Love of the Natural World

Why did God create all things?

It was in order to have an object partner and a realm of object partners to love; they could eat and live, and then return to God’s original world and live in the eternal original kingdom of love. You need to know this. (142-75, 03/01/1986)

Today, Christians think that since God is all-knowing and all-powerful, the world came into being just with a few simple words, “Let there be ‘such and such’ in heaven and on earth.” But it did not happen that way. God invested everything: all the energy He had. He created as a gift for His beloved sons and daughters and His beloved family of the future by investing all the power of love He had. Thus, we should look at all things of creation with this kind of understanding. (112-306, 04/25/1981)

When God created the world, there was joy. After creating it He said that it was good. It means there was joy. What is joy? It is something you feel when you have achieved a certain purpose. Since all things God created contain His consciousness of purpose, He felt joy with them. Then, what kind of world is the world of restoration? In a nutshell, it is a world populated by people who have a three-dimensional connection of heart through which they can sing and praise God even when looking at any individual masterpiece of the creation. This is where God sees the value of personality.

The old story about Saint Francis preaching to animals and birds is not a lie. It is a dream-like story, but is in fact true. (9-166, 05/08/1960)

Everything in the created world is made by God as a textbook so that His beloved sons and daughters can find and nurture the ideal of love. The created world therefore has correlative structures. Minerals function through the relationship of subject partner and object partner, protons and electrons interact within the atom in subject/object relationship. Without interacting, they cannot exist. Without being in motion they cannot continuously exist.

With human beings at the center, the universe was created to relate to that central point. (137-59, 12/18/1985)

The universe is a mysterious world. God did not create the universe as something to fool around with or play with. With the most devoted effort, He created it for the sake of His beloved people, and indeed how beautiful it is! So when we look at this universe, we should have an extremely grateful heart, saying that the Father has created it for us. If you walk around the gardens, behold the trees, plants, flowers, and birds, watch the streams flow, and feel the winds blow with this kind of heart, you cannot but be overwhelmed with wonder. (87-319, 06/27/1976)

The perfection of the universe does not just involve the external world rejoicing but also requires that my innermost self also rejoice. In rejoicing, both my mind and body must be joyful, and all my cells must be delighted. The cells in my eyes and those in the bottom of my feet are different, aren’t they? They are different, but this has to be a world where these cells can all rejoice. The cells in my hand and all cells, including the entire mind and body without having any part left out, can rejoice. While doing so, they should not stay separated but become connected in the resonant joy of love based on the duality of purpose. Only then will the universe reach perfection. (166-210, 06/07/1987)

Connections start from extremely small things. You are also a living body consisting of as many as 400 trillion cells connected. In the world of the ideal of creation centered on God, that is, among all existence in the great universe, none came into being from outside God’s heart. A poet who can feel these kinds of things would be a great poet. If there were a poet who can feel and express a cosmic heart when seeing a leaf shake, he would become a poet for the universe.

We have not seen all the phenomena of heaven and earth unfolding around us, but even without our knowing there are things that exist together with God’s love. When you enter a spiritual state, you can see that even a small grain of sand contains the principles of the universe, and even one atom contains the bottomless and inexhaustible harmony of the universe. We cannot deny that all existence is the result of some complex force, although we are unable to understand it clearly.

Atoms exist below molecules and elementary particles exist below atoms; these forms do not exist unconsciously but with a certain consciousness and purpose. Therefore, we should clearly and fully understand the fact that all things in existence have appeared through the loving hands of God and exist in a necessary relationship of heart with God. (9-166, 05/08/1960)

What kind of people are the enlightened masters? They are those with a heart so deep that they recognize even the value of one stem of grass as equal to their own and can cry out “God!” These would be enlightened masters of the highest level. Those who can sing its value this way would be the artists of the highest caliber. If there were people with hearts that could allow them to discover the charms of God’s love and heart in every variety of creation, in all their forms and colors, and befriend them and find enjoyment together, they would be the people who could represent the entire universe. If there are people whose cells move one by one with this type of feeling, they are the lords of creation. Conversely, if there is a person who knows about nothing but eating, can he become the lord of creation? (9-166, 05/08/1960)

People observe and learn from nature as they grow up. They come to understand, “This is what the insect world is like!” When you listen carefully on an autumn night when the moon is shining and stars are twinkling, the sounds of the insects are like an orchestra.

Why do they make such a sound?

