SESSION
ON SPIRIT WORLD
Rev. Dr. D. Michael Hentrich, Sr.
Presented by Rev. Dr. Michael Hendrich, Sr.
Transcribed by Airenae Culvy
SPIRIT
AND
THE ETERNAL WORLD
THE HUMAN SPIRIT -
So, as we know, we have a human spirit
and many people may not believe in that. Many people may not have an awareness
of their spirit that they're aware of or conscious of and think it's just some
nonsense, some wishful thinking. They don't have any sense of it at all. I
wonder how many of you in the room have had some kind of spiritual experience.
Maybe you will raise your hand. I can't see you right now the way my screen is
set.
Probably maybe some of you have had
some kind of spiritual exprience (that you're aware of). But, actually, I think
probably all of you have had spiritual experiences; because, we are not just a
physical person with a spirit. We are spiritual eternal beings with a body for
a while, for a short time. And so, we are spiritual. But I think we have become
so accustomed to our spiritual experiences that we may not recognize them.
For example, many people may have
had the experience that someone is looking at them from behind. You can sense
that somebody is looking at me. How many have had that kind of experience? Well,
what is that? Is that a tractor beam from Star Trek coming out of somebody's
eyeballs and tickling your hair? I believe that that is a spiritual experience.
How many of you have ever had a
strong feeling that something wasn't right, or that somebody was thinking about
you somewhere or that somebody was in trouble or sick or in danger; and, you
contacted that person and found out that that was true in some way. I think we
have a lot of spiritual experiences and we don't really recognize them. That
doesn't mean that we should become mystical and so spiritually open that we can
see spirits and hear voices and leave our body and travel around the universe.
I think it's not a good idea to become that kind of spiritually open. Those
people who I've met who are like that have very difficult lives. They're living
in their own world and, it's very hard for them to relate to other people. I
don't recommend it. It's better to close down, I think, because it's very
distracting and confusing.
But you can get confirmation of the
spiritual world just fine from two or three friends. There are many people who
have spiritual experiences, who see the dark fuzzy spirits coming out of your
bodies at Cheong Pyeong. They see all these things. They see the white-robed
ancestors come into the room duringing the ancestor blessings. They see all
these things. There are people who see it. They may not admit it. But if you
can find one or two of those people and make them your friends, that's your
confirmation. You don't need to become like that. There are enough people like
that; but, if you have one or two friends like that, they can confirm to you
and give you confidence that this is real. These things are really happening.
But our world and the room you're
sitting in is full of invisible waves, invisible things, going through your
bodies, your head, your mind all the time, your spirit. There are radio
transmissions, there are cell phone transmissions, all kinds of X-rays and
gamma-rays and radio transmissions going through. And we don't see them. We
don't even see them in the air. But it's there. So, there are a lot of things
we don't see that are really there. So, it's not too wise to be too skeptical
about it; but, then again we do need to be careful. I'm a very skeptical thinker.
I question everything.
You need to know me a little bit. I
went to college and my gift, my talent, my passion is product design,
industrial design. In other words, we learn the design of anything smaller than
a building, the furniture, the silver ware you use, the car you drive, any toys
your children play with, a kind of designer. So, the point is that it's a very
unique kind of small field. Only a few people trained for that professionally.
It's a mixture of art and engineering and marketing and aesthetics and many
things. But basically, you're an inventor and a critical thinker.
And so, I'm a kind of a weird person
because, if I pick up anything, if I look at anything, a water bottle or a
pencil, anything, my mind immediately starts to think, 'Why is it that length,
why is it that color, why is it that shape, couldn't it be better.' That's the
strange kind of person I am.
And so, as I was sitting in front of
Father as He spoke, after thrity seven years, I realized that I was questioning
everything, not from a negative point of view, but to understand it. 'Why did
Father say that?' Is that what the Bible says? Is that my life experience? Does
that make sense? What does science think about that? And I criticised ... I
thought analytically questioning everything; but, the good news is because of
that, the Principle became my own. I questioned everything and I found out that
everything fit, everything fit, everything made sense, everything was correct
in my own judgment. And so, it's mine.
And so, if somebody were to burn all
the Divine Principle Books in the world, I would have to write my own and put
it up on Amazon.com and sell it; because, it's my Principle. It's
not just Father's, not just God's, not just somebody's, it's mine. I've
confirmed it for myself. And that gives me passion and it gives me ownership.
You know, I don't even trust people
who don't question things, people who believe things without questioning it.
They're going to believe something else tomorrow. I don't trust those people.
You've got to think for yourself. God gave you a brain and a mind to think for
yourself. Father questioned everything. That's how He found the Principle. So,
we have to understand that ourselves.
THE UNIVERSE :
SPIRIT - eternal
AND
PHYSICAL - temporary
So, the whole universe is divided
into spirit and physical, especially human beings. We have a physical form.
It's energy; but, spirit is energy too; but, it's a different wavelength, a
different frequency. And the spirit is eternal and the physical is temporary.
