Guidance for Heavenly Tradition Volume 3
by Rev. Young Hwi Kim
Chapter 17
November 1, 1984

Perfected Man's Lifestyle

Upstairs in my office each sheet of the calendar has two months on it. This morning I noticed that we've reached the last sheet of the calendar for this year. When you are small this is a happy occasion because you know that Christmas and New Year's are coming soon. But as we mature and have more responsibility we begin to worry and think of the things we didn't accomplish yet. I think everyone has the same feeling when they see today's calendar: It's already the 1st of November and there's not much time left this year.

I'd like to speak about perfected man's life this morning. We have a saying in Korea that there is only a slight difference between good and evil. This doesn't refer to the result but to the cause or origin. In the initial stages the difference between good and evil is quite small, but the end result is quite different. When we do something right it is good, but if we make even a slight mistake it can become evil. This means we must be very careful in the initial stages of every project.

We know that our mind is subject, so if our mind controls our body it is good. If our body controls our mind it leads us toward evil. This is simple, either our mind controls our body or vice versa. Sometimes you can't distinguish between the two, but there is a distinct difference: If I am controlled by my circumstances it means my body controls my mind. If I can keep my position and state of mind wherever I go it means my mind is in control. We don't allow children to go to evil places because they will be influenced by the environment and become evil. Once they are mature, however, and their mind can control their body, we don't have to worry because the environment cannot influence them. It's very difficult for an average person to control his body and circumstances. Our Father is in prison now. An ordinary man would be affected by prison life, it's difficult to maintain your original standard. But Father is the same whether he is at home or in prison. He controls everything, not letting his circumstances dominate him. He maintains the same spirit, always thinking of the same thing: the will of God and how to achieve it most quickly. We should become like Father in this respect. We must check ourselves: are we people who can control our circumstances and keep our mind in a position where God can always be with us? If so, we can say we have reached perfection. In this sense perfection isn't so difficult to achieve. Of course, we must understand God's truth (the Divine Principle) and God, otherwise we can't control anything with our mind.

We often say we want to be independent, but is there really such a thing as a completely independent man? Can there really be an independent person in the world? Everything is composed of subject and object. Man needs a subject whether he wants one or not. God is man's subject. God and man should have a subject-object relationship. This is the original relationship between God and man. Due to the fall, however, man didn't stay in the object position to God, he obeyed another subject and Satan is in that position now instead of God. Man cannot live without an ideology or philosophy. Everyone has some ideology or guidelines by which they lead their life. If someone lives by a false ideology, Satan is his subject. He may say, "I'm independent," but he's not independent at all, he's controlled by his false ideology, which means he is controlled by Satan. In most cases he doesn't even realize it though. We can see that there is no such thing as a truly independent person. Because God is our parent and thinks of our benefit more than His own, when we are controlled by God we are in a position of true independence.

True independence can only exist when we are controlled by God, otherwise man isn't independent, but always dominated by some evil force. Our course of restoration is to become truly independent people. We don't want to be controlled by Satan or some false ideology. To become independent we need to know God and His truth. This is why we study the Divine Principle, to learn about God. A perfect man is one who can live together with God and whom God controls. We want to be such people. To see how close you are to that goal, check whether you control your circumstances or they control you. You may have bad feelings or ideas sometimes, how fast can you overcome them and return to normal? If it takes a long time and you have to fight hard to push them away, you're still a long way from the goal. But if you push them away immediately and quickly return to your original state you are close to perfection. By evaluating yourself in this way you can see how much you've grown and what state you are in. You don't need to ask someone else.

We must train ourselves. Most important is our way of life, the attitude we live with. If you look at things without thinking, i.e. if you don't pay attention to the things around you, you can't learn anything. But if you have some idea in mind, then even when observing something small you can gain something. We all do similar things when participating in a 40 day condition, but the result differs from member to member. I don't mean the external results, but what you yourself gain. What is your attitude when contacting people? "I'm doing this because I was told to. This is only a mission." Of course it's a mission, but before doing something you should decide what you want to achieve by doing it. "I want to learn something. I want to develop in such and such a way. " Everyone should set some goal. If we do, we can learn many things.

