Belvedere
Translator - Bo Hi Pak
When we narrow down "our standard," it becomes "my standard." When we broaden it, it becomes the "world standard." Where do we find our standard-the present, the past, or the future? What should be the central factor in setting up this standard? Money, knowledge or power? Or a person? But there are all kinds of people.
We may say the standard should be based on the mind, but the mind also varies, sometimes being beautiful and other times ugly. Should the standard be based on a school record, or on religion, or on God? In thinking about all this, we have to determine what has value for our lives. In Korean the word for treasure means literally "material treasure." In talking about value we often are referring to material value; usually a treasure is based on material value.
How can we determine a standard of value? First of all, something of value should last a long time, being eternal, unique, and unchanging. Gold, for instance, has unique character, and is not easily changed. These are the qualities of value for material things. Why do people talk about material treasure, but not about a person as a treasure? A person's labor is often sold for $3.50 an hour. How cheap a man is!
If we ask why treasure is spoken of as "treasure material" but not as "treasure people" then we have arrived at a great question. Why haven't people been regarded as treasure? Which does the world like better? People may kill other people to obtain material treasure or territory. This is a real problem today. How many of you think you are less valuable than gold?
A pearl has a harmonized color which is beautiful. Gold and pearls are very soft, while diamonds are very hard. Would you exchange your loved one for gold? Would you give up your loved one's little finger for an equal amount of diamonds? Doesn't it sound like a good deal? If you were offered a diamond as big as your wife or husband, would you trade? Does that mean that men and women are more valuable than gems?
What do you women have that makes you more valuable than diamonds? Is it your sparkling eyes and soft skin? Or are you precious because women eat less than men and cost less to feed? Do you have these three qualities of value? Men and women change; maybe you would be valuable when you were young and lovely, but what about when you are old? Why do you tend to like a warm, embracing person more than one who is aloof and distant? When the weather is warm, people relax, but when the air is cold you automatically try to protect yourself. Warm weather makes people more expansive and relaxed.
Do your favorite things change or not? People are changeable, and particularly women! Changeable women are less liked than more stable women, right? Is that true for men also? The three qualities of value apply to people as well as to material things, so we can say that a changeable person has no everlasting value or uniqueness. We know that man has the two aspects of mind and body; which changes more? More specifically, does your conscience change more than your physical desires? People who advocate the theory of evolution say that there is not much difference between the basic makeup of men and animals. What they are saying is that the desires of the mind are illusory, and therefore, that there is no such thing as an absolute standard of conscience. In other words, they feel we are only made of material, and that there is no such thing as a permanent ideal. If we are only animals then we are no better than any animal, and there is no room for a permanent standard. Therefore, no permanent quality of value can exist.
If man is really descended from monkeys then man is also only an animal. Do monkeys have moral standards or ethics? There is no such thing as keeping one's purity in the monkey world. But man, who seems to be more advanced culturally seems to be becoming more like the monkeys today because men and women all have sex casually with each other.
Moralists today seem to be losing the debate with the evolutionists because they cannot show how men are really different from animals. In order to distinguish men from animals, we would have to create even an imaginary God who could be the embodiment of some absolute standard; otherwise we would have no way to win this battle. God has been neglected by mankind throughout history, but now we have reached a deadlock; without an absolute standard mankind cannot survive.
Power prevails in the animal world, with stronger animals attacking weaker ones. Is that natural in the human world? Do we naturally need some power to protect ourselves? Certainly human conduct needs some moral standards, and to determine those standards we need a fountain; should that be formed by the body or the conscience? The moral quality has to be pursuing some intangible value, such as justice and honesty. The mind works by combining intelligence, heart and will power. Human value must be based on conscience, which should have everlasting qualities, being eternal, unchanging and unique. At the same time, everyone should like and agree on the value of the conscience. The conscience should be needed morning and night, every moment of our lives. That's the kind of standard we have to come up with.
The quality that defines a "treasure person" comes from his conscience and mind, which should be unchanging, eternal and unique. In the Orient, when a person is bad we say he has a bad mind; we never say his body is bad. When you value a person, you value his mind, not his appearance, saying his state of mind or thinking is good. In criminal law, the most important factor is what motivated someone to commit a crime, and motive is intangible. Motivation comes from the mind, and the body reacts to that.
When I asked you whether the mind or body was more changeable, you couldn't answer. Is the conscience pursuing good or evil things? The answer will be the same 1,000 years from now. If I ask people from 10,000 years ago, their answer will be the same. That means the conscience has an unchanging quality, and thus we say that the conscience must be the base of value. Now we can say that man's unique value comes from his conscience.