Many fervent, faithful, traditional
Christian people think that death came into the world because of the Fall. Adam
and Eve fell; and, it says that, if you eat the fruit you'll die. So, they
think that, if they didn't eat the fruit, then nobody would ever die, that
everybody would live forever. Then, people who question that say to them,
'Well, what about all the fossils of the dinasaurs and everything; and, it's
unbelievable to me how far people will go to justify what they want to believe.
But, the answer they give, seriously, is that God put those fossil bones there
to trick us, to fool us. It's just unbelievable ... It's unbelievable (to me);
but, people believe what they want to believe and we do too. But ... Gosh ...
Okay, so we have our wonderful
diagram here that we always use. Now, I want to make apology for this diagram
... (even though) I like this diagram. I like it. I use it; but, I realize that
if you show this diagram to a physics student or a biologist student or a
chemistry student or a psychology student or somebody who's seriously invested
in research and knowledge, they're going to laugh at this. This is so childish
and simplistic. And I understand that; but, it's not made to be scientific. And
it's way overly simple, you know. It's like kindergarten. But that's okay. This
diagram has a purpose and it has a message and it's valid. So, as long as we
explain, 'Bear with me. This is a very simple diagram and don't get too
scientific with me about it. It's okay.'
We have a spiritual self and we have
a physical self; and, they interact with each other, just like every other pair
of things that God created. And they actually nurture each other. The life you
lead with your physical self feeds your spiritual self. Your spiritual self
feeds your physical self. They work together. They're made to work together.
The spiritual self lives in the physical self.
In fact, our spiritual self looks
like our physical self; but, not necessarily, not necessarily ... Dae Mo Nim
talked to us several times about how ... She said, "You know, if you had
scars and pimples and cuts on your face in the mirror, you would be shocked.
You would think that, 'Oh I have to do something about this!' But the problem
is that you can't see your spiritual body.' She said that if you could see your
spiritual body, you would stop living the way you're living and you would do
something about it. But you don't understand how damaged you are making
yourself by how you live your life.
So, in some sense, our spiritual
self doesn't always look like our physical self. One time I was on a bus in a
mission city that I was in. And it was late at night. There was only one other
person on the bus with me, a man who was sitting in the seat across from me on
the bus; and, he had a very unusual face. His cheek bones were very high, his
chin was very coming out and his nose was very bulby and forehead, really,
really unusual face. And it was so intriguing; but, when I looked over at him a
second time, I saw his spirit. I didn't try to or anything. It just happened to
me. I've had a few spiritual experiences in my life and this was one of them.
But his face was so beautiful. His face was so normal and beautiful and
perfect. And I thought, 'Wow, he's not the way he looks. He's got a beautiful
spirit, beautiful heart.
So, it's hard to know what someone's
spirit looks like. I had another experience like this, even more dramatic. I
had an out-of-body experience one time. I was at Barrytown at the UTS Seminary
Building. It was Mr. Sudo's hundred and twenty day workshop a long time ago.
And I was laying in the top bunk of the bunk bed, a double bed. I was going to
take a rest. I wasn't sleeping but I was getting a little halfway. All of a
sudden I sat up and looked down. And there I was on the bed. And I thought,
'Wow, this is amazing. Look at that. There I am. This is real. And then I
looked over to my right and there was my greatgrandfather whom I had known when
I was a little boy, a little Italian man, never heard his voice. He never
spoke. He couldn't speak English anyway; but, he always smoked his pipe. And he
always had his walking stick. His wife had passed away earlier; so, he just
spent time in his garden. That's all he ever did until he died.
And I saw him. He came to me in
spirit and I knew who he was but he did look like ... He didn't even look
human. He was so shocking. And I had to control myself to be not shocked and
not afraid or anything. But he was so undeveloped. He had no social life. He
never talked to people. He never had a relationship with people. He was such a
quiet little Italian man who just lived by himself in his own little world. And
his body looked like a stick. He looked like a stick; but, he was smoking his
pipe and he had his walking stick. I knew who he was very clearly. But he
didn't look developed at all. He had not developed his spirit. And I reached
out to shake his hand and he just disappeared. I guess that was too much. And
then I went back into my body and that was the end of my big out-of-body
experience. But it was unforgettable.
The point is that your spirit is not
going to always look as you do when you look in the mirror. Maybe it's more
beautiful, maybe it's not. It depends how you have developed yourself.
Okay so, we have a brain in our
physical self and five physical senses, as we know. All this stuff we already
know. And we have a mind, the spiritual mind. The mind is not the brain.
Scientists and psychologists, psychiatrists, they refuse to see all the
abundance of evidence that the mind is not the same as the brain. The mind
lives on. We have lots of evidence, people in the operating room in the
hospital, they die and they're flatlined, they call it. There's not electrical
activity whatsoever in the brain. They can measure it. And they're just a lump
of flesh; and then, they bring the person back to life by shocking them. And we
have many cases where the person in this situation woke up and then told the
doctors and nurses what they were doing and talking about while they were
'flatlined.' There was no brain activity whatsoever. Just because we put
needles and chemicals in our brain and affect the electrical activity, they
think the brain is the mind. The brain is not the mind. The brain
functions...The electrical/chemical processes in the brain are important, but
the mind lives on after the brain dies. The brain is just an organ.
