Sun Myung Moon
December 19, 1998
The Washington Times building, Washington, DC, USA
Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace 1998 Assembly
Photo: March 27, 1990, World Mission Center, Bamboo Room, New York, NY USA
Honorable chairman, global religious leaders and respected guests:
I sincerely thank you for your attending this occasion in spite of your respective religious observances and important schedules during the Christmas season. I shall take this time to express my views on life and death, an issue that each religion has gone through great pains to resolve.
We live in the physical world, yet we know that this is not the only world that exists. Another world, the spirit world, also exists. The spirit world is a definite reality. We also know that these two worlds, the physical world and spirit world, are not meant to be disconnected from each other. They are linked together as one single world. We human beings were born from the spirit world and eventually return to that world.
Death is the return to the world of the origin
In Korea, we commonly use an interesting idiom in reference to death. When someone dies, we say the individual “has returned.” Where does that person return to? It is not to a cemetery. We mean that we return to the point of life’s origin.
We return across the vast expanses of history. In the process, we shed our nationality. We return to the world that brought forth the human ancestors. If a Creator exists, then we are returning to the world of the Creator. That is where we originated, so that is where we finally return.
The universe is engaged in cyclical motion everywhere. For example, when snow falls on a mountain and then melts, it forms a small stream. As the water flows downward, its volume increases until it becomes a river. Eventually it reaches the ocean. Some of the water in the ocean evaporates, returning to the atmosphere to complete the cycle.
All beings desire to reach higher ground, or a better place, through cyclical motion. Where then is the better place we go to in order to live eternally? While in the physical world, we live in our physical body. Our mind, though, is headed toward the eternal world. We are born into this world. We pass through our teenage years, twenties, thirties and middle age, and eventually we reach old age. Ultimately, we come to the end of our life, like die sun when it sets on the horizon. Those who know that the spirit world exists, however, know very well that the time spent in our physical body is relatively short, and that the world we encounter after we die is eternal. They know that our life on earth is a period of preparation for the eternal world.
We are like students who have to earn credits in all our classes so that we can fulfill our school’s requirements for graduation. The school determines the extent to which its students meet its standard, and decides whether it can recognize them. The farther short of the standard a student’s grades fall, the more distant that student is from the school’s standard of value.
Likewise, the value of all beings is measured against a standard. Our life in the physical world is a period of preparation comparable to the time a student spends trying to earn good grades at school. In other words, we spend our entire life on earth preparing and striving to achieve “good grades.” Each day of our life is measured against a particular standard. We are accountable to that standard for our entire life on earth. Most people in society do not know with certainty about the original world to which we go after life in this world. They do not know whether there is life after death or even whether God exists.
Human beings are brothers and sisters
Eventually, everyone goes to the spirit world. It turns out that the spirit world is a single realm. It is not divided into many countries, as is the physical world. Then, what is the relationship between the spirit world and the physical world?
We can compare it with water that serves as the environment for fish. The presence of water is an absolute condition for fish to live. That does not mean, however, that there is only one kind of water. Some species of fish that live in fresh water cannot spawn if they remain in a river. They have to leave the fresh water and migrate to salt water in order to lay their eggs. They thus connect two worlds. In the same way, our mind, which is part of the spirit world, and our body, which is part of the physical world, need to connect.
At the beginning of human history, a unified global realm would have been formed to honor Adam and Eve’s birthdays, the anniversary of their holy wedding and the anniversary of their deaths. By sharing in the commemoration of those days, all people could have united. Instead of being divided, humanity could have lived in a single realm. If this had happened, Adam and Eve’s way of life would have been passed down through human history. The culture formed would have endured as long as people continued to exist.
Each of us goes through life ignorant of when we will die. We do not know if, for example, we will die in a traffic accident. I think some people will die saying, “Oh, Reverend Moon was right!” expressing regret only at that moment. We need to know that we are traveling on a very serious path in life. We need to use every second of our life preparing ourselves for the eternal world. We need to be aware how momentous is the path we are walking.
When people go to the spirit world, they can be divided generally into two types. The first consists of those who lived out a natural life span in this world, and the second consists of those who experienced an untimely death. Among the latter, some died as a result of punishment, and others died in order to pay indemnity for the nation or the world.
