1. God And Creation
The fundamental questions about life and the universe cannot be answered conclusively without understanding the nature of God, the Creator. The cosmos did not create itself but was created by invisible God, the Prime Cause of all resultant beings. To understand the result, one must know the cause and how it relates to the effect. To understand the existence of human beings and their environment one must understand God and the principles by which all things were created.
Although the vast majority of human beings believe in God, or some type of transcendent spiritual force or principle, it is difficult for earth-bound humans to understand Him, His nature, His purpose in creating humankind and His desire for humanity in the contemporary world. Nevertheless, the Unification Principle is an explanation of humanity and nature based on belief in the existence of God, the good Creator of all beings and the origin of the principles that govern human life, spiritual and physical. How can one learn the nature of God, who is invisible?
To understand any creator one must study the fruits of his creative labors and the biography of his life to see what his works and actions reveal about his nature. For example, in order to understand the character of an author whom you cannot meet face to face, you would study his literary output and life history to discover what they tell you about his personality. Likewise, for humans to understand God, they should study God's creation, especially humankind, the crowning perfection of God's creative work; and they should examine the record of God's activities through the ages, especially as written in the sacred scriptures of the great religions.
The Resemblance Between God and Creation
The creation is rich in its diversity and yet all the various parts hold together in an intricate matrix of relationships. For such integrity to prevail, there must be common elements among existing beings, organic and inorganic, which make this unity possible. Close examination of the creation reveals that the evident differences between fire and water, ants and elephants, human beings and rocks disguise the fact that all beings are part of a universal resemblance and harmonious order. It is reasonable to assume that the universal characteristics of the creation derive from attributes of a common creator.
The Dual Characteristics of Creation
The elements common to all creation are called dual characteristics. Every being has dual characteristics derived from the dual attributes of the Creator, God. There are two basic types of dual characteristics. The most fundamental are internal character and external form. The internal character gives a being purpose and direction, while the external form embodies and expresses that character and completes the unique identity of a being. The secondary type of duality, positivity and negativity, enables every being to interact with others. Positivity and negativity are not value-related, but complementary characteristics that make it possible for two or more entities to relate with one another and create a harmonious union in which each partner is completed through its relationship with the other.
The two types of dual characteristics are clearly evident in human beings. Both men and women are endowed with internal character (mind) and external form (body) which together create the human identity with its unique internal and external attributes. However; while men and women share certain characteristics as human beings, they also have internal and external differences which distinguish the sexes from each other. It is because men and women have so much in common as humans, but are also differentiated into two distinct yet complementary groups, that when a man and a woman unite in love they experience complete fulfillment. Out of that union new life is produced and creation is multiplied. Thus both types of dual characteristics are essential for the completion and continuation of creation.
The creation is ordered hierarchically, with human beings at the center, supported by animals and then plants, and with all organic creatures sustained by the mineral kingdom. This hierarchy of creation is itself sustained by a second hierarchy, extending from the sub-atomic particles, atoms and molecules of which every creation is made to the planets, stars and galaxies which constitute the cosmos. The great beauty of nature is produced by the harmonization of dual characteristics within and between these two hierarchies of created beings.
Internal Character and External Form
Every being in these natural hierarchies has internal character and external form. The internal character of a human being is mind, which guides the external form, or body, imbuing it with purpose and direction. Action flows from thought such that the patterns of an individual's thinking are written in his body language and behavior. For this reason, one can learn about a person's invisible mind by studying its external manifestations in his body. A loving, generous person will radiate goodness and kindness in appearance and activity, whereas a selfish and greedy person will have an unattractive personality and take from others.
Animal character and behavior are shaped by animal mind. Without instruction, birds make nests in which to lay eggs and nurture their young, salmon return to their freshwater spawning grounds to procreate after years at sea, beavers construct dams to create environments that support their families and ants organize themselves into armies to build homes and procure food. Every type of animal has its own, special internal character embodied in a unique external form. Through its body, an animal's fear, anger or affection are communicated, as when a dog cringes, barks or wags its tail. The wondrous variety and unity of the animal kingdom demonstrate the creative diversity within the oneness of God.
Plants can be said to have mind-like elements, or inherent directive natures, that determine their structures and natural functions and respond to environmental influences. Plants can grow towards sunlight, up the sides of buildings or away from dangerous elements. Some experiments have suggested that they respond to human affection and gentle music. All of these behavioral traits of plants are functions of their invisible internal characters. The earth's flora is made up of millions of plant varieties. Each plays a particular part within the whole, and is harmonized with the rest of creation within God's overall purpose for nature.
Molecules, and the chemical compounds they form, possess unique qualities and demonstrate specific behavior. For example, water, which is the combination of two hydrogen atoms with one oxygen atom, has properties that allow it to combine with a wide variety of different molecules to create a vast range of substances. However, these same properties also prevent it from combining with certain other molecules. This behavior of water is governed by its invisible internal characteristics, manifest in its molecular structure. Water, like all molecules, was created by God to fulfill a specific purpose within the overall design for creation.
Atoms are organized into nine groups within the periodic table of elements. Each group demonstrates certain behavioral characteristics, ranging from great combinability (the carbon family) to total non-combinability (the inert elements). The invisible internal character of atoms, expressed in their atomic structures, determines their behavior.
Atoms are composed of sub-atomic particles, primarily neutrons and positively-charged protons in the nucleus and negatively charged electrons surrounding the nucleus. There are several other particles as well. Sub-atomic particles combine to form different atoms with their diverse characteristics. For example, the nucleus of a hydrogen atom has one proton circled by one electron. The nature of hydrogen is to give away its electron in the formation of molecules, a property described by chemistry as being a valence of plus one. Oxygen has eight protons and eight neutrons in its nucleus circled by eight electrons, and the nature to receive two electrons in the formation of molecules, giving it a valence of minus two. The oxygen atom receives one electron from each of two hydrogen atoms to form water, a very stable molecule.
Science recognizes the internal character of the creation without defining it as such. Scientists speak of the "behavior" of molecules, atoms and particles, implying the existence of their inner nature without specifying what it is. At the center of the invisible, energetic dimension of creation lies the causal world of human spirit and mind.
Harmony of the Creation
The purposefulness and order so evident in the creation are derived from the unity of its invisible internal character and are expressions of the volition and unity of its invisible Creator, God. Every being was made by God with an individual purpose that contributes to the purpose of the whole such that the individual purpose is realized through the realization of the purpose of the whole. The diversity and beauty of the creation reflect the manifold beauty of God's nature, while its integrity and harmony result from His oneness and His single, unifying purpose for the whole creation.
Positivity and Negativity
While internal character and external form are the primary dual characteristics in shaping the identity of beings, there are secondary dual characteristics, positivity and negativity, that differentiate creations into complementary pairs. Human beings and animals are either males or females, while plants have their own forms of masculinity and femininity (stamen and pistil). The molecules, atoms and particles also exist as positive or negative dipoles: cations and anions, protons and electrons. Where the positive-negative differentiation is not apparent in two separate entities, it exists within individual beings, as demonstrated, for example, when a cell's nucleus and cytoplasm divide in asexual reproduction.
The dual characteristics of positivity and negativity are also clearly evident in the structures of created beings. For example, the human body functions through the interaction of many paired parts, such as the two eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, arms, legs, lungs, kidneys, etc. Human beings exist and act physically through the cooperation between the dual characteristics of their bodies. The same principle applies to all the creation.
The Dual Characteristics of God
The dual characteristics of creation are derived from the dual attributes of God. The internal character of God has an inner aspect which is the wellspring of emotion, intellect and will and an outer aspect which is the source of ideas, concepts and principles. God's external form is composed of Universal Prime Energy, which is the source of the energetic elements required for the creation and maintenance of the cosmos. God's positivity and negativity are Prime Masculinity and Prime Femininity.
Within God, there are no divisions between attributes. The dual characteristics of God's being are perfectly harmonized in the complete unity of divine oneness. Therefore, God's dual characteristics can be recognized only as they are manifested in the creation or as they are evidenced to humanity through revelation.
God's most internal and fundamental nature is heart, the irrepressible impulse to give love and experience joy. God's heart is the foundation of His being and oneness, the source of His love and the origin of His purpose in making the creation. God's love is expressed in the manifestations of the Universal Prime Energy, out of which the creation was made. The essence of heart is the parental desire to create and love offspring. Hence God's creation of human beings must above all be understood as an act of parental love. (The parent-child relationship between God and humans is a kinship of love not to be confused with a biological relationship.)