So anyway we have those five
spiritual senses. We also have aspects of ourself that are, some are given in
the environment by God and some are our own responsibility. Now, we're getting
down to the purpose of this simplistic, childish little chart (from a
scientific, medical point of view).
We need heat ... Well, yeah and we
also need light and air. And the spiritual counterpart of that is love, right?
We need the warm and fuzzy kind of feeling ... to be around mom or dad ... And
the (counterpart to physical light) light of truth, 'I'm enlightened.' 'Oh, I
see the light now.' 'It's enlightened.' The light of truth. And the air
(spiritual counterpart) is the good atmosphere, good environment. It's hard to
grow your spirit if you're in an environment where there's nothing but
complaining and blaming and critizing and shouting and screaming and hitting
and bullying. How can you grow a deep, profound heart in that type of
situation? Don't forget that when we get to Jesus' life story. We're going to
touch on that. It's a very big point.
But there are also other things that
we're responsible for. We're responsible to go and get our own food and water,
right? It doesn't automatically go down your throat. You have to chew it up and
eat it and drink that water and whatever you have, those corn chips. And you
have to get a little exercise. I'm still thinking about it. My mouse finger is
still in very good shape. But we should get real exercise. It makes our body healthy,
right? And we should eat good food. Well, that's all common sense, right?
But, here's the purpose of this
chart. The whole purpose of this chart is right here. In order to grow a
healthy, happy, eternal spirit, we need spiritual food and spiritual exercise.
That's the whole point of this chart. So, it's valid. I like to use it.
Spiritual food. Well, there's
spiritual junk food and there's spiritual good food. There is spiritual
exercise that is positive and there's spiritual exercise that is negative.
There's a bright side to this diagram and there's a dark side to this diagram.
If you take in spiritual food that's not from God, lies and distortions and
self-centered understanding: 'It's my body. I'll do what I want with it.' 'I
deserve this.' 'I deserve that.' 'I deserve what you have, so give it to me.'
'And if you don't give it to me, I'll just take it.' We have all kinds of ideas
given to us by the dark side that we take in as spiritual food; but, it's
poison to our spirit. It damages us, especially if we believe it and act on it.
So that's the spiritual exercise. If we do bad things, hurtful things, selfish
things, we complain. It's poison to our spirit. It damages our spirit. It
degrades our spirit. And if we don't get any good spiritual food, good
spiritual exercise, we'll end up looking like a stick, like my great
grandfather.
PHYSICAL SELF SPIRITUAL SELF
5 physical senses 5 spiritual sens
heat warmth of love
light light of truth
air good atmosphere
food/water spiritual food
exercise spiritual exercise
We need spiritual food and spiritual
exercise, just as much or even more so, we need it spiritually. So, if you're
not inspired every day to do your Hoon Dok Hae to get your spiritual food or
whatever, I understand that; but, it's better to do it even when you don't feel
like doing it. But the best thing is to do it with a hunger and a sincerity and
really want to do it. Then, you get the most benefit out of it, of course, by
far. Doing things out of duty is very dry and doesn't nourish you very much.
Doing things because you should is not the way to get vitality and life
elements. It's not, if you're doing things because you should. You really need
to find the heart to appreciate and long for and like and want all these
things.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN YOU DIE?
So, what will happen when you die?
Well, everybody talks about the tunnel. There's a light at the end of this long
tunnel; and, somebody comes to welcome you and lead you to where you belong.
Maybe it's an angel, maybe it's your mother, maybe it's an ancestor, maybe it's
somebody who loved you and cared for you. Somebody comes. And you go; and, they
say that your whole spiritual life passes before your eyes, right? You re-live
your life in a moment; and, so many things happen when you die. And you go
where you belong. You go where you're comfortable to go.
Some low spirit people don't like
bright places. They where sunglasses all the time. Maybe because they're on
drugs or maybe because they don't like bright places. And they don't like it to
be too quiet either. They like noise around them. And they like liquor. They
like the smell of liquor and cigarettes. They like to be around that kind of
environment. It makes them feel comfortable. So, when they go to the spirit
world that's where they go; because that's where they want to be, that's where
their spirit wants to be. And if they got close to God, they'd be very
uncomfortable. 'Oh, I don't want to be here, too bright, too much oxygen here,
can't deal with it, gotta get out from here. So, they'll float down.
Dae Mo Nim said (and Father said the
same thing ... I have the quote) that, if you lived your life fifty-one percent
or more sincerely and genuinely living for the sake of others, caring about
others more than yourself, then you will float up to a higher place in the
spirit world closer to God. But, if you lived your life fifty-one percent or
more for yourself, then you'll float down in the spiritual world. That's how it
works.
