Latest Richard Urban Show:
#105-Strengthening Families and Communities Forum: Michael Marshall
Cheon Seong Gyeong 2293
Our bodies and minds should have begun serving true parents forever, and at the same time inherited a tradition that would never allow their division. United, mind and body should have lived deriving satisfaction from their unity and service, but the reality has been that they contained within them the sorrows of history, wretchedness and bitter anguish. They existed without a path of escape from the realm of lamentation. Every inch of the planet Earth also had its hope: to be trodden upon by true parents and children. (268-164, 1995.3.31)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 701
If both those in the spirit world and in the Unification Church love Heungjin, what should the True Parents do? In order to welcome the love of God and the love of the earth, they should be honored to offer their own son. They must know how to be able to think of it proudly. God could not love teenaged Adam and Eve as His son and daughter, but now, at least in the spirit world, He can love them.
Self-Sacrifice
2. Taking up the Cross—Sacrifice unto Death
Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 16.24-25In accepting the true Dharma, may I abandon body, life, and property, and uphold the true Dharma.
Lion’s Roar of Queen Srimala 3 (Buddhism)
Jesus has many lovers of his kingdom of heaven, but he has few bearers of his Cross. Many desire his consolation, but few desire his tribulation. He finds many comrades in eating and drinking, but he finds few who will be with him in his abstinence and fasting. All men would joy with Christ, but few will suffer anything for Christ. Many follow him to the breaking of his bread, for their bodily refreshment, but few will follow him to drink a draft of the chalice of his Passion. Many honor his miracles, but few will follow the shame of his Cross and his other ignominies.
Thomas á Kempis, Imitation of Christ 2.11 (Christianity)
It is better to suffer for doing right, if that is God’s will, than for doing wrong.
1 Peter 3.17
The Master said, “The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.”
Analects 15.8 (Confucianism)
Fish is what I want; bear’s palm is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take the bear’s palm than fish. Life is what I want; dutifulness is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather take dutifulness than life. On the one hand, though life is what I want, there is something I want more than life. That is why I do not cling to life at all costs. On the other hand, though death is what I loathe, there is something I loathe more than death. That is why there are troubles I do not avoid. If there is nothing a man wants more than life, then why should he have scruples about any means, so long as it will serve to keep him alive? If there is nothing a man loathes more than death, then why should he have scruples about any means, so long as it helps him to avoid trouble? Yet there are ways of remaining alive and ways of avoiding death to which a man will not resort. In other words, there are things a man wants more than life and there are also things he loathes more than death. This is an attitude not confined to the moral man but common to all men. The moral man simply never loses it.
Mencius VI.A.10 (Confucianism)