1. Life is such that you cannot even foresee the immediate future.

Daily living means the life of every day, and human life means life for the whole life span. Mostly, one life is limited to one hundred years.

Few people live for over one hundred years. How old was our grandmother Seung Do? (Ninet- four.) She died at ninety-four, do you know this? (Yes.) She must have wished to live for over hundred years, but she was not in control of it. Aren't you living each day without knowing what will happen next? Do you know how to proceed? Generally, we cannot even foresee what will happen in the next hour. No one knows the future. Life can be compared to a walk you take on a dark night on an unknown road. In life, we take steps into the unknown, which is darkness.

It is difficult to accept this picture because every morning we receive sunlight. If you imagine it vividly to yourself, however, how stifling it is! It is as if we were walking inside a closed iron box. We live as if we are pushing the big box. When we go over one hill, two more hills stand waiting; and when we go over these hills, then we find three more hills waiting. After the three hills, then four more hills come, and without ending, more and more hills come up. (175-195)

When you make a wrong start, you end up in the wrong place. When a ship sets out into the great ocean, it should chart out the course and follow the compass carefully from the very beginning. What is the port of departure for human life? We do not know. Where can we find the direction and guiding compass for our destiny? Human beings have not been able to find this, so they have been wandering about to and fro. No matter how they try, they cannot human boundaries. (172-28)

2. Where Should We Go?

We are moving toward a certain point, whether or not we know what it is. Moving or resting, we are going forward. Not just me, but my nation, world, and heaven and earth are moving toward a certain point. This is an undeniable fact. An important question for human beings is where I am going after coming through my whole life.

Religion, philosophy, and history are all mobilized to answer this question. Thus, you cannot deny that you are being captured and pulled by this destiny.

If I have to go, then where does this body want to go? Where do this mind, this life, this shimjung want to go? Where do my hopes and ideals seek to go? We must go, although we may not be able to solve this question. At the time of death, the body is simply buried in the ground. But are the mind, life, shimjung, ideal, and hope simply buried away together too? Will they simply disappear? Without having a clear answer to this question and establishing a clear purpose, happiness cannot be found.

We realize that saints and religious leaders have been fighting to solve the question of where we are going, stopping their footsteps and putting a stop on the moving mind and declining shimjung. Despite these efforts, however, there has been no one who confidently proclaimed, "My body is going this way, and my mind, shimjung, life, and ideal are running this way." So all the people and all that exists in heaven and earth must go this way. (8-194)

Then for what are we born, and why do we go on? This cannot be answered without God. Without God, we cannot find the motive. The one who is without a motive cannot reap the fruit of his work; nor can his value be recognized. A building is built according to the designer's blue print. A building that is built without reference to the original blue print cannot be what it was intended to be by the original designer.

(21-100)

Then where should we go? Although we have to stake our own lives, we must find a day when we receive God and rejoice in our hearts; a day when our hearts say there is no greater hope. For this we should endure pain, resentment, and mistreatment and go through this world. If we cannot go through this world, we will perish with the world.

(8-202)

Where, then, are people going? They are going to heaven. How about angels? They also are going to Heaven. How about your mother and father? They are also going to Heaven. How about your dog? It is not going to hell. At the time of the Korean War, one rich family was trying to escape to the South. They had a dog they had boasted of as being very expensive, but they didn't take it with them; they tied it to the door and said good-bye. Our Unification members should not do such things. Now, dogs and all things can follow their masters to the Kingdom of Heaven. (78-336)

Where do people go? They go toward the spiritual world. The spiritual world is like the sea. We are destined to go there. Just as there are different currents in the sea, infinite changes unfold there. In the sea, there are many harmonious spectacles not to be found in fresh water. Just as there are many fish families in the sea, there are many new heavenly families in the other world.

(141-306)

3. Life is a Preparation for the Spiritual World

We know that this world is not all there is, but that there is a spiritual world too. We also know that the two worlds are connected as one. Then where is the place we are to settle down ultimately? We are now living in the flesh, but we are moving toward the eternal world. We go through our teenage years, our twenties, thirties, middle age, and old age. We go through hills of different ages and eventually go down like the sun. But those who know that the spiritual world exists understand that our life in this world is short, and the next world we enter after death is eternal. Hence, physical life is a time to prepare for the eternal world. Isn't that how it seems?

For instance, in school there is a standard of achievement for students. How much a student has achieved according to this standard determines how much he is recognized in school. The greater the gap between his points and the full score, the farther away he drifts from the standard. Everything is determined by a certain standard.

Our physical life is like a time of preparing for good grade points at school. We seek good grades for our entire life and want to bring good results in our necessary responsibilities throughout our whole life. We evaluate our daily life according to a certain standard. Ordinary people do not think about that. They simply think that since they are born, they live with their parents at home and are just like any other people. The center of such a life is physical necessity: food, clothing, and shelter. Isn't that how they live? But we Unification members know clearly that the spiritual world exists. We do not just believe it; we know it.. How do we know it? Through many experiences. In our living environments there are undeniable historical and realistic facts. As we established our global foundation, we had many experiences.

Therefore, Unification members cannot deny the existence of the spiritual world. (140-121)