Our Life -- the Greatest Offering
Hyo Jin Moon September 10, 1989
Today I would like to share something that I personally uphold and try to manifest in my life. That is: How can I bring joy and happiness to my parents? If there is anything that everyone in the world shares in common, it is the desire for a place where we can live together harmoniously. We want a place that provides joy and happiness for everyone. But this ideal is not easy to attain. Throughout history, various people have tried to fulfill the great ideal of bringing happiness and joy to mankind.
For mankind to experience happiness, there first has to be a common goal that everyone shares. Then everyone must invest all of themselves to reach this goal. So if mankind wants to attain happiness, we must share a common understanding of what happiness means and what the goal of happiness is. Then we have to pursue the goal which we set for ourselves.
It's very easy to gather in special interest groups and experience harmony for a limited time. But we are here for something beyond an individual special interest. The basis of the Principle is that you must sacrifice yourself. There must be self-inducement on your part to bring joy and happiness to mankind, and ultimately to Heavenly Father.
Because we have active imaginations and a physical body, it is very difficult for us not to be aware of our desires and needs. So when some ideal is telling you to transcend your individual desires for a greater goal, it demands a lot from us. However, frankly speaking, many people share the idea that there must be some kind of self-sacrifice in order to achieve harmony. This is easily said but very difficult in practice.
The same is true of my situation. I'd rather be chasing deer than attending school. But my responsibility is to finish my education. For me to fulfill this responsibility, I must eliminate all other thoughts. I must sacrifice and bury any other desires.
We all know this. If each of us is striving to attain a world of harmony, then something must be sacrificed. That sacrifice is our lives. Everyone in this room, without exception, has to sacrifice for the sake of this goal. To meet that sacrifice, we must understand the significant meaning of "offering".
Responsibility to Choose God's Way
When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them everything: "You can have dominion over creation. Everything that you see and touch and feel is yours. But you must refrain from taking the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." The reason that God created is that He wanted a place where there was only love. He wanted to manifest love. God is omnipotent, therefore He could have created anything you could possibly imagine. But God wanted a place of love, so He gave Adam and Eve the commandment. There had to be a clear separation of good and evil. God knew about the possibility of evil and its consequences. But He had to take the risk if He was to realize a place where love exists.
The creation came from within God and its purpose was for love. The only way that God can ultimately have dominion over the creation is through man. This makes man different from all other creation. In a sense, man is like God in that man has the potential to have dominion over the creation and, ultimately, full dominion if he were to maintain this progress. Our mind is infinite, so if we have the desire to understand the creation, we will eventually realize and comprehend the essence of creation. We have that potential and the power to understand the very essence of God, since God made creation in His image.
Just as God brought the reason for the creation from within Himself, man must have the same foundation within himself if he is to become the recipient and embodiment of God. Therefore, there has to be a possibility where man will choose, through his own accord, the direction which God has chosen. God's ideal came from this infinite possibility. The same must be true for man.
Here on earth, we can do incredibly horrible thing