Why is it that we appreciate the three qualities of value in material things? There must be some corresponding intangible aspect of man which also includes those qualities. We appreciate certain things because we have those qualities within ourselves; that reciprocal relationship is the key for determining value. We can see this same principle in the relationship between God and man.
We are not the universal subject, so we cherish these qualities of value because there is a first cause who initiated this; we are merely in a corresponding position. Evolution tries to deny the power of conscience by saying it is only the product of material. Evolutionists don't accept the idea of a first cause, or God. They say conscience is merely animal instinct which evolved a little higher. Do you feel good to hear that you are merely descendants of monkeys?
Evolutionists have no solutions for human problems today. To distinguish ourselves from the animal world we need to have God; if there is no real God then we must make an imaginary one. Otherwise, there is no solution. For the last ten years I have been spending an incredible amount of money inviting the world's leading scholars to come and think about absolute value, but they don't even want to think about it. Everyone wants to deny there is absolute value, saying there is only relative value; they keep saying they are tired of hearing about absolute value. They are asking me to change the subject of the conference, but I have refused.
I know that, no matter how great these academics are, they cannot find absolute value because it can't be observed in a laboratory or test tube. They are trying to determine things through their physical senses, and they will not recognize anything that doesn't come that way. But the physical senses cannot perceive spiritual reality, or anything beyond the material world, like God. There is no way you can reach conclusions about value and conscience through the analytic method. You have to employ one more sense to perceive the complete reality of the universe.
Today's scientific world is confused about what is reality. Thinkers say we have to conquer reality in order to advance, but here is the confusion-what is reality? Religiously and philosophically there is confusion, and we have to clarify this confusion by setting the standard. We need philosophy and religion, but what do "I" need most of all? An active conscience. To determine true reality, we have to restore our consciences to be true ones. Have people in history every lived with true consciences? The common desire of all men has always been to live with true conscience, but how can this be realized?
One important quality in a moral code is filial piety. We value this, but what is it, and why should we exercise it? Filial piety is loyalty to the unchanging value of the family. The son of filial piety pursues the principle of serving his parents and brothers and sisters even if they do not reciprocate. Conscience dictates that this is the right thing to do. But if you do not recognize the value of conscience, you will not recognize the value of filial piety; you have to have some starting point. Conscience values your parents' welfare more than your own.
On a large scale, a patriot follows the dictates of his conscience by serving his country and caring about its welfare. Again, the common ground is that the conscience dictates the benefit of something higher than yourself. The conscience does not care only for the self first, but pursues something of higher value.
What is a saint, or holy man? He follows the same principle, but obeys his conscience in acting for the sake of mankind, and he recognizes the subject of all-God. In history holy men have always been religious leaders.
Today, materialistic communists say that awareness, or consciousness, is merely a by-product of the material world. So where can they find a moral code? No place. Communism is destructive because that philosophy is based on materialism, and recognizes consciousness only as a by-product. There is no room for a "treasure person" in communism. Because communists don't recognize the spiritual element, life is expendable in their political system, and they freely sacrifice people's lives to attain material. There is no everlasting moral standard in the communist world.
Which is first-consciousness or existence? How do we determine that consciousness came first? An eye is material, of course, whether in man or some animal. Would the first eye know that it would encounter dust, or sunlight? Whoever designed the eye must have had an understanding of all these phenomena. Without knowing there would be light, how could the eye have been designed as it is? If anyone tries to say that the eye came about at random, you can show him his mistake. Is it a random event that the eye has tear ducts to keep the eye clean and moist? It is logical that long before the eye came into being a universal consciousness realized the circumstances and designed the eye accordingly. So we can say that consciousness came first.
In school, many of my acquaintances were communists and we discussed dialectical materialism, so I gave them this example and challenged them to answer me. If the eye came first and created the sun and dust and temperature, then their thinking might be correct, but otherwise their theory must die out. Finally those communists just gave up in confusion, and one of the honest ones admitted that there must be a universal consciousness.
I don't deny the process of evolution in development, but I am saying that there is a creative process going on behind it. In the theory of evolution there are sudden occurrences called mutations, in which something new comes from its parent body. But we have to say that there must have been some energy or willpower that authorized that occurrence. Could evolution itself create a new awareness and make a new design? Absolutely not.
