Belvedere
Translator - Sang Kil Han
The literal translation of the topic this morning means "experience in the realm of heart and blood." The closest one can get in meaning to this in English is "experience," but that word does not convey the meaning of elation or deep sorrow. Perhaps the closest translation, then. would be "religious experience" for "experience of heart and blood." This means a life of experience directly connected with tears and sorrow.
How wonderful it would be if we all had one language! Language plays a very important role in connecting the inner world with the outer world. What is the origin of the words we speak? When we trace our ancestry back, we eventually come to God. Why is language necessary? Language is necessary to improve our general situation. There must be some focal point or purpose for speaking, so what word would the words themselves like most? Literature students analyze the words and contents of literary works, and prefer certain writers, but what would the real center of the words be? We can narrow it down to words that have to do with the mind, in making it happy and fulfilled.
What is it that can excite the mind? We find that nothing else but love is adequate to stimulate it. Especially in the Orient, we say that words and deeds must be one; then when words are spoken, they can really excite the mind. The conclusion is that if we speak words that have to do with love, our actions must also center around love.
What does the self like most? If a person takes joy in acting according to love, then we can say he is a person who represents the past, present and future. Then he can move freely everywhere, whether on earth or in spirit world. Where would our five senses like to be? If the center of action is love, our five senses would like to be there.
Who is a fortunate person, and who do we call unfortunate? One common criterion is whether someone has money and doesn't have to work very hard. Another criterion might be whether he has knowledge, or political power. But happiness must have some focal point; most confidently we can say that the focal point is love. This is true not just for people of the 20th century; everyone has come to the same conclusion about this.
If God created man to be this way, what would God be like? Exactly the same. We know it must be true that unless God finds love then He can never be happy. After we consider every angle, we cannot avoid reaching this conclusion. Though God is omnipotent and almighty, without love He cannot be truly happy. Who must come into being for that to happen? That's where His object, or "I" comes in.
When we think of God, we think of spirit world and eternity, of not needing air to breathe and food to eat. There is a nose on your face specifically for you to breathe with. Would God need a nose to do that? If God doesn't need to eat or breathe, imagine God without ears or a nose, and so forth. Then we couldn't speak about God by likening Him to beautiful things which we experience, by saying His eyes are as blue as a lake, for instance or as soft as a doves. Could you come to like a God who didn't have five senses?
We don't think God is great in the same way that we might think someone else is great; when we say God is greater than we are, we mean He is greater in love. Again, the standard of measurement is love. What is the realm of heart? It is the realm into which everything fits. in which everything is included. Shim jung means mind and love, or heart, so wherever our mind is moved, that is the realm of heart.
Does it just take a lot of force and concentration to generate electricity? What does it take? A battery or generator is needed. If you have difficulty understanding the realm of heart, think this way. The circuit is already wired up. and all that is needed is for the switch to be turned so the current can flow.
The realm of heart is where the electricity of God's love can flow freely and excite everything. [if you stick your fingers into an electrical outlet, you certainly will feel something! The experience of feeling God's electricity in the realm of heart is like such a shock. Do you think it is painful, or ecstatic and joyful? God's electricity can flow anywhere. A strange characteristic of electricity is that if there is a plus somewhere then a minus will appear, as though out of nowhere, and become an object to it. The two don't have to be brought together; if a plus is there, a minus is already there. Then what is God? He is an absolute plus for love. Man is a negative terminal in the electricity of love.
The earth is a good conductor of electricity. If you connect a terminal to the ground, electricity will very quickly travel out from it. God is a subject of love and like electricity travels through all the earth, His love travels through all mankind. If you raise your radio antenna high, it picks up more radio waves. Man also wants to raise his antenna higher to gather the electricity of God's love. Each of you has an antenna, with some of them very high, and others so short that they catch a minimum of electricity. Some radios don't work very well, while others are sensitive. When you have sensitive receivers in the world of love, do you feel good or bad? You feel great because you can pick up all kinds of electricity.
