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The Essence of Mind and Body Unity
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July 29, 2007 Rev. Alan Roghanian |
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“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” John. 3:16
Reading: Before you lies the responsibility to repossess the love of God. Yet who is blocking the path? Who opposes the will that all the world of creation should serve God as the one center? It is Satan, who is inducing sin and evil in you today. Hence, if you cannot pull out the root of sin and evil implanted deep in your mind today, and if, representing humanity, you cannot build the world of God after defeating Satan, the betrayer of Heaven who has been fighting for 6,000 years, then you cannot exercise the dominion of God on the earth. "Let Us Claim Back the World of God’s Dominion and Offer It to Him" June 26, 1956 -Headquarters Church, Seoul, Korea
Good morning brothers and sisters. It is indeed my great honor and privilege to be able to stand up here once more, and share some of my recent thoughts and prayers with all of you. It has also been my most sincere prayer that, despite all of my limitations of heart and character, our Heavenly Father would find a way to touch each and every one of you personally throughout this sermon. Now, I also have a confession to make. Out of all the hundreds of Sunday sermons I have given throughout my life of faith, this is the very first time that I have managed to actually write down all my thoughts on paper. Without any further ado and, as you’ve already seen, the title of my sermon today is the essence of mind and body unity. I am sure that over the years you have read, and heard a lot about this topic, haven’t you? In fact, I believe that our True Parents have probably spoken more about this topic than any other in their several hundred volumes of speeches. Isn’t that right? Let us try to examine the reason for this. Divine Principle teaches us that, first, it is self-evident that human history has been a fallen history full of pain, suffering, and bloodshed. Secondly, it is impossible for fallen humanity to restore their original ideal position in God’s creation if they cannot clearly understand what it was, and how they came to lose it. That is why almost all Father’s speeches begin with the original fallen act committed by the first human ancestors in the Garden of Eden. If we cannot understand exactly what was it that we lost, we can never hope to find it either, no matter how long and how diligently we continue to search for it. On August 28, 1971 in Cheong Pyeong Training Center, our True Father said, and I quote: “The origin of this fight is, in all aspects, between the individual’s mind and body. You must know that this is the origin of the fight. Unless we settle this completely, the fight will never end. When unity is established, finally, once and for all, the authority of God will appear and the standard of perfection will come into existence centering on myself. When we look at it this way, the place where God’s authority is established is “I”. The place where God’s desire is fulfilled is also “I”. All success or failure begins with the individual. Therefore, we cannot deny the fact that the origin of everything does not exist in the objective world, but inside ourselves.” In other words, mind and body disunity that Father is talking about is not an external and physical phenomenon. Jesus said the same thing, didn’t he? “The Kingdom of God is within you, it is not external,” he said. Also in Matt. 15 he said;” not what goes into the mouth defiles a man but what comes out of the mouth.” Then, he further expounded in Matt. 19 when he said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” Therefore, according to Jesus, the root of man’s separation from God was nothing other than the corruption of man’s heart. Besides, medical science has already proven that human body is nothing more than a highly sophisticated machine. And, in order for any machine to run smoothly and efficiently, there are some quantifiable and finite necessities which must be met. For example, in order for a car to run smoothly, the most basic necessities are oil, gas, and tires-am I right? Also, depending on the type and size of the engine, you would need a specific quantity of each of those elements. An average size car would probably need 5 quarts of oil, 20 gallons of gas and 4 tires. Because those necessities and needs are quantifiable, they are also finite. In other words, you cannot outfit the car with 5 tires, or fit 50 gallons of gas in a 20-gallon tank. Does this make sense? Likewise, human beings’ purely physical desires are also finite and quantifiable, and that is why they can be manipulated and shaped. For example, we can only eat one full plate of food, which may be two or more for some. After that, the body rejects additional food. It simply had enough. How about sleeping? Medical science tells us that we need an average of 6-9 hours of sleep depending on various hereditary and environmental conditions. After that, you simply wake up. How about physical desire for having sex? And here, I am focusing only on the purely physical or hormonal needs of the body. It would be safe to say that it’s needed every once in a while. Since I don’t want to get into trouble, you can fill in the blank yourselves. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that, since our physical needs are clearly measurable, they can be manipulated and controlled. Here are some clear examples.
These are possible because our true physical desires and needs are clearly finite, and not infinite. Your body simply needs and can process only a certain amount of input. Now, let’s look at some of our most common human problems directly related to those aforementioned physical needs, namely eating, sleeping and sexual desires, especially since our True Father has also referred to them as “the three main hooks of Satan in the body of the fallen man.”
