Category: Isaiah

Heaven Begins from a Heart that Overcomes the World

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Acts 20

7 On the first day of the week we met to break bread together. Paul spoke to the people until midnight because he was leaving the next morning. 8 In the upstairs room where we were meeting, there were a lot of lamps. 9 A young man by the name of Eutychus was sitting on a window sill. While Paul was speaking, the young man got very sleepy. Finally, he went to sleep and fell three floors all the way down to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead.

10 Paul went down and bent over Eutychus. He took him in his arms and said, “Don’t worry! He’s alive.” 11 After Paul had gone back upstairs, he broke bread, and ate with us. He then spoke until dawn and left. 12 Then the followers took the young man home alive and were very happy.

Isaiah 60

60 Jerusalem, stand up! Shine!
    Your new day is dawning.
The glory of the Lord
    shines brightly on you.
2 The earth and its people
    are covered with darkness,
but the glory of the Lord
    is shining upon you.
3 Nations and kings
will come to the light
    of your dawning day.

Heaven

1. Realms of Grace

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

How is heaven—the spirit world where God resides—organized? Its ordering principle is simple. No one who lived a self-centered life can be admitted to Paradise or the heavenly spheres. Heaven is the dwelling-place of people who lived for the sake of the whole.
You may not have experienced the spirit world, but by the grace of God, I experienced the richness of that world. If you enter heaven, you will not find a single person who lived for him or herself. Its citizens are all people who lived for God and humanity. (77:189, April 6, 1975)

Heaven is an ideal realm centered on God; it is a place where everything moves to the rhythm of God’s love, tuned to its frequency. Therefore, unless we prepare on earth the appropriate elements that can tune to God’s frequency, we will not be able to harmonize with the beings in that world. For this purpose, while on earth we should perfect three different kinds of love: children’s love, conjugal love and parental love.17 (19:335, March 29, 1968)

Heaven begins from a heart that overcomes the world. Although heaven may exist all around us, if our own mind is evil we cannot perceive it, we cannot be harmonized with it, and it would be mean-ingless to us. Therefore, the basis for receiving the Kingdom of Heaven is not the environment, but I, myself. The pillar for maintaining the Kingdom of Heaven is not my circumstances, but my own heart. (46:24, July 18, 1971)

In the Kingdom of Heaven you will see green grass everywhere. There are mountains, lakes and prairies. Birds sing, flowers bloom in profusion, and animals play happily together. The air is fresh and filled with fragrances like lilac. Bright light shines throughout, more beautiful than diamond and clear as crystal. Just standing there makes you feel comfortable and refreshed. You are naturally filled with feelings of love and happiness. Unlike in earthy life where happiness comes and goes, in heaven you feel happy continually.
In the Kingdom of Heaven there is no anxiety or suffering. All the spirits have bright and peaceful expressions; they naturally care for each other without needing to say a word. There is no fighting, no fallen nature of jealousy, hate or arrogance. Everyone is filled only with true love and lives for the sake of others. (Heung Jin Moon, Message from the Spirit World, January 1, 2002) ❖

Your Past Life Revives with All Vividness in the Spirit World

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Joshua 3

9 Joshua spoke to the people:

Come here and listen to what the Lord our God said he will do! 10 The Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites control the land on the other side of the river. But the living God will be with you and will force them out of the land when you attack. And now, God is going to prove that he’s powerful enough to force them out. 11-13 Just watch the sacred chest that belongs to the Lord, the ruler of the whole earth. As soon as the priests carrying the chest step into the Jordan, the water will stop flowing and pile up as if someone had built a dam across the river.

Isaiah 17

17 This is a message about Damascus:

Damascus is doomed!
    It will end up in ruins.
2 The villages around Aroer[a]
    will be deserted,
with only sheep living there
    and no one to bother them.
3 Israel[b] will lose its fortresses.
The kingdom of Damascus
    will be destroyed;
its survivors will suffer
    the same fate as Israel.
The Lord All-Powerful
    has promised this.

