Tag: eternal life

Leave the Dead to Bury Their Own Dead

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2121

If this is true with parents in the fallen world, how can we ever grow tired of giving and receiving God’s love in the essential world? When we establish the realm of God’s true objective partner in our own lives and understand the unchanging glory of true love for the first time, we will then be able to validate the logic of eternal life. In 1984, I was lying in bed alone unjustly incarcerated in prison in the United States, when God came and told me that I was the only person He could trust and that He wanted me to resolve the situation in Nicaragua. Am I really the only person God can come to with such a command? The United States is said to be a great country standing at the forefront of all developed countries. It has a population of 240 million and innumerable religious leaders. How wretched God must have been that He could not go to any of those people but had to come to me. Yet as God knows how to find people who have a great love for humanity, He came to me, who had been worrying about the world day and night. Had I not already established the Washington Times, and extended help at that time, South America would have fallen into ideological chaos

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1086

As buds, you have not yet bloomed. Do not become wicked like those who write love letters and have illicit love relationships. You should blossom naturally. When God sees you, He should be able to exclaim, “Oh! You have blossomed purely and naturally. Since I can smell the fragrance, I can tell that you are a virgin.” In this case, God feels so much hope. Does God want something pure or something damaged? What about you, then? Do you want something pure or something damaged? Even fallen men want to have something pure. Would God not value that even more?

Eternal Life

For many the goal of religion is immortality or eternal life. People have always chafed under the limitations of mortality, and have found in religion the means to transcend the death which seems to proscribe the possibilities of human existence. As with resurrection, eternal life is not simply about the survival of the soul at death and its journey into the afterlife. Eternal life is not about eternal existence per se, but rather about the quality of that existence.
We find that the scriptures of many religions give two meanings to the terms “life” and “death.” there is physical life—existence on this earthly plane, and there is spiritual life—the state of blessedness which endures from life to life and transcends death. There is physical death—the dropping of the body which is an event in the voyage of every soul, and spiritual death—the condition of distance from God, ignorance, and a hellish existence in the hereafter.
“Eternal life” and “immortality” are thus ciphers to describe the condition of blessedness. this condition is present already in the physical life of the person who realizes truth or lives in God’s grace, and it will continue, unabated, in the hereafter. The person who gains eternal life has accomplished the goal of life, and hence death is not to be feared as a limitation, as it is for a worldly person who has tied all hopes to his possessions and pleasures in the world. We note, however, that Buddhist scriptures generally avoid speaking of this state of blessedness as eternal life, for Buddhism views the desire for life as a kind of grasping, and hence a fetter to liberation. instead, they speak of Nirvana.
Father Moon’s teaches that eternal life is rooted in our relationship with the eternal God, based upon God’s love for us and our love for God. “eternity does not exist apart from true love,” he states. Then he expands upon this concept to describe the relationship between human lovers as aspiring for the eternal. this is so because we human beings are designed for eternal life, eternal love with God, and eternal community with the ones we love under God.

1. Eternal Life in God

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
    John 3.16
 
He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
    John 11.25-26
 
Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, they are the best of creatures. Their reward is with God: Gardens of Eternity, beneath which rivers flow; they will dwell therein for ever; God well pleased with them, and they with Him; all this for such as fear their Lord and Cherisher.
    Qur’an 98.7-8
 
The Supreme Being does not die; I will there-fore not die.
    Akan Proverb (African Traditional Religions)
 
Being in accord with Tao, he is everlasting.
    Tao Te Ching 16 (Taoism)
 
Where one sees nothing but the One, hears nothing but the One, knows nothing but the One—there is the Infinite. Where one sees another, hears another, knows another—there is the finite. The Infinite is immortal; the finite is mortal.
 
It is written, He who has realized eternal Truth does not see death, nor illness, nor pain; he sees everything as the Self, and obtains all.
    Chandogya Upanishad 7.23, 27 (Hindusm)
 
Those who are free from desire are free because all their desires have found fulfillment in the Self. They do not die like the others; but realizing Brahman, they merge in Brahman. So it is said: When all the desires that surge in the heart
Are renounced, the mortal becomes immortal.
When all the knots that strangle the heart
Are loosened, the mortal becomes immortal,
Here in this very life.
    Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.6-7 (Hinduism)
 
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
    Romans 6.23
 
From the unreal lead me to the Real!
From darkness lead me to light!
From death lead me to immortality!
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28 (Hinduism)
 
