Today’s Free Societies Are Lacking Direction

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    You cannot just lie down because you are tired, and even if you die, you have got to die for the sake of that nation. Because of that, when I get old and start to feel tired, the one thing I want to be able to leave behind me is the last will and testament that “I did all I could for the sake of Heaven. I did everything I could for the sake of that nation.”
     Jesus said, “Worry not what you will wear or what you will eat, for the Gentiles seek after these. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness.” As this shows, the central stream of thought in the Bible is that kingdom. This philosophy says to seek that nation. It does not say to seek your own happiness. If you are born as a citizen of that nation and you have a husband, then that husband represents that nation, so you have to love that nation before you can love your husband. And the wife also represents the nation; you have to love that nation before you can love your wife. You have to be able to ask him or her to die in the position of being able to say, “I did everything I could; there is nothing more I could have done.” It is no good if you die having said, “I should have tried such and such.” For this reason, we are busy even though we may have accomplished a certain amount. Even if you walk a way on the path, you have got to go even further. When everyone else is sleeping, we have to go one step further. “Hey Satan’s world! Take it easy! You guys, rest the whole day if you  like! We are going off to seek that nation.” That is what you have got to say.

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The spirit world is a world that transcends the material world. It transcends the world of knowledge. Since it is a world that transcends time and space, it is a place where yesterday’s joy can become today’s joy, and today’s joy can become tomorrow’s joy. In this light, that essential world does not move based on the things that we, who live on earth today, require or value. What is important for the spirit world is the center of everything of value within life in that world. (141-268, 1986.3.2)

Society

Freedom

  1. Freedom Requires Social Solidarity within an Orderly Social System;
    It Is Far Removed from Individualism

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Liberty exists where everyone lives for others and honors others. When we live for others, we are liberated as well. Living for others is intrinsically liberating. That is why I tell you to live for the sake of others. (323:73, May 31, 2000)

What people today mean by freedom is the right to assert oneself. Their freedom is merely a shield for their self-centered lifestyle. When ten people each assert their freedom, they erect ten walls around themselves, and within those walls their personalities and interests diverge to such an extent that they cannot get along together…
    Today the Western world exalts freedom. Yet you should regard the word “freedom” as a fearful word. What is true freedom? If people take freedom as the opportunity to lift up God and the world, it is well and good. This is freedom that everyone can enjoy. But if people are self-centered and put everyone down, then where can there be freedom? (107:272-74, June 1, 1980)

Historically the pursuit of freedom was born out of the desire to lift up society to a higher dimension. It was not born to break down and destroy the social order. Yet today’s young people say, “We want the freedom to drink, dance and enjoy rock music.” Crying out, “freedom!” they flaunt social norms, break down the social order and ruin the foundations of society. This freedom is nothing but self-indulgence. It is one of Satan’s destructive strategies. (116:102, December 27, 1981)

The greater the freedom, the greater is the need to maintain discipline and respect for law and order. The greater the precision of a piece of machinery, the more exactly its vertical and horizontal motion must accord with the principles of its design. Freedom yields abundant fruit as long as laws are obeyed. This truth cannot be denied, particularly in today’s advanced social system and scientific civilization.
    Can human beings enjoy freedom while ignoring the social system? No, the social system exists for the benefit of human beings. Therefore, people need to align themselves to the laws, organization and structure of their social system and prepare themselves to function within it. They should even take on leadership roles and protect it. People who fulfill this role can have no dealings with self-indulgent freedom.
    To travel anywhere, we need a road. We require a direction. Today’s free societies are lacking direction. How can they have direction, when everyone does as they please? Yet is there such a thing as a mind without direction? It is the mindset of ruin. (49:190-93, October 10, 1971)

The freedom that most people seek for is not what they can enjoy eternally, nor does it touch the core of their original mind. Instead, the pursuit of freedom drives people to extreme individualism and leaves them more and more isolated.
    As long as people do not uphold Heaven’s principles, do not pursue their relationship with God, and do not lift up the concept of freedom that is perfect and unchanging, the freedom that people seek for on earth will not be aligned with the freedom Heaven is seeking. Therefore, as the prevailing trend demonstrates, the more aggressively people pursue freedom, the farther away they are from it. (4:318, October 12, 1958)

The democratic world seeks to live by Christian teachings, but its way of life is permeated by individualism, bolstered by scientific technology. Hence, the freedom people pursue in today’s democratic societies is fundamentally opposed to Christian teaching.