The Passage Beyond

2.First Moments in the Afterlife

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

If while walking down the street you are killed instantly in a traffic accident, you will not know that you have died. You think to yourself, “I have come to a strange place. It is a little better than my own neighborhood. It has things I have never seen before.” A vast space opens before your eyes. Since you see it, you don’t think that you are dead.
     But what an odd place it is! Instead of seeing people around you as you normally would, they appear only when you want to see them. Unless you call them, they do not appear. You feel very much alone.
     Then you meet guides, who explain to you, “You have died. You have come to the spirit world.” Still, you don’t believe them. You have a feeling that you collided with a car far away somewhere as in a dream, but you do not feel that you have died. You are still connected with the earth.
     Dazed, and not believing you are dead and in the spirit world, you think, “I must go home.” You try to go to your house in the physical world, but you cannot.
     Then your ancestors from some generations back come and explain, “You are no longer on the earth. You have entered the spirit world.” You finally say, “Ah, so this is the spirit world.” (194:41-42, October 15, 1989)
 
What will be your thoughts when you pass into the spirit world? At first you will be welcomed into a vast world. Yet right away you will recognize that its way of life is not what you were used to in your small hometown. On earth there was racial discrimination and conflicts among people of different backgrounds and cultures. Some people’s ways were incompatible with yours, and you handled things by insisting on your own viewpoint and affirming that your own values were best. Now that you have arrived in the spirit world, you will want to leave those outmoded values behind. But your past life does not go away. It revives in the spirit world with all vividness.
     The more you feel the immensity of the spirit world, the more you long for your home and for life on earth, because you cannot easily absorb the environment of the spirit based on your limited sensibility. Yet there is where you will spend eternity. Still, can you ever forget about your earthly life?
     When you first arrive, you will meet only strangers. In the midst of such an unfamiliar environment, how you will long to meet someone you knew in the past! You cannot escape your emotional connection to your past life. You think about the people you loved. You wonder how your mother and father are doing, and how your grandparents are living. Yet it is not easy to meet them. (187:285-85, February 12, 1989)
 
Suppose through some misfortune a man died while still searching for the ultimate goal. However, death does not mean the end of the quest. Once in the spirit world, he would say, “I died while searching for love, and now in the spirit world I will find that love.” If a man dies in the bosom of God’s love, then it is not a miserable death. Did death shatter his love? No. God, the subject of love, will recognize the value of his death, saying: “You died for the sake of the love that I have been searching for.”…
     Suppose a wife sacrificed her life for her husband. What will happen when he joins her in the spirit world? Or suppose an elder brother arrives in the spirit world after his younger brother had died for him. Would they be happier or less happy than they were when they were together on earth? Can the depth of love they formerly shared on earth even compare with that precious love for which one offered his life? It would certainly transcend that earthly level of love…
     So, in searching for the path of love, death is not a problem. Though you die, it would not be the end, but new life. By this kind of sacrificial death, you would pass through the tollgate to reach a world of love that is eternal and of a higher dimension. From this perspective, there is no reason to fear death. (67:173-74, June 3, 1973)❖
 
 
 
 
 

It Is the Most Blameworthy Ignorance to Believe that One Knows What One Does Not Know

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1 Corinthians 16

9 Greetings from the churches in Asia.

Aquila and Priscilla, together with the church that meets in their house, send greetings in the name of the Lord.

20 All of the Lord’s followers send their greetings.

Give each other a warm greeting.

Richard: House churches, or as Rev. Moon calls them, Home Churches should greet each other and work together. A Home Church is not just a particular house but 360 contiguous homes that are ministered to. Those who are doing community ministry are welcome to join the Tribal Messiah Association.

Isaiah 66

22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth
    which I will make
shall remain before me, says the Lord;
    so shall your descendants and your name remain.
23 From new moon to new moon,
    and from sabbath to sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
says the Lord.

Life After Death and the Spirit World

The Spirit World

What is the spirit World? invisible to earthly eyes, it is not easily fathomed, yet it is a vital part of our existence and a place to which we will all journey one day. Father Moon teaches that knowing about the spirit world is second in importance only to knowing God. three definite notions about the spirit world are represented here: First, knowing the spirit world is essential to finding and keeping the proper direction in our earthly life. second, the spirit world corresponds by analogy to the earthly world. it maintains the quality of life and love cultivated on earth. its harmony or lack of harmony is the result of the love, or lack of love, of its citizens, who cultivated various tendencies and prejudices while on earth. third, the spirit world is composed of a multiplicity of societies and realms—though today these are in the process of being unified into one universal heaven

1. The Spirit World Corresponds to the Physical World

I [Paul] know a man in Christ who fourteen
years ago was caught up to the third heaven—
whether in the body or out of the body I do not
know, God knows. And I know that this man
was caught up into Paradise—whether in the
body or out of the body I do not know, God
knows—and he heard things that cannot be
told, which man may not utter.
2 Corinthians 12.2-4