In this text, God is referred to as "Him" for simplicity's sake, even though God created both men and women and therefore has both masculinity and femininity within a unified nature. In the relationship between God and humans, God, as Creator, takes an initiating, masculine role to the responsive, feminine role of the human beings He created; but God also responds to their love.
God created everything according to principles which derive from the principles of His own perfect being. Through these principles He governs His creation. The relations within and among all created beings are guided toward harmonization and mutual fulfillment by the same principles. It is these principles which religions seek to articulate in spiritual laws of faith and conduct and which science tries to define in physical laws of the universe. Because there is only one God, His principles are universal and are the basis for the common truths found in all valid religions and sciences. They are called the principles of creation.
By understanding the principles of creation humans can comprehend the laws that lie behind God's commandments and can learn to live in full accordance with God's will. They can also reconcile the inner world of religion with the external world of science.
Conclusion
The creation resembles its Creator, God, in the duality of its structure - internal and external, positive and negative. As the Creator, God is the source of the unifying purpose and principles that govern the creation and its relationship with God. The nature of the interaction between God and the creation, as well as that among the various created beings, will be examined in the next chapter.
2. The Structure And Function Of Creation
The universe is not a random grouping of disassociated entities moving aimlessly through time and space, but rather a finely-balanced system of interrelated beings which interact in an orderly fashion, guided by a unifying purpose. If this were not so, there would be no basis for science, which presupposes the existence of common elements and universal laws in the cosmos and works to identify and understand them. However, science cannot provide a complete picture of reality without a complementary understanding of the internal dimensions of the creation. As shown in the previous chapter, the order and harmony of the universe result from the character and purpose with which God endowed the invisible, internal elements of creation. It is the external manifestations of these internal realities which are known to science.
Because science is limited to examination of external reality, it leaves a number of important questions unanswered, such as: What is the origin and basis for existence and life? How does an invisible creator maintain a relationship with its visible creation? What are the universal dynamics of relationships between dual characteristics? What are the fundamental structures of creation that enable it to exist and develop? These are some of the questions addressed in this chapter.
Subject and Object
The dual characteristics of any creation exist in dynamic relationship with each other. In order for there to be interaction between them, one must initiate the relationship and the other respond. The Principle calls the initiator a subject and the responding partner an object. God is the Prime Subject, the creation His object. Within the creation, humans are subject to all other beings, which, in turn, are ordered into hierarchies of subject-object relations. Through this chain of being, all creations are connected to the Creator, God, the source of existence and life, and the various individual creations are tied into a harmonious whole. As subject of the whole cosmos, God is the internal character to the creation's external form, the masculine initiator to creation's responsive, feminine nature.
The myriad subject-object interactions within each level of creation maintain and develop each subdivision of nature. For example, protons, neutrons and electrons interact to form atoms; cations and anions combine to form molecules; most plants multiply through cross-pollination between stamens and pistils; and most animals multiply through mating between males and females. In addition to these same-level interactions, the various levels of creation are linked to each other in a hierarchy centered on, human beings, as in food chains, for example. In this way, the diverse species, families and kingdoms of creation are connected to God and His purpose for creation through humans.
Furthermore, every created being exists through the maintenance of subject-object relations between its component parts. Thus, a human being maintains life through millions of subject-object relationships: between cells, organs, limbs, nerve and circulatory systems, and so on. The heart and lungs interact to bring oxygen into the bloodstream, while the arteries and veins circulate the blood throughout the body. The central and peripheral nervous systems coordinate the functions of the body, including the interaction of muscle and skeleton. In this example, nerves, directed by the brain, are subject and the muscles they control are their object. However, the muscles in turn are the subject of the bones. Every part of the human body fulfills its purpose through its subject-object relations with other parts.
Universal Prime Force
How does God relate to the countless subjects and objects He has created? In order for energy to act it must have a conduit for its action, and in order for God to interact with the creation there must be a base in creation to receive God's energy. The subject-object pairs in the creation provide circuits through which God's love and power can flow. Subjects and objects are created in the image of God's being, which has its own subject and object attributes. By resembling God's nature they make possible the flow of energy between God and His creation. When God acts, His prime force, the energic aspect of purposeful interaction between His internal character and external form, gives rise to universal prime force. God endows His creation with the universal prime force, which is the directed energy that sustains the creation's existence, action and multiplication. Universal prime force links God to His creation and empowers its dynamism.
Giving and Receiving Action
Through the action of the universal prime force, each subject is brought into a relationship with a given object to complete itself. Subjects and objects separated from each other in the creation are partial reflections of the unity of God, whereas joined in harmony they reflect, at their proper level, the complete unity of subject and object within God.
Subject and object need a common base, which is mutuality of characteristics and purpose, in order to interact. When they do establish a common base, through the action of universal prime force in each of them they create a relationship of giving and receiving energy from each other. This giving and receiving action draws the subject and object together, creating a unity that resembles the subject-object unity of the attributes of their Creator, God. Each finds completion through its relationship with the other.
When subjects and objects are empowered by the universal prime force to create harmonious relationships, they engage in giving and receiving action and generate all manner of manifest forces: electrical, mechanical, mental, emotional, etc. These are the substantial foundation for life itself: existence, action and multiplication. Prime force is the intangible source of life and universal prime force is the intangible foundation for life. The forces that result from giving and receiving action are the substantial foundation for life.
Existence and life are possible only when there is a flow of energy between subject and object, with both of them giving and receiving. Breathing would not work if humans only inhaled; circulation would not work if humans only had arteries to take blood from the heart to the body but lacked veins to return it to the heart. Thus all creation is maintained and develops through the giving and receiving between subjects and objects.
Many of the subject-object pairs and the forces they generate have been identified by science. For example, nuclear power, electricity, heat and light are energies produced by interaction between atoms or sub-atomic particles; gravitational energy is produced by the interaction between heavenly bodies, and so on. The foundations for the natural world are created when protons, neutrons and electrons, empowered by universal prime force, give and receive energy to form atoms which, in turn, give and receive electrical forces in the creation of molecules.
The reproductive dimension of life is evident in the plant, animal and human kingdoms. In plants, stamens and pistils interact to produce the biological forces necessary for the creation of seeds. Male and female animals mate to produce offspring. Men and women are made by God as subjects and objects who are endowed with complementary characteristics, both internal and external, which enable them to form harmonious and productive couples. Man's spiritual, mental and physical masculinity is balanced perfectly by woman's spiritual, mental and physical femininity.
In human interaction, giving and receiving is the basis for the creation of harmonious relationships. For example, the ideal teacher-student relationship is created when a student responds fully to the education offered by a teacher. Their interaction is initiated by the teacher giving and completed by the student responding. On a wider scale, a leader in society gives direction and vision, winning the support of followers in the building of social structures and institutions. A national leader does the same for the whole nation. In every case, when an object, or objects, reciprocate the giving of a subject, interaction results and a unity of being is achieved. Whoever the partners, a relationship is initiated by giving.
It is a man's nature to seek completion through becoming one with a woman, while a woman's feminine nature seeks completion through union with a masculine subject. In perfect unity the two become as one, resembling the oneness of God. Since man and woman are the culmination of God's creation and the encapsulation of the physical and spiritual realms made by God, when they unite they become the completed image of God, the full embodiment of His attributes. The forces of giving and receiving action produced by their union are the foundation for their lives and for the creation of their family.
Individual Truth Bodies
God's oneness is manifested in the perfect union between His subject and object attributes: divine internal character and external form, positivity and negativity. Each creation is endowed with dual characteristics that are a reflection of God's dual attributes. Human beings are the most complete embodiment of God's nature and thus considered the image of God. Their spiritual natures are the most complete reflection of God's internal attributes, and their bodies the most complete reflection of His external attributes. The rest of the creation was made in the image of humans and is a symbolic reflection of God's attributes.
God is truth: the true relationship between His dual attributes. This perfection of being is maintained through totally harmonious giving and receiving relationships between His attributes within His oneness. The word of God, as revealed to humankind, is an articulation of His existential truth. Every creation intrinsically is a unified being of harmonized dual characteristics. As such it reflects the unity of God and is an embodiment of truth, or an individual truth body. All creations, from atoms to human beings, were made by God to resemble His true nature and to find fulfillment through that resemblance.
