The Way For Students

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

1) Essential Purpose

Rev. Moon has walked the ascetic path throughout his life, and moreover, has been agonized over the essence of the Universe and the reality of the existence of God. Rev. Moon came to know vividly the very existence of God through the ascetic life shedding tears and blood. Rev. Moon has experienced seeing God, the Essence of the Universe, face to face, and recognized that one cannot discuss true peace on Earth without attaining peace with God.

God is the First Cause of the world of creation, and the Creator of the Universe. God is our beloved Father. God created the Universe to realize His special purpose. That special purpose is to put Love into practice.

Even though God is the origin of true love, Almighty God alone cannot experience the joy of love. God needs the object of love, the love partner, and seeks the return of love from the object. The greatest creation among all things is we humans. For this reason our life has purpose. The purpose of life is to practice a true love relationship with God after maturity. This is the fundamental principle to establish the peace between man and God.

We know well enough that everyone on earth including ourselves wants to be good. It is well known that human history has been headed in this direction up until now, and that educators and religious leaders also have struggled and fought to set up standards of goodness. Therefore, it is the purpose of one's life that one should live for good, ness and die for goodness. One cannot deny that it is not only the purpose of one's life but also the purpose of human history which has knitted our lives together.

Of course, it is important for one to live well and to accomplish one's own work. Above all one has to practice filial piety toward the vertical heavenly Parents. One has to practice patriotism toward the vertical heavenly Parents. One has to practice royalty toward the vertical heavenly Parents. One has to do one's best more than a Saint's toward the vertical heavenly Parents. For this essential purpose we are born. To meet such a person God created man. There is such purpose there.

Where is the true way for a man to follow? Where are we born? We are born in love. Which way should one tread? One should tread the way of Love. How to die? One should die for Love. This is the conclusion.

The problem is what kind of love is this Love? It should be welcome not by a small realm but by the great Universe. It must be authorized by God. It must be approved by the angelic world. It has to be approved by the Creation. It is our purpose of life that our parents are to be born in the great Universe, lead their lives there, practice love there, and die there.

When people live in goodness they want to share the goodness with their parents, brothers, and relatives. Goodness equals happiness. Happiness is related to eternity. The eternal essence is heart.

What is the center of the Universe? It is the parents and the son. In other words it is the Parents and me. God is Father, I am His son. The ultimate purpose of life is to find the Father and to unite with Him unceasingly.

What is the utmost purpose of life? What is the utmost purpose of the fallen man? I think that "So faith, hope, love abide, but the greatest of these is love," (I Corinthians 13:13) is a very good verse indeed.

To what do we set our purpose of life? We have to set our purpose not to an individual purpose, nor to a family purpose, nor to a group purpose, nor to a national purpose, nor to a worldly purpose, nor to a purpose for heaven and earth, but to the joint purpose of God and man centering on God.

Then, which of these purposes will remain to the last? The individual purpose fades away, the family purpose fades, the worldly purpose fades, but if there is any which will remain to the end, that is the purpose pursued by God and man jointly.

Where would be the terminal point, the safe arrival of your mind? Even if one finds God, and occupies Him, things would not rest there. Then, where would be the final destiny of one's mind? It would be the place where one occupies God and His Love. Therefore, it will be all in vain if one cannot occupy God's Love.

What will be the final goal of one's life? It is not just to meet the one who is the center of heaven centering on God but to live with him.

Meeting him, living with him is one thing; but the real problem is where you meet him, where you live with him. The place you want to meet him and you want to live with him might be the center, but that is where God's love dwells.

Therefore, the utmost purpose towards which the human heart heads is to be united with God, to follow the heavenly path, to occupy God's Love and to make it one's own.

What is the final destiny a person seeks to attain? It is to be an object of Love of the Supreme Being. It is to know that the Supreme Being is God as well as our father.

We humans possess a double structure. We are ourselves born and situated as a resonator and a mediator of the spiritual world and the physical world.

Whether male or female, one consists of dual structure: mind and body. The mind is vertical while the body is horizontal. One cannot be situated nor positioned without passing the horizontal and vertical origin.

Thus: wrong positioned, deformed, upright, right are not determined without vertical and horizontal standards. The position is not determined without them. Neither East nor West direction is determined without them.

We can catch the logical basis of justification in that the purpose of the individual and the purpose of the whole which the Unificationists emphasize have a historically appropriate logical basis. Then, what is the purpose of the individual? It is to be complete as an individual. The purpose of the whole is to complete the whole. Therefore, it is true that where there is no completion of the purpose of an individual there is no access to the purpose of the whole.

Human beings have physical purpose and mental purpose. Then, which of these is the greater purpose? Which of these should we accomplish first? The mental purpose should be accomplished first.

Let us assume that there are a small individual purpose and a big individual purpose. Then if one abandons the small one for the sake of pursuing the big purpose, it generates a plus factor. Hence, it benefits the small purpose and it also causes the accomplishment of the big purpose. The communist acknowledges the objective world. He says that it is subject to the destructive fighting in history. For this reason Communism will perish someday.

Human beings have the object of life from the very beginning of their birth: the purpose for the whole and the purpose or the individual. Man is born with a dual purpose.

What does a man expect today? What is the ultimate goal to attain today? It is to be well off. It is to be well off all together. But What do you mean by "being well off'? Since the root is uncertain and the budding of the object is obscure people finally seek peace centering around themselves, to seek happiness centering around themselves and to seek satisfaction centering around themselves. Hence, they succumb to the pitfall of pleasure-seeking.

Since people think that death is the end of life, man wants to be well off in the ideal world they have made. He wants to cut a brilliant figure on the world's stage. In the end one succumbs to the pitfall of pleasure-seeking. All of the ethics and moral standards in the United States today are fallen.

There are many aspects of the "fall of value." Today the historical tradition is rejected, and parents, brothers, husband and wife relations in a family are destroyed. All other relations are removed for the sake of individual personal pleasure. But this is absolutely flabbergasting.