Listen to the Richard Urban Show #17:
Growth, Responsibility and Destiny
Spiritual Growth
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
All phenomena occurring in the universe bear fruit only after the lapse of a certain interval of time. All things are designed to reach completion only after passing through a set growing period…
It is written in Genesis that God warned Adam and Eve, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen. 2.17) They had a choice either to ignore God’s warning and lose their lives, or to heed the warning and live. The fact that they had the potential either to fall or to become perfect demonstrates that they were still in a state of immaturity. The universe was designed to reach perfection after a certain growing period, described in the Bible as six days. As one of God’s creations, human beings are also bound to this principle. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Creation 5.2)
We should not think that when God created Adam and Eve from clay, He created them as adults. Rather, God created them as infants. God went through the same process as a mother who gives birth to her baby, cradles it and raises it.
Everything in the universe develops through three stages, and humans are no exception. Beginning from infancy, Adam and Eve grew through childhood and their teenage years. The next step was to be their maturation…
An individual proceeds from an infant to an adult, marries and becomes a parent. In a human being’s stage-wise growth, God wants to see the embodiment of His own lengthy growth process—his youth, His adulthood and His advanced age. Thus, every child is the substantial manifestation of God’s invisible history. This shared experience binds the child and his or her vertical Parent into one. (225:198-99, January 20, 1992)
God Himself must have gone through stages of growth—infancy, childhood, etc. You should know that your wife is the invisible God grown into a substantial physical being…
As parents watching your children grow, you will relive the days when you were growing up. It is the same with God. God watched with amazement as Adam and Eve grew and created their horizontal sphere of life.2 Likewise, when you have your children, you will experience a force of love that will expand your (horizontal) world. (297:151-53, November 19, 1998)
For a tree to bear fruit, it must go through a summer season when the growing fruits absorb vitality elements from its root, trunk and branches. Through this process it gains the perfect life force to produce fruit that will bring forth new life. In this regard, we sons and daughters… should search deeply within ourselves as to whether the fruit in our hearts is full of the power of life, by which we can be born again happily into a new world.
No matter how many years go by, how much it rains or how fiercely the wind blows, our inner life force must not be invaded by the evil of our environment but must go the path of continuous development. That is the only way we can welcome the spring and become a seed—a matrix to produce a second life wherever it is planted. (32:37, June 14, 1970)
To yield good seed, you have to go the path of love. This means that you must be born in love, grow with love as the purpose of your life, and walk the path of love your whole life long. Even at the moment when you depart this world, you should leave with the intention to return to love. (138:99, January 19, 1986)
Spiritual growth can be comppared to education… When someone is studying for a Ph.D., does he deny what he learned in kindergarten? Not at all. All his prior learning, well digested, formed the foundation for his efforts to earn the Ph.D. (111:129, February 8, 1981)
You must receive an education in God’s love. For how long? Until you can understand all the Father’s values and standards. In other words, you grow by receiving your parents’ love until you are fully mature. (51:172, November 21, 1971)
God’s central concern is with human beings’ internal nature and character. He intends that, as we experience true love, we will come to reflect His true love and grow to perfection. God created the power of love to be the strongest among all internal forces. Through experiencing the power of such love within the realm of Heaven’s love and law, people are to increasingly resemble God, their Parent. (279:206, August 20, 1996)
We need to embody true love. The way to embody true love begins by living as a filial child, then a patriot, a saint, and finally a divine son and daughter of God. At that stage we can experience the innermost emotions of God’s heart. (September 12, 2005