Suppose God established one person in a central position representing a thousand people. What if God made that person go the way of death in place of those thousand people? In such an instance, the grace and virtue of the one who died in their place would move the hearts of the thousand people. They would determine to live in the name of that person and model their lives after that person, living as he or she lived. Having done so, the thousand people would enter the same realm of grace as the one who died for them. The reason we try to follow the philosophy of wise individuals and model our lives after patriots is that we desire to enter the same realm of grace as these people.
Some people live with hope, while others live without hope. We can divide people’s hopes and aspirations into two general types: those that place human beings in the central position, and those that place Heaven in the central position. A newborn infant thinks that its mother’s bosom is the most wonderful place in the world. At a certain point in its development, however, the child leaves its mother’s bosom. As the child grows, he or she forms friendships, feeling happiest when with friends. Eventually, though, the young person will leave his or her friends behind. During our life course, we come to discover that neither loving parents, nor a loving spouse, nor even loving children can completely satisfy our hopes.
People have many kinds of hopes. Eventually, all these hopes pass away. We have hopes for our family, for our country and for the world. However, the reality is that as we grow older, our hopes grow weaker. Some people boast that their hope represents the hope of all humankind, yet they lack the conviction to pursue it at the cost of their life. People fervently entertain many hopes dining the course of their life, but when they face death, they abandon all their hopes. They desire to stay alive one more day. Day after day they wander in search of something new in which to place their hope. When they finally face death, though, all their hopes fade away and they fall into despair as they set out on their final path. We know all too well that this is true.
It may appear that a person, when viewed as an individual, possesses worthwhile aspirations. Yet no individual’s hopes continue beyond death. In my view, it is important for all people on earth today to give serious consideration to one question: How can we find hope that will not crumble in the face of death but will transcend it?
The hope to fight against death and prevail
All things of this world will pass away. Our families, nations and even the world itself will pass away. Ideologies and philosophies will pass away. What will remain? Whatever remains, that is the hope that can defeat death. We might consider that a person who does not possess such a hope or aspiration has been defeated by life.
There are people who, from the time they are born, reject all the hopes and aspirations presented by the secular world. These people embrace aspirations not of the human world but those that are eternal and of Heaven. Heaven helps these people. A life of faith does not embrace aspirations that are rooted in the secular world. Instead, it embraces hopes that surpass even the gates of death. It dreams of the world of eternal hope.
Someday I too will die. When we are young, we don’t think much about death. Yet we become increasingly serious about death as we grow older. This is because death is a gate through which we are inevitably destined to pass. However, what happens to us after we die? Do you know why I am speaking about death? I am speaking about death in order to teach the meaning of life. Who really knows the value of life? It is not the person who goes all out to preserve his or her life. The only one who really knows the value of life is the one who goes into the valley of death. As he or she desperately cries out to Heaven at the crossroads of life and death, that person confirms the value of life.
Why do people fear death? It is because they do not know the purpose for which we are born. Those who do not know why we are born do not know why we die. Therefore, among the first questions philosophers ask are, “What is life? Why are we born?” If we think about it, we realize that when we die we are reborn into the midst of God’s love. Although in our world people often cry out, “Oh no, I’m going to die! What am I to do?” They make a big fuss. Do you think God cries out, “Oh no!” and is overwhelmed with grief when we die? Or do you think that God laughs, “Ho, ho, ho!”? The truth is, He is happy. That is because the moment of the physical body’s death is the moment we experience the joy of leaving the finite realm of love to enter the infinite realm of love. It is the moment of our second birth.
Then is God happier on the day we are born into the physical world or at the moment we leave our physical body behind? At the moment of physical death, we are born a second time into an infinitely expanded realm of love. We then become His newborn children. Of course God is happier at the second birth. I am telling you this because you need to know that unless you are released from the fear of death, you cannot have a relationship with God.
God feels happy to watch and directly participate in our life. Consider how a baby is born and wets its diapers as it begins the process of growth. God is happy because, as the child grows, the pulse of love within God’s heart also grows. When God makes a face, the baby imitates Him and makes the same face. When God smiles, the baby smiles as well, and when He is sad, the baby too is sad. This is how babies gradually grow to resemble God. As babies grow, they also begin to resemble their parents. From their parents, they learn language and the rules for daily life. Of course, all these things have their origin in God.
So, after God has lived with us on earth, what if one day He sails over to the other side? What are we supposed to do? If we say, “Wait, God, I want to go with You,” will He reply, “Who are you? Do I know you?” Is He likely to leave us behind? Or will He want to take us with Him? Of course, He will want to take us with Him. Nonetheless, God will say, “I can’t take you with me now. I’ll take you with me after you have grown a little more. I want you to work a bit more on your perfection.” We can then reply, “Well, we can’t go now, yet we are certain that the time will come when we are able to go.” Then we can look forward to that day. When we have a physical body, we are unable to follow God wherever He goes.
