csg-05-04-the-kingdom-of-heaven

The Kingdom of Heaven

Section 1. Understanding the Kingdom of Heaven

1.1. The location of the Kingdom of Heaven

According to the Bible, the Kingdom of Heaven is in our heart. It is not at the end of the world, but in our heart. In what sort of abode does the heart dwell? It does not dwell in a place that harbors all the elements of death, but rather one that can overcome them and disseminate life. The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be found in the physical world – it is not of this world. As such, it starts from the point where we actualize the visions of our heart. Finding that one place enables us to welcome the Kingdom of Heaven. That being so, the Kingdom of Heaven is not coming through the end of the world, but rather through us establishing that starting point in our heart; it is like the fulcrum for balancing a pair of scales. The purpose of a scale is to become level, but it starts out tilting towards the right and not the left. It begins with a tilt to the right. So, the Kingdom of Heaven begins from the heart. From where in the heart does the kingdom originate? It originates from the place where it can conquer the world. Even if the Kingdom of Heaven were to come externally, if our hearts were evil and could not harmonize with it, then that kingdom would be useless. Accordingly, the basis upon which we can welcome the Kingdom of Heaven is not something external, but rather, it is ourselves. We are the problem. The pillar – the fulcrum – that can support the Kingdom of Heaven is not our external environment, but our heart. Jesus’ disciples did not understand the reality of his teaching. In working to prepare a foundation of happiness for the coming Kingdom of Heaven, they had self-centered concerns for their position. Seeing this, Jesus fundamentally demolished this fallacy and taught that the Kingdom was in one’s heart. Those who do not create the Kingdom within their hearts would be unable to contribute to Heaven even if placed in its environment. An irresolute heart cannot produce perfect action; perfect action arises only through absolute resolve. Therefore, what matters is how much our mind yearns for goodness. While yearning for and striving to follow the path of historical goodness, we must overcome our circumstances, no matter how bloodstained and tearful they are. However lonely the path of our struggles, we must not avoid the path. Rather, we must instead unswervingly blaze a trail with a mind to break through and move on. God’s Kingdom begins from our resolution and determination to open up an environment for our body to unite with such a mind. Where the actions of the mind and body are separated, the Kingdom does not exist. Advancement towards the Kingdom begins where the mind and body are united. When they act separately, it will not come about. In this sense, Jesus was teaching that the Kingdom would come about when we attain the self-governing character to advance with mind-body unity while ridding ourselves of the circumstances that would cause us to veer to the right or left. The Kingdom does not come through the efforts of others but by our own efforts. Being fallen people, you must deny yourselves. If I cannot bring about the Kingdom by myself, it will then be done by someone else. If that happens, then I must unite with that person in order to reach the Kingdom. I would have to follow and keep in step with him. If he were to go east, I would have to follow. We should not think of going west if he goes east, or judge his actions. There should not be any criticism. (46-21, 1971.7.18)

Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within our heart. What kind of place is it? It is one centered on God’s love – one where the environment is established centered on God’s love. Then, what kind of people would reside in that realm? They should be those who are harmonized with the essence of God’s love. Only such people can go there. What kind of people are those who are harmonized with the essence of God’s love? Those who are self-centered have no value. Those who can invest their lives, all their devotion, and everything they have for their partner can live continuously in the realm of God’s love. Historically, great people and saints went that way. (46-36, 1971.7.18)

1.2. Christianity and heaven

Even if people attend church for one hundred years, if they still have a selfcentered mind they will never get to heaven. They cannot receive salvation. We need to know what kind of religion is a true religion, what kind of person is a true person, and what kind of nation is a true nation. (78-117, 1975.5.6)

In the spirit world, you will see that martyrs who died for the purpose of entering heaven did not actually get there. On the other hand, there were martyrs who were able to think, “Heavenly Father walked the path of suffering and shed blood to find me. I will follow any path in order to return His grace,” and then died saying, “I am grateful for this moment of glory enabling me to participate in returning this grace;” only they could enter heaven. Such people did not die for their own sakes but for heaven and earth. If you think, “I will die like this in order to enter heaven,” it is dying for your own sake. Fallen people can never enter heaven through selfassertion. (41-353, 1971.2.18)

It is stated in the Bible, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first commandment.” Those who do not abide by this commandment cannot enter heaven. What is the second commandment? It is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those who love God first and their neighbor second are pious children. (198-258, 1990.2.4)

Can one go to heaven, by simply believing in a doctrine about Jesus, as many Christians say? If Jesus himself were not to fulfill the ideal as God’s partner in love, even he would not go to Heaven. Can Jesus realize true love on his own? Even God could not do so. Therefore, Jesus must come again. Will he do it by coming on the clouds? The nation that can ponder and fathom the present reality will follow me. (176-209, 1988.5.9)

Many Christians today think they are saved and will go to heaven through a certain belief about Jesus. They say that each person goes to heaven by himself. Only a few say they want to take their father and mother with them to heaven. From now, religion should not just be for the salvation of individuals. A true religion founded by God must be able to remain universal until the end. The ultimate religion all humankind desires would state that God does not want to have just individuals enter heaven. It should introduce heaven as being not just for individuals, but also for their mothers and fathers. When this thought is also introduced to, and understood by the tribal leaders, everyone will follow them into heaven. (41-341, 1971.2.18)

1.3. Jesus and paradise

Christians say, “Believe in Jesus and you will go to heaven,” but who will go there? Will it be individuals by themselves? Until now, there was no religion that taught about going to heaven together with one’s mother, father, and family. The religions that have existed until now gave priority to individual salvation. Yet a religion of a family’s entry into heaven must emerge. Only when the concept of family salvation emerges can the doors of heaven be opened. The religions that have existed in the past were religions of individual salvation; they could be likened to like someone rope climbing alone. Thus, the religious world emphasized a life of celibacy. Having a family was akin to having enemies. Jesus said that one’s family members were in this sense one’s enemies. After reaching the pinnacle, one should have dominion over the earth. Single men and women have to attend Kingdom of Heaven was the place God’s sons and daughters would enter after getting married and receiving His love – the place unfallen humankind should originally have established. Jesus went to the spirit world alone. That is why he went to paradise instead of heaven. Paradise is the waiting room before going to heaven; it is not the ideal Kingdom of Heaven that couples enter together with their family members. Therefore, Jesus has to come again to meet his bride, create a family and a people, and take them to heaven. To prepare for this purpose, God has had Jesus remain in paradise. Therefore, Jesus should come again into the world, prepare an internal principled foundation, and, then, enter heaven. These things are not done by guesswork or some vague rule of thumb. In the future, your father and mother will be saved. The religion that can get every family into heaven and teach everyone the way of salvation can establish the nation. The nation cannot be established individually. Hence, Christianity has no nation of its own. It is a religion in which unmarried men and women create communities. You have met these Catholic priests and nuns haven’t you? In this world there are many countries where Christians reside but there is no country whose sovereign is a Christian leader, a priest or pastor. There is a stark separation. Christianity is a spiritual nation. Not having their own country on earth, many, many Christians have been killed. Had they had their own sovereign nation, it would have protected them from being killed. Yet because they did not have their own nation, they were scattered abroad like vagrants and driven to their deaths. In the future, we should bring all Christians of the world together and through gaining that national sovereignty we should find our common home, country, and world. That is what Christians should do. (41-346, 1971.2.18)

Not once has God or Jesus found someone whose flesh and spirit are united, whom God could totally love. That is why Jesus is still praying in paradise. Therefore, we should know the love of God, who seeks to fully embrace our spirit and flesh. Within such a realm, we must be able to govern all of creation, having justified ourselves as God’s children. You must understand that such a world is the world of dominion and the garden of rest God desires to restore. Going back to the issue of our individual selves, we, who are destined to go through restoration, must wander about seeking a new truth. That time has arrived. In the future, the issue of a true view of life and of the universe will come to the fore. (5-49, 1958.12.14)

How is it that Jesus did not enter heaven? God created heaven for people who had not fallen. People can enter heaven only when they have reached the original standard of the Principle. Jesus had meant to save fallen humanity, stand with his spouse in the position of unfallen Adam and Eve as the parents of humankind, and enter heaven with his children. Yet he came and went alone. He had no children, and thus would not enter heaven, but went instead to paradise. He is waiting to enter heaven. Thus, Jesus must return and find his bride. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve originally were to get married and enter heaven. Despite the Fall of the progenitors of humanity, the rule by which Jesus must return to make the flowers bloom still stands. By going alone, he could not enter heaven. Jesus must come again to loose on earth what was bound. Only then can he go to heaven. This is in line with what is stated in the Bible that what was bound has to be loosed on earth. (41-299, 1971.2.17)

