Guidance for Heavenly Tradition Volume 3
by Rev. Young Hwi Kim
Chapter 18
November 4, 1984

Trust: The Base of Parental Heart

Good morning. In our daily lives we try to become good or natural people, in other words we strive to become perfect. To do this we must understand God's truth and inherit His heart and His love. We must leave our fallen state in order to reach perfection. We must clearly understand why we have to leave our fallen state, then it will be easier.

Everyone without exception will enter the spirit world someday. There is a saying: "Birds of a feather flock together." If you are a good person you can live with other good people. If you serve others you can go where people serve each other. You will serve them and they will serve you. You must live with people who have the same nature and problems you have. This is the formula. This means that if you don't get rid of your evil nature, you'll have to deal with people who have the same evil nature you do. If you hate others, you will go to a place full of hateful people in the spirit world. What will happen to you then? You will suffer, because they will hate you as well. You must live with such people. In this world good and bad people live in the same place. But in the spirit world this isn't so. If you are an evil person, you must live with evil people like yourself. Do you understand? So you'll suffer as a result of your own character. This is the nature of the spirit world. When you really understand this, you will see the danger of not removing your fallen nature. If you don't understand, you may be able to live with an easy heart. But once you understand, you cannot waste time. You must use it to get rid of all aspects of your fallen nature. You must work hard to remove your fallen nature, it is essential that we understand this.

Man's basic character is formed in his first three years. So a child should receive much love from his parents and those around him at this time. It influences the child's whole life, it's the foundation of his whole character. You cannot build a good house without a good foundation. The basic framework is formed in the first three years. It must be built with trust and love. We can call this the formation stage upon which the growth and perfection stages are later erected. The growth stage is the adult mind when you want to ensure your independence by insisting upon your desires and ideas. You want to express yourself. This can be called the growth stage. Next comes the perfection stage, the stage of parental heart and mind. We all know that our final goal is to possess God's parental heart.

Psychologists emphasize these three stages of development: childhood, adolescence and maturity. This is similar to origin, division and union. Origin is the stage when child and parent should become one so the child can learn to trust and love. A child's mind is quite primitive compared to a parental mind. Though not yet fully developed it forms the base upon which the adolescent mind and personality can develop, which later matures into the parental mind. This formation, growth and perfection process is similar to that of origin, division and union. Our final goal is to have a parental heart, thereby becoming men of service. We cannot love or serve others properly otherwise.

Psychologists are constantly making new discoveries. They didn't know so much about man's brain before, but as science develops they come to understand more and more about the structure and function of man's brain. Man's brain consists of three parts: the first controls man's basic functions such as breathing, digestion and the internal organs. This is the lowest part. The second part controls man's instincts, all animals have this. The third part controls man's emotion, intellect and will. Scientists are now studying these three sections and have discovered impulses emanating from man's brain, but they don't know from which part or how. It has long been known to Oriental medicine, however, that man's brain has a part which has some connection with the spirit world. Old Oriental medicine books mention that man's brain has a part which transmits and receives spiritual waves. They claim to be able to develop and promote its function through acupuncture. I think in the future scientists will discover which part of the brain serves this function, but anyway man has this ability. The problem is how to develop the third and most important part. The lower part functions automatically and the second part is instinct, which we must control by developing the third part. We can control our instincts properly only when the third part is developed. This means we must develop our emotion, intellect and will to the point we can control ourselves. We must inherit God's personality and become men of service to God and the world. Our goal is to become people who can love and serve others.

Some members constantly go up and down spiritually, sometimes feeling good and sometimes depressed. It isn't good if this happens too often. Man automatically strives for stability, not just physically but spiritually as well. If the weather is cold or hot your body strives to maintain its normal temperature. When it becomes colder your body automatically responds and tries to maintain the normal state. Man also has a function which helps him keep his spirit in balance, when dangers arise you can protect yourself spiritually and keep everything under control. This function is disturbed in those members who are unstable.