So, if you lived your life and you
became a really high spirited person, perfect or really high spirited person,
then when you go to the spirit world, you'll be a good influence on your
children and your gandchildren, your descendants or other people. You'll be
helping them, guiding them, inspiring them. You might convey to them your gifts
and your talents. You might be a singer. You might be a piano player or a
violinist; or, you might have a great gift for doing business or theatre or
dance, whatever it is. You'll convey those great gifts and talents, virtues, to
your descendants, whom you want to hang around. And you'll be an asset to them
and they will appreciate you.
But, if you don't grow your spirit
so high, you are kind of one of those low spirited people who lived your life
pretty much for your self, maybe you lived your providential church life but it
was just because you should and you thought you had to; but, it wasn't really
your passion or anything, not really what you wanted to do in your life, you
did it because you should or you didn't want to offend God and go to hell,
well, guess what? It really didn't do much for you and you're probably going to
go down to a lower realm anyway; because, you just did it because you should.
Then, when you realize, 'Oh, I need
to grow more. I haven't really developed myself enough. I need to keep growing.
I need to resurrect myself. I need to grow my heart, my love. I never learned
enough. I gotta go and be with my descendants on earth who I can learn more
love through by hanging around them and associating with them; but, the problem
is that you're going to be a drag on them. Because of your low-spirited nature,
you're going to drag them down, just like we all have good and bad ancestors,
right? They are either helpful or not helpful, and then they drag us down. That's
why we could point to our parents of many of the second generation who don't
understand this. They can point to their parents and be critical and
complaining and accusing; but hey, everybody is doing the best that they can
with what they have to work with.
We didn't choose our life. We didn't
choose our ancestors. We didn't choose our family and here we are. We have
nothing to complain about. We have to love those ancestors. We have to love
them. And we should never feel like a victim. There's no end to that. Whose a
victim? Everybody's a victim then, back to Adam and Eve. And that doesn't help
anything. We need to stop thinking like that.
And even when we go to Cheong
Pyeong. Are we there to kick out evil spirits, kick out bad spirits because
they're making trouble for us and making us sick. That's not why people go to
Cheong Pyeong; or, that's not why people should go to Cheong Pyeong. I used to
teach people that. We're not there for that. We're there to heal, to bring
healing to those ancestors and help them, resurrect them, and send them to a
hundred-day workshop where they can repent themselves clean.
We're there to help the living and
the dead. We're there to help ourselves. We're there to help them. And that's
why it's the only place like it in the world. You can go to many faith healers
and they'll kick out the evil spirits; but, then what? They're not helping
anybody. They'll just drive the evil spirit away; and then, they come back many
times and make more trouble. It's not what's going on at Cheong Pyeong at all.
We're healing and helping the living and the dead. That's an incredible,
miraculous and completely different kind of thing.
Also, when we go to the spirit
world, we experience many things. We experience what is like in the movie, 'What
Dreams May Come.' If you all haven't seen that, you need to watch that. I'm
sure you've seen it many times, as we have. But you know, there are mountains
and rivers and streams and there are golf courses and there are birds and
animals. I'm sure there are many animals that we've never seen in the physical
world, many birds that change colors. I'm told that the music is visible. You
can see it somehow and the colors (of the music) are seen.
And, that's where we belong. I mean,
we haven't started our life yet. We're still in the womb, don't forget. We
start our eternal life when we die in this physical life. Then we go where we
belong. Nobody there wants to come back here and live in this mundane
restricted, limited, physical dimension. Just like you don't want to go back
into your mother's womb. But that is if you can function there well (in the
spirit world). That's if you're not handicapped there.
So, there's all kind of beings that
you can relate to. You can relate to angels. You can relate to ancestors. You
can relate to your parents. Father said that you will not call your father
'father,' but you will call him 'brother'. And your mother, you will not call
her 'mother,' but you will call her your 'sister'. Everybody there becomes as
they were in the prime of their life. They become like twenty-three years old
or something; and so, your grandmother and everybody will be as young as you
are.
And everybody (in the spirit world)
will live in the form that they feel best living in. There's a really beautiful
movie, if you have a chance to watch it. You have to pay very close attention
to the words that are spoken at the very end of the movie; otherwise, you'll
miss the whole point of it. But, it's a very good movie. It's called, 'Five
People You Meet In Heaven.' It's really a neat look at the spirit world. You
might find that and watch it.
So, you have all these things you
experience in the spiritual world. Now, there's some problem in the spiritual
world too. And that is that sometimes, when spirits come back to us from the
spirit world to influence us, we can be affected in positive ways (and we can
be affected in negative ways). But, we could be a natural-born maestro ... We
had one couple come to us years ago, they were traveling with another brother
and were traveling in the night. I didn't know they were coming; and, I
happened to be at the church when they knocked on the door. And when I opened
the door, before this brother even said hello, he said, 'Do you have a piano?'