They are singing of their ideal as they search for their partners. They are whispering love. Birds and all other animals also follow this common denominator of love when they make their sad and happy sounds. They are low on the scale and far away from the axis, and yet they are circling around the axis in parallel. It is the same for all existing beings. (137-59, 12/18/1985)

There are three kinds of birds’ songs. First, there is a song expressing hunger; second, a song sung in expressing love for a mate; and third, a song sung in time of danger. These are all different. We ordinary people do not know this, but they know in their own world. When they call out of hunger, all of the other birds already know. But around what does their daily life revolve? Hunger is taken care of simply by eating, and they are not facing danger every day, either. Most of their singing goes back and forth in a give-and-take relationship with their partner. (137-211, 01/03/1986)

Human beings were created as a subject partner and an object partner; that is, as a pair. The world of all things, too, which exists for the sake of humankind, creates harmony under the principle of love and realizes its life and ideal through the love of humankind. For humankind, and especially for the maturing Adam and Eve, the world of all things was a textbook of love and a museum that infinitely displays the essence of love. (135-10, 08/20/1985)

All birds and animals exist in pairs. They harmonize with each other in love. Flowers and butterflies relate as two opposite poles, yet harmonize with each other. This is the harmonious relationship of heaven and earth. The opposite poles of the universe create harmony through love. It’s the same with migratory birds. Birds in the south fly to the north, and birds in the north fly to the south, loving each other back and forth across the regions. In so doing, they revolve eternally around love. People learn about love through the textbooks in the museum God created.

When people and God love each other in joy, all the things in heaven and earth follow the rhythm and harmonize around them. If God likes this and loves this, the angelic world will also like it. The entire created world will like it too, applauding and offering praise. Songbirds will sing praises, and beautiful flowers will offer praises through their fragrances.

This created world exists to expand the fragrant atmosphere in which the central personages of the highest love can enjoy themselves. Even the ugly-looking toads croak “wook, wook, wook,” when they make love. How charming! They kick with their legs and move them up and down while making love. What a delightful scene! This is the highest art. (142-273, 03/13/1986)

When spring comes and birds sing, as soon as you hear the song, you should think of your wife, your children, your country, the world, and even God. Then, everything is complete. Birds only think of birds themselves, but people have a sense of being in relationships. Having that sense of relationship as a mediator between the animal world, the plant world, and the spirit world is an exclusive privilege of human beings. We can link everything together. Only human beings have this special authority. (131-125, 04/22/1984)

As they matured, Adam and Eve would have come to understand their purpose, saying, “Ah, that’s how to make love.” God laid out the world of all things as a textbook for bringing the ideal of human love to maturity. As they continued to learn, as they grew, Adam and Eve would come to have different feelings toward each other, saying, “Aha, we were like a brother and sister in the past, but now it seems...” They will learn, saying, “Aha, that’s the way it is.” They will go along a straight line and then collide, saying, “You and I must meet even at the risk of death. We cannot go anywhere else.” (137-59, 12/18/1985)

Love is like a nerve. Just as pulling one strand of hair pulls the entire body, if we pull on love, the universe itself is pulled along. As we create motion in love, the entire universe comes into harmony. So when there is love, we dance. How did dancing come about? It was because of love. Songs also came about because of love, and so did laughter. If love were taken away, everything would become hard and stiff. (89-90, 10/04/1976)

People like butterflies rather than bees. It is because butterflies dance as they fly. Everything that flies does so in rhythm with a beat and with a melody. Fast-flying creatures fly in time with a beat; so do slow-flying ones. There are various styles of flight, but, anyway, everything flies according to a certain rhythm. Also, the way deer run and rabbits play in the mountains is musical. The way they hop around has a certain rhythm, and the way they eat also has a musical quality. It is the same with people; there is a certain rhythm when we eat. These all express something musically. If we think in this way – that someone made this universe for me to last for eternity and put it in place for me – we should feel grateful to Him. We should not think as an onlooker, as if this were something to do with someone in a neighboring village.

There are high mountains and low mountains. Do you like there being high mountains with low-lying land, or do you like only plain and flat land? Having high and low is better. Why is this so? It is because these shapes assume a certain form that looks as if it would dance. It is good when these are in forms of all kinds and colors, going up and going down, forming all kinds of curves. Then, this creation is like a dance. In nature, there are splendid dances and beautiful music; there is wonderful artwork. So many such things exist in nature. (87-321, 06/27/1976)

Adam and Eve, born as the first children of God, were to grow from childhood to maturity in the realm of God’s protection. Since their intellect was to develop in this process, they would have come to realize why God created the world, and God would have educated them through the created world. The created world, with everything being in motion, was a textbook to teach Adam and Eve, who were to be our first, original ancestors, everything about how to live. You should know that since Adam and Eve were not perfect, the world was given as a model and a museum showing them how to lead an ideal life. (137-126, 01/01/1986)

When you open your eyes in the morning and look at nature, it stimulates your original nature and causes feelings of a new ideal to sprout forth. As for the human world, on the other hand, you must know well that the more you see it, the more despair and sorrow it arouses in your heart. If the world were populated by original people who had not fallen, the value of human beings would not be such as to stir sorrow in the heart of the beholder. Human beings were not created merely to have the value of a blade of grass, a flower, or a tree trunk. People were supposed to be noble beings that could not be exchanged for anything in the created world. They were supposed to step forward, representing Heaven with incomparable value. (9-97, 04/24/1960)