There must be something outside evolution that can supply creative energy. It is true that development occurred between the lowest and the highest stages, but it did not happen automatically. Each stage was the result of a design and input of additional energy. Evolutionists don't want to recognize that. When they recognize that creative energy was put in, then they have to acknowledge a universal consciousness that provided the know-how. When you talk about man's conscience then you have to recognize a universal truth that ties into it. Thus, you have to recognize God.
Does conscience also evolve? Communists want to say so. Unless you recognize the unchanging quality of conscience within yourself, it is contradictory to look for unchanging and unique characteristics within gold, gems and pearls. Unless you have that quality in yourself, you have no reason to seek it elsewhere. You appreciate precious things because you have in yourself the qualities of those things. You cannot compare two things unless you have the capacity to appreciate both.
A constitution is the base of all laws of a nation and it is used as a yardstick for determining what is good and evil. When you make a judgment, you are doing so based on a standard which is within yourself. If you are a person without principles and then you say that something is good or bad, your judgment has no value. Random judgments are based on self-centeredness: a true judgment can only come from a basic law or principle within yourself. It is the mind which has unchanging qualities, while the body always changes. The mind should have a permanent foundation.
The body will follow the direction dictated by your five senses, and they are always changing direction. If your eyes see a lovely flower, your body will walk over to it, for instance. But your mind is not bound by the five senses; it can refuse to obey, and give other directions to your body instead. The mind is trying to bring the body to the place where all the senses can be contented. If the mind favored only the eyes then the other four senses would complain; the mind thinks of all five senses.
The mind decides how to respond to the desires of each sense, but the mind can only make these decisions based on some principle. Actually we can thank God that we have a conscience as a command post for the body. Before now you only felt it bothered you and limited your activities, but after listening to me this morning you can thank your conscience.
The American way of life is pragmatic, so Americans look for comfortable and convenient things in life. To people who want to go to the disco or enjoy sex, the conscience seems to be an obstacle. When your body eats, it wants delicious food, and prefers to have delicious pleasures always. Why does the conscience put the brake on what the body desires? Habits and customs are hard to change, no matter how logical it is to I change them. Addiction to drugs and alcohol, which poison the body, are hard to cure, but how can you cure the sex addiction? Have you ever thought about that?
We have to base our lives on a firm foundation of principle; if we don't have that then we have to create one. Without standards or principles, we will see only destruction around us. If no principles bind parents and children or husband and wife, the family will fall apart. The mind wants a principled life, but the body pursues all kinds of addictions. The friction caused by that contradiction is a terrible burden. People feel sorry for a mentally ill person, but once a person's mind or conscience becomes sick, it is even harder to restore. Religion deals with that world.
A grasshopper doesn't plan for the winter, but enjoys the warm weather and thinks he has a sweet life. Spring and summer always come to an end, however. The important point is that we must arrive at a standard of law and principle which is followed by everyone in our homes, society, nation and world. Such a standard should be based in your conscience. That standard should be acceptable to everyone and still be unchanging, eternal and unique. We conclude that the conscience provides such a standard.
Everyone likes material treasure, but would material things like just anyone? If treasure could speak, it would say that it likes anyone who has a higher standard than it does. You feel this is true because you yourself are like that. You like something that is higher and nobler than yourself. So also do material things.
A diamond likes someone who is harder, and shines more brightly than it does. Gold with its deep color represents peace, and wants to be loved by someone more deeply golden and peace loving than itself. A pearl will respect and love someone with a more harmonious color than itself. Would a diamond like some unworthy person who just grabbed it, or would it prefer to be possessed by someone with a moral ethic? A diamond has a preference, and would like to resist the thief who reaches out to snatch it. If a diamond has consciousness then this should be the case. That's how we would react.
One person never thinks about whether he is worthy to possess the diamond, while the better person considers whether he is really entitled to it. If you have this nature, then even the diamond would have that inclination. This is elementary, but necessary education. America's problem is that it doesn't really know the power and existence of the world of conscience.
How large is the conscience? There are four billion people in the world today, so there are four billion different kinds of conscience. If we include people in the spirit world then there are billions more. Is there room for still more? It is difficult to conceive how there could be no time or space, so I'll give you an example.
If one day you do the work of ten, will your conscience say the next day, "Just do the work of nine"? There is no such conscience. Instead, it will tell you to do even more work next time. If you give ten people ten dollars, will your conscience permit you to give nine people ten dollars the next day and keep ten for yourself? No; it will tell you to give money to eleven people instead. The conscience is never fully satisfied.
Even if you contained the whole planet earth in your conscience, it would still want to reach out farther and possess the whole galaxy. Even if it had the whole universe, it would still want to have God. Your journey wouldn't end until you owned the heart of God and had His love. That's how the conscience works. Trying to set a standard for this extraordinary kind of conscience is not easy. Who made the conscience so big? God did if He had nothing to put into it then He would run away. He is responsible, after all.