God wants us to do things in this way, not just because we are told to. God wants us to make everything our own. Father gives us many tasks, if we do them without thinking, just because Father told us to, it remains Father's work and not our own. You should think about what you are told to do and make Father's desire your own. "I want to achieve something through this work. I want to learn something." When you have this attitude it becomes your work and you can learn a lot from it. God wants us to make everything we do our own work, not for us to do things just because we are ordered to. Then we can be truly independent people.

We know we need our physical and our spiritual body and that our spirit is subject. We want to become people whose spirit controls our body. We know that if we have the right attitude we can cure ourselves when we are ill. So we must always consider our mind first. Members often have problems that don't have a physical cause, but a spiritual one. Our mind must be strong enough not to be dominated by our environment. We want to be strong spiritually so we can control our circumstances and environment. If we can control our physical bodies, we can influence others to control theirs and expand this till the world is controlled by our minds. Things can be changed through our prayer. We can control physical things through our mind. God wants to make this world His world. So we must be able to control this world with our spirit, our mind. The first step is to control our physical body. If we can't do this we cannot establish God's ideal world. This is simple logic.

Even though Father is in prison, in his heart he is free and he is healthy. He's always thinking of our members and how to achieve God's will. So we needn't worry about him too much. Of course we must pray for his safety and protection, but if we fulfill our responsibility that will be a great help for Father. So we should be with Father spiritually even though we are separated physically. We should always feel Father's spirit with us and his wish that we achieve great things for God.

We are starting a 40-day condition today. This is an excellent chance to come closer to God and make Him our real subject. During this time we want to strengthen and mature our spirit so God can be with us and control us, i.e. our original mind can control us. Our original mind should grow stronger and stronger, ultimately uniting with God. With such an original mind controlling us we'll have no problems. All members of our church must try to achieve this goal. Whatever we do we must set a general goal and an individual goal. We invest much time and energy in our work so we must bring the maximum result from our investment. We don't want to waste time. We can learn many things when we contact people. We can inherit peoples' merit. Through our work we can also broaden our foundation. If we know more people our foundation is automatically broadened. When we expand our field of activity, God's field is also expanded because He is working through us. So our church can be broadened through this work.

Let us pray together now:

Our loving Heavenly Father, we came before you this morning to offer our pledge and set our determination. Every day and every hour is so precious. You want us to use the time in each day to fulfill our goals. We must become your true sons and daughters. To do this we must become perfect people, our personality must be perfected and our mind must be able to control our physical body. We shouldn't be influenced by our circumstances or environment, but be able to control them. When we reach this state we can say we are your true children. Father, you want us all to become your representatives, so you can express your love and truth through us.

Father, we start another 40-day condition today. We want to achieve many things through this condition, but our primary goal is to come closer to your ideal. This is our chief desire. We must also share the truth with many people and help them understand that you exist and are our loving parent and that we cannot achieve our ideal on earth without you. We must bring all people to this awareness and bring them back to you. This is your second desire for us, Father. We have many goals, we are sure that when we dedicate ourselves mind and body for your will we can achieve great things for you. We want to make you happy, Father, but true joy can only exist when we restore this world. You cannot really be happy as long as your children suffer. This is why we want to restore all people and the whole world back to you. Our True Parents came for this purpose.

Our True Father is suffering in Danbury. We pray for his protection and ask you to be with him. We ask you to be with us always so we can achieve your purpose. When you aren't with us, working through us we cannot do much. We know this, Father, therefore we ask you to be with us always. We truly want to represent you in our work. Your restoration work here in Germany, the central nation of Europe, is so important. If we succeed here, we can succeed in Europe. If we're not successful though, the restoration of Europe will be impossible. So all our members in Germany must work hard and have a strong sense of responsibility for the restoration of Europe. When we reach more people your restoration will be speeded up. Father, we want to end your suffering as quickly as possible. We ask for your help and pray that your blessing can be with all those doing your work in this country.

We pray all this in the name of our True Parents. Amen.