You should have such a mind that, when observing nature imbued with God’s love, you say, “Could the precious items possessed by the kings of this world, or by people of great fame, compare with this? Could any antique artifact compare with this? Could a glamorous dress worn by a famous lady compare with this?” Without that heart, we are committing a sin before the natural world, even without knowing it. If there is someone who looks at a living being, saying, “What items produced by human hands could compare with this? No matter how great someone may be, could he ever be greater than God?” and values most highly all things created through God investing His heart, he must surely be a child of God. Such a person does not need to pray; he lives with God and is a person driven by God. (9-174, 05/08/1960)

Things of nature, no matter how insignificant, cannot be compared with anything else. No painting drawn by a famous painter can compare with even a worthless tree standing by the side of the road. No matter how a famous painter may have painted flowers and created a great masterpiece, the flowers on the canvas do not bloom no matter how hard you look at them, nor is there any fragrance, nor can they produce seeds. Yet the insignificant tree standing by the roadside blossoms with flowers, bears fruit, and produces seeds. And if the seeds are planted, trees better than the mother tree can spring up in abundance. Even the paintings of a famous painter cannot compare with this. (9-176, 05/08/1960)

People will enjoy and take delight in anything that belongs to someone they love. Nevertheless, they do not know how to take delight in all things created by God, whom they should love the most. Can such people become God’s sons and daughters? You are responsible for liberating creation, which is sighing and lamenting from its sorrow. You should deeply experience the heart and care that God invested in the creation of even one tree or plant 6,000 years ago. You should have such a heart.

So you should be able to shed tears even at the sight of one plant along the road, or holding onto one tree, say, “How lonely you must be to have lost your master!” I myself have wept profusely while grasping a rock; I have shed tears to feel the wind blow. Now, because you have heard my words, you understand why. (9-176, 05/08/1960)

I have come this way while saying, “The precious things of creation, which God made and which have forged an eternal connection with God, are not cherished as much as national treasures or the valuables in some palaces today. I will understand that sorrow; I alone must understand.” If you have a heart that says, “Though all those living on this earth may be ignorant of it, I will understand,” then you will be a new people that can govern humankind in the future. This is not a concept but a fact. Who values all things of creation more than the family treasure handed down over the generations? Diamonds are said to be the most valuable, precious stones in the world and people cling to them and refuse to let them go. Who values creation more than diamonds? Where are such people? On seeing those who understand in their hearts what He has created, and who shed tears when they hold the things of creation, God will say “My dear children!” (9-176, 05/08/1960)

What is nature? It is an exhibit that God has given us as a gift, something He prepared for the birth of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the song of a bird and a stem of grass growing are decorations prepared to bring beauty into the lives of His beloved sons and daughters. Even the rocks rolling on the road were created as decorations for a nation, as God knew that His sons and daughters would be the owners who would rule over that nation. It is the same with flowing water. God did not want things to be dry and monotonous, so He created so as to establish a “prince” of dreams and of hope who could look at this infinitely colorful and harmonious garden – this world of love – and inherit it. Hence, we learn from all things of creation. When the male and female birds sing, the lady who owns them should learn from them. You should be able to sing praises for the beauty of the original world of creation, where everything devotes its entire life living for the sake of the other. Then, even young birds will want to come and live in your home and have their young there. Do you understand what I am saying? (175-186, 04/16/1988)

No matter how precious a work of art in a museum may be, can it have more value than a living work of art? I am asking who has loved this earth, the museum of all things and the work of God, more than God has. I am asking if anyone has loved it more than the museums in his own country. Can you compare a gold crown from the Shilla Dynasty in a museum with a dandelion lying on the road, which has been made directly by God? If there is a king, who understands God’s heart and who takes care of the creation with such a heart that says to the creation “I fell sorry and shameful because I cannot love you from the position of an unfallen king whom God can love and had loved,” the tufts of grass would want to follow that king and be with him eternally. This is how people should live. (175-186, 04/16/1988)

You should know how to love nature and love people. You should know that those who cannot love people or love nature cannot love God. Because all things of creation are symbols of God and because people are beings of His substance, those who know how to love all things of creation and people will come to love God. (70-181, 02/09/1974)

You should always love nature. You should love nature and love people. You should love people of all five colors of the human race. Would God say, “Oh, I only like the white people”? Then everyone would have to wear only white clothes. All white people would have to wear only white clothes and throw away all their colored clothes. Why would you wear black clothes or colored clothes? That would be a contradiction. (133-30, 07/01/1984)

We should feel that all creatures of God are objects of our love. We should be the people who can love even all the minute forms of life and be the people who can receive love from them. The same is true for our fellow human beings, as well as everything visible and invisible in heaven. When a bird calls “chirp, chirp, chirp” in the morning, instead of grumbling, “You pesky sparrow, why are you chirping when I am trying to sleep late?!” say, “Oh, thank you. You came to wake me up. Ha ha! You are telling me that an important guest is coming to see me.” The outlook is different. That is a great thing. (112-219, 04/12/1981)