What kind of a place would the original nation be? It would not be a place where evil dwells. Instead, it would be an eternal and unified world, centering upon the overflowing, original love. People would be completely free from evil, and they would sing in happiness forever and ever. Has there ever been anyone who lived in such a place? Not even one person has dwelled there. Though many people pursued such a nation through-out the course of history, such a world has not yet been established on earth. There were many who could describe that world with words, but not one of them ever succeeded in actually establishing it. (18-102, 1967.5.28)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 746
According to the Principle, indemnity is not accomplished in a short time. For this reason, if B, the second chosen person, does not indemnify, the next person C is chosen for coming again. So eventually, Paul will have returned through C. If B were to leave a message or were to do something, he would say that he is working with Paul’s assistance now. Likewise, C in the next age will also say in the message that he is working with Paul’s assistance and that he is even Paul himself. This way, it looks as if Paul’s spirit appeared in B and again in C around the world.
Richard: God’s providence is carried out over time; sometimes long periods of time. Our righteous ancestors and those we are associated with will attempt to help us spiritually, provided we make the necessary efforts. The above passage is talking about the principle of returning resurrection, where a spirit descends to assist someone on earth in carrying out God’s providence.
Individual Responsibility
4. Public Responsibility Begins with Personal Responsibility
If anyone sincerely considers the affairs of the world as their own personal responsibilities, they should start by righting the wrongs of the ruler’s mind. If they wish to right the ruler’s mind they should start with themselves.
Chu Hsi (Confucianism)
The ancients who wished to manifest their clear character to the world would first bring order to their states. Those who wished to bring order to their states would first regulate their families. Those who wished to regulate their families would first cultivate their personal lives. Those who wished to cultivate their personal lives would first rectify their minds. Those who wished to rectify their minds would first make their wills sincere… From the Emperor down to the common people, all must regard cultivation of the personal life as the root or foundation. There is never a case when the root is in disorder and yet the branches are in order.
The Great Learning (Confucianism)
Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church?
1 Timothy 3.2-5
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
People who do not love their nation cannot love God. Those who do not love their parents cannot love their nation. Further, those who do not love themselves cannot love their parents. Therefore, to be able to love your parents, love your nation, love the world, and love God, you must first love yourself.
That is why I teach, “Before you desire to have dominion over the universe, you must first have dominion over yourself.” You have to first establish that foundation in yourself to be a subject partner who can embody and give boundless love. Otherwise you are not adequate to love your family, your nation or the world; neither can you perfectly love God. That is what is meant by fully loving yourself. (22:97-98, January 26, 1969)
If you become responsible for an area, then you have to believe that all the hardship and struggle is your own, and without you, matters would not be resolved. You must be responsible for it all by yourself. (14:259, January 1, 1965)
Be a man who can respect his own character. You should be able to hold your head high before all things, knowing that they respect you. Then you can say, “Follow my example.” (Way of God’s Will 2.2)
The path of God, who has been paving the way of the tradition of love, is one full of suffering. We have to walk this path because we are to inherit the tradition God has been establishing. I don’t enjoy watching you suffer. You should keep in mind that God has been preparing with painful efforts and devotion to bless you unconditionally. Glory comes only when you receive the inheritance in that place. Isn’t this so? Glory comes only when you inherit from your enemy. God dwells there. Since it has been spread through the cross, it must be reaped by going the way of the cross again. You should know this. Since it was spread through suffering, it must be reaped through suffering. (150-209, 1961.2.15)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1265
The hope of humankind is to meet true parents. Even when you are walking the path of death, you desire to meet true parents. Even if you lost all of past history, all the ages, and all of your descendants, if you were to meet true parents, you would regain history, the ages, and the future. You should understand that this is what true parents are able to do.