What does God have that can fill the conscience? God knows you like diamonds. If God is almighty then would He be satisfied to make a lot of diamonds to fill everyone's conscience bag? Why not? God can make diamonds and gold, but there is something that God cannot control at will: that is true love, which is activated only in a reciprocal relationship with an object. Without an object, love cannot be activated.
If you have love, can you show it to me? Man's love is activated only when he finds a partner; when you are sitting by yourself your love is not activated. God has been sitting all by
Himself, so can He enjoy His love, slapping His side and laughing? God has been lonely just like you would be. If He has even a small piece of chalk and can laugh with enjoyment at it, then it would make a little better sense. No matter how much potential love God has, by Himself God cannot feel its excitement. Always an object is needed to activate love through give and take. Is this true for women? With a man to relate to, the give and take vibration can begin; how about woman-to woman?
Even God needs an ideal object. Why did God create the whole universe? For the perfection of His object. God is gigantic, and He needs an equivalent object who can stand side-by-side with Him, so He created man with a conscience as big as God's conscience. When man completely fills his conscience and he starts to laugh, then God can respond, and the whole universe will laugh together with them. That is God's design.
Nothing else except love can fill that conscience, however. Love alone can excite God. In love God is an enormous plus and man is an enormous minus, and when they join a giant spark will flash. How much power would that generate? The entire universe will be jolted by the shock. God and men and women will all be totally intoxicated and melted by the power of that love. All the creation will be affected, from the one-celled amoeba to insects to the galaxies.
You might say, "We are here on earth and God is far away. How can we make a spark with God?" Is there any distance when we speak of electricity? God's electricity travels faster than electricity that we know on earth. When God is totally happy and intoxicated in love then all mankind can respond that they too are happy, and then the entire creation will echo around the world, "We too are happy."
I like the word "too." The cross bar on the "t" represents the horizontal absolute; the vertical line represents you-you are a pillar of love. The "oo" means everything is OK. Americans say OK; the O means perfection, and K comes from "keep." So OK means that you keep perfection, that everything is going well. You didn't know I had a definition for this!
Conscience is OK, but it is centered on what? Life? That is good. On knowledge? That is nice too. On power? But these are not the central things. What is it that everyone likes and can participate in? One substance alone has that universal character-love. When the cornerstone of existence is conscience that is based on true love, or true love that is based on conscience, then everything will be in the right place. That is the standard. Would that be only a temporal standard? No, it would be eternal, unique and unchanging.
The essentiality of love is always the same, but the components are different from person to person, depending on where love appears. Each individual is a truth body with unique characteristics, but they all share a common essentiality in God. Thus, each individual contains unique love with a common essentiality, like the cells in a body. Each person is a cell of love. Each individual's love has uniqueness which cannot be duplicated by anyone else, yet also it is unchanging and eternal.
If you have true universal love within you then you have become a standard man or woman of the universe. We come to the conclusion that we need the standard of conscience which is true love. With that alone can we digest the world and bring it into our consciences. We can even bring God in with invisible true love. As long as you have that true love, you can turn in any direction. That world of true love also transcends time and space.
With that standard of true love all five senses will cooperate instead of repelling each other, for they do so out of happiness, not duty. All five senses should function in the intoxication of love. Even if you use all kinds of uncomplimentary adjectives in describing someone, as long as you speak from love there is no disharmony between you. At any time of day, whether you are young or old, you welcome that love. What quality can create such a permanent interest and intoxication? Only true love.
This is not a daydream, but something real. I searched in all directions and in all philosophies, but I couldn't find the answer there, so I had to find it on my own. I knew very well what path I had started on, so it didn't matter how America or the government criticized me. I know myself better than our critics do, and I just go where I am destined to go. For that reason I can be bold and strong. Unless we have the standard of true love and conscience, we have no way to reach the true ideal world; we could not even glimpse that world without it. If there were no real, true love, we would have to make something up to take its place.
The Principle explains about the dual of God, how the subject and object create a circuit, and how the energy of that give and take can bring the perfection of creation. Everything has dual aspects of mind and body, and in order to be persons of conscience and true love, we must first unite mind and body. There are only two directions to go in-the heavenly way or the secular way. That means each person is in between heaven and earth. The mind is in the center, with the physical world on one side and the heavenly world on the other, so the mind is a buffer between the visible and invisible worlds.