Imagine a radio which can generate its own power, as well as receive signals. If you are such a radio of love, where plus and minus have a reciprocal relationship, then immediately all parts of the realm of heart will be connected. Then you can go anywhere; then there is nothing you don't know because you only have to think and then you know everything. This is why God is called omnipotent and almighty. He can-do everything because He is already connected to all creation. Because man can catch all kinds of waves from Him, God can go everywhere through man.
In love, you come to have the feeling that if you are elated, then the whole universe is elated as well. Wouldn't that power be strong enough to draw God's attention? How wonderful it is! This is why we need heart. Shim jung really refers to the focus and center of heart, the direct contact point with God Himself.
A piece of iron is cold and has no power, but if a magnet is nearby then the iron will be drawn to it. When man is alone, he is like the iron, but when God's heart is nearby, he is very different. A man might be so dull that people wonder why he is living, but if a beautiful woman comes nearby, something really agitates him! The same happens to the woman; she is ready to come into contact. Certainly we need the magnet and electricity of love. Does anyone think he can live without it?
Does the plus part of electricity flow into the minus part, or vice versa? The minus goes to the plus. In the same way, we are meant to live and love for the sake of others-in other words, we are meant to give everything for the plus. Then that circuit of love is completed, and everything you give will come back around again. In that case what you are getting is electricity of love from God Himself. If you empty yourself completely, then something else will fill you, such as God's love. If this doesn't happen then all the balance and harmony of the universe will be broken down. The recent dramatic developments in electronics and communications are just a shadow of what God's world is really like.
If we know the air is filled with radio waves we cannot see, then we can understand how in God's world the air is filled completely with the electricity of love. Once a circuit is complete, electricity can do many things; if today's electronic communication is just a shadow of what God's world is like, then we know that nothing is impossible in God's love. Then it is also clear that a spirit world must exist.
If we experience God's love for a time while we still have a physical body, then in spirit world we will continue in the same intensity of experience. The spirit world is full of the electricity of love. You know that at the flip of a switch all the buildings in New York could be lighted instantly. Heaven comes on earth when all the lights are lit to their brightest, and heaven in spirit world is where all the lights are love, and they are all fully lit.
If your subject of love moves, you don't have to reason or think-you automatically move with it. The air of spirit world is love, and so in spirit world you cannot help wanting to love everyone, wanting to have banquets to invite everyone to. Such a thing can happen instantly, at just the thought of it. What do you eat in spirit world? The food of love. In love, the more you look, the more you want to look. The more you listen, the more you want to listen. You would never tire of it. Dullness and tiredness have no place there. How could you be tired when there is so much excitement? If you are full of happiness, could you sleep if you were told to?
You would want to give much love to others, and thus to present yourself in a beautiful way, so you would want to have big jewels. God has everything. It's not that we need to own these things; when we complete the circuit of love, God gives us what He has. Some people say I am a dreamer, but if I have logic and reason to back up what I say, I am actually a realist. If there is a possibility that I am right, then this is worth trying. With this expectation, we will try and see what happens. There is no question that you are already hooked by my thought!
The truth is that spirit world is full of the electricity of God's love. Though people on earth don't understand that, still their focus is love; somehow they want to have love. That is because, even without knowing it, they want to be in unison with the eternal world. Their actions still come under that dominion.
Sometimes you see me in dreams and visions, don't you? When you turn your radio to a certain frequency, you pick up a signal. If you are on the same frequency as God's love then naturally you pick up a sharp sound or image, just like on television. The simplest way to make that happen is to forget yourself, to become like a pure metal in which the electricity can flow without resistance. Gold is an excellent conductor because it allows electricity to pass without any resistance, so no power is lost. Gold is purified by being melted in such extreme heat that all impurities are burned away. We make ourselves into pure gold by being put in the hot furnace to burn out our impurities.
When a person is continuously doing hard work, he doesn't think about himself any longer. You have reached your objective once you reach a certain point, but you don't know ahead of time where that point is. Thus, many people try, but then decide that they have tried hard enough and can't make it. A person can become famous in the world by working for his own selfish goals, but in a religious life we have more difficulty. Difficulty is only meaningful until you reach a certain point, however; once you go beyond that point, everything is much easier and you don't have to try so hard. We can compare it to gravity: the farther away from earth you go, the less you weigh; once you are completely beyond earth's gravity, you are weightless. Once we are beyond gravity, we can go anywhere, even to where God is.
