Author: Richard Urban

God Exists for Love

Watch or Listen to the podcast of the Richard Urban Show from May 7, 2020: Moral Posturing Does Not Improve Our Health: https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/08/is-governor-justice-moral-posturing/ .

Luke 2

3 Suddenly many other angels came down from heaven and joined in praising God. They said:

14 “Praise God in heaven!
Peace on earth to everyone
    who pleases God.”

Jeremiah 50

37 Then your chariot horses
and the foreigners in your army
    will refuse to go into battle,
and the enemy will carry away
    everything you treasure.
38 Your rivers and canals
    will dry up.

All of this will happen,
because your land
    is full of idols,
and they have made fools
    of you.

Richard: We see in the reading above that those who honor God will prosper and those who oppose God and worship “idols” (money, power, godless ideologies, etc) will perish.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God

Divine Love and Compassion

1. Love: The Essence of God

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

God is the Lord of love. He exists to spread love throughout the universe and make it eternal.
(298:304, January 17, 1999)

God is the Womb of love. He is the Source of love’s emotion, out of which emanates parental love, children’s love, sibling love, love of kin and love of country. These different kinds of love are like branches and leaves growing from the main trunk. They are like waves that eventually turn into ripples. The further away from the Source, the fainter the emotion becomes.
(50:267, November 8, 1971)


How does it feel to experience the realm of God’s love? It is like walking through a garden on a warm spring day. You see all different kinds of flowers and become intoxicated with all their fragrances. Lying on the grass, you feel something indescribable as you look up at the sky and see the towering cumulus clouds shaped like clumps of cotton. You feel your cells dancing, breathing. God’s love is the wellspring of power and happiness for all beings; it endows each one with the
energy of life. God’s love is the absolute requirement for faith. It is the necessary element for joy, pleasure, peace, and everything else human life desires. Moreover, God’s love is the principle of the spirit world.
(24:325, September 14, 1969)


What is God’s heart? It refers to God’s perfect foundation for love. All of God’s creations welled up from His heart, as did all His ideals for them. Thus, God’s heart is the perfect foundation for everything. God’s heart also springs forth into the perfect completion of everything. There can be no perfection or completion apart from God’s heart. (82:292, February 1, 1976)

God is the Subject of heart. For this reason, God can feel limitless sorrow as well as limitless joy. Just because He is God doesn’t mean that He possesses only joy and positive emotions. When God is sad, His heart of sorrow is deeper and wider than any person can ever comprehend. (11:89, February 12, 1961)

God exists for love and lives for love. God does not live for Himself, but for love. Likewise, all things are born from love. Thus, in the world of love, there cannot be a concept that we should live for ourselves. (303:287, September 9, 1999)

He Who Abides in Love Abides in God

Watch or Listen to the podcast of the Richard Urban Show from May 7, 2020: Moral Posturing Does Not Improve Our Health: https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/08/is-governor-justice-moral-posturing/ .

Cheon Seong Gyeong 487

Many people oppose Rev. Moon, the
man who goes to America to educate and
train American young people, even stay-
ing up all night and sometimes dancing,
singing, and having fun with them? I do
this in order to expand the realm of sup-
port that is connected to me.
Because the expansion of the uni-
versal realm of support starts with me,
I push forward without fear, even if I am
opposed and have to go to prison.
No matter how much you sing joy-
fully and say this and that, do you like to
live alone? When one partner of a mar-
ried couple dies, the other grieves and
weeps. Do you think a person can pre-
pare his own path? Why do we say that
a person is miserable if he is without a
spouse? It is because he cannot experi-
ence the occasion in which heaven and
earth can rejoice.
He has deviated from the regulation
of the law of heaven and earth. Clearly,
only through universal law does the for-
tune of heaven and earth turn, and are
the requirements of happiness and its
motivation determined.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1310

After the blessing of the internation-
al holy grounds, I performed the Bless-
ing of the 430 Couples. This number
corresponds to the 430 years of captiv-
ity of the Israelites in Egypt, and also
the 4,300 years of Korean history. This
Blessing signifies the beginning of a
new history. Moreover, the 430 Couples
also represent all families in the world.
Afterwards, while I was carrying out my
second world tour, I blessed 43 couples
in the United States, Europe and Japan.
I could then connect those 43 couples to
the 430 Couples on the world level. By
doing this, I was able to connect the vic-
torious foundation I had established in
Korea to the world, including the West-
ern world.
By accomplishing all this, all the
families in the world, not just the mem-
bers of the Unification Church, could
now stand in a position to receive heav-
enly fortune right then and there. That is
why the gates of heaven are now open to
all families on earth. (52-131, 1971.12.26)

Richard: Wow! This is great news. The gates of heaven are open to all families on earth, not just Unification Movement families. See this presentation about the Holy Marriage Blessing: https://www.visionroot.org/resources/blessing-of-marriage-ceremony/ .