Were it not for the Fall, heaven would have been a place to which God’s only begotten son and daughter would have gone after creating His family and living in His love. Heaven is to be entered by families, not individuals. As Jesus did not form his family, he did not enter heaven and is in the waiting room, namely paradise, a place for preparing to enter heaven. In that regard, heaven is vacant. We thus realize that God’s providence for restoration has been a sorrowful history. God lost Adam and Eve. Yet it did not end merely with the loss of two individuals. The loss of Adam and Eve meant the loss of their clan. That clan would have expanded to become a race, nation, and world; but all these were lost. That being so, in losing Adam, God lost His kingdom centered on the kingship of heaven. He lost the heavenly race and tribe, and the heavenly man and woman – His only begotten son and daughter. (143-25, 1986.3.15)

1.4. Heart and heaven

What kind of place is heaven? It is where we can take pride in what we prepared during our life on earth, and in our life of attendance. Then what kind of people enters heaven? Is heaven a place for those who simply believe in the Lord and expect to receive blessings or who act only for the sake of receiving blessing? No. Heaven is the destination for those who live preparing their hearts to attend God, as well as those who can leave behind a life of attendance and joyfully move on, even if they were to die while preparing. There is resurrection there. The details of life do not appear there. How we should live from now on is the important question we should reflect upon in our life of attendance. (8-303, 1960.2.14)

Heaven is a place we cannot enter without a connection of heart. It is the original nation, the nation of original nature, which can govern everything. It is a nation that cannot be possessed based on some situation, but only by those who have a deep bond of heart. As such, Christianity is, ultimately speaking, is a religion where mutual sentiments are understood, rather than circumstances. The purpose of God’s providence on earth is to make the foundation on which we can sing sharing our hearts beyond sharing circumstances. What is the Fall? It is not a matter of God not being able to discuss His circumstances, but rather His heart. Coming in search of fallen humanity with the heart of longing to meet His lost sons and daughters, yet not being able to find anyone who could share His heart, God has worked to find such people. That has been the history of salvation and the one sent to find such people is the Savior. Before desiring heaven, we must desire to know God’s heart; and before desiring to know God’s heart, we must think about how we should conduct our lives. First, have a heart of attendance. Our original nature reveres and yearns for that which is sublime and precious. In spite of the Fall, our original heart wants to attend the sublime and precious heart of God. Therefore, those who have never been able to lead a heart-centered life of attendance have nothing to do with heaven. To live a life of attendance we need preparation. After passing through a process of preparation, we need to then practice the life of attendance. Our destination, after preparing and practicing a life of attendance, is heaven. The destination of people who have attended with their hearts is heaven. Heaven is the world where we can be proud of our preparation for attendance and the life of attendance, and where we can actually demonstrate our accomplishments. It is our destiny to follow the course that advances toward the world of heavenly purpose. From the day we were born with fallen lineage until the present day, there has not been even one day when all humankind attended God with a full heart. Before Adam and Eve fell, they grew according to the ideal of creation, but they never attended God based on a relationship of heart. What is God’s regret? It is that we, who were created to attend Him with our heart, fell into a position where we could not do so, and that God, who should have received heart-centered attendance, was left unattended. God was not anguished because there was nobody who believed in or knew Him. The grief of heaven and earth is that there was nobody who could attend or relate to God in heart. (8-290, 1960.2.14)

Today, many believers say that heaven will be established only through their own religion. This is a delusion. Many religions assert that heaven will be established through their founder’s teachings. Considering just Christianity, we see that it is divided into scores of denominations. One denomination usually regards a church outside their denomination as heretical or satanic. If, in actual fact, they do this from a position authorized by God, there is no problem; however, if they do it for the sake of establishing their own denomination and for the sake of satisfying their desire to perpetuate it, then their motivation is not pure. Accordingly, all such denominations will perish. If the Unification Church were like that, then it would have to perish first. In this regard, the first consideration of religion is not to realize God’s Kingdom. That is not its primary purpose. Before the Kingdom emerges, a special nation that can inherit the Kingdom is needed. God prepared His chosen people to establish such a nation. In history, this notion of a chosen nation proves that the leading trend of thought to leave behind a good group in the evil world was always in the background of history. When the chosen people emerge from the evil world, the heavenly nation begins to be established. For that nation’s citizens to emerge, its children should first emerge. Moreover, the emergence of the citizens, and the nation, is preceded by the emergence of the family that can establish the heavenly nation. For that family to emerge, the one man and one woman whom God can guarantee must emerge. Then, only when such a man and woman emerge, is everything complete? No. Sons and daughters must emerge from them. In so doing, the family formed by the eternal son and daughter that God can guarantee must emerge. It is an extremely obvious fact that without such a family, the tribe and race cannot be realized; and without such a race, the nation and world cannot be realized. The stronghold that God seeks is the individual. He is erecting a fence around the individual. Thus, the purpose of religion so far has been individual salvation, but that is not what God is seeking. It is the family. As such, before the foundation for the family of the Kingdom of Heaven has been established, the tribe, people, nation, and world of that Kingdom cannot exist. (47-249, 1971.8.29)

The line where heaven and hell are divided is not determined by knowing or preaching well from the Bible, but through actual results and heart. Ultimately, the boundary between heaven and hell is the boundary of heart and the boundary of actual results. (32-229, 1970.7.19)

1.5. The physical body and hell

Adam and Eve are the physical body of God. It is stated in I Corinthians 3, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?” So our body is a house where God can dwell. Such houses are not the bodies of today’s fallen people. God does not want to reside within people who want to be saved simply by believing in doctrines about Jesus – those who have gone through the repair factory after breaking down. They should be people of the ideal of creation who have experienced pure first love, but we have departed from the realm of God’s love. What is hell? It refers to the devils’ realm of love. Those in that realm only adore hatred, envy, jealousy, separation, and destruction and thus only these things are prevalent in their realm. These are manifested in wars. We must root out such devils. What was the reason a nail was driven into God’s heart? It was the devil coming into being, the fact of Satan’s lineage being planted, the grievous fact of Satan’s seed being planted, and the fact that the fruit of God’s love bore Satan’s family. The family that could have lived forever in God’s love under His protection was destroyed by the appearance of Satan’s family. Conversely, the families centered on Satan’s tribe spread all over the world. Now the world has about 180 countries. Countless tribes fought amongst each other and the weak were absorbed by the strong, so the number of countries was reduced to about 180. However, these countries must be unified into one according to God’s will. Where did Satan set up his base of operations? Even Satan knows God. As God is the source of the original nature of creation from whom Lucifer was originally created, he has a standard from which to reciprocate. From the human perspective, this original standard is the conscience. Whom does the conscience resemble? It resembles God. For that reason, we say that it is on God’s side. Who does the body resemble? It resembles Satan, so we say that it is on Satan’s side. How much was the conscience sacrificed for the body? Your conscience becomes exhausted in caring for you day and night. Yet, tirelessly it blocks the body from misconduct. The closest being to you, which stands as the substitute for your parent, for God, and for your teacher, is your conscience. The mind itself does not need to be educated; but the body absolutely needs to be educated. Therefore, following the dictates of your body connects you to hell, whereas following the dictates of your mind connects you to heaven. We are the dividing line between heaven and hell. Satan is straddling the thirty-eighth parallel dividing North and South Korea. Since God knew this, we are divided. If we die without separating good from evil, we will not be able to overcome our individual thirty-eighth parallel and will be blocked in the spirit world. The thirtyeighth parallels of the family and nation will all be blocked. Then, how will we cross over the thirty-eighth parallels of the world and universe? (214-281, 1991.2.3)

You must deplore the fact that your bodies have become the devil’s ballrooms. They have become the love trysts of devils. Your bodies inherited the devil’s lineage through his love. You should know this amazing fact that Satan’s blood is controlling you with the realm of power in order to trample upon your original character in your bodies now. There is no way for even your countries to clear this up. You will have to do it yourselves. What is religion? Its historical struggle is essentially to fight the root of sin. Yet despite fallen people being in a domain destined for hell and having become the devil’s ballroom, some people still protest the effort of religion to save society. You have to hate your corrupted self and your body. You should understand that the blood of the enemy is coursing through your bodies and that you cannot cut this off with a knife or burn it away. You have to realize the misery of having become factories that consume and digest creation from a position where you are unable to receive God’s protection. (214-285, 1991.2.3)