We all need balance. So how can we protect ourselves? How can we maintain a stable, healthy spirit? The person must make effort to maintain this spiritual balance. Of course others can help, but the person himself must try hard to protect and maintain his spiritual equilibrium. Unstable members usually had a troubled childhood, they couldn't trust their parents or the people around them. Such children are unstable and experience many difficulties later. In order to overcome this problem they must restore trust in someone in a parental position. If they couldn't experience this relationship as a child, they must restore it in other circumstances. But with whom can this be restored? With God. God is our parent. We must believe that God is our parent and restore this trust with God and True Parents. If you can't learn to trust you cannot overcome your instability. The foundation of spiritual stability is trust and love. It differs from person to person, when you find someone you can trust deeply or who is close to you, you can restore the past with them. Otherwise, you must restore it with God. You cannot change without restoring this. So first restore trust and love with God, True Parents or someone.

When you deviate spiritually you are easily influenced by evil spirits. So the next step after restoring trust and love with some parental figure is to separate from the influence of evil spirits. You can do this through prayer. Evil spirits are immediately attracted to you when difficulties arise or you become negative. You can tell when they are coming, so you should pray and try to prevent their attack. In this way you can stabilize your spirit. It may be difficult in the beginning, but if you try you can learn how. It will require great effort and willpower, but gradually you can improve and maintain a stable spirit.

Some members have trouble living in a center, they are too easily influenced by their circumstances and environment. Some people even get upset when they can't find a parking space, such small things cause them to lose control. In this case other people cannot help, the person must make effort to overcome. If he doesn't try to improve, he can never develop. There are many such people in our church, we must help them. We cannot do everything for them, but we can help them find the will to overcome. Ultimately the person must solve such things himself. Many members are in this situation. This is unfortunate, but it happens. If we had experienced a good childhood such things wouldn't happen, but since they have we must deal with them. If the person doesn't correct it, his spouse will suffer in the future. It must be corrected while still single, otherwise more disasters will happen. It is very difficult to recommend such people for the Blessing. So we must encourage them to change before it's too late.

The purpose of our life of faith is to reach the third stage, i.e. to develop a parental mind. We want to go to the place in the spirit world that is filled with loving people. We say that the Kingdom of Heaven is the realm of true love. In order to go there we must become people of love, there is no other way. If we don't correct ourselves we will suffer as a result of our defects. Therefore we have to try to correct our defects and weaknesses. We must foster this parental heart and mind in our daily lives. Actually this is the best opportunity to develop our natural mind. Tomorrow may be too late. We must realize that today is the best time. We should be able to have good relationships with every type of person. When we reach this state, that will be good evidence that we have achieved something worthwhile. We must be able to have a good relationship with anyone. Everyone should try to reach this goal.

Let us pray:

Our loving Heavenly Father, this is your day, the day we dedicate to you. This morning we offered our pledge. We also want to remember you and inherit your nature. Our goal is to become like you, Father, your true sons and daughters. To do this we must inherit your nature, learning everything from you. We cannot do this without a good relationship with you. We must trust in you and love you, only then can we inherit your nature.

Father, you have been longing for this time. You are our parent, not Satan. Many people don't understand this, they think you don't exist and have thus lost the source of goodness. But through our True Parents we discovered you as our parent and thus can ask you to give us your nature and make us your true children. We will try very hard to become your true children. We need your help to achieve this, we cannot achieve our goal without it. We are working hard but there are many obstacles that prevent us from becoming true children. Satan is trying hard to keep us from becoming true children. Evil spirits try to influence us, they also want to stop us. We must overcome all these hardships and free ourselves to come to you.

Father, we witness in order to open the way for people to come to you. Our True Parents are working hard for this purpose and we are also working hard. We want to pass your blessings on to our descendants so they don't have to suffer as we did. Everyone should have the privilege of being able to reach their goal without so much suffering. We long to see this day together with you. We must work hand in hand with you and our brothers and sisters. Then we will succeed in our work and gain final victory on earth. We trust in you and you trust us. When we unite in mutual trust we can surely achieve our goal. Father, let all members develop such strong faith and trust in you that they can march on to final victory. We ask you to be with us whenever we do your work, so that all brothers and sisters can have enough power to gain victory in our fight. We also pray for our True Father in Danbury. We ask you to protect him. Let him be free to work together with us as soon as possible.

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