Why am I bringing up all this? Just to prove that our common human experience also show us that the very root of our human problems is not purely physical, even though it often manifests itself through our abnormal and completely unnatural physical desires. Let’s think about this a little. Do you really think that in the future ideal world, and according to our True Father’s standard, nobody would sleep more than three hours a night? I don’t think so. I don’t know about you but my vision of the ideal world is not a place where everyone is overtired and sleepy all the time. Just like I believe that in that world all-night prayer vigils would no longer be necessary. How about drinking? Who here thinks that in our future ideal world no one would ever drink wine or any other alcoholic beverages? Raise your hands please. I distinctly remember an occasion at Belvedere when True Father asked all those members who were drinking to raise their hands in order to be forgiven by him. Then he added an interesting comment. Father said, “I don’t tell you not to drink. You can drink, but only after you have united your mind and body completely, and have achieved the perfection of your character.” Curious, isn’t it? I believe what Father is saying is that the root of evil in not embedded in the alcohol bottle but in the heart and spirit of fallen man. Alcohol would just facilitate the deeply hidden fallen nature of man to become more apparent. In my own culture of Persia, there is a popular expression that says, “Drunkenness is truthfulness.” In other words, when you are drunk and uninhibited, you cannot fake anything and consequently your true nature would show itself. Now, when a fallen man becomes drunk, his true and evil nature would normally become rampant which usually results in committing sins of various kinds. On the other hand, I believe if a true man were to get a little drunk and loose, he would probably recite poems of true love for God. He might also try to sing a song of joy and celebration together with his beloved spouse or child. I will never forget a couple of my own personal experiences in this regard. One was in my own family and with my own father. When looking back, I realize that I have had all my deepest relationships and most philosophical discussions with him when he was a little drunk and relaxed in his mind. He often repeated to me, that he had had his deepest and most personal experience with God while he was drunk. He had shed a lot of tears during that experience, and it was quite unforgettable for him. Was my father a true man of perfection? No, far from it. However, I can confidently testify that he had a heart of gold and, as Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” I also vividly remember one late night in Kona, Hawaii where I was sitting right in front of True Father. He was sitting in a chair and speaking to a few of us for many hours. It was very late at night and father was quite tired and drowsy. That is when, with his eyes half-closed, he began murmuring the song “Amazing Grace,” while massaging his foot. He was just singing his song of love for his Heavenly Father, while half drunk in his tiredness. So, if it wasn’t only a physical phenomenon, then what was it that we lost in the Garden of Eden? In another speech given in 1956, Father explains, and I quote, “However, due to the fall of Adam and Eve, the love of God remained only as the love of God. In other words, the love of God, which should have been connected to men, could not make the bond alone; it had to abandon men and all of creation.” So, it is quite obvious that what humanity lost was the love of God, and thus our “fateful responsibility to repossess the love of God.” And I submit to you, that there is no purely physical cure for this disease. Now, let us try to understand the difference between the original love of God and what we as human beings are used to calling love throughout our history. Here, our True Father has helped us again as we read: “People commonly have a lot of hope for the future, but we cannot deny the fact that the starting point of this hope is not ideology centering on the world, but thought centering on the individual. This is the undeniable desire of man. In spite of this, people today are trying to deny this fact, and their lives are following the flow of this denial. We must know that this kind of fight is going on. I say I have to be happy. Why do I have to be happy? If I’m not happy, there will be no real happiness even if my family is happy. Even if the world is happy, there can be no happiness unless I myself am happy first. You all hope to make yourself high and big instead of wanting the world to be high and big. Isn’t this what we think?” Isn’t that true? Isn’t that how we normally think? Isn’t that exactly what our famous motivational speakers and modern day gurus teach us? They say you have to become wealthy first before you can think of helping anyone else. Therefore, book titles such as Think and Grow Rich have become our national bestsellers. We are told to love ourselves first, before even thinking about loving others. In other words, our conventional wisdom teaches us that we should always place our own welfare ahead of everyone else’s. The bottom line here is that our understanding of love has become completely and hopelessly self-centered. How about the original love of God that we lost in the Garden of Eden? What kind of love was that? But before we try to answer that question, there is something I would like to clarify. We have often heard Father talking about the endless tears of God. Why is He crying? Is God that hopeless and miserable that he has to shed tears all the time? Isn’t that why we shed tears? When we feel utterly hopeless and miserable? Let’s see what our True Father has to say about that- “Since God is absolute, omniscient, and omnipotent, He does not have limitations.” Elsewhere he continues, “God’s hope was not His own; it was for the sake of men. God’s faith also did not belong to Him, but was for the sake of men. Moreover, God’s love was not for His sake but for the sake of men. Therefore, men must act on behalf of that hope, faith, and love of God. When that is done, God can take such men before all things and brag about them as the ones who represent the hope, faith and love of the whole.” Yes, brothers and sisters. Our Heavenly Father has been crying for our hopelessness and misery and not His own. According to Jesus, God’s very essence is true love and that is the kind of love which only lives for the sake of His children and all of His creation. This is the exact opposite of we fallen humanity have traditionally called love. It is completely sacrificial and seeks the happiness of His objects before His own. Only after investing every ounce of His love and energy, would God allow Himself to bathe in the joy that is returned to Him in response. I guess by now it is quite obvious that the battle between mind and body that Father is talking about, in its very core is none other than the battle between selfishness and selflessness, between self-centered thoughts and attitudes and the sacrificial tradition of living for the sake of others, even at the expense of myself. The problem was that mankind had never seen a substantial example of such love, and thus was born the necessity for the coming of the Messiah. Again I read: “The 4000-year history until Jesus was the period in which God had to find one person who realized the hope, faith, and love of God. If such a person were not found, then God’s hope, faith, and love would have become divided and unification would not be possible in any period of history.” Yes, God hoped, prayed, and worked for 4000 years, shedding vast tears and blood through the lives of His chosen people in order to find His only beloved Son, Jesus of Nazareth. And yet, when we eventually began to persecute and even spit on the face of the only begotten Son of God, our Heavenly Father was even willing to offer His precious Son on the cross for the sake of our salvation and happiness. Such is the essence of the True Love of God. It is simply beyond the imagination of fallen man. All throughout history we have only seen a few examples of such love.