From the viewpoint of the providence for restoration, if you think that the present time is the time that God’s final will is to be expressed, then you should reflect upon yourselves whether you are living each moment seriously. Do not have the attitude that causes you to be swept back and forth by the affairs of the world. If you never even once stood in a serious position or never had even one serious moment, you will be ashamed of yourselves before God. When you are close to death, when you reflect upon your life to this point, ask yourself this question: “How well have I kept the public laws of heaven and earth, and how well have I lived a life in a position that heaven and earth can approve of publicly?” If you conclude that your life consists of goodness not exceeding 60 percent, you will be heading for hell. Although your body is limited, your mind should have a history of struggle, in which you were not willing to be limited. Before heaven and earth, before history and the present, and before your descendants, you should be able to proclaim, “I am liberated; so all people should inherit my tradition.” If you did not have such a moment, you are to go to hell without mercy. (19-27, 1967.12.10)

The physical world is in chaos. Then, what about the spirit world? Since confused people go to the spirit world and gather there, it also cannot but be in chaos. People who develop the habit of stealing will always end up stealing something. Thus, people who stole on earth will naturally want to get something for nothing in the spirit world. As it was difficult to handle such people in the spirit world, hell came about. God did not make hell. Hell came into being. People do not build their houses after making a trash can. It is after building the house that you come to have a trash can. It is the same with hell. Christians are unaware of the fundamentals. (148-27, 1986.10.4)

If you are living a false life, when will you clean it out? Don’t you have such a mind? If one of your eyes loses its sight, you will have to remove it or cure it. You should be discerning. Since God exists, He must teach a method for correcting such things. That is why religion emerged. God did not make hell out of jealousy or envy. Since false people appeared, hell became the warehouse to manage them. Do people build their houses after first making a trash can? If you bought good quality cabbage to make kimchi, but while making it you discovered the outer leaves had been eaten up by worms, you would dump it in the trash can. The Fall was committed by the progenitors of humanity. Therefore, only someone having the qualification of the True Parents can liquidate sin by indemnifying this. (20-117, 1968.5.1)

Who is the highest grandfather in the universe? God. Then, who are the final descendants who unite this world and all of heaven and earth? The future descendants are. They have to be connected. That which links them is the family, not the nation. In entering heaven, you will not be recognized just because you are American. You will not be rejected for being from an underdeveloped country. In heaven, only the model family that can connect the past, present, and future along with God’s will, centering on this mainstream lineage and family institution, will be acknowledged. You should know that this is the formula. The warehouse, where the fruits of such families are stored, is heaven. Until now, people who were born into this world were all destined for hell, because there was no condition whatsoever for God to be able to save them. They have been eaten by insects and worms and God could not avoid their becoming fodder for pigs or the like. He had no other option but to choose a place to store such people, and that place was hell. Hell and paradise do exist. In this regard, you know what I mean when I say that heaven is vacant. (135-118, 1985.10.4)

In the spirit world, people are allocated their proper dwellings according to their respective levels of achievement. How did they come to attain that? They stay in the position that corresponds to the degree they have practiced filial piety according to the way of love, whether they fulfilled their loyalty to their nation, and how much they fulfilled the way of saints in this world. The path that people should take in their earthly life is the way of righteousness. Concerning this way, there is one path each for the individual, family, clan, race, nation, world, universe, and even for God Himself. This should be the one and only path. What is that path? It is the path of original love. (147-183, 1986.9.21)

In the other world, if you are not equipped to conform to the atmosphere where the ideal of love is present, a repulsive reaction will come against you. Nobody needs to tell you to go to hell. Therefore, the Bible states, “Love your enemy!” Genuine love exerts its influence on the enemy. If this love goes to the enemy once, twice, three times and four times, the enemy will disappear for sure. It is because love has such great power that Jesus said, “Love your enemy!” Christians today think enemy refers to an individual enemy, but that is not the case. The enemy is the one who violates the law of love, which has infinite value. Who is Satan? He is an adulterer before God. I am saying this based on what I unearthed and discovered in the spirit world. I was called a heretic because I disclosed these things. People slandered me, calling me the king of heresy who is trying to destroy Christianity, and they called for my death. However, while I am still alive, those ministers who said all this have already died. Why is this so? The will of Heaven sustained me: I still have many things to do. (121-173, 1982.10.24)

Imagine you had a son who committed murder or some crime against the state and was sentenced to death. When he goes to his execution, are you going to say, “It serves you right”? Are there such parents? You would rather cling to him and die together with him. If such tragic deaths were to continue forever, do you think you could just watch without doing something? If he had to suffer an eternal death, then you would want to save him even if it took you all eternity. You would try to do everything possible in order to save him. In this sense, God suffers miserably. When God sees humankind dying in hell, He becomes desperate in an ongoing effort to save them. Only then will His responsibility as the Parent of heaven be fulfilled. If He says, “Ugh! Let’s just get rid of them all,” He cannot stand in the parent’s position. Therefore, this establishes the logic that God has to liberate even hell. When your son sees you desperately trying to save him, he will say, “Mom and Dad are having such a hard time because of me!” and repent thousands of times for his sins. If you are such parents, your son will come to repent till his bones melt and his flesh becomes haggard. Because of your efforts, such a way can open up. Not even Satan can accuse God for His love in trying to save humankind. There is no rule preventing forgiveness for the one who repents through the love of his parents. Hell must also be liberated through this kind of heart. That is the way of a true filial child, isn’t it? Therefore, we in the Unification Church speak of saving even hell. Why? It is because God is such a being. (62-50, 1972.9.10)

Hell is a place you can never escape from once you are caught. Despite that, you are not realizing that your mother, father and relatives are going to hell. You just think, “It will work out somehow.” However, let’s think seriously that your beloved parents are really going to hell. If your parents were to go to jail in this world, human nature is such that you would cry and do all sorts of things to have them released. Then, even more so, if you feel that your sons and daughters, parents and relatives, brothers and sisters – with whom you have bonds made in heaven – were going to go to a prison from which they would never be set free forever, how could you have such a casual thought? You do not know anything yet. You do not know whether there really is a hell or not. It might exist but you do not know what kind of place it is. You probably are not convinced and it must be vague to you, but once you die, you will know. Once you die, you will know in an instant, but it will be too late then. That is why the parents who died are now returning spiritually to witness to their children. During their lifetimes, they opposed their son or daughter attending the Unification Church. However, once in the spirit world, they found out that they had made a big mistake. So, they are coming to this world spiritually and are eager to lead people to the church. If they do not do this, they will be in difficulty once in the spirit world. If you oppose your son attending the Unification Church, you will be in trouble in the eternal stage of life. Therefore, in the spirit world, spirit beings devote themselves entirely to receiving permission to become good spirits in order to appear to and to teach their children on earth. Not just any can appear freely. When people on earth experience this phenomenon they will realize what an amazing place the Unification Church is. Can you imagine how totally dumbfounded they will be! People may say that the Unification Church is a place where people just come and go, but that is not the case. If you draw a line here, that line will stay drawn forever. If this door is closed, nobody can open it again for eternity. If it is opened, nobody can ever close it again. What is bound on earth should be loosed on earth, you should loose yourselves what you bind. This is the problem. Therefore, when you go witnessing, do not wander off to other places. (34-266, 1970.9.13)

1.6. Even people in hell long for heaven

Suppose there is a dying person who says, “God, though I did not live according to Your will until now, in my mind I tried to go to heaven. So please regard me as having established the proper indemnity conditions!” Because God is fair, He will put that person in a position of those trying to go to heaven. In what position will God place him? Since the person was trying to go to heaven, God will put him in such a position. God rewards him according to his actions. God put him in a position where he is still trying to go to heaven. That position can be even beneath paradise. Even people in hell are trying to go to heaven. (57-264, 1972.6.4)

1.7. God’s Kingdom on earth and in heaven

In order for the individual to find rest, the realm of the Sabbath for the family has to be created; in other words, a fence surrounding the family has to be made. In order for the family to find rest, a fence surrounding the tribe has to be made. If there is no fence, they can always be invaded. In order for the tribe to rest, a fence surrounding the race has to be made. In order for the race to rest, a fence surrounding the nation has to be made. Then, in order for the nation to rest, a fence surrounding the world has to be made. Thus, a time will come when we can find rest within the fence surrounding our nation and world. In order for the world to rest, the spiritual and physical worlds must be united and a fence has to be established. After that, God’s Kingdom on earth can for the first time be accomplished, in which His love can spread all over the world, and His kingdom in heaven is accomplished automatically. (68-20, 1973.7.23)