Every created being completes itself as an individual truth body and then has a part to play in the creation as a whole by forming individual truth bodies of a higher dimension. For example, an atom is an individual truth body formed from the interaction of protons, neutrons and electrons. When it seeks out another atom to form a molecule, it is fulfilling its God-given purpose to become part of an individual truth body of higher dimension.
Human individual truth bodies are perfected when men and women grow to maturity by uniting mind and body and then forming harmonious families. A true man unites his mind and body into perfect oneness and then forms a union of love with a true woman to create a family, according to God's purpose for them. Together, they are the complete embodiment of the dual characteristics of God, internal and external, male and female. Unified, a true man and woman become true parents, qualified to give birth to true children. These true sons and true daughters grow up as true brothers and true sisters to become true husbands and true wives, finally becoming true parents themselves: each man perfecting his resemblance of God's masculinity, each woman perfecting her resemblance of God's femininity. Through true parents, true men and women are multiplied in God's creation.
True Love
The fundamental nature of God's heart is to give unconditionally. This impulse gives rise to love. As a manifestation of the true being of God, the love of God is true love. The universal prime force is imbued with purpose and direction by God's true love, God's absolute, unconditional giving of Himself for the creation. Since the true love of God is the source of life for human beings and the rest of creation, essentially God is love.
God created men and women to drink eternally at the inexhaustible fountain of His true love. A true man and true woman have the characteristics to be fully endowed with God's love so that they can become true parents, giving and receiving true love with each other, their family members and other true men and women. Their love becomes an extension of God's love. When God, a true man and a true woman come together in a unity of true love, a foundation is created for the birth and education of true children. When these children are raised by true parents in homes of true love they will become true men and true women themselves. The true love that flows through a true family is the foundation for the creation of a true society, nation and world. In this way, the true love, true life and true lineage of God are inherited And multiplied by humankind.
The Four Position Foundation
True love flows wherever there are true subject-object relationships in the image of God's own internal harmony. Universally, when subjects and objects, impelled by the universal prime force, interact in accordance with God's will, they resemble God, who is the perfect union of subject and object attributes. Their interaction creates a new entity which embodies elements of both of them. This new creation adds a fourth position to the three occupied by God, the subject and the object. All four, interacting with one another, complete a four position foundation for the fulfillment of the purpose of existence.
The Triple Object Purpose
Through giving and receiving with one another, the participants in the four position foundation become as one, and each fulfills its purpose through its relations with the other three. Through developing these qualitatively different relationships with three other members of the four position foundation, each member can realize its potential. For example, the subject fulfills its purpose by perfecting its relationships with God, the object and the new entity created by its interaction with the object, while the object fulfills its purpose by perfecting its relationships with God, the subject and the new creation. In this way, each member takes the other three as its objects. Thus the four position foundation is completed through fulfillment of the triple object purpose. In the family, for example, God, the father, mother and children perceive one another as objects and complete themselves through perfecting the three distinct types of relationship in this four position foundation.
The Family Unit
In human society there are many examples of four position foundations but the family unit is the most important. Only through the family can individuals be fulfilled completely.
Since men and women were made by God to be the objects of His true love, their most fundamental desire is for love. This desire can only be satisfied fully in the family, because it is in the family that people learn to give and receive true love in all its dimensions. The natural love relationships within families are all part of God's ideal; so too are extra-familial love relationships that contribute to the creation of God-centered families and a God-centered world, such as love of neighbors and friends, of society and country. All extra-familial love relationships are direct reflections of one of the various relationships that comprise familial love.
Any human relationship guided by self-centered rather than God-centered purposes, such as sexual intercourse outside a commitment to marriage and family, or possessive parental love at the cost of a child's well-being, is based on false love. True love is to sacrifice yourself for others, whereas false love is to sacrifice others for yourself. True love allows only one, eternal spouse, one man-woman union for the creation of a God-centered four position foundation. Only in such a single-spouse family can love be perfected and man's purpose be fulfilled. False love relationships violate the order of God's creation and thus destroy individuals, families, societies and nations.
Children are born needing the love of their parents. Although possessing the impulse to love, as infants their consciousness is oriented more to receiving than giving. As children grow, they learn to give and receive more love - with their parents, siblings and friends. Once a boy reaches maturity of heart and becomes a man, he is qualified to enter into a relationship of conjugal love with a similarly mature woman. On the foundation of this responsible husband-wife relationship, a couple is qualified to have children, to whom the father and mother give unconditional love.
God's love for His creation is unconditional, that is, it is given without requiring or demanding a reciprocation of love. Human love resembles this true love of God when people give unconditional love to others. The family is the only environment where everlasting true love can be perfected, because only true parents possess this standard of love. The only way to become a true parent is to establish a God-centered family.
The practice of true love creates a heavenly atmosphere among all those who participate in it. In an environment of true love, all human problems and misery can be eliminated.
The Four Position Foundation in Creation
Examples of the formation of four position foundations in creation are protons (subjects) and electrons (objects) interacting to form atoms (new creations), stamens and pistils relating to produce seeds, male and female animals mating to produce offspring and husbands and wives uniting in love to have children.
Throughout the cosmos, all beings have the nature to establish four position foundations centered on God. Since the creation is ordered hierarchically and only humans are endowed with an internal character capable of knowing God directly, within the world of creation God's purpose in the four position foundation is represented by the purpose of human beings. For those creations not directly connected to people, the position of human beings as God's representatives is assumed by the hierarchy of nature centered on humans. Through this hierarchy, God's purpose is imparted to all four position foundations in creation.
Since the natural world was created as an environment to sustain human beings, the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms exist for humankind. Each level of creation fulfills its purpose through completing four position foundations that contribute to fulfilling the purpose of the next higher level. Thus sub-atomic particles interact centered on the purpose of atoms, cations and anions on the purpose of molecules and molecules on the purpose of the created beings they form. The plants and animals in God's creation are ordered so that lower life forms support higher ones. For example, in a food chain the lower serves the higher: grass nourished by mineral-rich soil is eaten by insects, which in turn are eaten by snakes and frogs, that are then eaten by birds and small carnivores. Humans live from plants and animals that are themselves sustained by lower plant or animal species. Plants and animals all fulfill their purposes by contributing to the existence of human beings. In turn, they are also sustained by mineral nutrients and the sun. Ultimately, this allows lower beings to participate in the intimate encounter with God which is unique to man.
Conclusion
The purpose of interaction between subjects and objects is the creation of mature relationships within the structure of four position foundations. Every creation becomes complete through establishing harmonious relations with other beings in the formation of such foundations.
The energy that enables subjects and objects to give and receive in the creation of relationships is God's universal prime force. The internal character of this force and the life it sustains is the true love of God. The creation was made for love, and it is only through the practice of true love that men and women can fulfill their potential as true human beings. The family unit is the four position foundation in which this human potential can be completely realized.
3. The Purpose Of Creation
The previous discussion of God and creation shows that God's purposeful force harmonizes His diverse creations within one, integrated and purposeful cosmos. What is God's purpose? Why did God create? Since human beings were made in the image of God, and therefore are endowed with characteristics that mirror God's attributes, the key to answering this question is easily derived by understanding the fundamental motivation of humankind.
It is important to know God's purpose in making the creation because human beings can fulfill their own purpose only when they know clearly why God made them. Every being comes into existence to fulfill a purpose given to it by its creator; nothing creates itself or determines its own purpose. Consequently, a creation can fulfill its potential only by implementing its creator-given purpose. Since God is the Creator of all, His purpose for the creation is the creation's purpose.
It is the natural tendency of God's creations to carry out the purposes for which they were made. For example, hydrogen naturally combines with oxygen to form water; a lettuce plant unconsciously absorbs light, water and minerals in becoming food for human beings and animals; and, without having been shown how, a stork builds a nest to protect its eggs and young offspring until they are strong enough to fend for themselves.
Human beings, however, have free will, allowing them to choose to fulfill their given purpose. Free will is a gift from God that enables humankind to know and love God, and participate with God in creative processes. If humans do not understand the purpose for which God made them, they are likely to make wrong choices and consequently live unfulfilled and tragic lives in the pursuit of erroneous purposes. However, when a person does fulfill his God-given purpose, he experiences complete joy and fulfillment.