And I said, 'Yeah.' And he said, 'Can I play the piano?' I said, 'Yeah.' And he
just sat down to play the piano. He was like addicted to the piano. It was like
a cigaurette or something, he couldn't wait to play the piano. And he was
playing like Mozart or Beethoven or something. And the friend who was traveling
with him said, 'Yeah, he can't even read music. It's just all spiritual. He's
never learned how to play the piano. He's just ... It's just unbelievable. He
just played like that; so, those things can happen.
But also we can understand things
like temporary insanity. That can also be a result of spirit world people
coming back to us in the physical. We're talking about resurrection now,
returning resurrection, right? I just mix it all together because it's all one
topic. And so, sometimes people get very angry for example or they get really
obsessed about something. It doesn't have to be a negative emotion really. But
then when their emotions get going, maybe they're angry with someone or angry
about something, all of a sudden like-minded spirits in the spirit world just
come to that person. And they just come and bond to that person like magnets.
And all of a sudden the person's emotion gets intensified to the point where
they lose control of themselves; and, they kill the person, boom! And they
don't even know what they're doing because they just got overwhelmed with the
emotion of the spirit world (spirits) that came to affect them.
But, a similar kind of thing can
happen in a good way. For example, in prisons in America, there are prison
ministries; and, many churches or mosques go to the prisons and get permission
to have a Bible study or study the Koran together with the prisoners who want
to come to the room and study. And of course, most of the prisoners come there
because it's something to do. They have nothing to do all day so why not, but
not really interested.
But, once in a while some prisoner
gets really interested. He opens the Bible for the first time in his life; and,
he's reading Genesis and he thinks, 'Wow! This is amazing. These people were
not stupid. And he just gets interested in it. And he starts reading and
studying. And after the Bible study, he still reading and he's still interested
in it. He has genuine, sincere interest; and, because of that, maybe over a
year or two, his spirit world changes. And the icky spirits who put him in
prison for whatever he did wrong, killing or steeling or whatever, they leave;
because, they're not interested in a Bible study. What the heck. And they don't
want to hang around any more; but, his good ancestors come who are interested
in that. 'Look, Johnny's reading the Bible. Let's get in on that. We can grow
from that too.' And so, his spirit world changes. And when that person walks
out of prison, he's really a different person. Really, he is really a different
person. So, that's the good news there. It can happen that way.
The same thing in, some schools that
we started or any schools. You go to college, and if you emerse yourself in
this lifestyle, this training, schooling, your studying, your homework, or you
go in the military, same thing. You emerse yourself in this environment and the
input and everything, then your spirit world can actually very much change so
that your spirits, the ancestors hanging around you will shift and change. And
you'll be a different person; and, you can change again. I mean, it's all up to
you what you're interested in. You're the one who controls what is around you.
You might say, 'Well, you know, I
didn't ask for this invisible group of buddies around me. Why do I have to be
burdened by these people making trouble for me in my life. Why do I have these
problems when I go to Cheong Pyeong?' You know, the fact is, Dae Mo Nim said
that if you perfected your heart, if your heart was perfect, instantly all the
evil spirits would immediately leave you. They would be like opposing magnets
pushed away. They have no common base. So once she taught us that, I realized
that the reason that I have whatever ancestors hanging around me making trouble
for me is because I have a common base. There's something in me that's a common
base.
So, when I went to Cheong Pyeong for
a long time trying to help my daughter who had spiritual problems, I found out
that that was connected to my ancestors and some problem that they did, the
victims of my ancestors, not even my ancestors, the victims are making trouble
in my lineage for generations, the victims, not the ancestors.
But the point is that, in my tears
and reflections and repentance at Cheong Pyeong with all this stuff, I realized
that I have a common base. I was praying about revenge one time, trying to
investigate revenge and understand revenge, and empathize with these revengeful
ancestors and trying to liberate them from me and from her. And I realized ...
when I thought, 'Well, I don't have a common base with revengefulness. I'm not
a revengeful person. Why would they hang around me.
But then, I realized that, actually,
I'm not that saintly. I'm not that pure; because, if somebody pushes me too
much, and puts me in a corner, and accuses me falsely or whatever it is, what
do I start thinking? 'I'll get you. I'll take care of you. You're not going to
get away with that. You'll find out.' And I realized, 'Oh, my God, I'm
revengeful too. I have that kind of stuff in me.' So, I do have a common base.
I need to clean myself up. I didn't realize. We have thousands of generations
of ancestors and all this junk. We're not as clean as we think. We don't see
it. It's very subtle. It's in there. We have a common base with all this stuff.
That's why they come to us because we have a common base.
Sometimes an accident will happen on
a straight piece of highway. It's a straight piece of road. There's nothing
there; but, accidents happen there every month. Somebody gets killed. Why in
the same place? You can talk to the law enforcement, to the police, the highway
patrol. They'll tell you, 'Yeah, I don't know why they have accidents there all
the time. There's no reason for it.' Well, there is a reason for it. We just
don't see it. Somebody got killed there; and, they have some attitude about it
and they're hanging around, the spirit person's hanging around. And they're
making other people have accidents there too.