The place where we want to live is the heavenly nation. There are no borders there. It does not use two languages. Racial differences do not exist there. People are all brothers and sisters because they all were born from God’s bosom. In God’s eyes, as His children, they are all siblings and therefore all citizens of His kingdom on earth. They are the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. There are three prerequisites for forming a nation: sovereignty, territory, and citizenry. In relation to that, this world could not come under God’s rule. The earth could not become God’s nation, and the citizens of the world could not become the citizens of one nation. We talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is established after these conditions are met. Since this has not been realized, the struggle between Cain and Abel continues, and we cannot rest. We want to live – not in the process of restoration – but rather in the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, our desire to realize the Kingdom is about preparing our abode. Our abode will come into being only when the Kingdom is established. If we cannot establish it, our descendants will always be an oppressed race. We must devote ourselves to the utmost so as to become ancestors who do not burden their posterity. (66-281, 1973.5.16)

To get to heaven, we must go through the process of obtaining the qualification of God’s sinless sons and daughters who can receive His love directly, transcending the need to believe in Jesus and the need for a savior. God’s ideal kingdom will be realized when those who lived that way go to the spirit world. Jesus has yet to see a lineage of his own. Consequently, he must return to dissolve that anguish and complete his unfinished work. Otherwise, we cannot enter heaven. Where are the conditions to open the Kingdom of Heaven? The conditions are laid on earth. For that reason, Jesus left the key to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Since Jesus and the twelve apostles did not form their families, the families of the seventy disciples and 120 followers have to be restored, through the Blessed Families of the Unification Church today. If that is done, the Kingdom of Heaven will be opened. (160-89, 1968.8.11)

After creating Adam and Eve, God was waiting for them to mature so that He could celebrate their wedding feast. But because they fell, His will was not fulfilled; and they became false parents. Four millennia later, the standard of the True Parents – lost due to the inception of the false parents – should have been restored through the marriage of Jesus, who stood in an unfallen position, and his bride. The sons and daughters born from true parents are not false children but true children. From them, the true family can emerge. With the emergence of a true family, a true tribe, a true race, a true nation, and a true world will be created. In that world, we will lead a Godcentered heavenly lifestyle in the family, tribe, people and world. Only then can this earth become God’s Kingdom. After living in this way, we will discard our bodies on earth and enter eternal heaven. That place is heaven in the spirit world. This is the overview of God’s providence. All people on earth were born with Satan’s lineage, as opposed to God’s lineage. Therefore, according to Romans, Chapter 8, they could call God Father in the position of adopted children. Being of a different lineage, they can call God Father by laying down a bridge, without which they cannot directly do so. Yet only Jesus had the relationship of the direct lineage of God. Thus, he was called the only begotten son. (160-42, 1968.8.11)

When the day of the Second Advent arrives, a new ideal realm should be created, not in heaven, but at the bottom of paradise and hell. There, Cain and Abel will be restored, and God’s realm of the new family will be created. Everybody on earth must be restored through indemnity through the realization of the realms of God’s new tribe, new race, new nation, and new world. Cain and Abel must be restored, all things must be absorbed and digested, and then a unified world on the earth must be created; failing which, there would be no way of dissolving the anguish and completing the unfinished work by fulfilling God’s desire of creating the heavenly nation. That is why Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” God’s Kingdom will not be established in heaven without it being established on earth. This indicates there is some extraordinary circumstance, and that without establishing on earth the sovereignty of the heavenly nation, the good sovereignty cannot be recovered in the spirit world. (143-29, 1986.3.15)

Do not think of only going to heaven, but, also of building heaven on earth. Before that, you yourselves must become heavenly people. To do this, you must become one in heart with the Father to the extent that you can confidently say that His heart is yours and yours is His. Accordingly, in this earthly life, you should be people representing the hearts of God, the Lord, as well as your ancestors. Only by doing so can you solve all historical problems. (3-294, 1958.1.19)

1.8. The right view of heaven

No matter how strong a storm and wind may come, even if you are destroyed and dying, you should have a firm and resolute conviction, saying, “At least this conviction is absolute. If there is anything wrong, the fault lies with me, but God’s will is absolutely right.” It would be exceedingly foolish of you to dream of heaven while maintaining a faith wherein your belief in the morning is different from that in the evening. What kind of path is the path by which you can approach heaven? It does not appear in a self-centered position. When you find that you are far away from heaven, you have to smash that which is called the self to pieces. Only when you denounce the self, will the path that can open up to heaven – or an indirect heaven – be opened. However, those who try to make others adapt to themselves while asserting themselves, or place themselves in a proactive position and force others to follow them, will be unable to relate to heaven. It is obvious that the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven starts with us. Even if the relational Kingdom were established, if we could not become people who are responsive to that Kingdom’s call, we would have nothing to do with that Kingdom. What kind of place is heaven? It is the place we go after subjugating Satan. It is not where we go by overcoming ourselves, or just the self. Heaven cannot countenance the realm of the fallen world or our habits or the habitual circumstances of the fallen world. As Satan chronically controls our habits and resides here, heaven can come only after we overcome those circumstances. Heaven will be realized at the place that mutually contradicts the contents of Satan’s world. If any remnant remained, it could not be heaven. If such a place bore the name heaven, it would be nothing but a deception. The concept of heaven can be established from the position of subjugating Satan, of denying and, further, eliminating everything to which he can relate. Heaven is affirmed on the basis of having denied and removed the negative historic relics of Satan and all the contents of a satanic lifestyle. Without removing those, we cannot present the contents of heaven. Heaven is such a valuable thing. Although described as being aligned to the absolute standard, there is too much confusion over our concept of it. People are longing for heaven from an extremely self-centered standpoint. There is no doubt about that. Only when we overcome these circumstances with absolute faith, can the Kingdom of Heaven emerge; yet that alone will not settle the Kingdom. It will be realized only when we subjugate Satan, who brought God hardships for millennia and deceived humanity. There can be no two ways about it. God’s Kingdom cannot be realized through just submissively going along by faith. It can never be realized by having only a believing heart. Since Satan always challenges us to battle, the Kingdom is realized through overcoming that course of struggle. Here, we need sovereignty and numerous citizens. A large number of families should create a state system and overcome this battle for the sake of one purpose. In God’s position, they must be able to be in harmony and unison anytime, anywhere, with their subject partner without any conflict. We may be able to feel in our mind the Kingdom of Heaven at the place where we are prepared to die and where we have faith, but that is not the substantial Kingdom. Even though a great price of martyrdom and suffering has been paid through the past two millennia, the Kingdom has not been accomplished in the sphere of reality. Thus, the Kingdom is not something that simply comes into being. In the biblical phrase, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” the Lord refers to one who is unforgettable and eternal. He is a being of absolute content. The Kingdom does not come through our believing in the Lord God, but through our loving Him. The Father’s will is fulfilled not only by faith, but by love. We need to realize how much our faith falls short and how far it has deviated from the Principle up to this time. Some of you may be here for the first time. With regard to the individual, you cannot go to a place where you can receive consolation. Although the Kingdom might exist in your minds and although God may have felt joy from you, that would not mean it has been established on earth. It might be an individual Kingdom of Heaven, but it would not be the Kingdom of Heaven in its entirety. What God desires is not the individual Kingdom of Heaven. He does not rejoice over seeing its realization. Can we say that the Kingdom of Heaven is established just by seeing one person’s joy? God sent Jesus Christ – the one person over whom He could rejoice – to the earth, to be the center for all nations to connect horizontally in seeking the Kingdom in its entirety. He thus sent the Messiah to the earth and sacrificed him. (46-74, 1971.7.25)

Section 2. Preparing to Go to Heaven

2.1. The stronghold of heaven

The closer we are to the truth, and the more we come under its spell, the more it will become our center which nobody can snatch from us. Even if the earth were to fall into chaos millions of times and the universe were suddenly destroyed, people whose minds are securely centered on the truth will never be changed or shaken. However, if you cannot be prepared to accept such a center in your heart, however genuine a truth may appear, you would not recognize it. Even if true life appeared, you would not be able to know it. Even if true love appeared, you would not be able to understand it. If today’s Christianity is seeking genuine truth, true life, and true love, it must completely deny itself to the end and become a religion that establishes the mind’s center that nobody could snatch away. When new continents were being discovered, it seemed the earth was gradually expanding. Now, however, the earth seems to be shrinking day by day. In other words, when civilization was not developed the world seemed huge, but as history and civilization developed, the world seemed to be gradually shrinking. In this regard, we can know that the ideal world, realized through the history of the truth, will be of the universal era when everything is forming direct ties with us. Our standard as the citizens of heaven – that is, the life and love of the Kingdom of Heaven – must bear fruit within us. Because truth, life, and love are like one family, love and life should necessarily follow truth. Life and truth should necessarily follow love. And likewise, love and truth should necessarily follow life. Why are truth, love, and life connected to one another in this manner? As you know, in order for a thing to exist, there should be above and below, front and back, and right and left, centering on it. No existing thing can escape the realm of the number three. This is the fundamental form of existence. Likewise, these three elements get together and make the unified form. However, if a force proceeds in the reverse way, an action of the force different from the original one occurs. Accordingly, God is the origin of love, life, and truth. Yet after the Fall, people failed to form a triangle that holds love, life and truth in equilibrium. Thus, God could not fulfill His will. (2-133, 1957.3.17)