It makes sense that the fantastic era of space and electronics is developing so extensively now. According to Principle, the Cain-side imitation always comes first, and now that the Abel side age is developing, these technical advances are to be expected. I am the one who started talking about love in terms of outer space and electronics, so I feel I am also the ancestor of these external developments.
My topic is experience of heart, mind and blood. How do we experience things deeply? We must be pure and without resistance, always developing a loving mind. The solution is to be loving, and also trying to open your mind to receive love. Unhappiness is not being able to give and receive love, even though you want to. Happiness is being able to receive love when you want to, and being able to give love when you will. This is how man was originally made and he wouldn't have had to be taught it, but because of the fall man has had to reason this out. You find yourselves having to hear sermons to understand it.
Man is a broken radio with defective circuits. It is as though your eyes were defective and you saw things upside-down. We are trying to make things right-side up, trying to return to the original way so we can reach farther and farther for love, broadening our scope. No one wants to change. It is uncomfortable to assimilate new experiences, but if the price of love is being forced to change then we are willing to try. As a person reams more and more about the value of love, he will do anything to get it. Love is that great.
You might have wondered who brought this most demanding religion into being, and why you don't just have the freedom to disco and be natural in enjoying yourselves. If I had been interested in disco dancing instead of religious life, then I would have become an expert. But ultimately this path of religion is tastier and more enjoyable. Maybe you wonder why you are sitting here, why you are following an Oriental. You must cross a bridge to reach the world of love. and since I happen to have that bridge, it doesn't matter whether I am white, black, or yellow.
You want to cross that bridge to get to the eternal world of God's heart. You have to start by crossing this bridge to reach the side of the heavenly individual, then the family, and so forth. Would you rather cross many bridges, or connect them all and cross over just one bridge? If God's purpose is to bring all mankind into salvation, wouldn't He want to have just one bridge? If you were entrusted with that responsibility, wouldn't you do the same? Home church is that bridge. Crossing the bridge of home church would be regarded as achievement enough for anyone to pass into the heavenly world. Don't you feel like crossing it successfully?
There are sentries in the spirit world who will challenge you when you arrive to enter heaven. If your passport says that you lived for yourself, you will be sent back. If it says you are a Unification Church member who actually joined for your own sake, to advance yourself, then the sentry will say you can't cross over. If you cry for your sake more than for others, if you hear and look at things for yourself, then it is reflected on your passport and you won't qualify.
For whom did you marry? You may not know how to marry for the sake of mankind, so that's why you ask me to match you; you know that even if you have a difficult match, you can say you are living for the sake of the world. When you leave everything to me, you can clearly say that you did not marry for yourself.
What is the most important thing you can do in your lifetime? Marriage is very important in spirit world. If you say that you followed my recommendation in deciding whom to marry because you didn't know what the will of God was, you will have met an important qualification.
No one will say you were dumb for not knowing God's will yourself, and thus having to follow Reverend Moon. You have thought about whether this path is the right way; certainly I might have been wrong, even if you liked me personally. Perhaps it was the teaching about true family and about bringing God into yourself that you heard here for the first time, and that's why you followed. Then you decided it would be better to marry someone Reverend Moon recommended, instead of the particular kind of person you had in mind. If the sentry in spirit world tries to turn you away, you can be angry and insist that you know you haven't been doing these things for your own sake. One thing you can confidently say is that you haven't lived for yourself, but for the sake of the world.
Maybe when you first went fund raising you were so embarrassed that you spoke to the people with your eyes closed, but after awhile you could open your eyes and found it wasn't difficult. If you live this difficult life for your own sake, you might as well stop now. But since it is for the sake of others, you keep on going. When you speak up this way, the guard will let you cross the bridge. Then you can cross back and forth freely whenever you want, and your life will be a prototype for all mankind. You should do just as I have done, following my example. In that light, the most unloving thing would be for me to leave you alone, not telling you what was good or bad.
