A person who regrets his past at the point of facing that final, fateful moment on earth will see all the details of his life flash across his mind as images. No one needs to explain to him what kind of person he is; he will know by himself.
The circumstances he has been associated with through the life he inherited from his ancestors, the situation he leaves behind, and everything from his past will appear as images in his mind at the last moment of his life.
A person who can say, “It was true. I have left behind something more precious than my life,” would have lived a valuable life, no matter how brief. Yet, some people say to themselves, “My whole life from birth to death was merely a period I spent as a passerby.”
If such people reflect on all their past situations, they will shake their heads, feeling that they do not want to remember the past, and they will die miserable people.
Opposite them, are those people whose faces fill with more and more joy as they increasingly reflect on their past; their problems are absorbed into the ideal and even the fear of death will be celebrated as a moment of comfort.
Viewing life in this way, we can see that if one has left something behind and if the moment for that person to reflect on their past is not a moment of fear, then that person's past and reality will manifest as things not dead.
A person with such a past is surely destined to be someone that all the people of the nation can follow, one who bequeaths a legacy that all humanity is destined to inherit.
What kind of situation creates that opportunity?
When a nation is faced with intractable issues at a time of misery and cruelty, and a person takes responsibility for solving those issues at the risk of his or her life, that moment becomes an unforgettable moment in a life story.
The experience of saving your brother, relatives, or other people at the risk of your life, rather than the experience of risking your life for your own sake during your life course, and the occasion of having faced a moment in which you had to save them, can appear as an image in your mind at the last fateful moment.
The times of happiness centered on you and a blessed time of being welcomed and glorified by many people will affect that moment.
About whether we were good, became true, and could stand alone before God, truth and goodness do not begin from ourselves or end in ourselves.
Only when they begin in us and bring results in others, or they begin in others and bring results in us, can goodness come about. According to the Principle, all beings in the universe are to enter into reciprocal relationships.
If your life up to now has been a life of giving, there should be no fear on the path of death. If you give everything for others, sacrifice for others, shed tears for others while leading a life close to the truth, invest your life for others, find your desires in others, and concentrate all the life force flowing from your pulse and invest it for others, your past will become a shining past.
When you long for such a past and think about the nation, you will conclude that the nation of hope must also be such a nation. When you come to yearn for such a past, you will sacrifice for others, and you will be able to decide what the original goodness you hope for should be like.
If you go before God saying “Since I have fought for goodness in the past, then naturally this will bear fruit in the future.” This content becomes the foundation for your eternal life.
The paths of saints and sages and the paths of ordinary people are different. The saints and the sages are those who sought to live for history, the world, and the future. Ordinary people, however, are those who seek to live for themselves and to make the world serve them.
END OF SERMON