You need to be willing to die for the person you love
It is only natural that we would aspire to resemble God. On His part, God also would want His sons and daughters to resemble Him. We have to conclude then that God designed us to be born again into a body that enables us to resemble Him.
God and human beings long for that eternal day when we can soar through the heavens together. The day we are born as beings who can take wing with God, the day we are born into that body, is the day of our physical death. On that day we cast off our physical body like an old coat. Then, would we welcome death or fear death? The answer, of course, is that we would welcome death.
For what purpose then would we die? We would die for the sake of God’s true love. That is the love whereby we seek to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of others. We can conclude that the reason we cast off our physical bodies is so that we can participate in the realm of God’s work of love. We die for the sake of the world of God’s love. Wouldn’t you like to be born as God’s true sons and daughters who can receive and practice true love?
If we could measure God’s wealth, how rich do you think He would be? Have you ever thought about that? With all those heavenly bodies in the universe, isn’t it likely that one would be made of solid diamond? How about one made of pine gold? God is truly omniscient and omnipotent. Wouldn’t He want His children to have everything? What do you think? God can go from one end of the vast universe to the other in an instant. Is this something you would be interested in doing? To gain that ability, what do we need to do? We have to obey the laws that God has established for us. Only by doing so can we be with Him. It is impossible to be with Him if we behave in a disordered way.
We need to pass through the three ages of water, earth and heaven
Are you confident that you can refrain from doing what God tells you not to do? We have a dual structure. Our mind is the subject partner and our body is the object partner. The two need to unite, with the body subordinating itself to the mind.
In our life, we go through three realms, corresponding to the stages of formation, growth and completion. We go through the realm of water in our mother’s womb, then the realm of planet Earth, and finally we can fly in the heavenly realm, which corresponds to floating in the air. Once we have gone through the period in the womb, we are born into the physical world. We live in our physical body in this world for about a hundred years, and then we enter the spirit world through which we can fly. We pass through these three realms.
When a fetus is in the womb, it resists leaving the womb for the outside world. It fights as hard as it can to stay there. The reason is that when the fetus leaves the womb, its home is destroyed. All its nourishment and everything else it had in the womb breaks apart and flows away. Also, its head and body swell in size during the birthing process. Who would want to go through something like that? Every fetus cries, “No!” right up to its moment of birth. Eventually, the water breaks and the infant emerges into the world.
As you watch a woman giving birth to a child, you really have to empathize with her. Women who have given birth know what I am talking about. When the mother is pushing, the extent of her beauty does not make a difference. She contorts her face into all sorts of grotesque expressions. She makes such painful faces that even her husband can’t stand to watch and might leave the room. She makes just about every possible face. Thus both the mother and the baby go through tremendous pain up to the last moment for the baby to be born.
After birth, is it necessary to keep the umbilical cord attached to the baby’s navel? Or does someone cut off the umbilical cord without a second thought? Perhaps someone may object, saying, “That cord is someone’s lifeline. How can you cut a lifeline that connects one person to another?” The newborn infant cries at the top of its lungs because it thinks it is about to die. As God looks on, though, He can’t help breaking into a happy smile. From the viewpoint of the new life that has just been born, one world has just disappeared completely. Now the child has to breathe the air of its new world.
The fetus grows in a watery environment. The period in the womb is a period of existence in water. As long as the fetus is in its mother’s womb, it is floating in water. At first, you might think that the fetus may have difficulty during its time in the womb because it cannot breathe. You may also think that it would need a process of ingesting nutrients and expelling waste products. These functions are fulfilled by the umbilical cord, which is like a hose attached to the baby’s belly. How does a fetus in the womb receive nourishment? It receives nourishment through the umbilical cord attached to its navel.
For the child in the womb, the navel functions as a mouth. So do not be disdainful of your belly button. Rub your belly button a little and say, “Hey, belly button! Thanks for working so hard back then!” If you pat your belly button often, it is good for your health. Seriously, it’s a good way to exercise. It’s good for your health to exercise your navel. For example, a person sleeping in a cold room can avoid coming down with diarrhea by keeping the navel well covered.