No one in heaven or on the earth knows the
Unseen save God; and they know not when they
will be raised. Does [human] knowledge extend
to the Hereafter? No, for they are in doubt con-
cerning it. No, for they cannot see it.
Qur’an 27.65-66

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to
think oneself wise when one is not, to think one
knows what one does not know. No one knows
whether death may not be the greatest of all
blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they
knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely
it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe
that one knows what one does not know.
Socrates, in Plato, Apology 29 (Hellenism)

God created the seven heavens in harmony.
Qur’an 71.15

What is here [the phenomenal world], the same
is there [in Brahman]; and what is there, the
same is here.
Katha Upanishad 2.1.10 (Hinduism)

Thou who exists beyond the wide firmament,
mighty in Thine own splendor and strong of
mind,
hast made, for our help, the earth a replica of
Thy glory.
Rig Veda 1.52.12 (Hinduism)

We have such a high priest, one who is seated
at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in
heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true
tabernacle which is set up not by man but by the
Lord… There are priests who offer gifts accord-
ing to the law. They serve a copy and shadow
of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was
about to erect the tabernacle, he was instructed
by God, saying, “See that you make everything
according to the pattern which was shown to
you on the mountain.”
Hebrews 8.1-5

The system of Change is tantamount to Heaven
and Earth, and therefore can always handle and
adjust the way of Heaven and Earth. Looking
up, we observe the pattern of the heavens; look-
ing down, we examine the order of the earth.
Thus we know the causes of what is hidden and
what is manifest. If we investigate the cycle of
things, we shall understand the concepts of life
and death.
Essence and material force are combined
to become things. The wandering away of Spirit
becomes change. From this we know that the
characteristics and conditions of spiritual beings
are similar to those of Heaven and Earth and
therefore there is no disagreement between
them. The knowledge [of Spirit] embraces all
things and its way helps all under heaven, and
therefore there is no mistake. It operates freely
and does not go off course. It rejoices in Nature
and understands destiny. Therefore there is
no worry. As [things] are contented in their
stations and earnest in practicing kindness,
there can be love. It molds and encompasses all
transformations of Heaven and Earth without
mistake, and it stoops to bring things into
completion without missing any.
I Ching, Great Commentary 1.4.1-4 (Confucianism)


People Can Protect Themselves from Disease Proactively

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2 Tim 4

4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. 5 As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.

Isaiah 16

3 “Give counsel,
    grant justice;
make your shade like night
    at the height of noon;
hide the outcasts,
    betray not the fugitive;
4 let the outcasts of Moab
    sojourn among you;
be a refuge to them
    from the destroyer.
When the oppressor is no more,
    and destruction has ceased,
and he who tramples under foot
    has vanished from the land,
5 then a throne will be established in steadfast love
    and on it will sit in faithfulness
    in the tent of David
one who judges and seeks justice
    and is swift to do righteousness.”

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 4

Health and Disease

3. Medicine

The physician is Nature’s assistant.
Galen

The book of Nature is that which the physician
must read; and to do so he must walk over the
leaves.
Paracelsus

Servants of God, make use of medical treat-
ment, for God has not made a disease without
appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of
one disease: old age.
Hadith of Ahmad, Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud (Islam)

Give the physician his place, for the Lord
created him;
let him not leave you, for there is need of him.
There is a time when success lies in the hands
of physicians,
for they too will pray to the Lord
that he should grant them success in diagnosis
and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.
Ecclesiasticus 38.11-14

The medicine men learn their medicines from
the spirits in a vision. The spirits tell them what
to use and how to use it. Their medicines are
nearly always herbs (wato) or roots (hutkan)…
They drive the disease out in the sweat, in the
vomit, in the defecation, in the urine, and in
the breath.
Oglala Sioux Tradition (Native American Religions)

The hekura [guardian spirits]… help you bring
back stolen souls; thanks to them you don’t
lose your way. You can repel the demons of
disease; they enable you to recognize them by
their smell. Each one has its particular odor,
and their hammocks are impregnated with it;
it comes from the watota, which they all pos-
sess. A high-quality hallucinogen enables you
to see and name the demon who has just sto-
len a soul. You think, “It is so-and-so who is
guilty!” And it is your turn to hurl your familiar
hekura after him.
Yanomami Shaman’s Instruction
(Native American Religions)