The precise purpose for God making the creation and the way that purpose can be fulfilled by humanity and nature are discussed in this chapter.
Universal Human Purpose: Achieving True Happiness
The most universal human desire is for happiness. All men and women live to be happy, pursuing that aim as best they know how. Every action of every person is intended to increase his or her happiness. Even if pain is to be the immediate consequence of a decision to seek happiness, that pain is understood to be the price that must be paid to gain greater happiness. Thus, artists will make great effort to create substantial representations of their ideas or visions, feeling joy once they have succeeded; athletes will exhaust themselves in training, driving their bodies to the limit so that they can experience the pleasure of achieving fitness and winning competitions; saints will live lives of sacrifice and hardship to gain the eternal joy of heaven.
How, then, is joy produced? Consider how any person feels joy. It can never be experienced by an individual alone, but only through having an object that reflects the subject's nature. Joy is the stimulation a subject receives from the object's resemblance to the subject, whether the object is visible or invisible. For example, an artist feels joy when the vision or idea in his or her mind is realized as a finished work of art. The work created is a resemblance of the idea for it. An athlete feels joy when, after continual training and practice, he or she achieves sporting excellence. Whether athlete, business professional, scientist or artist, the joy of achievement arises when substantial accomplishment in the world resembles the goal formulated in the mind. Most exhilarating is the joy experienced by parents as they raise their children to substantiate their parents' ideal for them, since in the parent-child relationship there is the greatest resemblance between creator and creation.
True happiness, or joy, is experienced only when human beings fulfill the purpose for which they were originally created. All other pursuits of happiness sooner or later lead to frustration and misery. Thus the individual who pursues his own happiness by exploiting others can never experience lasting joy. All moral and social crimes are of this nature: seeking happiness that, sooner or later, causes the loss of happiness for others. Action taken with a selfish and unrighteous motive always leads to the creation of human suffering, proving that it is contrary to humanity's true, God-endowed purpose.
The creation was made to complete itself through the formation of four position foundations based on giving and receiving between subjects and objects. It is when a subject and object form a harmonious union, centered on God's will, that each fulfils its purpose. Sub-atomic particles fulfill their purpose when they form atoms, atoms when they form molecules, and molecules when they form whole entities. Likewise, stamens and pistils fulfill their purpose when they cross-pollinate and produce seeds, and male and female animals when they mate and produce offspring.
In human society, this principle applies to all relationships, from the individual to the global. A child fulfills its purpose and is happy when it has harmonious relationships with its parents and siblings, while a mature man and woman fulfill their purpose and experience joy when they enter into a responsible, monogamous relationship of love, create children and raise a family. The happiness of children and parents produced by the giving and receiving of true love is the greatest human joy. Joy is also experienced in all other human relationships governed by true love, and hence centered on God's love. Giving and receiving love in a family is the model for giving and receiving love in society and among nations. In the family one learns the most essential truth: concern for the whole must be set above the interests of the individual.
Human experience shows that the degree of joy in a relationship depends on the compatibility of the characteristics and purposes of those involved. The most intense joy experienced by a woman is in the love relationship she has with the man who is her eternal mate. The couple's compatibility of purpose is total and the masculinity and femininity of the man and woman are perfectly complementary. When a man and woman unite in true love, their spiritual and physical natures fuse into one to create the highest joy for both partners. This experience of joy and fulfillment demonstrates that man was made for woman and woman for man.
Individuals, families, groups and nations also experience joy in relating to other individuals, families, groups and nations, depending on mutuality of purpose. Social happiness is produced from harmonious relations among families, centered on God's love and truth; international happiness is produced from harmonious relations among nations, centered on God's will for those nations. The will of God is the purposeful expression of His love and truth.
Humans can also receive joy from their relationships with nature. Because nature was created in the image of human beings (as an environment to sustain and give them joy), men and women together encapsulate the elements of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms and are the only created beings that can relate to all other beings in the creation, directly or indirectly. The degree of resemblance between human and non-human beings determines the degree of joy experienced in the relationship. Pets, for example, generally demonstrate a high level of human-like characteristics, giving joy to the individuals who love them.
God Created to Experience Joy
God is the origin of all love, the First Lover. He is not distant from His creation, but intimately concerned with its welfare and development. Love, by its very nature, must be given, and therefore needs an object that can receive it. One cannot love nothing. God made the creation, centered on man and woman endowed with the ability to receive and give love, as the object to receive His love. Without such an object, God would not be a God of love, but would remain a God of potential love. Without an object to whom He could give His love, God would not experience joy. Therefore, God made the creation, and humankind in particular, in order to give love and experience joy.
Men and women were created by God for love. Giving and receiving love is the central purpose of their lives and the means by which they experience fulfillment and joy. Although God is perfect, He seeks joy from His creation through the flowering of His love. His joy comes from experiencing men and women as they grow from infants through childhood into adulthood when, as mature parents, they create families, groups and nations living in the harmony created by relationships of true love. Their joy is His joy, their fulfillment, His fulfillment.
Thus God seeks as much from His partners in the four position foundation as they seek from each other and from Him. Men and women are the culmination of the creation, embodying the dual attributes of God more completely than any other beings. The high degree to which human beings resemble God, especially in their capacity to give and receive love, enables them to respond substantially to God and His love. God's heart is essentially the heart of a parent for children, and therefore the relationship between God and human beings can best be likened to a parent-child relationship.
Humans Were Created to Give Joy to God
God made human beings in such a way as to enable Him to experience joy through giving and receiving love with them. Consequently, the purpose of human life is to give joy to God. This is accomplished by perfecting human relationships to complete the four position foundation, centered on God. Men and women are endowed with heart and creativity. These are the attributes they need to complete the four position foundation and fulfill their purpose as objects of God's heart and co-creators with God. When humans fulfill their God-given purpose, they feel complete and experience joy through returning joy to God. God's joy and human joy are inseparable.
Human beings were not created in a vacuum, but in a nurturing environment which they need for the fulfillment of their purpose. God created the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms in the image of man and woman, to sustain and please human beings. Man and woman are an encapsulation of the cosmos created before them and for them. But they are unique in creation because they have both spirit and body, an internal character capable of intimate communication with God as well as an external form capable of communicating with the rest of creation. Mature men and women, who have become true parents, are the center of han-nony between the all-transcending world of God and the world of nature. For this reason, God experiences joy in nature through human joy in nature.
The Three Blessings
In a complex world presenting men and women with multiple obligations, what are the essential steps they must take to fulfill their purpose? More specifically, what is it they must do to fulfill the four position foundation that gives joy to God?
Joy is produced when subject and object become one, resembling the oneness of God's attributes. The harmonization of subject and object creates beauty, which love seeks: love is attracted to the unified being of subject and object. Together, a harmonious subject and object represent a single object to love. Wherever love finds beauty, a subject finds its image in an object, joy is experienced by both subject and object in the giving and receiving between them. Since God created men and women out of His desire to give love and receive joy, human beings fulfill their purpose by becoming objects of beauty to God. In giving and receiving love with God, other humans and nature, men and women create beauty in all dimensions of their lives, experiencing joy and giving it to God.
How can men and women become objects of beauty to God? They must become the image of God, first as individuals, second in their families and social relations, and third in their interaction with nature. They must complete four position foundations on these three levels, centered on God, thereby completing their purpose and qualifying to receive the full blessing of God's true love. Hence the empowerment to establish these three foundations for the completion of human purpose are called the three blessings. To realize the three blessings, men and women must grow to become the image of God as mature individuals engaged in pure relationships within their families and the world, and exercise a dominion of true love over the rest of creation. In achieving these objectives, they come to mirror God and embody His beauty as true human beings.
The three blessings are: first, the ability and right (responsibility and potential) to become an individual with perfect personality and achieve the value of a complete, true being, sharing God's value; second, the ability and right to fulfill true love relationships and thereby create an ideal family and world, sharing God's ability to create new life and raise children; and, third, the ability and right to have dominion over things of creation, sharing God's creativity and lordship. By giving the three blessings, God shared His own perfect being fully with human beings, making them objects who can represent Him in the creation and reciprocate His love completely.
