Category: Old Testament

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)❖
 
 
 
 
 

Once You Die and Shed Your Physical Body, You Will Fly

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Republican Candidate for WV House of Delegates-District 67

Romans 4

18 God promised Abraham a lot of descendants. And when it all seemed hopeless, Abraham still had faith in God and became the ancestor of many nations. 19 Abraham’s faith never became weak, not even when he was nearly a hundred years old. He knew that he was almost dead and that his wife Sarah could not have children. 20 But Abraham never doubted or questioned God’s promise. His faith made him strong, and he gave all the credit to God.

Jeremiah 9

12 I said to the Lord, “None of us can understand why the land has become like an uncrossable desert. Won’t you explain why?”

13 The Lord said:

I destroyed the land because the people disobeyed me and rejected my laws and teachings. 14 They were stubborn and worshiped Baal,[b] just as their ancestors did. 15 So I, the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, promise them poison to eat and drink.[c] 16 I’ll scatter them in foreign countries that they and their ancestors have never even heard of. Finally, I will send enemy soldiers to kill every last one of them.

The Passage Beyond

  1. The Second Birth

The Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

On the day of your birth the umbilical cord, the lifeline that was linked to your bellybutton, had to be severed. Likewise, in the world of air, the spirit self is attached to the body and sucks nutrition from it like a fetus on its placenta. There comes a day when the physical body becomes too old to feed it, and it leaves it behind…
     The fetus that experiences momentary pain as it emerges from its mother’s womb grows to become the object of its parents’ love. In the same way, our spirit self must leave behind our crying physical body in order to be born anew as the object partner of God, who is the eternal Spirit.
     On earth, the baby can grow up to become the friend of its father and mother because it was born into the physical world where it can share love with them. Before that, it was merely a fetus swimming around the mother’s womb. In the same way, life on earth is breathing and living in the swaddling clothes of air… After our second birth into the spirit world, we will share love with God our Parent, who provides our spiritual link with the infinite world. (297:258-59, December 19, 1998)
 
Once you enter the spirit world, you breathe through the cells of the fontanel located on the top of the head.  The atmosphere in the spirit world is not earthly air; it is love. We breathe the elements of love.
     Even while living on earth, it is not enough for us to eat food and drink water. Our earthly existence is only a shadow of our true self. Therefore, we should use this short time to cultivate a loving character. More than anything else, what we need during earthly life is love. We pity orphans, who have no parents to love them, because they do not receive the love that can connect them to the eternal spirit world. People without love are lonely, and we pity the single person who lives without a life companion.
     At death, we lose the organs of the body through which we breathed during our second life. Yet it is necessary that one day we should be released from the body, that we might inherit the elements of love, which are invisible. Therefore, during earthly life we should prepare for the day of death by cultivating our inner self; this is done through experiencing children’s love, sibling’s love, conjugal love and parental love.
     As a fetus in the womb grows healthy and strong in accordance with natural principles, people should grow well on earth by living in accordance with God’s law. Therefore, we should never live a casual lifestyle. (297:260, December 19, 1998)
 
Consider a dragonfly. First it swims in the water as a larva, next it crawls on the land for a short time, and then it flies, catching prey on the wing. It is an existence it could never imagine when it was a larva. Yet as it flies around, the entire world is its stage…
     Why don’t human beings, who are the lords of all creation, have wings? Is it enough that people live limited to the earth? Actually, we have higher-dimensional wings. Once you die and shed your physical body, you will fly. Death is a happy, joyful gate to the second birth. (297:261-62, December 19, 1998
 
 

This Perishable Nature Must Put on the Imperishable

WV Elections 2020:
Interview with Elliot Simon
Republican Candidate for WV House of Delegates-District 67

Luke 11

52 You teachers of the Law of Moses are really in for trouble! You carry the keys to the door of knowledge about God. But you never go in, and you keep others from going in.

Psalm 41

3 You always heal them
and restore their strength
    when they are sick.

The Passage Beyond

At the moment of death, the passage into the next life is a nearly impenetrable mystery. published accounts of near-death experiences by people who have been resuscitated from clinical death may give a clue. they report passing through a tunnel into another world, meeting a being of light, and feeling great warmth and accepting love. While these people did not, by definition, die, they may have experienced the first stage of the passage. Who can know how it ends?
     What can be known with some certainty is that there is survival after death. in fact, many people who die do not at first realize that they are dead, as they continue to experience themselves as conscious, sentient beings.
     Physical death is but a transition to a higher stage of existence. it is the putting on of a new body, like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Father Moon calls it a second birth, by analogy to the birth of an infant who must leave the comfortable world of the womb. as the womb nourished the fetus until birth, when it is destroyed and the baby leaves it for life on the earth, the physical body nourishes the soul until death, when it expires and the soul departs for life in the spirit world. hence there are three stages of life: in the water-world of the womb, in the air-world of earthly existence, and in the spirit world where we breathe an atmosphere of love.
     Therefore, death is not something to be feared. on the other side it is celebrated as the soul’s birthday. the chief issue is whether we have adequately prepared our soul with the spiritual faculties to exist comfortably in that world. there, nothing matters but one’s ability to love.