We may refer to our navel as our former mouth. Someone might say, “How foolish! Whoever heard of a former mouth?” There’s no denying the feet, though, that your navel once functioned as your mouth. It also acted as a breathing apparatus. Outside the womb, your present mouth fulfills the function of receiving nutrients. The function has moved up on your body.
Like the fetus in the womb and the physical body outside the womb, a person’s spirit self also needs to receive nutrients in order to grow. The spirit self is attached to the physical body that breathes air to stay alive on earth. It lives off the physical body until the body grows old. Then the spirit self kicks the body away and tries to separate. If at that moment, the body cries out, “No, I don’t want to die, I won’t die!” how will God react? Will He feel sorry for the physical body because of the pain it is enduring? Or will He quietly smile?
The infant who experiences pain when emerging from its mother’s womb grows as the object partner of its parents’ love. In the same way, our spirit self has to leave behind our crying physical body to be born anew as the eternal object partner of God, a spiritual being. We can draw this conclusion based on the Principle. On earth, too, the baby can become a friend of its father and mother after it is born. This is because it is born into the physical world where it can share love with its father and mother. In the same way that the fetus swims in its mother’s womb, a person in the physical world breathes and lives in the swaddling clothes of air. When the baby shares love with its parents while breathing air, we say that it is alive. Likewise, we can share love with God our Parent, who exists as an eternal spiritual being, after we are born again into the spirit world.
We need to live in accord with God’s laws
What kind of place is the spirit world? When we enter the spirit world, we begin to breathe through a hole on the top of our head and through our cells. The “air” in the spirit world is not the air we have on earth. Instead, it is love. When a spirit person breathes, he or she inhales and exhales the nourishing elements of love. On earth, eating and drinking alone are not sufficient to sustain our life. When we eat and drink, we are merely filling our physical body with food and water. Eventually, our physical body will die. The form we take during life on earth is our second existence. While on earth, we need to develop our character of love. Therefore on earth, the thing we need most is love.
What is an orphan? Why do we call a child who cannot receive love from a father or mother an orphan? It is because that child lacks the love by which he or she can connect eternally with the spirit world. In the absence of love, we feel lonely. That is why we feel sorry for a person who lives without a spouse.
The death of our physical body destroys our ability to breathe in the second stage, yet it connects our spirit self with the nourishment of love. We eventually have no choice except to leave the physical body behind. We cannot see love, yet our internal structure develops based on experiencing the love of parents, the love between husband and wife, and the love of children. Just as there is a normal course of development for a child in its mother’s womb, there is a normal course of development of the spirit self on earth. We follow this course by living in accord with the laws of God. We cannot do it by living in any other way.
If we examine the world of nature, we see that many insignificant-looking insects, seeds of plants and even small birds can fly. Does it make sense that human beings, the greatest of all created beings, cannot fly? Observe the dandelion. It is made such that its seeds fly away when the wind blows. Birds fly, insects fly and the seeds of plants fly. Surely, human beings also must have been created with a means to fly. Someone might be tempted to complain, “God, why did you create us without the ability to fly when many other things in creation can fly?” God would probably reply, “Wait a few decades until you become fully mature and then I will let you fly”
We need to train ourselves to love on earth
So what will we be doing until then? We need to train ourselves to be able to adapt to the spirit world. We need to train ourselves by loving our parents, our spouse and our children. Then, when the time comes, we will enter the eternal world and live in attendance to God. For that to take place, we have to discard this physical body and die.
Consider the life cycle of a cicada. Before a cicada can fly, it goes through a nymph stage. What would happen if the nymph of a cicada said, “I want to go on living as a nymph; I don’t want to shed my skin; I don’t care about land and air?” Even if it tried to resist its metamorphosis, once it sheds its skin it will fly away.
A similar process occurs in the case of a dragonfly. The female lays its eggs in or near water. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs swim in the water. When the nymphs are fully grown, they crawl out of the water. They shed their skin to become an adult dragonfly that flies away. It begins to eat insects that it would have never thought of eating while living underwater. In like manner, many insects pass through different stages and develop wings.
Human beings are the highest forms of creation, yet do we have wings? Does living only on land satisfy us? We have wings, but they are wings of a higher order. You may say you don’t want to cast aside your physical body and die. However, once we die and leave our physical body behind, our spirit self passes through the blessed gates of our second birth and whoosh, we fly away.