Fulfilling the three blessings is a process of growth and development in which an individual gradually discovers and understands who he or she is and how he himself, or she herself, functions, and then learns how to relate to other people and nature. Through this process of self-discovery, people learn about the laws that govern life and shape human nature. On this foundation, they learn about the laws of relationships and, ultimately, the laws governing the whole universe. With this understanding they can truly inherit the creativity and lordship of God and fulfill their potential: to have perfect dominion over themselves and their environment and create relationships of joy and happiness in all circumstances.
The First Blessing
The first step toward becoming a true man or woman is taken by uniting mind and body, centered on God's will. The spiritual mind, also called the conscience, must have dominion over the body, its object. The body must learn to respond to the direction of the mind because the mind can understand and respond to God. On the other hand, when the body, whose essential desires are selfish, dominates the mind, the person will not know or care to do God's will. God can relate only to that in the creation which resembles Him. Without mutual resemblance, there is no common base for giving and receiving between God and the creation. Unity of mind and body centered on God resembles the unity of God's internal and external attributes. Hence the mind is to direct all the functions of the body: drinking, eating, moving, sleeping, procreating and so on, so that mind and body together conform to God's purpose for human beings and function in resemblance of His unity.
Endowed with free will as an intrinsic part of their spiritual nature, men and women can choose to obey or disobey God. This means they can, through obedience, become the image of the selfless, loving and pure God, or, through disobedience, become selfish and impure beings. Those who achieve mind-body unity centered on God become one with God's will and live in accordance with His word. Their words are one with God's truth and their actions are consistent with their words. They can be said to have godly personalities, and, filled with His love and truth, they are beautiful to Him. As true men and women, they realize the first blessing.
Through realizing the first blessing, men and women become mature individuals who can think and feel as God does and can exercise perfect dominion over their own lives. In maturity, they do not deviate from the will of God because they share His purity of heart and have no desire to violate true love. God's joy is their joy; God's pain, their pain. This unity of love with God is the key to perfecting love in the family and society as well as love for all creation: the realization of the second and third blessings.
The Second Blessing
Children learn how to give and receive love primarily at home, first in relations with their parents, then with brothers and sisters. The love learned at home prepares a man or woman to enter into mature conjugal love relations. Husband-wife love is the foundation for a married couple to have children and create a family. Through obedience to the will of God, a husband and wife create a relationship of true love, based on the true love of God. Their children are then born into a pure and God-centered home in which they are nurtured with true love so that they can grow into true men and women.
An infant is not conscious of God. The child's parents represent God to it: the father embodies God's masculinity and the mother God's femininity. Thus, in a true love family, the children first come to experience the love and truth of God through the love and truth of their parents. For this reason, the personality of the parents (the relationship between their words and actions) is critically important to the development of their children. Only true parents, expressing God's love and truth through true personalities, can raise true children.
Children created in the image of God are true children. They are to grow through stages as true brothers and sisters to become true husbands and wives and, eventually, true parents themselves. The true families created in this process are the building blocks of a world governed by true love. The creation of true love clans, tribes and nations are stages in the building of a true world.
God's attributes, internal and external, masculine and feminine, are perfectly one within the divine nature. When a man and woman, endowed with internal and external, male and female characteristics, become one in true love they come to resemble God fully. A family of pure love is the most beautiful object to God because it embodies the image of His own nature so totally. Consequently it can receive God's love in its most all-embracing and profound expressions. When a man and woman create a true love family, they realize the second blessing.
The Third Blessing
The family unit not only embodies the image of God most completely, it also encapsulates the rest of creation. The union of man and woman in a true family is a microcosm of the perfection of all subject-object relationships throughout the universe, since the structures and functions of the bodies of men and women encapsulate the structures and functions of nature. Because human beings are a microcosm of the universe and the center of all natural hierarchies, true families can exercise God-centered dominion over nature, caring for the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms and, in return, being cared for by the creation. When families tend nature with true love, they create a harmonious relationship between humankind and the rest of creation, a relationship of beauty that realizes the third blessing.
Thus God's purpose for creating human beings is accomplished when they fulfill the conditions necessary to receive the three blessings. Men and women complete their God-given purpose by realizing all three blessings.
Universal Human Aspirations
Although not articulated in the same terminology, the essential aims of all religions and ethical systems are encompassed within the three blessings, which, in terms of human fulfillment, represent the aspirations of all people. There is no one, religious or not, who would not like to be a whole, fulfilled individual living in perfect love within a joyful family and peaceful world and existing in harmony with nature.
Human misery and suffering increase in direct proportion to an individual's distance from achieving these basic objectives. It is no exaggeration to say that all human ills, the hatreds, crimes, conflicts, injustices and oppression that characterize this troubled world, derive from the misshapen lives of men and women who fail to fulfill the conditions to receive the three blessings: individuals who cannot unite mind and body create families lacking in true love and become people who are abusive of other human beings and nature.
Restoring the World Begins with Individuals
The existence of huge contradictions between God's ideal and the reality of the world known to humans implies that there has been a massive human failure to fulfill the purpose of creation. (The nature of this failure is explained in Chapter 7.) By understanding the three blessings, it is clear that the path this sickly world must take to regain its health begins with the restoration of individuals. Only true men and women can create good families and a peaceful world of true love.
One can think of the world's problems as the negative repercussions produced by the thoughts and actions of disordered individuals and groups, in whom the desires of the human body are unrighteously given precedence over those of the mind. This is the root of all materialism, which sets the value of the external, physical world of the body above the internal, spiritual world of the mind. The evident global disorder is produced by disorder in nations, societies, tribes and families made up of disordered people. At root, then, the key to solving the world's problems lies in solving the mind-body relationship within individuals. Restored individuals can build restored families and then restore all other human relationships. They can also restore the human relationship with nature. For this reason, the history of God's work to restore fallen humanity to the original ideal has focused on finding individuals who can become true parents and fulfill the original purpose for humankind by realizing the three blessings.
The Mission of Religion
The world's religions have all encouraged individuals to unite mind and body centered on the will of God or altruistic principles at one with God's will. Religion recognizes that the root of all evils is to be found in individuals and therefore the cure for humankind must begin with individual purification and restoration. The essential message of religion is that when the mind gains dominion over the body (the first blessing) the other goals of life (the second and third blessings) can be achieved. Religion educates human beings to realize the three blessings, teaching the virtues of individual faith and purity, the sanctity of family and respect for nature. In sum, the mission of religion is to educate people in the realization of the three blessings.
Conclusion
God made the creation as an object to which He could give His love and from which He could receive joy. For God and humanity, joy is produced when an object comes to resemble a subject and enters into a harmonious relationship with it. Men and women were created to give joy to God, which they can do by growing in resemblance to Him, and in harmony with other people and nature, fulfilling the three blessings. The failure of humankind to fulfill the three blessings is the fundamental problem that underlies all the problems of this world. The solution to these problems lies, then, in the restoration of the three blessings, beginning with one man and one woman who can create a true family as the foundation for a true world.
The three blessings are not realized in an instant, but as the fruit of a process of growth. As the body needs time to reach physical maturity, so too the mind needs time to reach spiritual maturity. The principles that govern the process of growth to maturity are discussed in the next chapter.
4. The Growing Process
It is a universal principle that nothing begins existence in its completed, stable form; every living being achieves maturity through a process of growth and development. Mature human beings, with all their sophistication and multiple capabilities, start life as single fertilized cells, develop into the infant forms of a man or woman in the womb and then enter the larger world to grow to adulthood in a process that takes many years.
What are the principles that govern growth? What is the relationship between physical and spiritual growth? What are the similarities and differences between the growing processes for human beings and for other beings in the creation? How can spiritual growth be measured? This chapter examines these issues.
Three Stages of Growth
There are three fundamental stages in the growing period: formation, growth and completion. Only by completing three stages of growth can a being fulfill its proper place in the order of creation. The three stages are derived from the process of creation itself, in which all things come into being through the three-step development of the four position foundation: (1) God originates all creations as the First Cause of all being; (2) God manifests as two divided but complementary entities, the subject and object; and (3) subject and object interact to produce a new oneness and a new creation.
