation. God did not create the natural world to simply observe and interact with it. He created for the sake of joy. It is through joy that we can find happiness, and through happiness that we can create a peaceful environment for each other. To feel joy, we don’t need money, and having people there, by itself, also is not enough. What is needed is a force between God and human beings that allows God to relate to us as a Father to His children. These are the elements of joy—bonds that neither God nor His children can break no matter how they feel or what they do. There must be an absolute force, a subjective force that cannot be removed or blocked by any other force, a path we can pursue as our one and only absolute ideal. Until that has been settled, we cannot have our ideal subject partner, and God cannot have His ideal counterpart. Then what is the central, primary factor that can create joy between God and human beings so that both can be happy? What is the core essence that can become the origin of peace? It can only be a reciprocal relationship with the absolute love of God. (63-156, 1972.10.14)
7 What is the central issue in resolving all the problems of the world? Giving a clear explanation about the existence of God is more important than anything else. When all human beings come to realize that God truly exists, they will clearly know the direction of His Will. When they understand God’s purpose, a unified, peaceful and ideal world will surely come about. (56-131, 1972.05.14)
8 The idea that a peaceful world can come about by human effort alone is a fantasy. Why is that? When you look at your mind and body, how intense the battle between them is! Therefore, even for myself, when I was cultivating my mind, my motto was: “Before desiring to master the universe, I must attain perfect mastery over myself?’ Our body is intense and powerful, and we can expect it always to block our way. Even if you could rule the universe, it is not easy to rule yourself. Since this is how it is, in this chaotic heaven and earth, peace and unity are nothing more than fantasies. Nonetheless, as long as God exists, they are possible. (121-282, 1982.10.29)
9 The original garden of Eden was a garden of life. It was not a garden of life that was supposed to be limited only to that time; it was to have continued throughout eternity. Had it been realized on the earth, human beings, as beings of life, would have experienced eternal joy and gratitude for God’s gift of life. Also, the original garden of Eden was a world in which human beings could emit the light of life as the lords of all living things, where each individual could emit light as a substantial realization of God’s eternal hope and as a being of eternal value. The original garden was a garden of love and also a world of peace and unity, in which all God’s children were to have become one by relating with each other harmoniously centering on His love. (2-245, 1957.06.09) |