People who observe you carefully may think they could do your work even better. Cain is usually in the inferior position to Abel, but if he wants to do better than Abel, it isn't necessary that he know everything in order to do so. Why should we go this way instead of the way most people do? Crossing many bridges would take many years, or even a whole lifetime, but crossing one bridge is much shorter. Unless I can create a shorter bridge which enables people to cross over everything at once, there is no real significance to my being here in this world. Have you cried harder for your home church people than for people you are already connected with? If you cry more for them than for your own family and relatives, then you have crossed the bridge in one step.
In home church you are trying to restore everything. This means that there you will find people to raise and restore as parents, as husband or wife, as children, and so forth. Because of the fall you lost everything, but in home church you find everything to restore, including your tribe, country, and world. Everything was lost, so if you don't restore it, you have nothing.
There must be some procedure by which you can show you did it all by yourself. There must be something to show at the gate which testifies that you are qualified to enter the eternal world, proving that you have perfected your family, clan, society, nation, world and universe. It would not be feasible for each person to come for my signature when they finish each level; I want to sign just once for each person, and even for the whole Church. I set the pattern, so whoever follows it will routinely receive my signature.
Where do we experience the realm of heart I have been talking about this morning? Man was created as God's image and object, and all things are created as man's image and object. Therefore, we have to feel that nature, no matter how desolate looking is better than any man-made clothing or possessions. Recently in the West, people have begun to prefer natural materials instead of synthetics. Something of God's original creation is better than the best man-made watch.
You can talk to your food as you prepare it, telling it that by becoming part of you it will be in a better place than it could ever be by remaining where it was. All things want to be elevated closer to God's love, and if you can do that by eating them, they will be glad for you to do so. The water you drink will evaporate as sweat which God will recognize.
You should love other people more than you love any things. Sometimes you see people who cherish their dogs more than other people, but the worst man should be loved more than any creature. How can there be an excuse for spending money freely on a pet, while not giving anything for the sake of mankind? Such a person would be accused in spirit world, for such an act is against the nature of things.
All mankind are a part of God, just like your hair is part of you. Because your hair is part of you, you love it. Surely you love people more than you love your own hair! We live with the thought that through us people will live a bit closer to God, that we can bring them closer to Him. Once we create the arteries and veins of love, God's love will flow everywhere. God is like the nerves that follow where the blood vessels go. Once the blood flows smoothly and strongly a person gains strength and never gets sick.
In the family we learn how to love. In a family there are parents, husband and wife, and also children, forming three loves. Those three loves together are the same as God's love. This is the reason we say the family is the foundation of heaven. The simple conclusion is that we should be able to love people of all colors of skin as we do our own brothers and sisters. Would you hate all people of some race so much that if they went to heaven then you would decide not to go? What would you do if the person you hated most was in front of you in the line to go to heaven? Would you refuse to go to heaven because he would be there?
Because the true family was lost, there has been no training ground to teach everyone about heaven. This is why you are trained in the Unification Church. The result of the fall is that man is separated from God, from Adam and Eve, from children. and even couples are separated among themselves. They are almost enemies to each other. It is in this meaning that Jesus taught that a person's family was that person's own enemy. If we fought our enemies and did away with them. we would be completely alone, so instead Jesus had to teach us to love our enemies. The idea of love is most important. Since everything is like an enemy, what would you have if you did not love them? Thus, loving your enemy is the starting point for finding love. You must be able to love an enemy even before you can love all things.
The girl you are going to love is the daughter of your enemy. Because of the fall, Adam and Eve brought forth children of their enemy. We must equal or surpass the level of love in the outside world; this is essential if we are to bring better families into being. Naturally this is difficult, and because it has been impossible until now, religions have always encouraged celibacy. That cannot continue eternally, however, for then God's will for creation could not be fulfilled. Until the Second Advent comes, it makes more sense to remain single.