The disciples following Jesus thought that he would dominate the Roman Empire instantly and become the king of Israel, and that they would come to hold high positions. Such things are not an issue. First of all, we have to make the foundation for God’s Kingdom within our mind. And then, centering on that mind, we should make the foundation for unity between our body and God. This is the foremost issue. The Kingdom begins from us. Hence, our mind is its stronghold. (47-272, 1971.8.29)

Where is the stronghold of God’s Kingdom? Many Christians say, “I believe in Jesus so I’m going to heaven.” Then where is that stronghold? When Peter asked, “Where is the Kingdom of Heaven?” Jesus answered, “It is not in heaven but in your heart,” so where is that stronghold located? Can it be formed by a sad heart, or by a selfaggrandizing mind, or by a mind that denies society? Those are not the strongholds of the content we desire or of the Kingdom that God can endorse. People seeking the stronghold of God’s Kingdom must meet with solitude more than anyone else on earth. Why? As God is solitary, they too must be solitary; and since God has undergone the history of subjugation, they too must undergo subjugation. Then, if people were to just feel sad, repent and shed tears of lamentation because heaven and earth are filled with sadness, can that become the stronghold of God’s Kingdom? Even that cannot. When serving the church, while desiring the time of being blessed anew with joy, we must be able to be determined to solve the problems of sin and evil in this world. Without a single direction of determination to bear that responsibility, the stronghold of heaven cannot exist. Some people confidently assert that – because they are conscientious and have a respectable social position – the Kingdom of Heaven starts from them. That thinking is based on their understanding that good and evil begin together. Yet good and evil cannot start simultaneously. When evil goes east, good must go west, and when evil moves, good has to stop. Moreover, when evil has a desire, good must not have it. Good and evil are opposites. The search for the heavenly nation started from the point where God lost all His hope in relation to the world of humankind. Thus, people who are satisfied with their present lives cannot be truly religious people. When confronted by the intersecting fortunes of life and death, which cause you to sink into despair, losing the meaning of your existence, you should not be excessively attached to your habitual lifestyle, but instead proceed to seek new values, denying even your life. By proceeding in this way true goodness can start. Viewed from this standpoint, are there people who can confidently say that their character is the stronghold of heaven? None. There is also no one who can insist that their family is the stronghold of heaven. There is no one who could claim that God, if He existed, could not say that He did not recognize their family. No tribe can insist that God must recognize it because of their good achievements. There are no races, nations, ideologies or philosophies that can demand God’s recognition. When I think about this, I am dumbfounded. Therefore, while the one who wants to die will live, the one who wants to live will die. Then what does that mean? Those who work to protect themselves from the evil world for more than a millennium can dream such a dream, and only those who gratefully sacrifice themselves for more than ten thousand years can find hope to live for ten thousand years. Likewise, those who cry out for eternal life, eternal happiness, and the eternal Kingdom of Heaven must overcome the current situation with eternity as their goal, and they must surmount with endurance the present point in time, sacrificing themselves. Only from such a standpoint can the eternal stronghold emerge. (47-247, 1971.8.29)

2.2. The standard for going to heaven

Without loving God, we cannot free ourselves from the satanic realm. Thus, we must love Him more than our spouse. From the snares of love within the satanic realm, fallen people have emerged as far as the edge of that realm, but they have yet to come out of it completely. Hence, we cannot love our parents more than God. (41-299, 1971.2.17)

What kind of people can enter heaven? First of all, those people who are in harmony with God’s mind. To what extent are they harmonized? As God works towards the eternal ideal based on His eternal purpose, our minds must be in harmony with His for eternity, not just for a decade. Our minds must be eternally in harmony with the eternal God. To achieve that, what must we do? We must become the children who can eternally like and be liked by God. To become such children, we should not appear as objects of sadness. Next, we must be in step with God’s body. Here, ‘body’ means direction. While thoughts represent the central point of all directions, the body is manifested by the direction it takes. To be children in step with God, when He goes east, we must go east with Him. If God liked something warm, but Jesus liked something cold, would it be right? If He wanted to laugh and chat, and Jesus wanted to sleep, would it be right? Everything manifested through the external body must be in step. Would everything be all right with just that? No. When God is being amiable, we should not be hot-tempered. If He is amiable, we should also be amiable. The internal and external must match. Would that alone make everything work out? Next, we must do things that are in line with God’s will. For that to happen can there be things we are reluctant to do? Can there be things that our bodies detest? We must do things that both our mind and body like to do. As God exists, there must be things that He likes. Also, as Jesus is God’s Son, he also has to like such things. (47-255, 1971.8.29)

We can never go to heaven without sacrificing our lives. If you could go there you would see for yourselves whether anyone there did not do that. That is how it is with the essence of faith. (37-248, 1970.12.27)

2.3. The starting point of the Kingdom of Heaven

From where can the Kingdom of Heaven begin? Without dissolving God’s anguish, we cannot enter heaven. Since we have woven a history of sorrow since the Fall, we must restore all its ties. All the ties of the six millennia since Adam and Eve have to be restored. The Unification Church Principle teaches about a God of such sorrow. Secular people detest sorrow and run away from it. The Unification Church Principle teaches about God’s sorrow, which is more miserable than any other sorrowful situation. If something sorrowful happened in the world, most people would avoid it and run away from it, but the motto of the Unification Church Principle is to go through such places of sorrow. All people in the world try to avoid sorrow, but they are originally not supposed to be like that. The more we understand God’s sorrow and the contents of His misery, the stronger the force that actually emerges in the Unification Church to dissolve His anguish. That force becomes the motive of unlimited explosive action. This is the great force of the Unification Church. (21-112, 1968.11.17)

2.4. The essence of the Kingdom of Heaven

What kind of world is the Kingdom of Heaven? As it is the original world, individuals, families and tribes accused by Satan cannot go there. To enter heaven, these must all become one – in other words, three generations must become one. In Adam’s family, Adam was the first generation, Cain and Abel the second, and their children the third. These three generations were to become one. From God’s standpoint, He was the first generation, Adam and Eve, the second, and Cain and Abel, the third. (21-54, 1968.9.1)

As heaven is the world of living for others, we must go forth making that notion our first consideration. Those who have the idea of being served will be destroyed. Heaven is the world filled with God’s love. The essence of love is not to be served, but rather to live for the sake of all. Thus, heaven differs from the secular world. The religious teachings of living for the sake of others, being absolutely obedient, sacrificing, and serving, do not exist in the secular world. They are perceived as games played by groups of beggars who know nothing of this world. Yet this was God’s secret strategy against Satan so that people could be blessed even if they were ignorant of heaven’s laws. (46-40, 1971.7.18)

2.5. The framework of the Kingdom of Heaven

We have not restored the original homeland. As such, we have lost the homeland of our original hometown, by which we mean God’s Kingdom on earth. When speaking of God’s Kingdom, we are referring to that which is on earth and that which is in heaven. Three major elements are required to establish a nation: first sovereignty, next territory, and then citizenry. Yet God has no sovereignty over which He can govern. He has no people whom He can govern. This amounts to not having a homeland. This is not the world in which original people should live. (155-25, 1964.10.6)

Section 3. The Prerequisites and Conditions for Going to Heaven

3.1. The prerequisites for going to heaven

• 1. 1. Suffering is needed What remains forever is the suffering you underwent in leading a public life. If you undergo such suffering and subsequently face ruin in the spirit world, it will be all right to confront me with the matter. Those who are beaten up while working for the sake of the race, the world, and the cosmos, are wise people. (19-29, 1967.12.10)

If the person responsible for a nation were captured by the enemy and then given preferential treatment, his people would scatter. If instead, he suffered a miserable death his people would be inspired to remain together. We can, therefore, create unity with the spirit world by going through difficulties. The more we suffer, the more the spirit world will relate to us and stand together with us. If we just carry on in a casual way, the spirit world will do the same. In this sense, God unfolds His strategy through Satan and He lets us suffer unrelentingly. Sometimes He lets us get killed. Death itself is pitiful, but the reaction creates unity. (49-108, 1971.10.9)