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God

Divine Love and Compassion

Of all God’s attributes, love is the most attractive and compelling. Most people who believe in God do so because of the mysterious moments when they felt His love, comfort and grace. It moved their hearts to faith, even amidst the mind’s doubts. Because of the Creator’s love, the creation is a benevolent place that upholds and protects life. Indeed, the good creation is an expression of that love. Love is the essence of God; it is even more than that. As Father Moon teaches, love is the very motivation behind God’s creation; it is the “why” of God. Love is also the reason God has pursued the history of salvation through many tortuous paths. Love teaches God to be patient and forgiving with us ignorant creatures who long ago lost our way and became inured to the gracious melodies of the Spirit. Despite our deafness and blindness, God never ceases to embrace us and lead us forward.

1. Love: The Essence of God

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
1 John 4.16

My mercy embraces all things.
Qur’an 7.156

To love is to know me, My innermost nature, The truth that I am.
Bhagavad-Gita 18.55 (Hinduism)

The Great Compassionate Heart is the essence of Buddhahood.
Gandavyuha Sutra (Buddhism)

Lord! You are the uninvoked savior, motiveless compassionate being, a well-wisher even when unprayed, a friend even when unrelated.
Vitaragastava 13.1 (Jainism)

Bright but hidden, the Self dwells in the heart. Everything that moves, breathes, opens, and closes lives in the Self. He is the source of love and may be known through love but not through thought. He is the goal of life. Attain this goal!
Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.1 (Hinduism)

Love is the firstborn, loftier than the gods, the Fathers and men. You, O Love, are the eldest of all, altogether mighty. To you we pay homage! Greater than the breadth of earth and heaven, or of waters and Fire, You, O Love, are the eldest of all, altogether mighty. To you we pay homage!… In many a form of goodness, O Love, you show your face. Grant that these forms may penetrate within our hearts. Send elsewhere all malice!
Atharva Veda 9.2.19-20, 25 (Hinduism)

O good man! Compassion acts as parent to all beings. The parent is compassion. Know that compassion is the Tathagata. O good man! Compassion is the Buddha Nature of all beings. Such a Buddha Nature is long overshadowed by illusion. That is why beings cannot see. The Buddha Nature is Compassion. Compassion is the Tathagata.
Mahaparinirvana Sutra 259 (Buddhism)

The Bull of Dharma is born of compassion;26 Content of mind holds creation together. Whoever understands this is enlightened; How great is the load under which this Bull stands!
Japuji 16, M.1, p. 3 (Sikhism)

O Son of Man! Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image, and revealed to thee My beauty.
Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Arabic 3 (Baha’i Faith)

God Set the Standard as Living for the Sake of Others

Numbers 11

18 As for the Israelites, I have heard them complaining about not having meat and about being better off in Egypt. So tell them to make themselves acceptable to me, because tomorrow they will have meat. 19-20 In fact, they will have meat day after day for a whole month—not just a few days, or even ten or twenty. They turned against me and wanted to return to Egypt. Now they will eat meat until they get sick of it.

Jonah 1

13 The sailors tried their best to row to the shore. But they could not do it, and the storm kept getting worse every minute. 14 So they prayed to the Lord, “Please don’t let us drown for taking this man’s life. Don’t hold us guilty for killing an innocent man. All of this happened because you wanted it to.” 15 Then they threw Jonah overboard, and the sea calmed down. 16 The sailors were so terrified that they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made all kinds of promises.