The Savior comes as the parent who is in harmony with all lost things, and as a center of love. The Savior comes with a family in which people are not enemies, but are harmonious in the original way. Centering around his love, he can forgive all enemies, thus saving them. To a person seriously following the Messiah, the Messiah is like God Himself, and like Adam, who was the first ancestor and center of God's creation. Even though he is a man, people will even regard the Messiah as Eve herself because she was a first ancestor.
Though a couple loves each other and their children very much, when the Messiah comes they will love him more than they love each other. To connect with him, one must love the Messiah more than anyone else. If the husband gets in the way of the wife loving the Messiah, she must decide between the two. Even then it is better to connect with the Messiah. If a man desperately loves his own country, when the Messiah comes that man must still love the Messiah more. Even if a man would give his life for his race, when he hears that the Messiah has come. that man must love him more than his own people.
The coming of the Messiah is the greatest thing to happen since the creation of the world. He brings the revolutionary movement of true love for the first time on earth, and it is such a priceless opportunity that it is worth giving up everything in order to have it. In the last days there must be a religion strong enough to teach this clearly.
I have spent my whole life setting the example and carrying this out. For this purpose I gave up my family, my children, and even my country. I was accused of being too extreme and taking everything away for love, but for love of whom? For God.
Because of the fall, God lost mankind and all things at one stroke. Restoration of all that will come through one man, at one time. The experience of the realm of heart and love begins with reversing the pattern of worldly love. Loving the Messiah more than anyone else is a painful experience. If you love the central figure of restoration more than anyone you used to love, you will be surprised to find that your love for your other loved ones is even stronger than before.
This principle is true even after you are married and have children. Even after a couple is blessed and has children, I may ask the husband to go work in Africa and leave his family behind. Instead of begging to go along, the family will send him off with encouragement. When you were single, perhaps you didn't have much problem in this area, but now that you are matched, you might want your fiancé to persuade his central figure to let him finish his college education, for instance. Is that principled or not? I look at people with only this principle in mind.
The pattern in this world of hell on earth may look the same, but it springs from a different lineage. The one element that drastically changes everything is this element of love. Giving up everything to love God does not mean you will not love anything else; only after loving God first can you love others as well. When you work according to Principle in home church. the people there will treat you just like you treat me. If you have loved me very much, your home church members will feel the same toward you.
Restoring that tie of love with your home church people is greater than any other achievement or success in life. This principle you are following here applies also to spirit world, and is the broadest heavenly law. When you tour your home church area, you can think that you are doing the same thing God did when He inspected His creation before Adam and Eve fell. In that realm of love Satan has no place. He simply cannot exist there. Only if you live according to satanic law can Satan be there. Four generations-God, True Parents, you and your children be connected, four elements in three orderly stages. Home church is absolutely necessary in order for you to be there. Loving your home church area is the beginning experience of the realm of heart for you. Through that you will ultimately be connected to God and the whole universe, and serve as a bridge to the universe.
Regard yourself as the bridge of God's love to your home church, as the parents to that area, as the brothers and sisters loving that area. Then you are truly experiencing the realm of heart. After you correctly understand the realm of heart, you must broaden and stretch yourself to experience that realm. By loving me, you have already started experiencing the realm of heart: now all you have to do is extend that love to your area and your family. In the beginning you may not know what it will lead to. but as you experience more and more. your heart will be enriched.
In the beginning your home church people won't understand much. but if you continue working with them then a bond of deep love will grow, and if you are away for a while then they will welcome your return with tears. Love is what home church is all about. In love you must embrace everything, not just one race, or one family. Without an object you cannot experience love, so you must create your object; that is your home church area.
If I were away for months or years, do you think you would miss me? Do you think I would miss you? I am the same way. As much as you love your home church, my love will be there to that degree, and God will love you that much or more. God can love you more because your object of love will have broadened, and so God's love for you can also broaden. God's love for you can become greater to the extent that your experience of the realm of heart becomes greater.
How do you go about improving your heart? You are widened as you live more and more for the sake of others. Then God can come closer to you. When people cry and are grateful to you, you feel that same gratitude to God and me. The world then comes close to you very quickly. For you, the realm of heart is your home church area. Love is not one-sided; your people must love you and you must love them. Then you will realize my love and God's love.