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Even the vilest germs disappear when faced with their natural enemies. All we need to do is intro-duce several of the germs’ natural enemies to mop them up and restore the body’s balance. Yet today’s doctors, in their ignorance, cut and slice in order to cure diseases like SARS. I am establish-ing a unified medical science, a combination of Eastern and Western medicines. It is a preventative medical science. I believe that by employing the principle of natural enemies, people can protect themselves from disease proactively. We should not have to undergo surgery in order to be healed of disease. In God’s love, our bodies are not meant to be cut and sliced. (May 10, 2003)

What is medicine? It is the disease’s natural enemy. If you have a disease in your head, the medi-cine would be the tail of its natural enemy. It is interesting to examine the materials and methods of Oriental medicine. If you get sick in the right side of your body, the treatment for it may involve the left side.16 (325:148, June 30, 2000)

We need to develop a unified medical science as a field of Unification Thought. It will cure the diseases of the body, even those that originated from the Human Fall. Furthermore, it should help to heal the conflict between Eastern and Western medicine by harmonizing Eastern and Western cultures. When we can combine Eastern and Western medicine, we will be able to cure incurable diseases like HIV/AIDS.

In Korea, among people of the countryside with no formal medical education, there are many gifted healers. The spirit world instructs them about special treatments for curing diseases such as AIDS that are incurable with modern medicine. Conventional medicine ignores such things. (287:38, August 10, 1997)

The End Aim Should Be God’s Glory and the Recreation of the Mind

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1 Corinthians 16

19 Greetings from the churches in Asia.

Aquila and Priscilla, together with the church that meets in their house, send greetings in the name of the Lord.

Isaiah 61
21 Your people will live right
    and always own the land;
they are the trees I planted
    to bring praise to me.
22 Even the smallest family
    will be a powerful nation.
I am the Lord,
and when the time comes,
    I will quickly do all this.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 4

God’s Creation and Human Creativity

Creativity and Art

Artists, scientists and inventors take after the creativity of God. The universe was created beginning with an idea in the divine Mind, followed by the expenditure of energy to make that idea a reality. Likewise, artists and scientists give all their heart and effort to create a new existence that manifests the images and thoughts in their mind.
This section focuses on the arts, and so includes alongside scripture some selected passages from famous artists reflecting on the meaning of their art. Yet, creativity is not the sole possession of these elite personages; we find creativity in the athlete who plays exuberantly for the love of sport, in the merchant who finds better ways to market his wares, and in children as they dance and sing. Father Moon, who has established ballet companies and art schools and who himself loves to sing duets with his wife, is cognizant of the role the arts can play in creating a God-centered culture.
Topics include: art as harmony of opposites, art’s emotional core and emotional power; the muse, or spirituality of art; and the problem of art and values.

1. The Spirituality of Art

All art is concerned with coming into being.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.4 (Hellenism)

Life is art.
The whole life of man is Self-Expression.
The individual is an expression of God.
We suffer if we do not express ourselves.
Precepts 1-4 (Perfect Liberty Kyodan)

We composers are projectors of the infinite into
the finite.
Edvard Grieg

The sole and end aim of figured bass should be
Nothing else than God’s glory and the recreation
of the mind.
Johann Sebastian Bach

True art is made noble and religious by the
mind producing it… the endeavor to create
something perfect; for God is perfection, and
whoever strives after perfection is striving for
something divine.
Michelangelo

Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and
making melody to the Lord with all your heart.
Ephesians 5.18-19

And whenever the evil spirit from God was upon
Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his
hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and
the evil spirit departed from him.
1 Samuel 16.23

Men can be evil—more evil than their animal
brothers can ever be—but they can also rise
in the ecstasy of creation. The cathedrals of
England stand as monuments to man’s worship
of what is above himself.
One does feel proud to belong to the human
race when one sees the wonderful things human
beings have fashioned with their hands. They
have been creators—they must share a little the
holiness of the Creator, who made the world
and all that was in it, and saw that it was good.
But He left more to be made.
Agatha Cristie

In eloquence there is magic, in knowledge
ignorance;
in poetry wisdom, and in speech weariness.
Hadith of Abu Dawud (Islam)

If I create from the heart, nearly everything
works; if from the head, almost nothing.
Marc Chagall

Let our artists be those who are gifted to discern
the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then
will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair
sights and sounds, and receive the good in every-
thing; and beauty, the effluence of fair works,
shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giv-
ing breeze from a purer region, and insensibly
draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and
sympathy with the beauty of reason.
Musical training is a more potent instrument
than any other, because rhythm and harmony
find their way into the inward places of the
soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting
grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly
educated graceful.
Plato, The Republic (Hellenism)