Higher than this is Brahman, the Supreme, the
Great.
Hidden in all things, body by body,
The One embracer of the universe—
By knowing Him as Lord men become
immortal.
I know this mighty Person
Of the color of the sun, beyond darkness.
Only by knowing Him does one pass over
death.
There is no other path for going there.
Than whom there is nothing else higher,
Than whom there is nothing smaller, nothing
greater,
The One stands like a tree established in
heaven.
By Him, the Person, this whole world is filled.
That which is beyond this world
Is without form and without ill.
They who know That, become immortal;
But others go only to sorrow.
    Svetasvatara Upanishad 3.7-10 (Hindusm)
 
The supreme stage of the Soul is free from birth, old age and death; he is supreme, pure, and devoid of eight karmas; he possesses infnite knowledge, intuition, bliss, and potency; he is indivisible, indestructible, and inexhaustible. Besides, he is supersensuous and unparalleled, is free from obstructions, merit, demerit, and rebirth, and is eternal, steady, and independent.
    Kundakunda, Niyamasara 176-77 (Jainism)
 
“For the living know that they shall die” (Ecc. 9.5): these are the righteous who in their death are called living… “but the dead know nothing”: these are the wicked who in their lifetime are called dead.
    Talmud, Berakot 18ab (Judaism)
 
Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
    Luke 9.60
 
 

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)❖
 
 
 
 
 

Improve Your Time While in This Life

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 2233

The depth of true love incorporates
everything, going all the way back to the
beginning – when God was born. You
have no idea how deep it is! It started at
the very origin of His existence. Even
after a lifetime, we can never get there,
and even after going to the next world,
we will continue developing toward that
goal for eternity. So it is inconceivable
that husbands and wives would fight
and separate from each other.

Cheong Seong Gyeong 1378

To the extent that all the 30,000 Cou-
ples stood on an equal footing at the
time of their Blessing, the True Parents
assumed the responsibility of elevating
all humankind to a liberated position.
Anyone can be included in the Blessing
as long as they have attended a seven-
day workshop; pledged to convert their
lineage, right of ownership and realm
of heart; and understood that human
beings fell and that through the Bless-
ing, the True Parents can indemnify
all of human history and liberate them.
(249-248, 1993.10.10)
Richard: Learn more about the Blessing. (opens new tab)

The Passage Beyond

2.First Moments in the Afterlife

The body which you have now is called the
thought-body of propensities. Since you do not
have a material body of flesh and blood, what-
ever may come—sounds, lights, or rays—are, all
three, unable to harm you; you are incapable of
dying. It is quite sufficient for you to know that
these apparitions are your own thought-forms.
Recognize this to be the Bardo (the intermedi-
ate state after death).
Tibetan Book of the Dead (Buddhism)

When the soul departs from this world she
knows not by what path she will be made to
travel; for it is not granted to all souls to ascend
by the way that leads to the realm of radiance
where the choicest souls shine forth. For it is the
path taken by man in this world that determines
the path of the soul on her departure. Thus, if a
man is drawn towards the Holy One, and is filled
with longing for Him in this world, the soul in
departing from him is carried upward towards
the higher realms by the impetus given her each
day in this world.
Zohar 1.99a-b (Judaism)

If we do not improve our time while in this life,
then comes the night of darkness wherein there
can be no labor performed. You cannot say,
when you are brought to that awful crisis, that
I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay,
you cannot say this; for that same spirit which
possesses your bodies at the time that you go out
of this life, that same spirit will have power to
possess your body in that eternal world.
Book of Mormon, Alma 34.33-35 (Latter-day Saints)

Those who remember me at the time of death
will come to me. Do not doubt this. Whatever
occupies the mind at the time of death deter-
mines the destiny of the dying; always they
will tend toward that state of being. Therefore,
remember me at all times…
Remembering me at the time of death, close
down the doors of the senses and place the
mind in the heart. Then, while absorbed in
meditation, focus all energy upwards towards the
head. Repeating in this state the divine Name,
the syllable OM that represents the changeless
Brahman, you will go forth from the body and
attain the supreme goal. 16
Bhagavad-Gita 8.5-7, 12-13 (Hinduism)

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

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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
 
 

The Universe is an Expansion of the Family

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 441

What is the universe? It is an expan-
sion of the family. If you look at a fam-
ily that has completely realized the ideal
of family love, it has a top, middle and
bottom (parents, husband and wife, and
children), left and right, and front and
back. This is the principle. So when we
talk about top and bottom we mean the
parents and children, when we talk about
left and right we mean the husband and
wife, and when we talk about front and
back we mean the brothers and sisters.
Through what do they all become one? It
doesn’t happen through power, knowl-
edge or money. Then what can bring
it about? It is love. This is an absolute
truth. Otherwise the sphere cannot be
formed. Then what are the top, middle
and bottom in our family? They are a
textbook of love. They are a textbook of
love through which we can encounter
universal love. Go out into society and
put it into practice. How should we love?
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as your-
self.” How should we follow this teach-
ing? We are not sure. When you go out
into the world and meet a grandfather,
treat him as your own grandfather. Treat
people like your own mothers, like your
own fathers or like your own sons. When
you go out into the world you should all
live like this. The people of the top, mid-
dle and bottom, front and back, and left
and right are all displayed in the exhibi-
tion hall of the world. You should know
that the world is an exhibition of people.
If you can love everyone with such love,
God will dwell in the midst of that love.
(128-22, 1983.5.29)