How about suicide? Every time I hear
somebody talk about having suicidal tendencies, suicidal thoughts, I always ask
them, 'Do you have any relatives who had that problem or who committed suicide?
(They answer), 'Oh yeah, my cousin, my brother, my uncle or somebody. Every case.
I haven't found anybody yet who didn't tell me that they had a relative who
committed suicide. So, they're coming back and influencing people. It's not
reincarnation. It's association. That's what it is.
And another thing we have to keep in
mind is cross-gender influences. This doesn't have to be homosexuality. I mean,
I think there's something there to do with that too; but, for example there are
so many families in America who have no father and it's just a single parent
mom who works all day, or is on welfare and stays home with the kids and tries
to raise them. And the point that I'm trying to say is that fathers need to
bond with their sons. I'm not saying they should not bond with their daughters.
I'm just saying just as mothers need to bond with their daughters in a deep
way, which is not to say mother's should not bond with their sons. But I'm
saying that, when the fathers and mothers go to the spirit world, especially if
they have a strong, influential, dominating personality, like some fathers and
mothers do, it's a big problem if the mother is more attached to the son than
the father or the father is gone. Maybe the son never knew his father or maybe
the father died at a young age. Then if the mother has a big influence in the
son's life and the mother has a strong, domineering personality, then she goes
to the spirit world and clings to her son whom she loves so much, it can become
a problem for him because of that feminine influence.
The same thing with the man. If he's
really attached to his daughters in a deep, profound way, that's good; but, if
he's a very strong personality and domineering, dominating personality and then
goes to the spirit world and is attached to his favority daughter but it's too
much, then his influence can become a problem. She can become a real tom boy, a
real... She can be influenced to be something that she's not normally created
to be... in some sense, some flavor, not totally but just influenced. There can
be that pulling influence, that gender related influence that's not necessarily
so helpful.
So, I'm just saying, yes, father's
need to love (all) their children more than anybody loves them in the fallen
world. I understand that; but, I'm just saying that we need to be careful when
we go to the spirit world that we don't distort them by clinging to them too
much with our strong personalities. We need to give them space to be who they
are. It's good for fathers to bond with their sons and mother's to bond with
their daughters. It's very healthy and good. It should be that way; but, we've
got it all mixed up and it can make a lot of problems if we go too far with it.
That's what I'm trying to say. When we go to extremes. That's what I mean.
Father said: "The spirit world
is in a different dimension than this limited, earthly world. We cannot move
freely within mundane confines but, as the spirit world is a higher,
dimensional place, you can do anything there; you can leap across time. If you
want something based on love, you can have it anywhere, anytime."
(CSG, original, p. 554)
I read that to you yesterday. Here's
another quote: "In the spirit world, there are no such things as one year,
two, years, or even a day."
As the Bible says, 'To God one day
is as a thousand years, a thousand years as one day.' That's the same kind of
sentiment that's being expressed there. (CSG, original)
So, this is a big point. I know
there's not a lot in this lecture that's really novel and new for you,
probably; but, this point here is something for you to think about. You know,
Father said (just as we read there, in many different ways Father said) that if
you have love, if you have mature love, then when you go to the spirit world if
you want something you can have it, any time anywhere. If you want a new dress.
If you want a diamond ring. If you want a big diamond ring, you can have it, a
thousand-carot diamond ring, you can have it. You you want gold, if you want a
ten-course meal, whatever it is, you can have it, because you have love and you
create these things, whatever you want, any time anywhere.
But see, Father was talking about
the nice side of it, the positive side of it. He didn't mention about the dark
side of it; and, you need to think about the dark side of it. I mean everybody
needs to think about the dark side of it. What if you're somebody who has
secrets (and this is common). What if you're somebody who has passions that you
don't want to tell anybody about because, well, you're not supposed to be that
way.
Maybe you're a husband and you've
got a nice wife and family and everything, but you still notice those pretty
girls, and more than notice. You feel really pulled to them; and, you try
really hard not to let your wife see you looking, and drooling ... 'Oh boy ...'
You don't let her know that you feel really pulled in your heart. And you don't
let her know that you have dreams where you're dreaming that you're with all
these other girls and women who are in your life.
The same thing can happen with
women. You have some passion that you know you shouldn't have, but you have it.
The same thing applies. It's all up here (points to head). That's what Father
was trying to tell us. You go to the spiritual world and, guess what? You
better look out; because, in the spiritual world we don't have time and space
to hide behind. We don't have the physical realm to hide behind. So, when you
go to the spirit world and you and your wife are together, your real self is
still there. And here come all these women. They're going to show up at your
front door. And they're going to be all over you; and, your wife's going to
say, 'What!? What's going on with you? What happened to you? What are you doing
with all these women hanging all over you? What's wrong with you?'
Well, you had that before; but, you
were hiding. You didn't let anybody know; but, it's there and it will come out
because you can't hide anything in the spirit world. There's no closets to hide
behind. There's nothing to hide behind; and, what if you're into pornography?