Conscience and spirit are two different things, but conscience sometimes looks like spirit, and vice versa. The foremost part of conscience is spirit, but they are a continuation of each other. When you follow your conscience deeper and deeper, you inevitably make a deeper spiritual connection. When God visits, He will land in the foremost position of your conscience. Therefore, the only place to search for God is deep in your conscience.
Today many people seem to be psychic and have supernatural powers, but they don't know the basic truth. In observing these phenomena, most people overlook the reasons behind them. Those who study psychic phenomena today don't know why it happens. When you go all the way in pursuing the standard of conscience, you will connect with spirit world. Whenever you make some turn in spirit world, God is always in the position of axis.
Love is the central factor around which the whole thing will turn. Not only the spirit world but also the physical world is meant to turn centered on love. The body should be centered on love and harmonized with all things of creation. Love is the central factor which can harmonize all creation. Thus, when man becomes a being of love he is the supreme creation of God. Without that love man is no different from an animal or plant.
The center of the two worlds is the same love and same God, making a gigantic turn together. They are centered upon true love and upon you. Man can ask for nothing more; there is nothing greater or higher. At that point man is totally fulfilled; then your conscience is totally filled and you feel complete satisfaction and happiness. Then you can maneuver as a unique, everlasting and unchanging entity in the universe, on your eternal journey. Amen!
With this as a standard you have a goal to accomplish, and when you reach that universal goal you will shout out "Amen!" I am introducing you to the taste of true love, so even if the entire world comes against us, nothing can stop you once you taste that love. If people are even willing to die for their secular love affairs, how much more would people be willing to give everything for heavenly love? When someone pinches you, you say, "Ouch," but when heavenly love hooks you, you say "Ouch love! " When you are traveling with the love of God, you can be accepted anywhere, even in Hell.
We are front-line soldiers in the war to restore true love to the world. There are all kinds of commotion when the world sees these flag bearers marching forward, and people accuse me of taking their children or their husbands or wives. People around the world have accused me of being a love thief.
"Our standard" is true love and conscience. "My standard" is also true love and conscience. In order to make it the "world standard" we have to give to the world by serving all mankind-eating, fund raising, witnessing, marrying and having children-everything for the sake of the world. We want to reach the nation and world quickly in order to achieve the standard of God.
In centering upon this standard, everything-whether family, nation, world or universe-is consummated by following the one goal. This is the beauty of it. This is truly a supreme ideology. Can you find any other preacher teaching this love? I am not just speaking about it, but living it, and you too can become
deeper and deeper. When your spiritual state nears mine, then I will appear in your dreams and give revelations. It is the law of love that when you pursue this goal, God will definitely intervene in your life. This is our permanent, supreme standard. It has been victorious in the past, will conquer the present, and will be victorious in the future. It will bring permanent: eternal happiness. That is the goal. Have you lived that way?
Totally empty yourself and be filled with this new command. When you listen to the voice of your mind, tears of joy and liberation will overflow. At that moment you will feel that universal love has touched you. Just as you like to touch beautiful flowers or butterflies, when you become lovable the universal love will want to touch you. When you are united with that love, you can give it to all things.
When I teach you here at Belvedere, I am always thinking that I speak to you so that you can reach the same goal. My fervent desire in teaching you is for you to become intoxicated in that deep love also. When I am away you feel that Belvedere is empty, but when I walk in, the room feels full. Why is that? It is because I am a messenger of this love. Your privilege is to come and be ignited. It is completely possible. You want to be sons and daughters of the True Parents, becoming children of true filial piety, then true patriots, and then true saints.
I view the family as formation stage, the nation as growth stage, and the world as perfection stage. In order to be accepted by the heavenly world it is not good enough to be only a child of filial piety or a patriot. You must be a saint, a child of God. Religious leaders have taught various moral codes, but they have not dwelt on love. But I am teaching sainthood based on love, and teaching a way to achieve it. This is the first such group in the world.
We are known, therefore, as the love race. In that race all five colors of skin are assembled. We live together and feel as close to other races as we do to our own race. Your brothers and sisters are like your clothes. When you are with black people, you can feel you are wearing a tuxedo. When you are with white people you can feel you have white clothes, and with yellow people as though you wear spring flowers.
In order for a white object to stand out, it must be placed against a dark background, so we can say that its brilliance and value comes from the background. If whites don't like black people, then they shouldn't wear black clothes. In our world we transcend these race problems and we want to marry interracially to create greater beauty. We want to live with that standard forever. Whoever wants to live that standard, raise your hand.
God bless you.