Christianity teaches freedom for the entire cosmos, liberation for the whole, and unity in the heart of God. Christian freedom is a state where we can rejoice together with God and the entire world. However, most people in the democratic world today insist on an individualistic concept of freedom. As a result, they deny their nation, their society, their community, and even their family and the relationship of husband and wife. Eventually, they come to deny the very Center of their mind [God].
    What do they have left? Loneliness. When their loneliness reaches the extreme and explodes, they no longer trust others or even themselves. Their feeling of loneliness and distrust becomes an all-encompassing fear and depression, which leads to self-destructive behavior, even suicide. This trend is ever more evident in contemporary times.
     Hence, if we really want freedom, we should not cry out for the irresponsible freedom that people sought in the past or are seeking today, but we should seek for the true freedom that accompanies the ideal of God’s love. (4:319-20, October 12, 1958)

 

You Can Only Protect Your Liberties in This World by Protecting the Other Man’s Freedom

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2012

If all of you cannot persevere, until death if necessary, then not only will you be unable to receive salvation yourself, but Korea will face ruin. If all the citizens of Korea perish, what will you do? You should desire to go to the place of sacrifice. From your sacrifice, a source of new and explosive global power will rise up that can bind the people together. As real men and women, you must walk this path with resolve, shouting, “Let’s go! Let’s fight to the death!,” because this path is the only way to accomplish our goal. Along this path, you will become the sons and daughters of Heaven who will accomplish God’s will. A monument will be erected in your honor. Don’t you think that there will be a son who can melt together all of God’s heart, Chapter 1 • The Restoration of the True God’s Homeland 2013 bone and flesh? Don’t you think that Heaven’s fundamental idea to restore our homeland will sprout from there? (49-110, 1971.10.9)

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God’s Blessing is absolutely public in nature. It is not just for an individual, family, nation, or even the world. God’s Blessing is for the whole universe. (15-67, 1965. 2.13)

Society

Freedom

  1. Freedom Requires Social Solidarity within an Orderly Social System;
    It Is Far Removed from Individualism

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
    Clarence Darrow

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule. The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it. Freedom, then, is not… liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws, but freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it.
    John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (Humanism) Continue reading “You Can Only Protect Your Liberties in This World by Protecting the Other Man’s Freedom”

Our Spiritual Happiness Is Realized When We Accomplish Our Responsibility

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Religion is a preeminent teaching; it has been God’s primary means of education by which to instruct and love humankind. There is nothing else. So true parents are to teach their children what the world likes and what God likes. (102-240, 1979.1.1)

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What did Jesus want so much to accomplish that he devoted himself to the task for two thousand years? It was all to hold a marriage ceremony. What marriage ceremony would that have been? The Blessing. For two thousand years, Jesus had longed and yearned for the marriage ceremony of the Blessing. In order to hold a marriage celebration, a bride must come to her groom. For Christianity, that represents the Last Days. You cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven without going beyond Christianity. (76-72, 1975.1.26)

Society

Freedom

2. Freedom Starts by Becoming Master of Oneself in Accordance with the Moral Law

No man is free who is not master of himself.
    Epictetus, Discourses 2.10 (Hellenism)

Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.
    John 8.34

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
    Galatians 5.1

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.
    Galatians 5.13 Continue reading “Our Spiritual Happiness Is Realized When We Accomplish Our Responsibility”