Individual Responsibility
3. A Responsible Person Digests Life’s Circumstances without Complaint
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
The problem here is myself, not anything else. Nevertheless, you complain about the world. When you say, “The world is going to ruin,” it means you think, “I am not in trouble, but the world in which I live is in trouble.” You blame the world for every problem while commending yourself for every good thing. This way of thinking is the problem. You do not understand what is wrong with you, yet you complain about what is wrong with the world.(140:25, February 1, 1986)
Regardless of whether a problem stemmed from your father or your grandfather, put them all on your list. Then, put your life on the line to save your ancestors, for it is Heaven’s will that their problems have come to you. With that, get rid of all the blemishes from the past and build a bridge to the new heaven and earth. (310:126, June 15, 1999)
Hundreds of thousands of years of history are coalesced in you. You exist on the foundation of many countries and the sacrifices of billions of people. You are composed of all their resurrected cells; they exist in you. Therefore, if you fail to fulfill your responsibility, your ancestors and the world will suffer on your account. (124:78, January 23, 1983)
However, when you overcome all difficulties and become a victor, it polishes a glorious path for your descendants to follow because you, their ancestor, once walked it. (98:213, August 1, 1978)
As an individual, each one of us is a product of the history of the providence of restoration. Hence, the person who is to accomplish the purpose of history is none other than I, myself. I must take up the cross of history and accept responsibility to fulfill its calling. To this end, I must fulfill in my lifetime (horizontally), through my efforts, the indemnity conditions which have accumulated through the long course of the providence of restoration (vertically). Only by doing this can I stand proudly as the fruit of history, the one whom God has eagerly sought throughout His providence. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Restoration 3)
Unificationists have set the standard on the level of an individual, a people and a nation. Now we have to mobilize all the people in every nation of the world. We must seek the day of freedom, equality and happiness, as well as the day of the restoration of our homeland. Inevitably we must go this way, though it is difficult. This is my perspective and the standard that God is seeking. It was this standard that Jesus was trying to establish up until the time of his death.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 2077
The women must take charge of the soldiers of the North Korean regime. The women must take charge of the devils of this earth. In that way, the men can defeat the devils in spirit world. We need to employ a twofold strategy. The spies of North Korea come here and live under the protection of the women. They live within the bosom of a woman. The men might not want this to happen, but the women keep them hidden. In order to breakthrough this treachery we need the tong ban breakthrough activities. Now you understand many things.
Individual Responsibility
3. A Responsible Person Digests Life’s Circumstances without Complaint
He who knows himself well never complains against others. He who knows his fate well never complains against Heaven. He who complains against others will find no way out. He who complains against Heaven will lose his will. The failure is caused by himself, yet he shifts blame to others. Is not such a man foolish?
Hsün Tzu (Confucianism)
Ambrosia can be extracted even from poison; elegant speech even from a child; good conduct even from an enemy, gold even from impurity.
Laws of Manu 2.239 (Hinduism)
The word of the Lord came to me again, “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, says the Lord god, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine, the soul that sins shall die…”
Yet you say, “Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself… Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord god.
Ezekiel 18.1-30
There are certain recluses and brahmins who teach thus: Whatsoever weal or woe or neutral feeling is experienced, all is due to some previous action… Then I say to them, “So then, owing to a previous action, men will become murderers, thieves, unchaste, liars, slanderers, abusive, babblers, covetous, malicious, and perverse in view. Those who fall back on a former deed as the essential reason [for their behavior] there is neither desire nor effort nor necessity to do this deed or abstain from that deed. So then, the necessity for action or inaction not being found to exist in truth and verity, the term ‘recluse’ cannot reasonably be applied to yourselves, since you live in a state of bewilderment with faculties unguarded.
Others teach thus: Whatsoever weal or woe or neutral feeling is experienced, all that is due to the creation [predestination] of a Supreme Deity… Then I say to them, “So then, owing to the creation of a Supreme Deity, men will become murderers, thieves, unchaste… Those who fall back on the creation of a Supreme Deity as the essential reason [for their behavior] there is neither desire nor effort nor necessity to do this deed or abstain from that deed. So then, the necessity for action or inaction not being found to exist in truth and verity, the term ‘recluse’ cannot reasonably be applied to yourselves, since you live in a state of bewilderment with faculties unguarded.