As I have already said, we cannot avoid the death of our physical body. We have to be prepared to endure suffering in the physical world in order to express our good nature and develop our spirit self that will live in the eternal spirit world. A fetus in its mother’s womb has to receive proper prenatal care if it is to be born healthy and strong. Similarly, we need to prepare ourselves appropriately while on earth. We need to develop our character by modeling ourselves in the image of God, expressing the heart of God and the divinity of God.
Once we have reached maturity, we need to invest our lives to cross over the line between life and death. We have to cross over successfully even if we have to brave the fiercest storm. It is not enough to do well most of the way and then fall just short of the finish line. What will we do when we find ourselves approaching life’s finish line? Even if we run with our mind focused totally on the goal, we can’t be confident we will make it all the way through with success. If we wander aimlessly at the end, we will be ruined. We can win victory only as we dash across the finish line.
Every person will find it worthwhile to make this effort. No matter how much opposition you may encounter from behind, or how much persecution is leveled at you from the sides, you just have to push forward, one step after another. There is no time to get entangled with the opposition. You have to keep going as quickly as you can, even one step at a time, in order to traverse your destined path to its end and finally cross the finish line. All of us have to go this way.
We often describe a person’s heart as “upright.” What does that mean? When a heart is firmly vertical, we say it is upright. If a tree is lying on the ground, we don’t say it is upright. The same is true when we refer to a heart as upright. This expression means that the person’s heart has a vertical orientation. That is why we are in an upright position when walking. An object needs to be vertical to be described as upright.
We have to set our heart in a completely vertical orientation. Then our body will be horizontal, relative to that. When the vertical and horizontal dimensions are set within us, the pulling power of the vertical and the pushing power of the horizontal will be mutually balanced. Centripetal and centrifugal forces will arise, balancing each other. Therefore, we need to find our true nature. When we maintain ourselves in this manner, we will be able to say that God and True Parents are similar in nature. On this foundation, we can expand our sphere of life through our relatives, clan and nation.
Doctors quarantine patients who have dangerous communicable diseases. For the same reason, it would be ideal for people who know the Will of God and continue to sin despite this knowledge to be isolated so they can have time for self-reflection and to consider their value to others as they face themselves. Even Jesus and the saints went this way. Through suffering in a wilderness environment, where there might not be a place to sleep or food to eat, we can genuinely repent.
My purpose is world salvation
There is one thing that makes me sad. God gave me the responsibility to accomplish His Will, so during my lifetime I need to accomplish His Will to a level He finds acceptable. Until I have done that, I cannot die. For that reason, when I am in the valley of the shadow of death, God leads me out of danger. Whether I am eating or fasting, whether I am asleep or awake, I am always praying for the world and humankind. My suffering is not for the sake of a particular country or people. My objective is the salvation of the world. I have worked to this day and I am ready to die if necessary. I have been sacrificing my life to achieve this objective. You too need to live and die for the sake of the world. If it is for the sake of world salvation, you have to be prepared to die with your wife, your family, your clan and even your entire people.
Some day in the future, you will die. When standing face to face with death, you will look back upon your life. Think about the final words you will leave behind at that moment. On the path of death, your friends will not be with you. Your loving parents will not be there, nor will your loving brothers and sisters. Your spouse and children whom you love so much will not be with you. It is a path you will take alone.
No one can go down that path twice. Once you have gone, there is no coming back. Once you take that path, you cannot take it again in all eternity. The heart you have as you walk that path is important. At the moment you are face to face with death, if you do not possess the hope that can transcend death, it will spell your defeat.
In history many people have upheld God’s Will and worked to fulfill it. They did not retreat when faced with death. Instead, they laughed in the face of death and valiantly transcended death. We know well that these people paved our way to the kingdom of heaven.
You cannot be resurrected without dying first
What kind of person is joyful even when passing over the hill of death, the moment that drives most of us to experience heartfelt sorrow? This is the kind of person who has heartfelt hope and aspirations to reach the kingdom of heaven. For this reason, we cannot reproach the world and lament when facing death. Instead, we ought to feel joy as we stand before the spirit world, with pride in the value of our death.
What happens to us when we die? Up to the moment we die, we belong to ourselves. As soon as we die, however, we belong to God. This is because we are born of a fallen lineage. Until our death, we lack the ability to cut our ties with Satan. After death, though, we establish ties with God. There is no resurrection without death. It is impossible to enter the next period without first passing through the preceding one.
