01The Purpose Of Religion
Until now, the balance in the fight between mind and body was about 1:8. The human body is invaded by the environment of the fallen world, but the mind follows only one way.
People in this realistic world are concerned about results. Yet, in the process of trying to do evil, we feel anxiety. When we perform this evil, our gains all collapse.
Our mind constantly tries to interfere with our body's actions, but finally is invaded by the body. Therefore, the ratio is 1:8, since the mind is always being subdued by the body.
Why did God create religion?
To give us grace. But to receive it is not free; we have to fulfill the condition of dedicating our lives more than even a king does. We receive God's grace as the result of establishing such a condition.
If you have experienced a life of prayer, then you can understand this. Through a prayer life, you can receive the greatest energy. People with such power can even see the spiritual world.
God desired for people to reach the realm of the substantial ideal and conduct the providence that is centered on the religious foundation. God stimulated our original mind to have a desire to attain this realm.
God wanted to connect with people beyond the realistic realm. This is the main purpose of religion. Therefore, the martyrs followed this way even if their legs were cut off.
Even when their lives were finished, they had this “super feeling” which goes beyond realistic feelings. In going this way, people must strengthen their power eight times more than anyone else. They attend to God, gain strength, and then smite their bodies. The result of a fight depends on strength.
Religion denies one's worldly physical desires and one's desires as a social being. Thus, pure religion denies all realistic things. Religion means to deny and repel eating, sleeping, sexual desires, and anything that you like.
Originally, a human being should eat, sleep, and like things. However, those desires lead us to death, so we must reject them. Burst a nuclear bomb in your body! Break and completely subjugate your body.
The body wants to be respected and to lead an easy, soft, smooth life. But we should despise all that the body likes. We should love what is difficult, hard, and rough. The body likes a high position, caring about nobody but oneself. We have to destroy such a nature and bring the body down, to be humble, serve, and sacrifice.
People have needed religion throughout history, as it fulfills this purpose. We have to dominate the body through religion because society, humankind, and all history have failed owing to the physical body.
The physical body is the enemy and the original root of evil. Smiting the body was the goal of religion until now; therefore, Jesus smote his body through the 40-day fast.
The body likes to be high and attract people's attention; however, religion teaches the opposite way: to obey and offer your life. Why? Not to smite our mind but to smite our body, and in so doing to connect to the worldwide level.
One Heart Unity Is Necessary In Our Life
One-heart unity means to make unity with one heart. Everyone wants to achieve this. Any government, nation, organization, and whoever would like to carry out a system or plan cannot do it without mind and body unity.
One-heart unity is necessary in the process of striving toward goals in our life, whether in daily life, in the year, throughout our whole lives, or even in the entire course of history.
An individual cannot fulfill a goal if he or she has a different mind from evening to morning, like two people! Let's think about our society and our environment. Do they have a heart's unity? We know they do not.
You may feel your mind changing many times in a day. Because your mind varies, your direction also varies, and because your direction varies, your purpose varies too. You cannot fulfill one purpose when your mind varies. It is difficult to fulfill a goal with one mind; how much more difficult it is to fulfill it with two!
Thus, one mind is necessary. We must have one mind in the morning, during the daytime, and in the evening, and the same in youth, middle age, and old age. If one starts something with one mind, opens up the process with one mind, and prepares the result over a long period with one mind, then the purpose of that person is greater. We should have one mind.
When we pursue a certain purpose, we need one mind. Without one mind, we cannot fulfill the goal. When we look at the world, we can realize that God created this world with one mind, not with two minds. To fulfill one goal, we have to begin with one mind and pass through the process in one direction. However, today, people cannot have one mind.
Two Ways To Achieve Mind And Body Unity
Originally, human beings were born from God, but now they have two owners.
What does it mean to have two owners?
It means that our blood lineage was changed. The first task of religious life is to achieve mind-body unity. Centered on what? Centering on God's will and God's heart, we must subjugate the body based on one mind. Religion teaches how to dominate the body.
The First Way to Dominate the Body
What is the first way to achieve unity of mind and body? Knock down the body.
Strike the body. Deny everything that the body desires. To what degree do we have to deny? Deny completely – deny to the point of death.
Therefore, paradoxical logic can be applied, as in Jesus' words. If we cannot knock down our body and follow only the mind's desires, then we cannot fulfill ourselves. In other words, when we try to kill our physical desires, the mind comes alive. If we focus only on physical desires, we will die.
Therefore, Jesus said, "He who seeks his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." He also said, "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me."
Why? Because Jesus came upon the earth as the representative of God's heart. It is impossible to connect to the human being with God's heart by following our physical desires. The relationships with parents, among brothers and sisters, and between husband and wife are physical.