We Should Now Promote the Freedom and Liberation of God

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Until now, in the Unification Church, we recited My Pledge focused on the individual. The Christian cultural sphere should have served the Lord at his Second Advent as his bride on the worldwide level. The Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in heaven was to have started from 1952, but all ended up in failure. This is the reason why the providence was prolonged for forty years and the Unification Church had to go through a historical course of atonement. (260-181, 1994.5.8)

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Alaska, where the ceremony of The Ceremony of the Settlement of the Eight Stages was held, is becoming famous. The last time I came here I said I would build a church at the North Pole. If the Soviet Communist Party opposes it, I will take the responsibility. I will build the Unification Church at the North Pole. You have to spend your life in order to build the foundation of blessing for all people of the world, but before you die, come to our Church at the North Pole and offer your devotion for forty days and then you can die. Think about this. An ideal city will be created in a world of icebergs. Then, even though it will be thousands of miles away, everything can be supplied by the air. You should try living like this. It would be a wonderful thing. With the power of science today, that would be nothing. We can use prefabricated systems. So we will build an airfield and try to live there, so what problem could arise? We are creating a base in the tourist area of Kodiak… think about it. It will become a gateway unprecedented in history. (193-217, 1989.10.4)

Society

Freedom

1. The Basis for Freedom in God and God’s Creation

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Freedom is truly one of the Creator’s most precious gifts to humanity. God created human beings to exercise freedom as spiritual beings. (133:289, November 19, 1984) Continue reading “We Should Now Promote the Freedom and Liberation of God”

Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land to All Its Inhabitants

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In front of God what must you long to become? First, you must become devoted children. Second, you must become loyal subjects and patriots. Is there anyone above loyal subjects and patriots? Saints are higher. Devoted children in the family are absolutely loyal to their parents. Patriots are absolutely loyal to their nation. Then, what kind of people are saints? They are people like Jesus, Buddha and Confucius – people who assert God’s existence, not people who assert themselves. They lead God-centered lives and do not cause any harm, but instead try to benefit humankind. Moreover, they are not nationalists, but rather globalists. (54-214, 1972.3.24)

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How difficult this it is to restore the rights of the firstborn son! Because of this, everybody suffered incredible hardships. Countless religious people were sacrificed, Christianity underwent dreadful persecution under the Roman Empire for four hundred years, and much blood was shed in order to get out of the domain of the satanic world. Have you ever been to Rome and been inside the catacombs? The early Christians created altars, buried the bodies of their ancestors under the altars, and continued to live there, inhaling those odors. They did so because God had told them to do so, otherwise who would have done such a thing? By normal standards, this would not be done by human beings. Imagine how much God suffered! You have no idea of the efforts that have been made in history. You need to be aware of these things. (140-203, 1986.2.9)

Society

Freedom

THE ASPIRATION FOR FREEDOM HAS BEEN A POWERFUL FORCE in human history. God signaled His love of freedom to a band of Israelite slaves in Egypt, and by liberating them set the example for freedom-loving people everywhere. People everywhere aspire for freedom because God created us to be free. God respects human freedom to the degree that He does not interfere with our wrong choices, even when they lead to sin and misery. Nevertheless, God grants human beings freedom for a purpose—that we might attain our full perfection as His ideal partners. Hence, freedom is not an end in itself, but a means to greater ends: true love, true community, the Kingdom of God. Furthermore, freedom is only meaningful and efficacious when it is conducive to God’s plan for human life. Freedom when used wrongly as an occasion to sin can lead to bondage. Therefore, God created us with a conscience as the inner compass to guide our free will in a good direction, and wants to provide every child with loving parents to educate them in the proper use of freedom.
The issues surrounding freedom are basic to democracy; hence we include several passages by its seminal political theorists. Critiques of secular democratic notions of freedom, particularly from the Catholic Church, are echoed in some of Father Moon’s negative judgments on the excessive value given to freedom and its widespread abuse in Western democracies.
Finally, we include several passages describing Father Moon’s unique teaching that God is not free, and that He is in need of liberation more than anyone.

1. The Basis for Freedom in God and God’s Creation

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
    2 Corinthians 3.17 Continue reading “Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land to All Its Inhabitants”