When I teach you to live and die for the sake of the world, I know that when you do it you will experience God's broader realm of heart; it is a must if you are to be connected to God and His love. Once you do that here, it is yours forever and ever. Home church is the microcosm of God's creation, a small universe. The individual and family are there, and when you rejoice together. the universe and God will take part in your rejoicing. If you are sorrowful, God and the universe will be sorrowful with you.
Can you create even a small thing like an ant? But you can sew clothes, right? Sometimes you kill an ant without thinking, but how wonderful it is to think that the ant is even more beautiful than your expensive clothes. That ant can teach you love toward all things. God created such a delicate creature as an ant to teach you that kind of delicate love.
A cat has certain characteristics, such as scratching at something that threatens her, and certainly there is that kind of element in love also. God wanted to accent that aspect of love through the cat. You will see much jealousy and even hatred in your home church area, but that is just an expression of love in a wrong direction. It is love, albeit deviated love, so once it is re-directed in the correct way, it will be equally as strong. How good it will be when it is turned around 180 degrees.
So far you have not known how to handle what happens in your home church, but in the great big mind of God there is nothing you cannot solve. When you find a reason for things, you will not be disturbed by them. Your home church is like a flower garden which no one has cared for, so you can think that God has made that garden for you, and that it wants to be loved by you. This is not make-believe.
Each person wanted to be loved by God in the original garden of Eden, but because mankind went away from God, no one has received such love. But you come in the original state, knowing how people long for love, and feeling you will love them in the original way God intended. God will not tell you that 24 hours is too long to pray; He wants to be there even longer, so He will welcome even more intense and fervent feeling. You shouldn't discourage your home church people from staying with you late into the night just because you are tired. You should want to hear more and more. A parent wants to listen to the smallest thing his child desires.
The universe is filled with the electricity of God's love. That circuit is already there, so when you feel that love toward your home church, you are repairing the circuit. When you see one small flower, it represents the entire plant kingdom, and through it you can experience heart toward all plants. If you love a pet, it represents loving all animals. Sometimes you will even treat a skunk as royalty among animals.
If a bird chirps in your area, you can realize that he came out to welcome you, and that God feels the same way toward you. If you go to bed very tired but there is a noisy party going on next door, think that people are making all that noise in preparation for welcoming you. If you have a loving mind, you automatically come to interpret things that way.
If you had to make a relationship with everything in creation, having to meet each one of them, it would be impossible. When I set foot in America I felt that I came in order to love this nation more than anyone ever loved it, and that my love for it would be greater than any opposition to me that Satan could stir up. All you need to do is extend that kind of love to your area. Your area is a greenhouse and you are growing everything there first. Other areas can wait.
You should feel that God has been preparing this area for many years for you, that nothing is there accidentally or haphazardly, and that this is the most significant activity in all history. Think of how far history had to come so that finally this area would be waiting for you there, to be connected to True Parents and God. If you think that way then you will have a completely new outlook.
If people blame you for anything, it will be for coming late to them. Keep this kind of thinking, planning how you can thaw out their frozen minds and make them warm and lively people. How good it is if you do that in the name of love! Though you may not own much, and you are continually persecuted because the people are ignorant, how precious that experience will be. Now you are authorized to do in the name of love what no one ever could do, and by doing so you can deepen your heart. How worthwhile an experience that is. You can be proud of it. That is my source of pride, too.
That is the only foundation I have, in spite of the fact that I am famous. All of that does not outweigh the love which I feel for you and you feel for me. That love alone is here to stay eternally, and is the only thing which matters in spirit world. Home church is a perfect area of training for you to experience this. Because the people will not respond right away, you will certainly suffer, but your depth of experience in love will become more profound as you are opposed by many types of people.
Would you like to give this a try? Even though tears will always accompany this kind of experience? It will be a source of regret if you fail to experience this while you are still on earth. The things of love which you touch and hear and see in spirit world will bring pain to you instead of pleasure if you don't experience this on earth.
God and True Parents will be right beside you if you persevere in creating this experience. Would you do that? God bless you.