The number three represents completion in the creation. Nature is divided into three kingdoms: animal, vegetable and mineral; the physical world exists in three primary states: solid, liquid and gas; the many hues that adorn the creation are derived from three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Two-dimensional space is created by a minimum of three points; three-dimensional space by a minimum of three lines; all physical objects exist in three dimensions; and three points are the minimum needed to support any object.
Growth in Nature's Kingdoms
In nature's three kingdoms the three stages of growth are apparent. In the inorganic mineral kingdom, the structures that make up the physical world are built in three stages: sub-atomic particles (formation), atoms (growth) and molecules (completion). In the organic plant and animal kingdoms, living entities reach maturity through three stages of growth. For example, a plant begins life as a seed which contains the biological blueprint for the development of an oak tree, rose or cabbage. In the formation stage the seed sprouts into an initial form of the completed plant, in the growth stage it takes on the plant's mature form, and in the completion stage it produces seeds from which new plants spring, completing the cycle of growth.
The Growth of Human Beings
Because of their spiritual nature, the growth of human beings differs from that of other beings. As essentially spiritual beings endowed with free will, their growth is the result of interaction between the spirit and body, a process of development controlled by human will, according to God's principles of growth. The body passes through a cycle of growth that parallels that of certain animals, but just as the body grows, so too must the spirit. Once the body has completed its work and dies, the invisible but mature spirit continues to exist in the non-physical realm. For humankind, the purpose of physical growth during the limited life span of the body is to enable development of the eternal human spirit.
Human beings grow from birth to maturity through a period of 21 years for a man, 18 for a woman. This period of growth has three stages of seven years each (six each for a woman): the formation stage in early childhood, the growth stage during school age and the perfection stage during adolescence. The body and spirit are meant to grow in tandem through these three stages to reach completion.
The growth of the physical body during early childhood is about attaining mastery over movement, language and other basic functions. During school age the physical body continues to grow, entering puberty and the first glimmering of sexual function. Adolescence is a time when the body grows to full maturity, enabling the person to take on the full responsibilities of adulthood.
As the human body grows, the spirit grows in its ability to give and receive love. The child begins life heavily dependent on his or her parents, and during this stage the child's spirit develops through receiving parents' love. During school age, the child explores the realms of mutual love in relationships with brothers and sisters, friends and playmates. The spirit matures during adolescence up to the point where a person is ready to enter into the responsibilities, commitments and intimacy of conjugal love in marriage. Furthermore, the spirit also grows through stages in its relationship to God and transcendent purpose. To be fully mature, the spirit must respond perfectly to God's love and live by God's absolute standard of beauty, truth and goodness. He or she comes to feel God's heart of compassion for the suffering of others and seeks to devote his or herself to the welfare of others and the world.
The Principles of Growth
The growth of humankind's natural environment is empowered autonomously, in accordance with the principles of creation. Given the elements required for growth, plants and animals pass through three stages of development to reach maturity, as described above, guided by natural laws created by God. Animals and plants, lacking a spiritual nature, do not consciously participate in their own growing processes: God endowed their internal characters with instructions and instincts which guide them to fulfillment according to the purposes for which they were made. The same holds true for the physical bodies of human beings. Given the necessary elements, such as sunlight and air, food and drink, men and women grow naturally to full physical maturity, becoming physically capable of reproduction and exercising dominion over nature and all material things.
The Indirect Dominion of Law
Human beings are not only physical, however. They have a spiritual nature as well as a body, an inner being through which they are linked with God and other people. Since this internal mind of human beings governs their entire identity and life, its growth to maturity is ultimately more important than the growth of the physical body. What then is spiritual growth and how is it achieved?
Since humankind was made to receive and reciprocate God's love, the most important purpose for men and women is learning how to give and receive true love. Essentially, growth of the spirit is growth in capacity to give and receive pure love. This development of love is what enables men and women to resemble God fully and realize the three blessings. In the formation stage, a child begins this process by receiving and giving love with its parents and older brothers and sisters. The child expresses children's love in responding to the love it receives. As it grows, it learns to give and receive more in the intimate circle of its family, complemented by loving relationships with relatives and friends, expanding the circle of love. Eventually, he or she develops the capacity for mutual love. On this foundation of fully mature love, a man and woman are prepared to enter into a relationship of conjugal love and take full responsibility for children, giving them unconditional parental love.
The growth of love is accomplished in accordance with God's law. Before individuals are fully mature, they must be guided by instructions from God so that they do not misuse their capacity to love. It is the role of parents to communicate the laws of true love to their children, through word and deed. Children who grow into men and women learning how to love according to God's principles live virtuous lives and fulfill the purpose of their creation. True parents are fully qualified to guide their children to maturity and fulfillment of the three blessings. In particular, the father and mother, with the wisdom and compassion of true parental love, know when a child has reached the level of maturity to enter into a relationship of conjugal love and become a parent, and can provide the best advice in selection of a spouse.
Love is a spontaneous expression of heart. It cannot be programmed into a person or forced from someone. It must be freely given and received. For this reason, God created human beings with the freedom to make conscious choices. Humans learn to give and receive true love by learning to make the right choices in life. just as someone needs to study and internalize the rules of mathematics or language to become a master in those fields, so too an individual needs to master the rules of love to become mature in its practice. Once heart is perfected through this maturation process, all its expressions of love flow freely and spontaneously in accordance with the rules of true love.
Since God is the source of all love, the rules of true love are His. Any expression of love in contradiction to His rules is false love. The rules of true love are the basis for God's laws, or principles. It is these laws, together with corrective instructions for disobedient people, that are variously articulated by the world's religions, as, for example, in the Ten Commandments given to Moses, the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus and the Five Pillars of Islam in the teachings of Mohammed. All religious laws derive from one: human beings should not misuse - the love of God. Described metaphorically in both the Bible and the Koran, this is the only law God gave to the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. They were told they were free to enjoy the Garden of Eden in its entirety, with one caution: they were not allowed to partake of the fruit of a particular tree. This prohibition meant they were warned, at the cost of their lives, not to engage in illicit love. (A full explanation of these scriptural accounts is given in Chapter 7.)
The rules of love have to be articulated because people are born immature and have to pass through a learning process, guided by the laws of God, to reach maturity. Therefore, to cultivate true love and grow to completion, individuals must exercise their free will in obedience to the laws of God.
God's laws contain the instructions that people must follow to reach the goal of full maturity, but in starting life as infants, men and women cannot comprehend such laws and have no knowledge of God at all. For this reason, the role of parents is vital. Parents have to educate their children in the application of God's laws to personal behavior and life in general. Through parental discipline children learn how to grow in harmony with the principles of God's creation.
Until men and women have completed the three stages of the growing period and become fully mature, they remain only partial images of God. This means that the communication between God and humanity during the growing period is limited by human immaturity, very much as the relationship between mature parents and their children is limited by the immaturity of the children. As the children grow in understanding and love, their relationship with their parents deepens and broadens. So it is with God and humankind.
The goal of human growth is to achieve oneness with God: full compatibility of heart and love. In that stage of being, true love will be perfected, all-embracing love in the image of God's true love, and human actions will be completely at one with God's will. To reach that goal, men and women must deliberately obey the word, or laws, of God. During the period of human growth, when God's control of human beings requires the mediation of His laws, individuals remain in the indirect dominion of God: they are not yet completely accessible and responsive to God.
Responsibility and Freedom
The special position of human beings in the creation carries with it special blessings and special responsibilities. In particular, as co-creators with God, humans have their own portion of responsibility in seeing that God's original plan for the creation is carried out. Men and women exercise their co-creatorship by contributing their efforts to their own perfection and the fulfillment of the three blessings. Therefore, it is the responsibility of human beings to obey the word of God out of their own volition. If they do not obey God, they will be unable to grow to maturity and God's ideal will not be realized.
Once humans have fulfilled their responsibility, they are completely free. This means that all the options they might consider would be within the province of God's will and, therefore, result in goodness. Conversely, there is no true freedom without responsibility. Anyone who makes choices contrary to divine law will bring about his own destruction, the corruption of his own personality. Hence evil in the world is caused by an abuse of free choice: men and women exercising their God-given freedom in disobedience to God's will.
Thus although God provides the natural environment for human physical growth, as well as the love and laws needed for spiritual growth, it is the free choices of individuals that determine their destiny. What a person contributes to his own completion is just a small part of what is needed for human development (God gives the rest), but it is the key to fulfillment of God's purpose for human beings. Therefore, the primary concern of human life is the fulfillment of human responsibility.