Richard: Above we see two examples where God gave the people what they wanted. If we have bad leadership now, which we do in many cases, is it perhaps because we did not take care in choosing good, godly leaders through the election process? I will be doing a series of interviews with current candidates for office here in West Virginia. Please take the time to watch these, and consider doing interviews for candidates in your own area. The primary here in West Virginia is delayed until June 9th.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God
God’s Goodness

2. God’s Goodness Manifest in the Creation

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

When looking at reality from the perspective of love, God is the root. The root communicates through the stem to the sprouting leaves, which spread out in all directions: east, west, south and north. As the plant spreads out, its leaves sprout more abundantly, the stem grows stronger and the root grows larger. Live like this, and you will discover that God is the loving vertical Father of our human world. God is our Creator and Father who bestows true love in abundance. (203:352, June 28, 1990)

Everything exists for the sake of something greater than itself, and the greater thing for something still greater. It is wrong to think that life is simply about the strong eating the weak, as Charles Darwin taught. That perspective on life is dead wrong. The Lord of the universe—the Creator of the universe—created all things for the sake of human beings. All creatures were created with that specific purpose in mind. (217:204, June 1, 1991)

God is the omnipotent and omniscient King of wisdom. In creating the universe of subject-object relationships, He had to decide whether the origin of true love, true happiness, true peace and the true ideal of the human world should be in the subject partner or in the object partner. God had to
decide on this matter with the eternal ideal world in mind. If God had set things up in such a way that all object beings must serve Him, then human beings would establish that same tradition: “Everyone must serve me.” This would have created serious problems. There would be no way to achieve unity, harmony or development. Thus we understand: rather than demanding that object partners attend the subject partner, God invariably takes the position that He exists for the sake of His object partners. This way,
everything becomes one; there is progress and development. Hence, the almighty God decided to set up the standard of peace, happiness, love and the ideal as “living for the sake of others.” (72:14,May 7, 1974)

The Great Tao Flows Everywhere

Watch or listen to the Richard Urban Show from April 30, 2020: What Has Happened to Our God-given Freedoms? https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/01/nsa-surveils-all-americans-and-lies-about-it/

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2236

The conscience is God’s agent with-
in the human mind. It is not self-cen-
tered but exists for the sake of God’s
righteousness. It constantly seeks the
direction of goodness. The body rebels
against this. It only seeks comfort. It is
selfish and instinctively follows carnal
desires. The conscience chastises the
body, and tries to make it conform to
the mind. Here is where bitter conflict
and struggle always takes place within
oneself. No one, though, can conquer
the body without welcoming God in.
Only through the power of God’s true
love and truth can the mind as subject
partner take command of the body as
its object partner and realize the ideal
of oneness with God. This is the perfect
human being that religions speak of.
(219-118, 1991.8.28)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 963

If your grandparents, mother and
father, couple, and children, become one
based on true love, and inherit God’s
true love that lives for others, then even
God would be absolutely obedient to
that. In the world that strives to live for
others – a world that moves according
to the love that submits to the tradition
of living for others – the basis for peace
would surely emerge even if it resisted
being formed. (210-354, 1990.12.27)

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God
God’s Goodness

2. God’s Goodness Manifest in the Creation

God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1.31

He has created the seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see a fault in the Beneficent One’s creation; look again, can you see any flaws? Look again and yet again, and your sight will grow dim and weak [without finding any.] Qur’an 67.3-4

This world is a garden, The Lord its gardener, Cherishing all, none neglected.
Adi Granth, Majh Ashtpadi, M.3, p. 118 (Sikhism)

Abundant is the year, with much millet and much rice; And we have our high granaries, With myriads, and hundreds of thousands, and millions of measures; For spirits and sweet spirits, To present our ancestors, male and female, And to supply all our ceremonies. The blessings sent down on us are of every kind.
Book of Songs, Ode 279 (Confucianism)

It is He who sends down to you out of heaven water of which you may drink, and by which grow trees, for you to pasture your herds, and thereby He brings forth for you crops, and olives, and palms, and vines, and all manner of fruit. Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect. And He subjected for you the night and day, and the sun and moon; and the stars are subjected by His command. Surely in that are signs for a people who understand. And He has multiplied for you in the earth things of diverse hues. Surely in that is a sign for a people who remember. It is He who subjected for you the sea, that you may eat of it fresh flesh, and bring forth out of it ornaments for you to wear; and you may see the ships cleaving through it; that you may seek of His bounty, and so haply you will be thankful… If you count God’s blessing, you can never number it; surely God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. Qur’an 16.10-18