Cheong Seong Gyeong 1300

The Blessed Families that are unit-
ed with my family make up a new tribe.
As time progresses, they will grow in
number and form a new race. Further
expansion will bring forth a new nation,
and finally a new world. In other words,
a new race, the race of the third Israel
will be formed. For example, it is part
of the work of the Unification Church
to enable Japanese people to become
those who will inherit the new realm
of the lineage of God, instead of merely
remaining as those who inherit the lin-
eage of their historical Japanese ances-
tors. (22-197, 1969.2.2)

The Passage Beyond

  1. The Second Birth

The Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

It is natural to want to resemble God, and for God to want His children to resemble Him. Therefore, there should be a way for God to bring us to where He is. It is inevitable that humans should be reborn as beings that resemble God. Both God and human beings look forward to that day of our rebirth. How does that happen? Through death.
     Then, shouldn’t human beings welcome death? We die to experience God’s true love. Discarding the physical body enables us to participate in the infinite realm of God’s activity, and contribute to the world of God’s love.
     Death is to be born in the midst of God’s love! Yet earthly people grieve over death. Does this make God laugh or cry? You should understand that death is the moment of your second birth. It is a joyful moment when you leave the finite realm of love and enter the infinite realm of love.
     On which day is God happier, the day of your physical birth or the day when you are born as God’s son or daughter to live and love in the infinite world? Why am I saying this? Unless you are liberated from the fear of death, you cannot establish a relationship with God. (116:172, January 1, 1982)
 
Humans grow through three stages: formation, growth and completion. Likewise, they pass through three different worlds: the water world where they float in the mother’s womb, the earth world where they walk, and the air world where they can fly. Hence, we live three lives: 10 months in the womb, 100 years of life on earth, and eternal life in the spirit world. (297:257, December 19, 1998)
 
While in the womb you breathed through the umbilical cord. Meanwhile, your nostrils, a pipeline to the air, were being prepared so that you could breathe after you were born into the physical world. Likewise, while you live in the earthly world, what should you do to prepare for the next? You should experience love. You should breathe the ‘air’ of love from your father and mother. As you grow, you should pass through all the stages of love as a sibling, husband and wife, parent and grandparent.
     The moment you were born, your life was destined to end. When it does, the body will be dissolved. Then, just as you were born as an infant, on the day you die you will experience a new birth as an infant.
     What happens in that birth? You are pushed out of the world of the second womb and connected to the breathing organ for your third life, to breathe love. You are pushed out of the womb, a world where you experienced the love of your parents and siblings, to enter a new world of love where you will harmonize with the original Being, the God of the great universe.
     The spirit world is filled with the air of love. The air of love! That is why, while you live on earth, you should be installing that pipeline you will depend upon to breathe love. Know that if you have spiritual experiences and feel spiritual love—if you are able to breathe the air of love—you shall not die. (139:213-14, January 31, 1986)
 
We cannot remember how difficult it was for our mother to give birth to us. Why did God make birthing so difficult? Why isn’t it as easy as speaking or eating? The reason why God made giving birth a life-risking experience for the mother is because He wants her to see His radiant love.
     In electricity, there is something called a current spike. The instant a switch is turned on, a twenty or thirty-fold burst of electricity flows through the circuit. By the same token, the moment when human beings are desperate, they generate an explosive amount of energy. A mother gives birth a death-like state with her eyes popping out, as if heaven and earth were being destroyed. Then the baby utters its first loud cry, and her eyes open wide; she totally forgets her pain. Having given birth in such pain, the mother naturally loves her child more than anything.
     How difficult is it to be born? The amniotic sack that was our home breaks. The placenta that had nourished us is cast off. Yet these events are not disastrous; they are rather fortunate, for the sake of our happiness. Yet we do not realize that it was a new beginning of life until after the birth was over…
     Again the time comes, after living our earthly life, to kick away from this physical plane and depart for a new world. Nevertheless, as a fetus does not want to leave the safety of its mother’s womb, we would rather continue to live on earth. We do not want to die. Death comes, and once again we go through a big tumult.
     Yet we will be born into the spirit world, an infinite world. We will escape from the bounds of time and space, able to travel instantly from one end of the spirit world to the other, faster than the speed of light. (107:42, January 20, 1980)