We cannot follow the way of God's heart by following physical desires. If you want to go this way, you have to deny physical relationships. Someone who loves God more than parents, spouse, brothers, or sisters can enter the Heavenly Kingdom.
What is the standard to enter the Heavenly Kingdom?
How can we get the official ticket to the Heavenly Kingdom?
When you love God more than your father and mother, brother or sister, and children. Otherwise, there is no chance of entering. To enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to remove our physical desires.
Knock down your body even by force. Be humble and gentle. Does your body want to be humble and gentle? Your body wants to go higher and be arrogant. It would like to take more food, more rest, and more for itself.
Therefore, the body is the basis and root of evil. The roots of good and evil were inverted. That is why we must eradicate the root of evil. Doo not follow your physical desires. Do not go to any evil place. Otherwise, you cannot go the way of the heavenly principle and heart.
It is easy for the human heart to initiate anything centered on Satan and evil. So we must deny our physical desires. The first way to deny evil is to subdue the body; therefore, we pray and fast. When we are establishing conditions through fasting and prayer, our body loses power, even becoming difficult to move. Then the mind can easily dominate the body. Then serve and sacrifice for the sake of others.
The body does not like it. Therefore, religious life starts from denying all relationship with the body. If you read the scriptures, can you find any guidance about eating good food and leading an easy life?
It is impossible to find such guidance. Religion teaches us to serve, sacrifice, be gentle, and humble. Therefore, religious people pray for the sake of others, even risking their lives. The body by itself cannot do this. In this way, we can knock down our body. The mind and body fight when they have the same amount of strength.
When your mind can dominate your body because you have been strengthening it for several months, then, even after the body becomes stronger, it will follow the mind out of habit. When you reach such a level, you will find that your plans are going well with heavenly support.
Then it will be difficult to lead such a life as you did in the past. You will live centered on your conscience. This is the purpose of religious life.
The Second Way to Dominate the Body
When mind and body have the same power, they fight. Is it possible for kindergarten children to fight the world champion? No, it is impossible. There is a big gap between them.
So, the second way to dominate the body is to make the mind stronger. There are only two ways to dominate the body. To make the mind stronger, we need various conditions and dedication of the heart. When we dedicate our whole energy, the door to the mind opens up.
When this door is open, we can gain immense power. Then you have no problem with your body. You probably do not realize that. If your mind's power is strengthened three times over, then you will have no concern in dominating the body. You must consolidate the mind's power and lead your body. That is how many conditions have been made in religious life.
Most likely, you have heard the expression “to attain spiritual enlightenment.” If you attain spiritual enlightenment, you can gain great power in your mind. Then, if you follow your body's desires, you will feel sick.
Even thinking about it makes you feel bad. A person who has attained spiritual enlightenment has a strong power of the mind, and so his body follows the mind's desires automatically. Only in these two ways can the body be dominated. We must understand this clearly.
This has been God's strategy to achieve domination of the body. This has been a fundamental religious teaching to the present day. The Unification Church follows the same principle.
This is an advanced stage in the way of life of a human being. In other words, this is to enter the position of God's son or daughter by oneself, centered on God's true love. When we reach this position, we can receive the unique love of God. That is why Buddha said, “Only I exist in Heaven and on Earth.”
This means that nobody can equal his authority. When somebody reaches this glorious position, they can admire their value. In other words, he or she can become the person directly receiving God's love.
Such a person can inherit anything and everything that connects to God's creation. Therefore, such a person can say about oneself how precious he or she is. The way of attaining this position is the original way the human being would go, to live in the realm of God's love.
The Way to Unite Mind and Body
There are only two ways to achieve mind and body unity. The first is by striking the body; the second is by unity without doing so.
How can we achieve unity?
Until today, our minds have been losing in an unequal battle because the power of the mind was too weak. But how about if we inject two or three times greater power into the mind?
Then it is no problem to lead the body. If we inflate a tube with air, it expands. In the same way, if we infuse power into our minds, they will become bigger.
Then, if mind and body fight, which side will win?
There are two ways to unite mind and body: one is to strike the body; the other is to strengthen the mind. Religion pursues both of these ways – by subduing the body, and then by leading the body with strengthened power through prayer. We can experience this through religious life.
Even though we have no power ourselves, when the Holy Spirit and the spiritual world act together with us, we gain strong power.
What is the standard of mind-body unity?
You have to know what this standard is. Unity can be attained by love. The human being is composed of dual characteristics. One is upper, namely the mind, and the other is lower, namely the body. When they resonate together, love appears.
When the mind and body become one, God will be with you. This is a fundamental principle.
Why would God be with you at that time?