What kind of death is the Bible referring to when it indicates that those who seek to die will live and those who seek to live will die? (Luke 17:33, John 12:25) Seeking to die does not mean that we seek to lose the eternal life that Heaven has given us. It means that we want to lose the life that is connected to Satan’s world, inherited through the fallen lineage. That is why those who seek to die for the sake of God will live. It seems paradoxical; from the perspective of the Human Fall, it is the only way restoration can take place. This is the standard for discussing the possibility of restoration.
Success or failure in life is not determined over a period of decades. Rather, it is determined in an instant. If you consider the entire course of a person’s life, it does not take very long for a baby to be born. Of course, there is a period leading up to the birth, when the fetus is in the womb. Those months in the womb are a time of preparation. The birth happens in an instant. The preparation may go well for the entire pregnancy period, but if something goes wrong at the decisive moment of birth, the infant could meet with a tragic end.
After living out our life on earth, we come face to face with the moment of death. We will see our entire life flash before our eyes. If the person facing death can say, “There was truth in my life,” or, “I am leaving behind something more valuable than my life,” that person has spent his or her life in a worthy manner. On the other hand, in the case of people who recall their past and shake their heads over things they would rather not remember, they are in a tragic situation.
For some people, the more they remember at the moment of death, the greater the expression of joy on their face. If all their problems could be forgotten in light of the ideals they have lived, death would actually be a comfort. The moment of recalling the past would not be filled with fear. If they are leaving something worthwhile behind, then that past record will not die and its reality will not die. Instead, those things will become more evident. The people whose past allows them to feel this way are without a doubt people whom the nation can follow. They are the ones whom the people of the world can follow.
We need to consider whether we can stand alone before God. Truth and goodness begin in a particular individual; they do not end in that individual. Once truth and goodness have begun in a particular person, they have to bear fruit in another person. Alternatively, they can begin in another person and bear fruit in me.
If people spend their life by giving of themselves to others, they will have no fear on the path of death. They have given everything and sacrificed themselves for others. They have led a life that is dose to the truth, shedding tears for others and investing their life for others. If a person’s aspirations are for others, all of the life force pulsating in that person is focused and invested for the sake of others. Then that person’s past is one of glory.
A world where intuitive sense becomes reality
The wise take one path, the foolish take another. A wise person tries to live in partnership with history, in partnership with the present world and in partnership with the future. A foolish person lives for the self and tries to make the world exist for his or her own sake. A global environment characterizes the spirit world, and it includes nations, clans, families and individuals. An individual cannot enter the kingdom of heaven without a self-motivated character that makes that person absolutely indispensable to others. The family or clan cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless they can say that they possess a self-motivated character that makes them indispensable on the family or clan level.
Compared with the spirit world, our planet Earth is a speck of dust. The spirit world is an eternal world, transcending time and space. If a spirit person commands, “The person who lived in such-and-such age with such-and-such a heart, please come forward,” then that person will appear in an instant. It is a world in which feelings and intuition turn into reality. There are no factories there to process food. There are no automobile plants. There is nothing like that.
To register yourself in the spirit world, you need a certificate based on your life on earth. How are you going to obtain it? I’m talking about a certificate of life that will let you say, “This is what I became; this is what I did.” You cannot just create your own certificate. First, Satan has to write one for you. After you receive that certificate, you have to receive one from Jesus. Finally, you have to receive a certificate from God. You will need these three certificates.
The spirit world is a place where you live for the sake of others centering on true love
When you go to the spirit world, you will find that it is made up of several very large realms. Those who lived for the sake of others will go to the highest level. Those who lived for themselves, however, will find themselves in the lowest level. They will find that everyone opposes them. On the other hand, everyone will welcome those who lived for others.
Once you are in the spirit world, your parents and spouse cannot help you. The people in the highest levels are those who lived for the sake of others. The uppermost tiers are inhabited by those who traveled throughout the world living for others, with a heart that went beyond their love for their mother and family. With a saintly heart, they were always looking for ways to save the people of the world from evil.
The one who lived for him or herself alone goes to hell, and the one who lived for others goes to the heavenly kingdom. People separate into these two worlds at the time of death. So we need to live for the sake of the whole, for the sake of the greater good. Live for the sake of the world, for the sake of God, and for the sake of human liberation. Someday people will participate in competitions to see who can live for the sake of others to a greater degree. In the spirit world, the person who has lived for the sake of others will go to the higher position. So you can leap to a higher position by living for the person who is higher than you are. Living for that person is the same act as God bringing forth His own object partner through His creative act. Thus, that person comes to stand as your object partner of love.