  1. The Second Birth

1. The Second Birth
For this perishable nature must put on the imper-
ishable, and this mortal nature must put on
immortality. When the perishable puts on the
imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality,
then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?”
1 Corinthians 15.53-55

 

One who identifies himself with his soul regards
bodily transmigration of his soul at death fear-
lessly, like changing one cloth for another.
Pujyapada, Samadhishataka 77 (Jainism)

Look upon life as a swelling tumor, a protruding
goiter, and upon death as the draining of a sore
or the bursting of a boil.
Chuang Tzu 6 (Taoism)

Have you seen the seed which you emit?
Is it you who create it, or are We the Creator?
We have decreed death to be your common lot,
and We are not to be frustrated from changing
your forms
and creating you again in forms that you know
not.
And you certainly know already the first form
of creation:
Why then do you not celebrate His praises?
Qur’an 56.58-62

There is birth, there is death, there is issuing
forth, there is entering in. That through which
one passes in and out without seeing its form—
that is the Portal of God.
Chuang Tzu 23 (Taoism)

The world beyond is as different from this world
as this world is different from that of the child
while still in the womb of its mother. When the
soul attains the Presence of God, it will assume
the form that best befits its immortality and is
worthy of its celestial habitation.
Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh 81
(Baha’i Faith)

The silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl
is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the foun-
tain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the
dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit
returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12.6-7

As a man passes from dream to wakefulness, so
does he pass from this life to the next.
     When a man is about to die, the subtle
body, mounted by the intelligent self, groans—
as a heavily laden cart groans under its burden.
     When his body becomes thin through old
age or disease, the dying man separates himself
from his limbs, even as a mango or a fig or a
banyan fruit separates itself from its stalk, and
by the same way that he came he hastens to his
new abode, and there assumes another body, in
which to begin a new life.
     When his body grows weak and he becomes
apparently unconscious, the dying man gathers
his senses about him and, completely withdrawing
their powers, descends into his heart. No more
does he see form or color without.
     He neither sees, nor smells, nor tastes. He
does not speak, he does not hear. He does not
think, he does not know. For all the organs,
detaching themselves from his physical body,
unite with his subtle body. Then the point of
his heart, where the nerves join, is lighted by
the light of the Self, and by that light he departs
either through the eye, or through the gate of
the skull, or through some other aperture of the
body. When he thus departs, life departs; and
when life departs, all the functions of the vital
principle depart. The Self remains conscious,
and, conscious, the dying man goes to his abode.
The deeds of this life, and the impressions they
leave behind, follow him.
      As a caterpillar, having reached the end of
a blade of grass, takes hold of another blade and
draws itself to it, so the Self, having left behind
it [a body] unconscious, takes hold of another
body and draws himself to it.
     As a goldsmith, taking an old gold
ornament, molds it into another, newer and
more beautiful, so the Self, having given up the
body and left it unconscious, takes on a new and
better form, either that of the Fathers, or that of
the Celestial Singers, or that of the gods, or that
of other beings, heavenly or earthly.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.34-4.4.4 (Hinduism)

Happy Are the Righteous to Whom God Reveals His Secrets in Dreams

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1 Corinthians 16

13 Keep alert. Be firm in your faith. Stay brave and strong. 14 Show love in everything you do.

Lamentations 1

21 Everyone heard my groaning,
    but no one offered comfort.
My enemies know of the trouble
that you have brought on me,
    and it makes them glad.
Hurry and punish them,
    as you have promised.

Dreams

Between this world and the next is the world of dreams. Not all dreams are spiritual, but some definitely are, and they are often the most vivid and memorable. During such a dream, the spirit leaves the body for a time and mounts up into the spirit world, where it experiences various phenomena. some of these are of God and convey meaningful messages. other dreams are encounters with low or evil spirits; these include nightmares, sexual dreams and the like. these passages describe the spiritual process of dreaming and give instructions on how to discern whether a dream is from God. through a dream God can reveal life-changing information and guidance, as he did to Jacob and Joseph in the bible. thus, paying attention to significant dreams is an important discipline of the religious life.