The great Tao flows everywhere; It can go left; it can go right. The myriad things owe their existence to it, And it does not reject them. When its work is accomplished, It does not take possession. It clothes and feeds all, But does not pose as their master. Ever without ambition, It may be called Small. All things return to it as their home, And yet it does not pose as their master, Therefore it may be called Great. Because it would never claim greatness, Therefore its greatness is fully realized.
Tao Te Ching 34 (Taoism)

Let me tell you then why the Creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the Creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creatures taken as a whole were fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything that was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God.
Plato, Timaeus (Hellenism)

The primary cause of the pure unity of Enlightenment and Nirvana that has existed from beginningless time is the principle of integrating compassion, the indrawing, unifying principle of purity, harmony, likeness, rhythm, permanency, and peace. By the indrawing of this Principle within the brightness of your own nature, its unifying spirit can be discovered and developed and realized under all varieties of conditions.
Surangama Sutra (Buddhism)

We Must Behave in Accordance With God’s Word

Watch or listen to the Richard Urban Show from April 30, 2020: What Has Happened to Our God-given Freedoms? https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/01/nsa-surveils-all-americans-and-lies-about-it/

Collosians 4

10 Aristarchus is in jail with me. He sends greetings to you, and so does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. You have already been told to welcome Mark, if he visits you. 11 Jesus, who is known as Justus, sends his greetings. These three men are the only Jewish followers who have worked with me for the kingdom of God. They have given me much comfort.

Jeremiah 35

18 Then the Lord told me to say to the Rechabite clan:

I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel. You have obeyed your ancestor Jonadab, 19 so I promise that your clan will be my servants and will never die out.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God
God’s Goodness

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

God is the Father and Mother of all emotions—joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. He is our Owner, who prepares a place of comfort for us when we are sad and protects us when we face difficulty. He is our absolute Parent, whose love surpasses that of anyone who ever lived. (203:228, June 26, 1990)

If God were a being of destruction, causing heaven and earth to decrease, people would want nothing to do with God. The eternal God should always provide what is needful and appropriate to human beings and all creatures. That is why He was needed in the past, is needed in the present, and will be needed in the future. Otherwise, our worship and our desire for relationship with God would be in vain and to no purpose. (22:317, May 11, 1969)

All religions of the world begin with the recognition that God, the Lord and Creator, is the First Cause of the universe. If this God exists, He must be good; He must be eternal and unchanging; and He must be unique and absolute. The God who created the universe must have, from the first, a purpose for creating. This purpose of creation must also be eternal, unchanging, unique, and absolute. God’s purpose of creation is joy. He created human beings and the universe to experience joy. Joy cannot be experienced alone. To experience joy, it is always necessary to have an object partner, or counterpart. It is only when a subject partner and object partner establish a common base and engage in give and take action that joy can be experienced. Giving and receiving love is to experience the supreme joy. In sum, God created us to become His object partners, that He might experience joy eternally by relating with us in love. This is His purpose of creation. (100:241, October 19, 1978)

Each of us desires to be good. There is not a single person in the world that does not desire goodness. We know that the direction of history has been toward goodness, as educators and people of faith have labored and fought to set standards of goodness. We are born seeking for goodness and live seeking for goodness—that is the purpose of our life. Since our lives are the warp and woof of history, it is the goal of history as well. (24:13, June 22, 1969)

How can we fallen human beings return to the God of goodness? First, we must grow to the point where our conscience resembles God’s original goodness. Next, we must behave in accordance with God’s word, thus manifesting God’s goodness and confirming the value of His word. When we do this, God will rejoice on seeing the ideal of the goodness for which He created all things. We humans have long pursued goodness, but finally we will experience the value of God’s goodness by substantially embodying goodness ourselves. (2:131, July 21, 1957)

How are we to live in God’s Kingdom? We are to live with the attitude to accept anyone who comes our way. Although occasionally a thief may enter and take something, you just close your eyes to it as he leaves through the gate, knowing that at least you have something that he could take. God thinks this way. Why? Because God feels, “Though he may be a petty thief, he is still living in My domain. Even if he takes something, he is only moving it about within the realm where I am the Owner of everything.” Do you think there are fences and locks in heaven? No, there are none. (224:327-28, December 29, 1991)