Daily Inspiration

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Numbers 10

¹¹ On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the covenant law. ¹² Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran. ¹³ They set out, this first time, at the Lord’s command through Moses.

Isaiah 1

⁷ Your country is desolate,
    your cities burned with fire;
your fields are being stripped by foreigners
    right before you,
    laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.
⁸ Daughter Zion is left
    like a shelter in a vineyard,
like a hut in a cucumber field,
    like a city under siege.
⁹ Unless the Lord Almighty
    had left us some survivors,
we would have become like Sodom,
    we would have been like Gomorrah.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 2

Truth and Universal Law

Beyond the Law

Laws define the path to God, yet the ideal of divine life in many religions is to live beyond all boundaries. Therefore, as much as the law is a teaching that liberates, it can also be a fetter. Paul, for example, contrasts the Mosaic Law, which educates but confines, with the liberating grace available through Jesus Christ. Fulfilling the obligations of the law cannot save, because they do not touch the deepest promptings of the mind, which are still engulfed in the endless conflict between good and evil. Laws, therefore, are at best of provisional value, a concession to sin. Moreover, in situations where earthly laws are flawed or abused, the conscience guides us to follow a higher law.
Beyond the law lies a higher relationship with the Absolute, where a person is free to do what he or she likes, confident that the promptings of the conscience are always in agreement with what God requires. However, life in the spirit should not be misconstrued as a license to sin. Even in a state of complete freedom, there are still heavenly standards and principles. All the same, a truly enlightened person is one with those principles and hence does not feel constrained by them.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it
upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. And no longer shall each
man teach his neighbor and each his brother, say-
ing, “Know the l ord ,” for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
Jeremiah 31.33-34

One who is rich in the enlightenment will not
indulge in any sinful action, since his conscience is
guided by the intellect fully illumined with Truth.
Acarangasutra 1.174 (Jainism)

No one born of God commits sin; for God’s
nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because
he is born of God.
1 John 3.9

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks
to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may
be held accountable to God. For no human being
will be justified in his sight by works of the law,
since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God has been man-
ifested apart from law, although the law and the
prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of
God through Jesus Christ for all who believe…
While we were living in the flesh, our sinful
passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our
members to bear fruit for death. But now we are
discharged from the law, dead to that which held
us captive, so that we serve not under the old
written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
Romans 3.19-22, 7.5-6

The man of superior virtue is not conscious of
his virtue,
and in this way he really possesses virtue.
The man of inferior virtue never loses sight of
his virtue,
and in this way he loses his virtue…
Therefore, only when Tao is lost does the
doctrine of virtue arise.
When virtue is lost, only then does the
doctrine of humanity arise.
When humanity is lost, only then does the
doctrine of righteousness arise.
When righteousness is lost, only then arise
rules of propriety.
Now, propriety is a superficial expression of
loyalty and faithfulness, and the beginning
of disorder.
Tao Te Ching 38 (Taoism)

People under delusion accumulate tainted mer-
its but do not tread the Path.
They are under the impression that to accu-
mulate merits and to tread the Path are one
and the same thing.
Though their merits for alms-giving and offer-
i ngs are infinite,
They do not realize that the ultimate source of
sin lies in the three poisons within their own
mind.
Sutra of Hui Neng 6 (Buddhism)

Finite and transient are the fruits of sacrifi-
cial rites. The deluded, who regard them as
the highest good, remain subject to birth and
death… Considering religion to be observance
of rituals and performance of acts of charity, the
deluded remain ignorant of the highest good.
Having enjoyed in heaven the reward of their
good works, they enter again into the world
of mortals. But wise, self-controlled, and tran-
quil souls, who are contented in spirit, and who
practice austerity and meditation in solitude and
silence, are freed from all impurity, and attain by
the path of liberation to the immortal, the truly
existing, the changeless Self.
Mundaka Upanishad 1.2.7-11 (Hinduism)

Subhuti, if you should conceive the idea that
anyone in whom dawns the Consummation of
Incomparable Enlightenment declares that all
manifest standards are ended and extinguished,
do not countenance such thoughts.
Diamond Sutra 27 (Buddhism)

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things
are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I
will not be enslaved by anything… The body is
not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and
the Lord for the body.
1 Corinthians 6.12-14