Jacob… came to a certain place, and stayed there
that night, because the sun had set. Taking one
of the stones of the place, he put it under his
head and lay down in that place to sleep. And
he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the
earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and
behold, the angels of God were ascending and
descending on it! And behold, the l ord stood
above it and said, “I am the l ord , the God of
Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the
land on which you lie I will give to you and to
your descendants… Behold, I am with you and
will keep you wherever you go, and will bring
you back to this land; for I will not leave you
until I have done that of which I have spoken
to you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and
said, “Surely the l ord is in this place; and I did
not know it.”
Genesis 28.10-16

When a man lies down in bed, his soul leaves
him and begins to mount on high, leaving with
the body only the impression of a receptacle
which contains the heartbeat. The rest of it tries
to soar from grade to grade, and in doing so it
encounters certain bright but unclean essences.
If the soul is pure and has not defiled itself by
day, it rises above them, but if not, it becomes
defiled among them and cleaves to them and
does not rise any further. There they show it
certain things which are going to happen in
the near future, and sometimes they delude her
and show it false things. Thus it goes about the
whole night until the man wakes up, when it
returns to its place.
Happy are the righteous to whom God
reveals His secrets in dreams, so that they may
be on their guard against sin! Woe to the sinners
who defile their bodies and their souls! As for
those who have not defiled themselves during
the day, when they fall asleep at night their souls
begin to ascend, and first enter those grades
which we have mentioned, but they do not
cleave to them and continue to mount further.
The soul thus privileged to rise finally appears
before the gate of the celestial palace, and
yearns with all its might to behold the beauty
of the King and to visit His sanctuary… Thus
it is written, “With my soul have I desired Thee
in the night (Isaiah 26:9),” to pursue after Thee
and not to be enticed away after false powers.
Zohar 1.83a (Judaism)

God takes the souls of men at death; and those
that die not He takes during their sleep. Those
on whom He has passed the decree of death He
keeps back, but the rest He returns to their bod-
ies for a term appointed. Verily in this are signs
for those who reflect.
Qur’an 39.42

While one is in the dream state, the golden,
self-luminous being, the Self within, makes the
body to sleep, though He Himself remains for-
ever awake and watches by his own light the
impressions of deeds that have been left upon
the mind. Thereafter, associating Himself again
with the consciousness of the sense organs, the
Self causes the body to awake.

While one is in the dream state, the golden, self-
luminous being, the Self within, the Immortal
One, keeps alive the house of flesh with the help
of the vital force, but at the same time walks
out of this house. The Eternal goes wherever He
desires.

The self-luminous being assumes manifold
forms, high and low, in the world of dreams. He
may seem to be enjoying the pleasure of love,
or laughing with friends, or looking at terrifying
sights. Everyone is aware of the experiences; no
one sees the Experiencer.

Some say that dreaming is but another form
of waking, for what a man experiences while
awake he experiences again in his dreams. Be
that as it may, the Self, in dreams, shines by Its
own light…

The Self, having in dreams enjoyed the pleasures
of sense, gone hither and thither, experienced
good and evil, hastens back to the state of
waking from which he started.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.11-16 (Hinduism)

Once upon a time, Chuang Tzu dreamed that
he was a butterfly, a butterfly fluttering about,
enjoying itself. It did not know that it was
Chuang Tzu. Suddenly he awoke with a start
and he was Chuang Tzu again. But he did not
know whether he was Chuang Tzu who had
dreamed that he was a butterfly, or whether he
was a butterfly dreaming that he was Chuang
Tzu. Between Chuang Tzu and the butterfly
there must be some distinction. This is what is
called the transformation of things.
Chuang Tzu 2 (Taoism)

If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord
make myself known to him in a vision, I speak
with him in a dream.
Numbers 12.6-7

God’s messenger said, “A believer’s vision is a
forty-sixth part of prophecy, and what pertains
to prophecy cannot be false.” He held that
visions were of three types: ideas which come
from within, terrifying dreams caused by the
devil, and good news from God; so when one
sees anything he dislikes he should not tell it to
anyone, but should get up and pray.
Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim (Islam)

The vision flutters over a man as long as it is not
interpreted, but when it is interpreted it settles.
Tell it only to one who loves him or one who has
judgment.
Hadith of Abu Dawud (Islam)