Anguttara Nikaya 1.173-74
(Buddhism)
Confucius remarked, “In the practice of archery we have something resembling the principle in a moral man’s life. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure within himself.”
Doctrine of the Mean 14 (Confucianism)
An individual natively desires to be cause. He tries not to become a bad effect.
You try to help people and people try to help you because you and they want to be cause. When something bad happens, neither one wishes to be cause.
You want to be an effect. Then you find the effect bad. You try not to be an effect. And then you blame something or somebody.
The Unification Church made the Jardim Declaration. I have announced the second forty-year course. We are restoring Eden, which means that we have returned to Eden. We must go back to Eden and establish a standard of equilibrium for God’s absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience. That is why, in Jardim, I proclaimed the standard of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience. By doing so, I can take care of the entire world and all of creation before the Fall, which were created on the foundation of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience, and have access to it within the same sphere. That is why I am educating people in Jardim.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 440
When you stand in the world of space, you need top and bottom, left and right, and front and back. Only then is the status of your position stable. Your shape will vary depending on the position in which you stand: top and bottom, left and right, front and back. When dealing with matters that concern the relationships of top and bottom, left and right, front and back, and also problems in the family, nation and world, there is only one solution. Just as there has to be top and bottom, left and right, and front and back with the individual at the center, there also have to be parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters.
Richard: We will be hosting family education programs at the new Peace Kingdom Family Education Center in Harpers Ferry WV.
Individual Responsibility
2. Responsibility Is God’s Gift and Provision to Human Beings
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Genesis 2.15-17
For of course, no one would dare to believe or declare that it was beyond God’s power to prevent the fall of either angel or man. But, in fact, God preferred not to use His own power, but to leave success or failure to the creature’s choice.
Saint Augustine, City of God 14.27 (Christianity)
Rabbi Akiba said: Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. But it was by a special love that it was made known to him that he was created in the image of God; as it is taught, “For in the image of God made He man.” (Gen. 9.6)8
Mishnah, Avot 3.18 (Judaism)
Everything is in the hand of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.
Talmud, Berakot 33b (Judaism)
Satan… came before me, saying, “Behold, here am I; send me, I will be Thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that not one soul shall be lost. Surely I will do it; therefore give me my honor.”But my Beloved Son, who was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said to me, “Father, Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever.”Therefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him… I caused that he should be cast down; and he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.
Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4.1-4 (Latter-day Saints)
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
To bring about the perfection of humankind in true love, God required that human beings accomplish a condition of responsibility in order to reach unity with Him. For this purpose, God gave the Commandment to the first ancestors. God knew that they were in the growth period, as yet imperfect, so He established the Commandment as the condition for His children to inherit the most precious thing—true love. (277:197, April 16, 1996)
God gave human beings a portion of responsibility as the condition based on which He could love them more than any other being in creation. God’s intention in giving this condition was to make them worthy to be the lords of creation by having them take after His creative nature. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Predestination 4)
Because human beings have a portion of responsibility, they have supreme value, greater than any other creation. If Adam and Eve fulfilled their portion of responsibility, then there would be no such thing as bitterness in human life.10 Had they fulfilled their portion of responsibility, then the human world, the angelic world, and the entire creation would have received God’s governance with rejoicing and glory. That is the Principle. (63:320, October 22, 1972)
Why did God establish a portion of responsibility in our lives? As the omniscient and omnipotent Creator, God wanted to bequeath His omniscient and omnipotent creativity to us. As the Subject Partner of eternal and unchanging love, God wanted to establish us in a position where we could resemble Him as the Subject Partner of love. For these reasons, God gave us a portion of responsibility.
Hence, the human portion of responsibility is a condition for God’s blessing. It is like the key to a treasure-chest which, when opened, gives us possession of everything. Yet it was this portion of responsibility that became an issue in bringing about the Human Fall. (20:210, June 9, 1968)
If God were to interfere with human actions during their growing period, it would be tantamount to ignoring the human portion of responsibility. In that case, God would be disregarding His own Principle of Creation… [For this reason,] God did not intervene in the acts that led the human beings to fall. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 6.1