Those who wish to enter heaven must live, die and depart miserably. Are these good words or bad words? They are good words. The words, “Go out and die witnessing to people!” are also good words. Die for the sake of others. If you die, not for yourselves, but for others, for the world and the universe, you will be raised up as masters of the great universe. The creation, human beings and God are very precious. Those who sacrificed and risked their lives to embrace the world from the position of goodness are essentially sacrificing for the sake of those three precious things. God has to compensate them with something more precious than that which they sacrificed. From such a standpoint, Jesus proclaimed, “Your family members are your enemies,” and “Those who seek to die shall live, while those who seek to live shall die.” Otherwise, people cannot go to heaven. This lesson from Jesus was the most blessed lesson. It was the most dear and most precious lesson. It was the most indispensable and absolute gospel. Thus, the Unification Church does not teach us to live rich and comfortable lives on earth. We may live exceedingly poor lives and undergo unbearable hardships, and die on the streets so that even dogs avert their eyes from our corpses, but the day will come when flowers will blossom at the place of our death. At that place every holy person will gather to create a capital city. My thought is to have Unification Church members undergo tremendous hardships for the nation and world in order to make them devoted children and loyal subjects of God. I shall chastise those who are unwilling to go. Pushing you to overcome your current tragic situations and difficulties, even if it requires kicking you, is a sign of my love for you. Jesus’ first commandment, not his second, therefore is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind!” Jesus’ second commandment is, “Love your neighbor as yourself!” Who is your neighbor? The people of the world are your siblings and neighbors. You have to invest your heart and soul, and offer your life for the people of the world. If you do so at the risk of your life, you will have done your work. Die once for God’s will. Where shall we die? We must find the place of our death. If you were born as a bomb, you should be dropped on rocks and explode cleanly. Do not waste your energy in a sewer. Consider yourself as a bomb already released; your goal is to land on a rock. As formidable beings, pit your strength against that of formidable enemies. Because I made such a resolution, though past fifty, I have not yet complained about the long distance to cover and I do not hesitate to keep going. In order to realize the hope of tomorrow you should devote yourselves while shedding tears. You should exert your entire effort and mind, passion and devotion. My mainstream thought, as the founder of the Unification Church, is to go forward without regard for my life in order to create that one point of unification that can correspond to this goal. Adventure can be experienced both on and off this path. We are now unfolding a ruthless and bloody fight. If a foundation for which you risked your life survives, it will be a model for history, and a foundation for the happiness of the world’s people. The entire universe will regard that foundation as the starting point of harmony. It will be a point for an axis and the unfolding of a great movement, a place which could move God and bind together the hope of humanity. Those who live in such a place will feel the cosmic responsibility; they will make everything stand still during their times of inaction and activate everything during their times of action. They will never be small-minded people. (49-303, 1971.10.17)

Those who are on the way of truth should walk the path of death until the day they die. We need to go that way during our lifetime in order to indemnify the suffering, which would normally have to be paid after death. Through suffering on earth we can reduce the period of atonement necessary after death, and that period can be measured in eons. We are walking the way of truth on earth to indemnify the suffering course that otherwise would be walked for eternity. (31-320, 1970.6.7)

3.1.2. We need love

We go to heaven on the tracks of love. When I explain it like this, doesn’t it seem real? The line of love will not become thin when pulled, as a rubber band does. Where a rubber band becomes thinner the more it is pulled, the more the line of love is pulled, the thicker it becomes. In this sense, becoming the number one person of suffering for the sake of God’s will is the secret method to occupy the world. The most suffering person monopolizes the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. (57-162, 1972.5.31)

Religious people today say, “Let’s go to heaven!” But how can they expect to go there so easily? They must first receive heaven on earth before going to heaven after death. In order to receive heaven on earth, they must go through the law of love. The more children you have in your family, the greater the cross you shoulder, and the more you must love God’s Kingdom. Many children are sent to your family because your family has to carry many crosses, and such a family thus has many responsibilities to sacrifice more for the nation. Upon knowing this, you should fulfill your responsibility completely. A family living to such a standard will give birth to children who can inherit good fortune in the generations to come. (32-232, 1970.7.19)

How can we go to heaven? We can go to heaven by being passionately in love with God. We must love Him more than Adam and Eve did. We must love Jesus more than Peter, James and John did. Without that passionate commitment, the realm of the partner of true love, the realm in which God can love us, cannot be restored. Only when this is restored will all go well. Don’t worry about not having money or children. If you continue on this path for ten or twenty years, you’ll be able to scale the very high and steep mountains. You may feel that you are going through hardships in vain and gradually descending, but actually you are gradually ascending. The Unification Church expands by being struck. In a family of ten, the one who is opposed by the others, and endures, living for the sake of the public purpose, can become the head of that family. Such a person can become a lord in the heavenly nation. (142-289, 1986.3.13)

You must be able to embrace the children and grandchildren of all five races and their grandchildren. So, you must become the head of the family that loves the world’s people as true parents with God’s true love. By embracing the children and grandchildren of all races, you become a spiritual leader or true parents of a family that loves the world’s people with God’s true love. By standing in a position in which you can represent the family standard of true love, in a relationship with the original parents centered on God’s love, can you enter heaven for the first time. To enter heaven, we must be one with the true love of God and True Parents. Our destination is heaven, but only after we have lived on earth with the children born of that blood relationship. Until now, not one person has lived such a life and gone to heaven. Consequently, heaven is vacant. (176-209, 1988.5.9)

The way to heaven is opened by loving your siblings as God does. As you strive to follow my standard you should strive to bring your siblings with you. The conclusion is that it is your siblings who lead you to the highest, quickest and best way to heaven, not God or me (66-125, 1973.4.18)

Will you all head toward a global heaven or an individual one? You say a global heaven. I, too, am ambitious to grasp the line of love that leads to the global heaven. For forty years I have been going this way enduring persecution. I have been working in this manner in order to grasp the line of love transcending the individual, family, tribe, people, nation and world. With this in my grasp, where will I go? We must return to our hometown after finding the global love line. We must go there because we received many blessings and succeeded in life. Shouldn’t we return and save the unfortunate people there? (143-139, 1986.3.17)

3.1.3. Actual results are needed

In the past, by praying and devoting themselves, people could meet the founder of a religion for that moment only, but then they had to separate because the founder had to ascend to the spirit world. Yet now the time has come when all spirit people can return to earth, centering on the realm of religion. With the advent of such an era, you cannot go to heaven without obtaining the actual results that will enable you to move the past, present and future. The past was the era of angels and good spirits. The present is the era of the parents. The future is God’s era. In conclusion, those who lack the actual result for mobilizing the spirit world, one’s own parents as well as God, cannot enter heaven. This is the same way that the angels and God moved to help Adam and Eve. After that, Adam and Eve had to move the universe themselves. Thus, only those who control the three worlds of past, present and future, centering on God, can enter heaven. Only then can they go to the original world, the Kingdom of Heaven. (161-199, 1987.2.3)

The condition enabling you to go to heaven is to love God more than your own children. You must love the Lord more than your own spouse. You must love the Holy Spirit more than yourself. That’s the oneness of the Trinity. (10-99, 1960.7.17)

Then, who can enter and live in the heavenly nation? Sons and daughters who have brought joy to God can enter and live there. After that which we term the Fall took place, humanity has increased and multiplied through the millennia of history. From the midst of this humanity thus multiplied, none were born on earth who brought joy to God. (143-23, 1986.3.15)

You might hope to go to heaven by believing in the Unification Church. However, if you did not bring actual results on earth and you were allowed into heaven, you would feel ashamed. We are not the group that seeks to go to heaven through a conceptual life of faith. We are the group that seeks to build the Kingdom of Heaven with all our heart and efforts. Those who seek to oppose and prevent that cannot be forgiven. In order to build the Kingdom, we must invest our entire mind and body as well as all our belongings and even our surroundings. We must take responsibility for the destiny not only of the nation, but also of even Asia. (22-226, 1969.5.2)

3.1.4. Altruism is needed

If you are fifty and have lived for the universe in accordance with heavenly ethics for over 25 years, you can go to heaven. In going to the next world, you can stay in the good spirit world. However, those who lived putting themselves first more often than not, you will be sad to hear, will go not to the original homeland of goodness, but rather to the land of evil and the world of egoism. Such a place is hell. You have to know these facts and from here forward liquidate your past life of selfishness. You should make efforts the rest of your life to live for the sake of the nation, world, universe and God. If you do this, without a doubt you will go forward into the ideal world of heaven and not into hell. (78-117, 1975.5.6)

I have experienced the reality of the spirit world more than anyone else. It is my field of specialization. What is the origin of order in the spirit world? Heaven is a world based on the principle of living for the sake of others. That is our original homeland. We are destined to go to the spirit world whether we like it or not. This is our path of life. We are like wanderers moving ever closer toward that destination. Then what becomes the issue is whether we have lived more for others or ourselves. According to that distinction, those who lived predominantly for others will go to heaven. Those who lived the opposite way will go to hell. You may not want to believe this fundamental formula in your present situation, but when you die you will come to understand. God has set up religions and worked through them providentially to save humankind. The higher the level of these religions, the more their teachings should be in conformity with the purpose and principles of the original homeland. At such a level they can do nothing but recommend sacrifice and service. In this way, there is no denying the fact that God has been working providentially behind history and religion. In light of these principles, we come to the conclusion that religions that serve other religions will prosper. However, those that seek to take a leadership position, and give rise to global problems by being self-centered, will decline. (74-51, 1974.11.27)

