If God gave you ten years to fulfill such a responsibility, during those ten years you should offer your utmost loyalty and devotion. How can you shorten the period of restoring the children’s path that can illuminate history and make it a valuable path? To reduce a ten-year period scheduled by God to a seven-year course, you must invest your sweat, blood, effort, and toil. Without exerting greater quantity and quality of effort you cannot have dominion over the nation and world. Unification Church members must become people who can fulfill such responsibilities.
God is our ancestor and we are His grandchildren. Hence, when you say, “Please let this be so, as I am asking.” He will say “Yes.” He will not say “No.” Everything will come out alright with God. (162-143, 1987.4.5)
You, the young ones, are standing at the crossroads of good and evil. If you take one wrong step, you might fall into a steep and deep pit of death. Although it is difficult, take the step that will let you stand tall. Then you can be victorious princes and princesses who look out at the hope for a shining tomorrow that lies on the broad plane. Therefore, you need to watch each step. Be careful as you walk on the snow-covered road. (59:214, July 16, 1972)
The greater you become, the more you have to watch under your feet. The smaller you become, the more you have to look up to Heaven. (Way of God’s Will)
Be careful about the words you speak, be careful about what your eyes see, and be careful about the words you hear. Do not listen to self-centered remarks; do not look at selfish deeds; do not even talk to the person who lives selfishly; and do not make excuses for yourself. (93:319, June 12, 1977)
To be public means to live for the whole, and to be private means to live for the self. When you calmly evaluate yourself, you may find yourself in a quandary over what is public and what is private. Therefore, religion teaches fasting, suffering, modesty and humility, in order to restrain the body, which is inclined to be self-centered. (149:271, November 27, 1986)
Think once, twice and three times before you act. (93:320, June 12, 1977)
An unwarranted or improper statement can ruin your entire life. Hearing one unrighteous word can ruin your entire life. One wrong action can also ruin your life. Making a wrong friend can also lead you to ruin your life. Hence, many saints and sages have taught that we should be cautious about what we hear, say, and do, and about whom we take for friends. East or West, past or present, this philosophy is true.
On the other hand, one righteous, good statement at the opportune time can bring total, dramatic success to a life. Hearing the right things at the right moment can lead to a decision that will make an entire life successful. One right action at the right time can bring great success. It is the same with making a friend; for example, a sister here could go out to the street, meet a good man and have one conversation. That could be enough to initiate a friendship that leads to him becoming her husband. (91:29-30, January 2, 1977)
The road to misfortune does not ordinarily start from a major crisis. More often it is a trivial matter that opens the door to great unhappiness. It is hard to overcome even a small difficulty as long as your thinking is self-centered. Therefore, you should think twice about what you are doing. In analyzing great mistakes or serious crimes we invariably find that if the person had thought of the impact his actions would have on the well-being of others, he probably would not have committed such a blunder…
Particularly when we are faced with making an important decision, you are liable to choose the path to misfortune unless you stop to think twice before you act, to check whether your thinking is public or self-centered. Those who reason from selfishness are truly their own worst enemy. (93:298, June 12, 1977)
The fall of Adam and Eve was not the result of a planned failure that took one year or ten years. Their failure was brought forth in one moment, and that failure of a moment became the base for the corruption of the Kingdom that had been in preparation for millions of years. When we think about this, we realize how fearful one moment is.
Due to the failure of a single moment, people walking the religious path in every age have had to pay a price of great suffering. Numerous secular people too have been ruined by a single misstep of a moment. All their subsequent suffering became part of a tremendous sacrificial offering, for indemnity. When we understand this, every hour that we ordinarily live so casually becomes fearful, even a single second within that hour, and we want to exert ourselves to make it a success.
Every hour in your daily life is fearful, even each minute of every hour. Know how to struggle for every moment. For apart from one moment, Heaven cannot exist. (37:219, December 27, 1970)
If only Noah had been more prudent in the days after the flood, he would not have become drunk and lain naked. Would he have done such a thing if he had thought it over a bit more? With just a little more prudence and patience, he would not have allowed himself to get drunk. We can definitely say his mission would have succeeded if he had continued to be prudent. Likewise, when Abraham was making his offering, why did he only divide two of the three offerings and neglect to cut the birds? He would not have made the mistake if he had thought more carefully as he was arranging the offering. (99:39, August 27, 1978)
When Jacob was receiving his trial from Heaven, he never relaxed his mental vigilance for a moment. (3:337, February 9, 1958)