The Direct Dominion of Love
God's law is a guide for giving and receiving love. When humans obey divine law they mature in their love to the point where it fully resembles God's true love and they can enter into the direct dominion of God's love, in which the bond of love between God and humankind precludes any disobedient desire in men and women. God's will and human will become one, such that human desire is only to please God. Thus the goal of human life and the object of growth is to exist in perfect union with God and be obedient to Him out of mature love. (People bring fear of retribution and punishment on themselves when they are disobedient to God.) This is the ideal of a parent-child relationship, in which the child obeys its parent out of love and affection and not fear. Such a child can be come a friend or partner to its parents, or even surpass them on occasion. This mature relationship enhances the parent-child love and thrills the parents with joy.
The three blessings can be completely realized only when individuals enter the direct dominion of God, creating families and nations maintained in perfect harmony with His will and secured by unbreakable bonds of true love.
Conclusion
As with all created beings, humans grow through three stages to reach maturity. Human growth differs from that of minerals, plants and animals in that it contains a spiritual element that transcends and gives purpose to the physical. The object of human life is the perfection of love for the completion of the three blessings. Once an individual has reached full physical and spiritual maturity, completing the first blessing, he or she is qualified to create a true love family and take dominion over the things of creation, fulfilling the second and third blessings.
Human growth to maturity on earth is preparation for an eternal existence in the spirit world. The nature of this invisible world and its relationship to the physical world known to our five physical senses is the topic of the next chapter.
5. The Physical World And The Spiritual World
Previous chapters have discussed the dual aspects of the creation, its internal character and external form, and positive and negative elements. The internal character is invisible to the physical senses and yet it is responsible for the behavior of the external reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by humans. The implication of this is that the invisible inner world of creation is causal and therefore more important than the world known to human senses. Yet little is known about the internal, spiritual, dimension of reality. This is due, in part, to the fact that it is a realm intangible to the five senses of the body and beyond the reach of scientific instruments; consequently its study has remained the province of religion, which is the object of considerable skepticism in the modern, scientific world. Nevertheless, science itself recognizes the existence of invisible, causal forces that are only known through the impact they have on the observable world.
The realm of invisible, causal reality need not remain shrouded in mystery. Indeed, there is an urgent need for humanity to develop a comprehensive understanding of human life's inner dimensions in order to put human existence on earth into proper perspective and order. Rampant materialism, which threatens the cultural foundations of society, will continue unchecked unless men and women learn to balance the concerns of their transient existence on earth with the everlasting values of eternal existence in the spiritual world.
This chapter explains the existence of the spiritual world and its relationship to the physical world, in particular the pivotal role of human beings who are endowed with spiritual nature and created to be the center of harmony between the physical and spiritual worlds. It answers the questions: what is the nature of the spiritual world? How does it relate to the physical world? How do human beings mediate between the two worlds? How does the human spirit grow? Where does an individual's spirit go at death? What are hell, paradise and heaven?
The Physical World and the Spiritual World
The physical world, which is known to human beings through their five physical senses, is complemented by an invisible spiritual world, or simply spirit world. This is not a world of fantasy or imagination but a completely real environment for the human spirit. The spirit world is a separate realm of existence, but it interfaces with the physical world.
The reality of the spirit world can best be understood by recognizing the reality of intangible forces in life, such as the power of love to influence people through the invisible bonds of family, friendship, nationality, race and religion. It is fair to say that most peoples' lives are governed by invisible influences stemming from belief, relationship, tradition and culture. The world of humanity's physical environment is shaped by these internal forces because the activities of the body are directed by the mind. The realm of mind and spirit is causal to the world of body.
Because humanity is presently distant from God, resulting in a dysfunctional relationship between the spiritual and physical parts of human beings, there are few people who are truly conscious of the spirit world and how it operates. Yet it is the place where all humanity is destined to live for eternity after passing from the physical world, upon the death of the body.
The Physical Person and the Spiritual Person
So far, this text has spoken of human dual characteristics of mind and body only, but the concept of mind and body needs elaboration into a more comprehensive and accurate description of the internal and invisible nature of a human being and how it relates to the external and visible person. Human beings have two parts: the spirit person and the physical person, or simply the spirit and the body.
The physical person is created at conception and continues to live until physical death; the spirit person begins its autonomous existence at the birth of a baby. It exists forever, first connected to the physical person, and then, once the body dies, in the spiritual world. The spirit world is not remote during life on earth, but it is unknown to most people because of their undeveloped spiritual senses. In fact, human beings live in two worlds' but the spirit world's subject role vis-a-vis the body is often hidden. An awareness and proper understanding of this reality is important in the shaping of one's physical life to serve the larger purpose of eternal spiritual existence.
The spirit person has both a spirit mind and a spirit body, which responds to the desires of the spirit mind. The spirit person is completely substantial in the sense that it appears as a distinct shape (visible to the spiritual eyes of others) and functions much like the physical person, though without the limitations of time and space. The physical person has a physical mind, which operates through the brain and central nervous system, and a physical body, which responds to the desires of the physical mind.
The spirit mind is the core of the spirit person, controlling the eternal life, love and ideals of individuals. Through it, human existence gains value as emotion, intellect and will pursue, respectively, beauty, truth and goodness. It is the place in humans where God can dwell. The physical mind is similar to an animal's mind, manifesting rudimentary intellect and instinctive desires for nourishment and exercise, self-protection and comfort, and for reproduction - thereby maintaining life.
The human mind, then, essentially is an invisible, spiritual aspect of humans that is subject over the physical person and provides direction and purpose to human existence. In an individual who is alive physically, the physical mind interacts with the spirit mind to create the human mind, the causal aspect of a human being. The union of spirit mind and physical mind centered on giving true love and returning joy to God is the original mind. The original mind is the voice of God in human beings.
In an ideal state, the strong desires of the physical person are naturally subordinate to even stronger desires of the spirit person, and they are harmonized through the perfection of the mind-body relationship. But when people are separated from God through the violation of His principles, the desires of their minds are dominated by those of their bodies in an inversion of the first blessing. These disordered human desires create the type of chaos and suffering seen in the world today where rampant physical lusts are pursued at the cost of spiritual values.
The conscience exists to guide people towards a proper relationship between spirit and body. The conscience guides according to what one believes to be true, but the conscience is subordinate to the original mind and is to be educated by it. The conscience seeks to direct humans towards fulfillment of their true purpose as beings of absolute value, guiding them according to their levels of maturity. Only a perfected mind can fully comprehend absolute values of beauty, truth and goodness and thus direct humanity in a life of perfect oneness with God. In the fallen world relative standards prevail, hence the diversity in moral codes and ethical systems. It is the role of religion to educate the human mind to develop ever more accurate and profound understanding of absolute values, going beyond the limitations of relative standards. In this way religious truth serves as the basis for the true working of conscience. The more the original mind dominates human thinking and behavior, the closer the conscience comes to directing people according to absolute standards of beauty, truth and goodness.
The Mission of the Body
The physical world was created by God to sustain physical bodies. But the body has a limited life span, during which it must accomplish two vital functions: it must support the spirit's growth from infancy to full maturity; and through human reproduction it must enable the multiplication of spirit men and women. In performing these functions, the body enables human beings to realize their fundamental purpose and desire: to experience joy through the fulfillment of the three blessings. To accomplish its mission, the body itself is designed to experience physical joy, or pleasure.
Once the 'mission' of the body has been accomplished, it dies and returns to earth, where it disintegrates into its basic elements, never again to exist as a whole. When the body dies, the spirit departs from it and continues its life in the spiritual world in its eternal, discarnate state. The spirit is fully equipped for life in the spiritual world, having attributes that enable it to interact with other spirit persons and the spiritual counterpart to nature, as well as men and women on earth. Paralleling the five senses of the body, the spirit body has sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, with which it can know and enjoy the spiritual world.
There are a few people on earth who have their spiritual senses finely developed and in tune with their bodily senses, such that they are able to perceive and interact with the spiritual world at will. Some of these men and women are deeply religious, while others find themselves in possession of these abilities but do not attribute any particular significance to them. A third group uses its access to the spiritual world for selfish purposes, in negative forms of witchcraft, voodoo and the like.