Love begins when the mind and body become one. For love, the subject and object are necessary. Therefore, God is with the one who has established mind and body unity.
Then we can say that the human body is God's temple. In which place is God's temple? In the workplace? A holy place may be said to connect with the Sabbath.
Then what is the center of rest? It is love. God's temple is the place to rest, centered on God's love.
If human beings have an ideal, they will pursue the highest standard of this ideal. Such a place of love is the world of the heart. There is no end to love, even though we pour love out like a fountain. Why is there no end? Because God is there. We cannot understand this by logic. Do you want to become such a person? [Yes!]
If someone who is weeping sees such a person, will he like this person, or will he cry more? [Like him.] As the one who is weeping goes closer to him, he will want to embrace the one weeping so that he does not want to cry.
He will make someone with a fearsome face want to smile. He will make someone who is inactive want to do something. Furthermore, he does this naturally. Is this good? [Yes.] Therefore, without love, there is no way to unite mind and body. We must understand this. (91-77)
Only True Love Can Unite the Mind and Body
Logically speaking, wherever there is love, whether you go up, go down, or stay in the middle, you feel good. Do you hate your loving husband for being in a position higher than you?
Do you hate your beloved wife because she is better than you?
The two are one. One! Once you become one, you can freely go wherever you want- you can come up from below, come down from above, or stay in the middle. There are no obstacles. Is that so? [Yes!]
Many people say, “This world must become one unified world, the world of peace.”
So, shall we make unity by force? Or by the power of organization? Nowadays, there is a form of unity termed an “organic collective,” so shall we establish unity by that power? Shall we try to make unity using a certain philosophy?
Maybe these could help somewhat to bring about a partial unity, but it cannot be absolute in the sense that both mind and body welcome it according to their original nature and feel that there is nothing else but this.
Mind and body will never say of partial unity, “I like this! This is what I want! I can live in this realm and attend this as the eternal standard of the ideal.” Neither money nor knowledge nor anything else can bring about this kind of unity.
Then what is the source of unity? Regardless of position, rank, Oriental or Western, yellow, white, or black race, what is it that can intoxicate everybody?
That is love. You must know that this is the conclusion: that there is nothing but true love that is capable of making unity. Is that true? [Yes!]
How can mind and body get along with one another and become one, being genuinely fond of each other? Would mind and body like each other due to money? They could not continue to get along with one another for all eternity.
So, this is the conclusion: only through true love can all five senses be concentrated and united into one, laughing and dancing together. Who can deny this? If someone denies this, then he cannot be a human being.
Therefore, we again conclude that nothing but true love can unite the spirit self and physical self, the mind, and body, and bring about mutual prosperity. (91–141)
The question is, when will mind and body be united within me? We can do that neither by money nor by power, nor by knowledge, nor by thought. Not. Then, with what can we achieve that?
It is only possible through God's love. In conclusion, the Almighty God's Love must be capable of uniting the mind and body. (94-267)
Originally, the spiritual self and physical self were supposed to be united, centering on true love, not centering on false love. Therefore, unless we find the origin of true love, they will by no means be united. That is very logical. You must go over that place and keep going further, with the desire for God's blessing. (91-184)
Originally, God's love was always to enter the mind and body of the human being, bringing about a state without any conflict, contradiction, or struggle.
However, the human being was separated from God and established a self-centered relationship of false love, thereby bringing about struggle and contradiction between mind and body.
Thus, such a history came about in which love centered on the external body has betrayed God's love, the ideal, and the eternal origin of life centered upon the mind.
Therefore, we have to eradicate this external love, that is, the love of Satan, and instead, in its place, inherit the original internal love, God's love, and establish unity between mind and body. From that point, unification will begin. (97-179)
Probably you know that the power of love is not exploding because there is no unity between the mind and the body. That is the result of the Fall. If human beings had not fallen, there is no way that the mind and body would be unable to unite.
Therefore, how to overcome this very substantial and extremely contradictory situation must be a question of utmost importance. That is the problem. By what means shall we overcome it? By the power of love! We can do that only by the power of love (1981.6.6.)
The providence for salvation began due to the Fall.
What was our original desire?
We yearned for love. That love is true love. True love! What is true love? If you connect to true love, all five senses, your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin, can all laugh together and feel together in unison.
Well, if our body can laugh and feel with all five senses, then how about our mind? How would the mind be connected to true love? If you could see the mind, would this mind just be huddled in the corner, while the body was doing like this? [No!]
What would it be doing? Do you have any idea?
How do you think?
Everything comes together into oneness at that point. Thinking theoretically about from what point the unity of all our actions begins, it is logical to suppose that it starts from true love.
If it were not so, then there would be no foundation to realize God's ideal nor the unity for which all human beings long.
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