Heaven is a world of love, of living for God’s sake, of existing for the sake of God, the central being. (98-33, 1978.4.8)

3.2. The lifestyle that enables us to go to heaven

3.2.1. Our position

God created people to participate in His love. Their path of life was to start in God’s love, grow and mature in His love, form families and become perfected bodies of love. They would connect with the love of the world and in this way return to God’s bosom of love. Due to the Fall, this path was fundamentally destroyed. The relationship between God and humankind was severed. A gap between God and humankind was created such that no amount of human effort would allow the return to God. Similarly, no matter how much God tried to come to humankind, He could not. A wall and boundary were created and neither God nor humanity was able to surmount that wall. Humanity was not able to attend God as their parent. This wall came in and remained between the individual’s mind and body, and between husband and wife. Such walls also arose in the family, tribe, people, nation, world, and between heaven and hell in the spirit world. Although God is on His glorious throne in heaven, we on earth cannot surmount the walls surrounding us without removing them. This is the tragedy of people living on earth. How can we do away with it? Despite the fact that people are meant to live attending God as their Parent and be guided by Him in all aspects of their lives, they either do not know He exists, or they declare that He definitely does not exist. They even say, “God is dead. We’ll have to sweep Him out of our world.” Such a tragic and historic situation is unfolding within the world in which we live. (135-267, 1985.12.15)

3.2.2. Instances of not being able to go to heaven

What should be our motivation: God’s will or ours? Our self should not become the motivation. Yet in many cases, people today often derive their motivation from the self rather than God’s will. Whereas God’s will calls us to go the way of suffering, the self seeks to run counter to it. These are conflicting positions. When God’s will tells us to go right, the self wants to go left. You try to justify yourselves by saying, “I had a harder time than anyone else since joining the Unification Church.” Those who try to make excuses for themselves cannot enter heaven. The position of absolute faith is not a place where you can make excuses. There is not a word of excuse you can offer, but other people will come to you with their excuses. Even though you have done well, you cannot be proud of your achievements. What we can recognize as a hundred percent might be just one percent from God’s viewpoint. What we recognize as a hundred may be just one to Him. Thus, self-centered people cannot go to heaven. From where does heaven begin? Heaven begins from the point of having absolute faith. This means not being able to assert oneself. It is the place of absolute self-denial, without which absolute faith cannot emerge. In connection with life’s fundamental problems, most people today go about their daily routine. They wake up in the morning, go through life eating and say, “I am okay with God.” Many people believe that, but such people cannot own heaven. They cannot be okay with God. Without a relationship that can be officially recognized, you cannot even have an absolute standard of faith. Without having obtained this prerequisite standard, which must be surpassed in order to realize the Kingdom of Heaven, how can that Kingdom be achieved? There is not a chance. Why not? It is because Satan remains in that place. (46-79, 1971.7.25)

Historically, those called by God were usually over the age of fifty or sixty. They were a bunch of old hardened souls just a step from the grave and close to the day their dirges would be sung. In the background of His providence, God was working with these hardened and withered people at that time. But He also knew that in the future, He would work with people in their prime. He was concerned about how to develop the providence with them. Embracing such circumstances, God has walked the course of history. Old age must pass into the prime of life, the prime of life into youth, youth into childhood, and childhood into infancy. In such a way, you must be born again. Otherwise you will not be able to go to heaven. You must be able to receive affection like pure and innocent children. That is why Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” You must be born again, namely reborn. God carried out His work of redemption from the mother’s womb as the final dispensation. What an amazing situation it is! (20-94, 1968.4.28)

3.2.3. Our life for the sake of Kingdom of Heaven

If two-thirds of your life of seventy or eighty years were sorrowful, how would you handle that period? You should make it a joyful life centering on God. You should make it the Kingdom of Heaven where one gives and gives again. God also has to give. Parents must give to their children. Wanting to give and give again when you have something better to give is the heart of a parent. (34-141, 1970.8.30)

You are now fighting. You are firing guns all your life. Before meeting the world, your mind and body are fighting each other. How do you pacify them? Which side will be victorious, your mind or your body? You should be people who can say, “My mind will be victorious without a doubt.” Those whose minds are victorious are on the side of good. Those whose bodies are victorious are on the side of evil. Then, in the battlefield where the mind and body are fighting, what is the secret method for the mind to defeat the body? Or conversely, what is the method by which the body defeats the mind? What is its strategy? This is the question. This determines the issue of whether mobilizing weapons and equipment through a certain direction is good or evil. That being the case, it is important to know what the key factor is for resolving this confrontation. What are the necessary conditions for people living in this evil world to establish goodness or evil? Knowing this we can add or remove some conditions. Once you find it out, this condition is simple. (36-61, 1970.11.15)

If there is a good-looking man and a good-looking woman, can the man, insisting upon his rights, say that he wants to receive God’s blessing alone? Can the woman, insisting upon her rights, say that she wants to receive God’s blessing alone? We must think of God’s will as absolute and go through all the conditions necessary for the hope of humankind. It is not given unconditionally. The thing that we must do in God’s Kingdom on earth in the future is to find the way for couples to be welcomed and respected worldwide. This is the way to live in God’s Kingdom on earth. (162-67, 1987.3.2)

A person cannot go on holding onto goodness. The resolution of the matter concerning good and evil is thus: the world gets occupied either by good or by evil. When good occupies the world, we live, but when evil occupies the world, we cease to exist. In this way, the world is running along the path of life and death. The individual, family, nation and world are the product of history. Out of them all, how many are the products of goodness? In the individual, what relative importance do the products of goodness have? What percentage do they have in your living environment or in your personality? That is the issue. Does the world have more elements that lead to evil or to good? In that regard, we see we are surrounded by evil elements. We do not need education for going the way of evil. Anyone can go that way because history started from evil. Would there be a need for education to go that way? Because people became evil of their own accord, society educates them to act according to their standard of conscience centering on ethics and morality. Education is carried out centering on what? Although people are educated according to goodness and conscience, how many are well grounded on the standard of that education? Evil things can be done without education; everybody can get a perfect score in that. To those of us living in such circumstances, our conscience is always telling us to be good people. Although your mind always stimulates and advises you to be good, did you actually become good people? When we think about this problem, our whole life is continual lamentation. Today, tomorrow, this year all are lamentation. Youth, middle age, old age all are lamentation. We end our lives with it. In other words, our whole life may be marked by evil. This is the inevitable conclusion we reach. Because people were born from evil, they are wriggling in and going toward evil. This has been the way for the lives of those who are living today and all those who have lived until now. What does the Unification Church do these days? Does it teach people to be evil? If so, then it is not needed. Evil does not need to be taught. People go that way quite well even without being taught. (36-56, 1970.11.15)

3.2.4. The Kingdom of Heaven and us

In the face of death, Jesus cried out, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” Even as he died, he did not protest to God, but was ready to offer a greater sacrifice without question because his will was great for the sake of God’s will. Jesus’ attitude brought him to a closer position to God because it enabled him to go deeper. In front of such a person, God is melted. Whoever would strike such a person would be instantly destroyed. God would personally punish that person. Hence it is said, “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Those who lend money and remember doing so by adding interest cannot become owners in the Kingdom of Heaven. We must forget about the money we lend. Do parents who raise children remember how much they spend on them and ask for interest? Giving and forgetting is the heart of a parent. Parental love is also more than that. Parental love also includes being heartbroken about being unable to give something better. As that love continues eternally, people without parents are called orphans, and no one would wish to be one. (36-84, 1970.11.15)

Do you know what kind of place the spirit world or heaven is? It is the world to which altruistic people go. Egoists can never go there. They go to hell. Even famous ministers do and they will know where they are once they get there. Our Unification Church tries to save our enemies, even the communists. Yet the communists want to cut off the heads of the Unification Church members. That is the difference. So, what kind of thought should sway the world? We must be stronger than the communists. We must not grow strong by becoming evil people. If our strength is based on love through living for the sake of others, it will be enough to save the world. We are not people who are living in heaven, but rather are seeking to go to heaven. How long will such a life continue? Will it end today or last a decade or a century? What would you do if you died while doing that? Hence, you must be engrafted. Cutting off and engrafting must be carried out. (91-173, 1977.2.6)