Growth of the Spirit
Men and women grow to maturity through the interaction between the spirit and body, each of which takes in elements for growth from the other as well as from sources outside the human being. For the body, growth is achieved by taking in external elements from sunlight, air, food and drink as well as internal elements from the spirit. For the spirit, growth comes from receiving internal elements from God's love and truth as well as external elements from the body. The fundamental objective of spiritual growth is the perfection of parental love on the foundation of three stages in the maturation of love within the family (children's, sibling and conjugal love), as described in the previous chapter.
In the growing process, the body provides the spirit with vitality elements, the capacity to respond to instructions of the mind. Doing good deeds generates good vitality elements, whereas doing wrong produces evil vitality elements. The spirit needs good vitality elements for growth. People feel good when they do good, but, conversely, feel bad when they disobey God, because the spirit recognizes the quality of vitality elements it receives and reacts favorably to good and unfavorably to bad elements. In the same way that an unhealthy diet damages the body, bad vitality elements damage the spirit. Thus the spirit of a person who has lived an evil life is literally ugly. The spirit gives energy to the body as spirit elements. When inspired by love and truth, the spirit generates spirit elements that energize the body to do good.
Vitality and spirit elements are exchanged between body and spirit such that the internal character and external activities of a person always go hand in hand. A good life is built on good deeds, inspired by love and truth. Love and truth originate with God, and are given to human beings as the life element. In an ideal world they would naturally flow to individuals at one in heart with God. In the human state of disobedience and separation from God, however, religion exists to facilitate the flow of life elements. The essence of a religious life is the pursuit of love and truth. But God's love and truth can flow to men and women only to the extent that they share them with others through the dissemination of truth and the performance of good deeds. Receiving has to be reciprocated by giving, or the flow of love and truth is blocked and growth of the spirit is stunted. Through a life of service to others, balanced by study, contemplation, meditation and prayer, a man or woman of God grows in spiritual maturity. The greater the love and truth received from God, the greater the virtue of that person's words and deeds and the greater the stimulation of the spirit, enabling it to increase its capacity to receive yet more of God's life element.
On the other hand, insofar as the spirit is itself distant from God's love and truth, it is deprived of life elements and thereby prevented from growing. Consequently, the physical body is deprived of spirit elements. This is the spiritual equivalent of starvation. Worse than starving the body, though, is giving it poison. The spiritual equivalent of poison is evil spirit elements, passed to the body when the spirit has relations with evil spirits and is influenced by falsehood and hatred.
Ignorance or denial of God, or the hypocritical profession of God by one without faith, does not prevent the interaction of vitality and spirit elements, but it severely limits the scope for human growth. The life element, which comes from God, is the source of life and subject, over the spirit and vitality elements. It operates whether or not individuals recognize its existence, but ignorance of God prevents people from using it to maximum effect. This condition can be illustrated by the example of pre-industrial people living in ignorance of electricity and consequently existing without any of the benefits of that great energy source: they got shocked by static and lightning but lacked electric lighting and household appliances. Ignorance of God is, ultimately, devastating because it condemns humans to existence in a state of partial completion wherein they can never fulfill their true purpose or achieve complete relationships.
In the original creation of God, the human body and spirit would have grown to maturity in parallel, within the same time period, so that there would exist a perfect balance between them. In the world as it is, however, there is generally a huge discrepancy between the physical and spiritual development of human beings. Given the necessary physical elements, all bodies grow to completion, but spirits, distant from God, are not able to reach maturity. This discordance between spirit and body is responsible for the evils of humankind. In a person with a mature body but immature spirit the natural order of creation, in which the desires of the mind take the subject position over the desires of the body, is reversed: the body, which is ignorant of God and therefore gives the goals of physical well-being priority over spiritual goals, initiates actions that are destructive to the spirit. (When one speaks of the body usurping the subject role of the mind, in fact one is describing a reversal of priorities in the mind itself, such that the needs of the physical being are placed above the needs of the spiritual being, contrary to the order of God's creation.) In this state, people lose their value as human beings, since it is the spirit that makes humans unique and central in creation.
A spiritually sensitive person can distinguish the level of spiritual maturity in another person, and even ordinary people can normally sense the changes in character and attitudes that accompany changes in the levels of the vitality and spirit elements given and received between the spirit and body. An insincere smile cannot disguise a low spirit for long, while the goodness of even the most humble person will sooner or later shine through, irrespective of external circumstances.
Hell, Paradise and Heaven
The true beauty (or ugliness) of a person's spirit is determined by his or her relationship with God and truthfulness in word and deed. This quality is reflected directly in spiritual appearance: higher spirits are brighter than lower spirits. Love is the source of spiritual light and warmth. Wherever human beings make a base for God's love to be present, by creating four position foundations centered on God, there is spiritual light and warmth.
The spiritual level at which a person begins life in the spiritual world after departing from the body is determined by the level achieved while on earth. Upon the death of the body, there is no magical transformation of character whereby certain chosen individuals are absolved of their responsibilities and elevated to heaven while others are damned to lives of eternal misery in hell. Spirits exist at all levels of growth. Hell is where evil spirits are found, people who have led lives of selfishness, oppressing others. Above hell are various spiritual realms for people who have had faith in God, or who have led conscientious lives, in spheres grouped according to religion and culture. Thus faithful Christians can go to Paradise, faithful Muslims to the Garden. In these realms there are also gradations of spiritual level, differentiated according to the goodness of character and righteousness of deeds. The highest realm is heaven where spirits enjoy the direct dominion of God's love.
Since the body is needed to provide vitality elements for growth of the spirit, the growing process to spiritual maturity is to be carried out on earth. Men and women who do not reach the completion stage on earth have to continue their efforts to grow as disembodied spirits. This is unimaginably more difficult than growing while on earth, since on earth an individual has a body to give vitality elements to his spirit directly. Once detached from his or her body, a person can gain the benefit of vitality elements only indirectly, by serving men and women still on earth. This will be explained further in Chapter 9.
In the ideal world of God's creation, there is no hell, and everyone enjoys life in the beautiful realm of heaven after reaching oneness with God. Heavenly life would be achieved on earth and then continued in the spirit world after the body dies. There would be no need to fear death (as so many do today because of their distance from God and ignorance of the spiritual world) because the end of life on earth would be the beginning of a more beautiful and joyful existence in the spirit world. At birth, a child enters a vastly greater and more resplendent world than its mother's womb. Likewise, when physical death frees a spirit from the body, the spirit person enters a world of much greater diversity and beauty than the physical world. However, this spirit world can be enjoyed only to the extent the spirit person is mature in love, in the same way that the physical world can be fully enjoyed only by men and women whose bodies are whole and mature.
Conclusion
To gain an accurate perspective on life, human beings need to understand the invisible spiritual world, which is the world they were created to live in forever. Life on earth is preparation for eternal life in the spiritual world. Because the body is a microcosm of the physical world and the spirit a microcosm of the spiritual world, humans stand at the center of creation. Without harmony between spirit and body there cannot be harmony between the spiritual and physical worlds. The growth of the spirit and body to full maturity creates that harmony, and once the three blessings have been completed the mission of the body is accomplished. Whatever is left unaccomplished of this earthly purpose must be completed while in the spiritual world after the body dies. People on earth and in the spirit world exist at various levels of maturity.
In the world that God originally created, all men and women were to achieve the perfection of their spiritual beings while on earth. Why then are people spiritually incomplete and immature?
Why is the history of humankind so filled with evil of all sorts hatred, enmity, aggression, oppression, violence and wars - instead of love, as intended by God?
Clearly something has gone seriously wrong. The world as it is does not resemble the world of God's ideal. Free will is not exercised responsibly and people do anything to satisfy their selfish desires, in the process destroying the beauty and goodness of God's creation.
The first part of this book has laid out a scenario for a good, God-centered world, free from the evils that now bedevil humankind. The ideal described is not a fantasy, but rather the world that God intended when He made the creation. It can and must be realized in time because God's will for His creation is absolute. The second part, which follows, explains why there is such a huge discrepancy between the world of God's ideal and the reality that exists today. Although the human fall is accepted by the three monotheistic religions, it needs to be understood in the light of what has been presented here so far, in particular the importance of human responsibility. Once this is clear, a basis exists for understanding God's work to restore fallen humanity, which is explained in the third part.