Ø I am sure Jesus was not thinking I have to be happy first before the world can be happy. Or, I have to love and save myself first, before I can love and save others. That kind of thinking is the direct result of the fall, for through it we have inherited the self-centered and twisted nature of Archangel’s love/hate feelings for Eve, the original mother of all humanity.
Ø I am sure most of you remember our Church motto during the 80s, which said, “To restore the world, let us go forth with the heart of the father and in the shoes of the servant, shedding tears for man, sweat for earth, and blood for heaven.” After reading the previous passage we finally realize that for Father this is not just a motto. This is exactly how he paid the price of our salvation, with his endless tears, sweat, and blood, and there is no way that any of us can ever hope to repay him for that. And that is why, as the prophet Isaiah recorded, “His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
If that is the example of true love and true life, then I must admit that I am completely dead. Ø In the past I have caught myself wishing to somehow find a lot of money so that I can offer it to Father. Several times I have even purchased lottery tickets in the hope of winning 100 million dollars, so that I could offer 95 million of it to Father. To be honest, there were also times that I would pledge to myself to offer the whole thing to Father if I were to win. Now, try to compare this level of loyalty with the heart of DMN who all those years ago promised to God to honor and glorify our True Parents by building the Cheong Jung Goon Palace as their Holy residence. She had no money and no special skills. The only thing she had was the burning desire to make that offering to God even at the cost of her life. In other words, she only had true love. Then, she single-handedly created and took charge of the ancestral liberation providence, through which she completely sacrificed herself for the sake of the advancement of God’s providence, while raising the money to fulfill her promise to God. Can you see the difference of heart? It is truly enormous. That is what we lost at the fall of man. Ø I can never forget one special quote from Father where he says, “There is a world of difference between the Son of God and the person who is trying to become the son of god.” And I feel the truth of that, in my bone marrow. OK, now that I have admitted that fact, what should I do? In our Sunday Service HDH, Father suggests that it is our responsibility to repossess the love of God. And, to do that we would need to pull out the root of sin and evil implanted deep in our minds. After that, we have to plant the seeds of true love by living for the sake of others. We have often heard that the greatest tragedy of the fall was that God lost His Lineage. Then again, I distinctly remember reading in one of Father’s speeches where he says, “The question of lineage is essentially the relationship of love.”
So in essence, the restoration of our lineage back to God is none other than repossessing the love of God, since that is what we truly lost through the fall of man. The real question is how are we going to do that? You might say that you know exactly what to do.
These are all the keys to the Kingdom of God and the only true path to achieve perfection. Now, am I going to stand up here and self-righteously proclaim that you don’t need to set up all those conditions since, as the Beatles said, all you need is love? Absolutely not! Especially since, as I just demonstrated, our understanding of love is often so limited and outright pathetic when compared to the true love of God! Besides, as our True Parents have taught us, the road to internal transformation is often paved through our external achievements. I would like to propose, however, that our true responsibility before God is much more internal, which in a way would make it much harder to grasp, and extremely difficult to achieve.All those other good conditions, as important as they are, should eventually become only the natural manifestation of the internal qualities of one’s hope, faith, and love accumulated throughout one’s life of faith. To conclude my sermon I would like to share with you one last passage from Father: “You are a pioneer to fulfill the hope that God held in Jesus through the practical course that can substantiate hope. Moreover, you must pioneer the works of the Holy Spirit, which represent faith. Furthermore, you are to put into practice the life of service that represents love, and through unification become people whom humanity can serve in glory.” In other words, we are chosen to become the substantial incarnations of God’s hope, God’s faith, and God’s love before humanity. Aju. |
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