You don't let anybody know about it; but, you have this hunger. You have this
appetite. You have this craving. You have this addiction to porn. And you get
on, but nobody knows because you're hiding your tracks. Well, that's real cute,
but when you go to the spirit world, there's no place to hide and it's going to
come out. And people are going to see it. And it's not going to be comfortable.
It's not going to be nice; and, you're going to be wanting to hide somewhere;
but, there's nowhere to hide. So, the point is that we gotta wake up here and
understand maturely what Father is teaching us. We're going to be an open book
when we go to the spirit world. He made that very clear. You are an open book;
and, if you've got skeletins in the closet, you'd better get them out and you'd
better resolve them, deal with them and do your laundry because there's no
place to hide there. You are going to be who you are; and, everybody is going
to see that, people you love the most, your parents your spouse, your friends,
your kids. They're going to see who you really are. So, we need to deal with
that. What kind of dream do you have at night? That's who you really are. You
better ... You have to deal , wrestle with and clean up.
RESURRECTION - TO COME BACK TO LIFE
Biblical concepts of life and death
'Leave the dead to bury their own
dead' Luke 9:60
DEATH - falling under the dominion
of Satan (not end of physical life)
LIFE - living in the dominion of
God's Love (not maintaining physiological functions)
MEANING OF RESURRECTION
So, resurrection basically means to
come back to life. It means going from being dead to being alive. And too many
people think that's physical. And Jesus came back physically. And Adam and Eve
died physically because of the Fall. They've got it all messed up. There's no
reason to take it that way except that that's what they thought was the right
way to take it. But it actually it means spiritually. Jesus said, 'Let the dead
bury their own dead.' (Luke 9:60)
He said to one man who said, 'I have
to go back and bury my father.' And Jesus said, 'Let the dead bury their own
dead, spiritually dead he's talking about (that are to bury the physically
dead). That's the 'dead' in that sentence, physically and spiritually dead. You
already know all that.
WHAT IS RESURRECTION?
1 John 3:14 He who does not love remains
in death.
John 5:24 He who hears my word &
believes Him who sent me, has eternal life...has passed from death into life.
Romans 8:6 'To set the mind on the
spirit is life and peace.'
Luke 16:19 Lazarus and the rich man
(Jesus is saying that returning from
the dead is a spiritual thing)
So, what is resurrection? According
to the Bible in 1st John it says that he who does not love remains in death.
That has nothing to do with the physical body. He who does not love remains in
death. That's what Jesus said. And in John (5:24) 'He who hears my word &
believes Him who sent me, has eternal life ... He has passed from death to
life.' Woe, that has nothing to do with physical death or life. 'He who hears
my word and believes Him who sent me ... has eternal life.' Not only just
believe, but you have to live it. 'He has passed from death to life,' Jesus
said.
And 'To set the mind on the flesh is
death but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace' Romans 8:6 'To set
the mind on the spirit ... (instead of the flesh)' Well, that has nothing to do
with physical (life or) death. It seems to be very clear when we're open to it;
but because we've been told what to think when we read the Bible, then we think
a certain way. This is a big problem, preconceptions, we have so many
preconceptions when we read the Bible. We read it and we've already been told
what to think it means. This is for generations, two thousand years
Then there's a great story in the
Book of Luke about Lazarus and the rich man. (Luke 16:19) It's a whole page in
the Bible. It's a fascinating story ... Rev. Kevin McCarthy, a dear brother of
mine who (I don't know what he's doing these days) but he wrote a book called,
'The Blood-Stained Voice.' You can't find it anymore. But, I do have the PDF of
it; and, he said I could distribute it freely. It's the Bible on how to teach
the Christian people the Principle. It really is the Bible. It's an amazing
book. But anyway, he points out in his writing that the story about Lazarus and
the rich man in the Bible is very profound; because, through this story Jesus
is explaining what resurrection means. People just don't get it.
There's this rich man and there's
this poor man; and, they both go to the spirit world. The rich man observes
that Father Abraham welcomes the poor man and the rich man is kind of shut out.
There's this big gulf in between them; and, the rich man can't cross the gulf.
He can't go over there. He sees the poor man with Father Abraham; but, he can't
go there. And then he wants to warn his brothers on earth what happened to him
when he went to the spirit world. And Jesus makes it clear that resurrection
has nothing to do with coming back to life physically, nothing to do with that.
Jesus ... that's what his story is all about (here) that returning from the
dead is a spiritual thing. It's just ... We just miss so many things in the
Bible. It's very important.
So, in the Divine Principle Study
Bible that I created when I went to seminary last time in Korea, it's a very
important resource book for anybody who wants to discuss the Principle with
Christian people. You've got to have that reference; because, the Principle
book only samples Bible passages. Any section of the Principle, if they refer
to the Bible, they use three or four passages, maybe six at the most. But
actually, there's many passages that you could be referring to. So, if you want
to have a winning, intelligent, confident, successful discussion with a
Christian person about the Bible, you've got to know your Bible. You've got to know
all the passages that relate to that topic. And that's what this study Bible
is. It has a thousand footnotes in it showing how the Principle is expressed in
the Bible and how the Bible is expressed in the Principle.
