Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 407. The eight stages of peace
12 The religion that can take charge of the overall providence going into the fixture will need to resolve the resentment of the spirits in the spirit world, fulfill their wishes and pay indemnity for them. We cannot consider only the people living on earth and the issues facing the world today. In order to realize an age of peace, it is also necessary that we resolve the problems of the spirit world. After doing so, we will usher God to His seat. Only then can an eternal world on earth and in heaven be formed. There are eight stages: individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world, cosmos and God. (155-192, 1965.10.27)
13 Consider the path of the one central person who places Heaven at his center. For what purpose will that individual walk that path? His footsteps will not be for his own sake. That individual will have to go through the family and walk that path to the world. That individual will have to unite the world and also heaven and earth. To bring about the world of love, the world of peace that humankind desires, he will have to reach a moment of victory when he is bound to God by eternal love. (61-249, 1972.09.01)
14 Humanity as we know it has resulted from a history of strife-filled relationships. It is very difficult to overturn that completely and bring about a new result. Each of us is involved in prolonging this world of strife. As people who seek peace, we are compelled to be concerned about this. We assess what is evil or good using our own individual standards, and the battle between good and evil develops within each of us. Then there are struggles within families, tribes and peoples. When the struggles get bigger, nations fight each other. With such confrontation's, peace in the world becomes ever more remote. Look at the starting point, the individual. We can see that the realm of peace in an individual is connected to the world. To get from the individual to the world, we have to go beyond the realms of strife within families, tribes and peoples. We have to go beyond the boundary lines, the walls of the eight stages that we talk about in the Unification Church. (255-286, 1994.03.11)
15 God absolutely cannot realize the ideal of love on His own. God has to become the master of eight stages, including the time in the womb, childhood, adolescence, married life, parenthood, grandparenthood and kingship. We are the ones who lost them all, due to the Fall. God was going to set up the model of those eight stages of love, but because of the Fall, they were lost. Now we have to set them up for God. So, we have to become models of God’s love before we have children. (317-104, 2000.02.19) |