In the spirit world we live for others, based on true love. If you encounter a person who has dedicated 100 percent of his or her life for the sake of others, then you have to say to that person, “Please move in front of me, go ahead.” It doesn’t matter how great the United States seems. A person who dedicates his or her life for the people of America to a greater extent than your president can move past the president and be welcomed.
When a person cares only about his or her own interests, that individual becomes everyone’s enemy. The same principle operates in the spirit world. When a person says he or she will live for something greater, then that person will naturally move ahead of others. One who lives for the sake of the world need not worry about living for America, because America is included in the world. All countries are included in the world. We can conclude that the only type of relationship everyone will welcome is one of true love, in which a person lives for the sake of others.
When you die, you have to take three accomplishments with you: one, that you loved God; two, that you loved yourself and worked hard to manifest your essential self; and three, that you worked hard to expand the love you shared with your spouse and family to the entire world. This love for God and humanity will remain forever. It will define your right to ownership in the next world. When you enter the spirit world, the number of people you evangelized will determine your right of ownership.
In the spirit world, pride wells up over the extent to which you longed for people with your life. You do not need anything else in the next world. The only thing you need is the record that you loved God more than the world, more than your country, more than your spouse and more than your children. If a wife wants her husband to love her with godly love of a higher order, she has to say to him, “Please love God more than you love me, and only then love me.”
The world of the realm of heart is the world where love can be made universal
I often preach about the realm of the heart. The foundation for the realm of the heart is the love of true parents, the love of true brothers and sisters, and the love of true children. The world of the heart is one in which we practice these types of love on a universal scale. In this original world, a person can live by the standard of love between husband and wife, although that love has to give primacy to heaven and earth and to the cosmos.
So where do we establish a foundation to qualify for that world? We have to lay this foundation in the physical world. We are not to spend our time on earth for the sake of all the things valued by this world. We are here to qualify ourselves for the next world.
That is the basis for the principle that we live as families in the spirit world. Why do we need to have children? The vertical love of God and the horizontal love of parents combine to bring descendants into this world. It involves a vertical and horizontal mixing of the blood of God and the parents. Thus, people who were unable to have descendants on earth will not be able to harmonize heaven and earth in the spirit world. They will be unable to connect with the rhythm of north, south, east and west. A person who has no descendants will have no place to rest or play in the next world.
In the spirit world, there is not only no need for denominations, there is no need for religion at all. There is no need for entities such as the Presbyterian Church or the Catholic Church. People there are in the realm of life together with God. People who loved the world inhabit that realm, and this includes patriots and loyal subjects, women of virtue and saints. As far as I am aware, however, there is as yet no one who lived his or her life in the original love of God, focusing on the tradition of the realms of the heart.
Whenever you begin a task, begin by placing God at the center. Whether you go to hell, the middle spirit world, paradise or the kingdom of heaven is determined by the extent to which you harmonize with this principle. The most precious path on earth is that on which a person endures the greatest amount of suffering and sheds the most tears for the sake of Heaven. Those who take that path will receive true freedom upon entering the next world.
In the next world, people who cling to their nationality cannot live together with people of other nations. However, true followers of all religions are able to live together. The religious sphere is one of longing for one world and believing in one God. So people of true piety will be together. The uniqueness of people of faith is in their living their entire life based on the standard of the spirit world. Religion teaches us how to relate with each other focusing on the eternal world, the transcendent world, the dwelling place of the Divine Being, whether we call Him God or by another name.
Representation of world religions in the United Nations
There is a reason for my speaking to the participants in this gathering about the value of life in relation to issues of life and death. You represent religions that are actively practiced throughout the world. I want to stress that it is the responsibility of religious leaders to teach about life and death accurately.
Today, the world’s political leaders are seeking to realize peace and prosperity through the United Nations. In my judgment, however, the path to world peace will be ineffective if we build it merely on the political, economic and military functions of the United Nations. Political, economic and military power can deal with only external, physical and material things. We can reach the internal, spiritual aspects of life only through religious teachings and through the unity and unified efforts of the world’s religions.
I would like to take this opportunity today to propose that we supplement the existing United Nation with a structure in which the United Nations and leaders of the major world religions can work together. I hope that the participants here today, and leaders of all the nations of the world, will seriously consider this proposal to establish a structure encompassing the world’s religions and the United Nations.
Thank you very much.