So, when it comes to the physical resurrection
of Jesus, for example, everybody, the Catholic Church for example, is totally
confident that Jesus came back physically... You know different religions have
very different concepts. I talked to a religious priest about the spirit world
... Every religion has a different view of what spirit world is ...(I forgot to
mention to you) (and even Communists have an explanation for the spirit world.
They think it's a product of the material world, which is rediculous) but if
you go to different kinds of Christianity ... I mean the Catholic Church has a
view of Christianity and the spirit world. They believe in the visitation of
the saints. And they believe in pergatory, that you can help your ancestor go
to a higher place in the spirit world by having masses set for them and
lighting candles for them and saying rosaries for them. And they understand
indemnity. It's very good. But you go to Protestant faiths and, generally, they
don't believe in spirit world. At least they say, 'Don't mess with it. It's dangerous.
It's bad. Don't have any give and take with the spirit world at all. Don't pray
to the saints.
In fact, if you go to The Seventh
Day Adventist Church, they'll tell you that they believe there is no spirit
world, or that the spirit world is empty. Everybody is laying in the ground in
their graves waiting to be raptured and directed out of their graves and turned
back into flesh when Jesus comes, if they're lucky, and then they'll be the new
world. And I asked one minister one time, I said, 'Well, if there's nobody in
the spirit world, why did Jesus warn us not to get too involved with them?' Of
course, he didn't like that and he threw me out. Muslims have their view of the
spirit world. If you're a good person, you go to the spirit world as a man you
get all these virgins to be in your harem. I don't know what (they say) happens
to your wife ... If your a Buddhist, you have a different view of the spirit
world and you attend the ancestors regularly with rituals.
BIBLICAL PASSAGES THAT SUPPORT A
PHYSICAL RESURRECTION OF JESUS = 3 verses
BIBLICAL PASSAGES THAT SUPPORT A
SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION OF JESUS = 22 verses
There's so many view about the
spirit world, many, many, many. So, here, how do we believe that Jesus came
back physically for two thousand years? If you look at passages in the Bible
that relate to that, you find out that there are only three, and really only
one or two that seem to be ... you can take it to mean that Jesus came back
physically. But we can explain those passages with the Principle. We can
explain it.
I mean, the No. 1 passage is where
Jesus reached out to doubting Thomas and said, 'Here, feel my wounds.' and when
Jacob was wrestling with the angel and so on. But we can explain that. And if
you go through your Bible carefully, you'll find that there are 22 verses that
clearly indicate that Jesus came back spiritually. Without a doubt, they are
very clear and strong (those verses).
So, the overwhelming weight of
evidence in the Bible supports the Principled view. Jesus came back spiritually
not physically. I mean, the Bible supports the Principle all the time if you
know where to find all the evidence. It's solidly on the side of the Principle.
It's not on the side of the Christian interpretation of things. It's not. You
just ... You have to open your Bible and read it. And most people have never
even seen one.
And Israelites and Christians, same
thing that I just talked about. And the Jewish people, they were left behind
because Jesus came; and, Jesus could only cooperate with Jewish people who
became Christian, or even with people who were not religious but became
Christian. They could come back and associate with Christians, that is, with
those Christian people who are living Jesus' teachings, not just believing in
it. Where there are people who are living Jesus' teachings, the people who
lived before them who didn't have a chance to know Jesus' teachings, they can
come back and they can resurrect through the lives of those people who are
living the Gospel, (but they can only resurrect to the level of a 'life
spirit').
And then people who lived before us,
who never had a chance to meet True Parents because they died before True
Parents were born, they can come back and work through us who are living the
Principled life and resurrect with us, through us (as we resurrect with the
chance to go all the way to be a divine spirit married into the family of the
Cheon Il Guk Heavenly King and Queendom of God and True Parents). And we all
(can and need to) go together to the divine spirit level (and marry lineages
into Heaven).
And even evil spirits can come; and,
they can get benefit by helping the providence in some way. Sometimes God needs
to let people go through experiences, no so much to test their faith; but to
heart-deepen their faith. So, sometimes people need challenges in their life.
So, evil spirits are allowed to challenge people (of attendance to Jesus or
True Parents) so that, when they overcome the challenge it helps the evil in
that way and it helps us to overcome those challenges that we face in our
lives.
Sometimes we are born with the
challenges. For example, maybe an ancestor who robbed a bank never paid
indemnity and never gave back the money; then, maybe we find ourselves sitting
in jail when we didn't do anything wrong. And we say, 'Why me? Why do bad
things happen to good people?' Father said that everything is fair. You just
don't see the spirit world behind you and what's been happening. It's all fair.
You just don't know.
Maybe you have child problems,
teen-age child problems, marital problems, family problems, social problems.
It's all tied to the past. Things happen that we're not indemnified and here we
are. We have to deal with it. And we should not complain. We have to help those
people; and, sometimes evil spirits help us to indemnify those things. So, they
have a purpose.
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