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream,
and there is no one who can interpret it; and
I have heard it said of you that when you hear
a dream you can interpret it.” Joseph answered
Pharaoh, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh
a favorable answer.” Then Pharaoh said to
Joseph, “Behold, in my dream I was standing
on the banks of the Nile; and seven cows, fat
and sleek, came up out of the Nile and fed in
the reed grass; and seven other cows came up
after them, poor and very gaunt and thin, such
as I had never seen in all the land of Egypt. And
the thin and gaunt cows ate up the first seven
fat cows, but when they had eaten them no one
would have known that they had eaten them,
for they were still as gaunt as at the beginning.
Then I awoke. I also saw in my dream seven ears
growing on one stalk, full and good; and seven
ears, withered, thin, and blighted by the east
wind, sprouted after them, and the thin ears
swallowed up the seven good ears. And I told
it to the magicians, but there was no one who
could explain it to me.”
Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dream
of Pharaoh is one; God has revealed to Pharaoh
what he is about to do. The seven good cows are
seven years, and the seven good ears are seven
years; the dream is one. The seven lean and
gaunt cows that came up after them are seven
years, and the seven empty ears blighted by the
east wind are also seven years of famine. It is
as I told Pharaoh, God has shown to Pharaoh
what he is about to do. There will come seven
years of great plenty throughout all the land of
Egypt, but after them there will arise seven years
of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten
in the land of Egypt; the famine will consume
the land, and the plenty will be unknown in the
land by reason of that famine which will follow,
for it will be very grievous. And the doubling of
Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by
God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.
Genesis 41.15-32

As We Live on Earth, So Shall We Live in Heaven

The Richard Urban Show #55
The Family Rooted in Absolute Sexual Ethics-Part 1 with Stacey Urban

WV Elections 2020:
Interview with Mary Ann Claytor-Democratic Candidate for Auditor

Matthew 14

13 After Jesus heard about John, he crossed Lake Galilee[b] to go to some place where he could be alone. But the crowds found out and followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw the large crowd. He felt sorry for them and healed everyone who was sick.

Ezekiel 45

45 When the land of Israel is divided among the twelve tribes, you must set aside an area that will belong to me. This sacred area will be eight miles long and six[a] miles wide. 2 The temple will be on a piece of land eight hundred forty feet square, and the temple will be completely surrounded by an open space eighty-four feet wide.

World Scripture and the Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

3. As We Live on Earth, So Shall We Live in Heaven

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

The value of your life is not determined after living it to the end. It is determined by the life that you live each day. (197:186, January 14, 1990)

A person cannot suddenly change his way of life in the other world. There is a saying that the habit of a three-year old continues until he turns eighty. Inborn personality is hard to change. Hence, spirit people cannot live very differently from the way they lived on earth. After all, the inhabitants of the spirit world are the souls of people who formerly lived on earth. From this perspective, the spirit world is not so different from the physical world. (141:268, March 2, 1986)

All the sensibilities of a spirit are cultivated through the reciprocal relationship with the physical self during earthly life. Therefore, only when a person reaches perfection and is totally immersed in the love of God while on earth can he fully delight in the love of God as a spirit after his death. All the qualities of the spirit self are developed while it abides in the physical self: Sinful conduct during earthly life aggravates evil and ugliness in the spirit of a fallen person, while the redemption of sins granted during earthly life opens the way for his spirit to become good. This was the reason Jesus had to come to the earth in the flesh to save sinful humanity. We must lead a good life while we are on the earth. Jesus gave the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter, who remained on the earth, and said, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” because the primary objective of the providence of restoration must be carried out on the earth. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Creation 6.3.2)

Is it easy or difficult to change your habits? Yet you have lived with selfish habits, according to the satanic world’s idea of right and wrong. These habits have congealed in you. They are stronger than the craving we Koreans have for kimchee.
Ever since the day Satan began his reign over humanity, people have been establishing self-centered habits and traditions. They are like a rotten root. How can we pull it out? You say you understand the Principle and know what to do. Yet try as you may to dig a hole and pull out that root, you cannot. It is taller than you are. It is so long that even if you were to stand at the top of a tree you cannot pull it out. Can you, nevertheless, loudly proclaim that you have pulled it out? This is a serious matter.
Do you have confidence to go to heaven? To go to heaven, you must have God-centered habits and tradition. (213:20, January 13, 1991)

How much you have lived for the Will of God throughout your life will determine your position in the spirit world. Therefore, you yourself know very well whether or not you can enter the heavenly realms. For what purpose did you eat and sleep, like and dislike, come and go? This will determine whether you can enter heaven. (Way of God’s Will 1.8)

The Kingdom of God, the hope of humanity, is composed according to the principle of living for the sake of others. Like it or not, you are destined to go to the spirit world. Everyone takes that journey according to his or her way of life. What is the fundamental issue in your life? It is whether you are living more for the sake of others or for yourself. If you lived more for the sake of others, you will go to the Kingdom of God. If the opposite is true, you will go to hell. You may be unable to believe this fundamental formula now, but once you die, you will understand. (74:51, November 27, 1974)