To what kind of world will we go ultimately? Hell or heaven? On the way there, are you going to be people who say, “Father, please help me!” or will you say, “Welcome, True Father!” That will be a matter of life and death. You say that you will live happily after marrying, but when I tell you to live well, I mean you should become unchanging couples. To do that, you must go to the changing world and train together, and not get separated. Do not get separated even if you go to a world where people are divided between north and south or in all four directions. We must maintain ourselves in such a state of training. (129-181, 1983.10.30)

3.3. The four-position foundation and heaven

3.3.1. Families enter heaven

If I had worked for only the family until now, why would I have been persecuted? I am confident that if my father, mother, clan and all my remote relatives were gathered in one place, I could inspire them all through my words. I am supremely confident of bringing them all to God’s will. However, I could not do that because it was not God’s will. Jesus was driven away by his own relatives because he could not do it either. However, you have passed all this and welcomed the circumstances of this era in which you can witness to your relatives. You may hold on to your parents and express your sincere heart to them, even shedding tears. In that sense, you are in a better situation than I. If your parents or relatives are unwilling to accept God’s will, now is the time for you to move their hearts through tearful pleas or any other means. The time when you can freely witness is here. Although you may have a difficult time dealing with your elder brother, you can at least witness to your younger siblings, even if you have to do so forcibly to make them believe. Although you have ushered in such a time, if you do not fulfill your responsibilities, you cannot face God. Henceforth, I, too, cannot deal with such people. Those who do not do this cannot go to heaven. You go there only by forming your family. (21-65, 1968.9.1)

In the Unification Church, we never think that you can receive salvation as an individual. We do not go to heaven as individuals. Nobody can go alone. That’s the rule. From the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were to go to heaven together. Were the husband and the wife to go there alone? Couples and families not united cannot go there. That being the ideal, what kind of heaven would it be, if the father went to hell and the mother to heaven? We must go to heaven as couples, families, clans, and entire nations. (50-61, 1971.10.30)

From where does the Kingdom of Heaven start? It starts from the point where you deny even the basic desires of the heart with which you were born. For this reason those who go the way of truth lead celibate lives. But there are difficult problems leading a celibate life. These problems must be faced individually until the returning Lord comes to solve them. Because there is no way forward giving primary consideration to individual salvation, we must save the family in order to save humankind. The returning Lord is coming to earth again to open the way for redemption of entire families. Today, Christians say they will go to heaven through their belief in Jesus. However, they are all indulging in individualism. Originally, heaven was not supposed to be entered alone. If Adam and Eve had remained in the realm of God’s love without falling, do you think they would have gone to heaven? If they had, hell could not have existed. Heaven is the place to which husbands and wives go, leading their children. It is the place to go, leading one’s children, grandchildren and kindred. Further, it is the destination of the entire nation. Hence, it becomes the heavenly nation. Heaven is the place that is to be realized in this way. (41-299, 1971.2.17)

How stifled would God feel if you sat there alone stating, “Here is the Kingdom of Heaven”? Can you really say you like the way things are? How stifled He must feel when God looks at humankind or the religious world! (96-68, 1977.12.18)

What standard must we Unificationists reach? We must become people greater than Buddha, Confucius, and even Jesus. Until now, the purpose of religion was individual salvation. The purpose of the Unification Church is geared toward the salvation of the family rather than just of the individual. This is the difference between the Unification Church and other religions. For salvation, we are saving the family, and in going to heaven we are going as a family. The Unification Church’s view of salvation is not of a husband going to heaven while his wife goes to hell. It is for both of them to go to heaven together. You do not let your parents get sent to hell. Instead, you bring them to heaven along with your children. The Unification Church has a different dimension or idea different than any other religion. It teaches the way to go to heaven bringing our entire beloved families and tribes. Hence, the religions that have existed until now emphasize celibacy. But the Unification Church places importance on the family. We go the family-centered way. Those families live for God and the world. This is the way for Unification Church members to go. (34-358, 1970.9.20)

Who can be the object of happiness in your family? For the husband, it is the wife. For the wife, it is the husband. For the parents, it is the children. For the children, it is their parents. From this basis, it is possible to build the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven was within us. But imagine how lonely and miserable he must have been, when he could not say that the Kingdom of Heaven was in our families. You sing of happiness because you have families. For us, there is at least a moment in which we can do this. However, Jesus, the master of truth seekers, God’s only begotten Son, who was to save the universe, could not even dream of the base for the external Kingdom of Heaven. He wandered around saying that the Kingdom of Heaven was within us, and for this he was crucified. He sought for nearly three years to revive this in our hearts. How utterly lonely and miserable His life was! If the kingdom that Jesus desired was only that of the heart, it would be eternally impossible to realize the substantial Kingdom beyond that. It would also be eternally impossible to realize the kingdom transcending the family through the society to the nation. When will the global Kingdom of Heaven and God’s Kingdom in heaven be realized? The Messiah had the responsibility to save humankind, and to liberate the spirit world and God. When you think about his situation, how frustrated he must have been! For Jesus, being crucified was nothing. If he had collapsed, he could not face God. If he were to stand as a failure in the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven and the ideal society, if it existed, he would have wanted to go and seek a wrapping cloth with which he could cover his face and hide. Who can understand the remorse that would fill Jesus’ heart, remorse which he could not remove even if he were to die a hundred times? (120-47, 1982.10.3)

One cannot go alone to the place called Heaven. It can be entered only after one has realized the ideal of reciprocity. Fallen people must go through the providence of restoration, resurrection and re-creation to enter Heaven. Giving you the Blessing is to open wide the gates of Heaven. The Blessing means that I am opening the gates of Heaven, which were closed. Families enter by those gates. I am saying that you must enter with your sons and daughters. The family must become historic fruit as a result of accumulated merit. God’s providence of restoration history of six millennia went through the eras of the first Adam, the second Adam and the third Adam, in the family. So you must have three sons and find spouses for each of them. Thus, you can enter as a family. (152-239, 1963.5.25)

3.3.2. Jesus and his family

Christianity is the religion that taught about the family of love as the standard in which we can live together eternally centered on God. God wants to meet people to make a family. This is our desire. There is no other desire above this. (39-343, 1971.1.16)

Jesus strove to establish his family but could not fulfill that portion of God’s will. He then went the path of the cross, putting behind him the thought of bride and bridegroom. Hence, he said that he would come again and hold the Marriage of the Lamb. This refers to the appearance of the ideal family in which God can find rest. Then the Lord can attain the position of True Parent. As the True Parent, he has to give birth to true children and then form true brothers and sisters. Centered on this true family, by forming true clans and true races, he has to establish a new race and a new nation. We come to the conclusion that Jesus has to come again to realize this. (39-345, 1971.1.16)

3.3.3. The four-position foundation and the Kingdom of Heaven

Restoration means the restoration of the four-position foundation. To fulfill the four-position foundation the father, mother, and sons and daughters must be restored. Then, you must be completely restored as a Blessed Couples and give birth to children raising them so that they do not Fall. To do that, we must infuse a new tradition. To do so, we must be better than the saints. (58-33, 1972.6.6)

God’s ideal for His Kingdom on earth can be established for the first time in the place where heaven is established on the family level. This must become a four-position foundation. In the Unification Principle, the perfection of the ideal of creation is the perfection of the four position foundation. Why is that so? The four-position foundation is established when the world of vertical relationships and horizontal relationships are created through three stages centering on God, Adam and Eve. The horizontal world can unfold only through Adam and Eve’s sons and daughters. When this happens, the vertical world is naturally formed. Considering the body, the children are the horizontal basis of the body, and the spirit world is the horizontal basis of the mind. As God is able to be present there for the first time, the Kingdom of Heaven is manifested on the earth. (96-28, 1978.1.1)

Section 4. Triumphal Entry through the Gates of Heaven

4.1. The door to people’s hearts

Even someone like Buddha in a mystic state said, “In heaven and on earth, I alone am the honored one.” People who have cultivated an integrated mind and enter the afterlife to stand as God’s perfect object partner can say that of themselves. I feel that if I hold the world tight, it might melt in my fist. In such a state, miracles happen automatically. Healing is a natural concomitant of religious life. That is why we must cultivate the field of our heart in line with the door of our heart. To pioneer the standard of the direction of our heart, we must discover God, our subject. Yet He is obscure. If we want to connect to that obscure God, we must focus our mind. It is the only way to start to connect to God. If we illuminate our minds from within, we can surely find the direction in ourselves naturally. Don’t you all feel that? As you began praying, you were facing east, but when you enter the mystic state, your orientation changes. Such things happen, which is why we say the mind has a door. There are times we find it easy to pray, and times we that we do not. Despite all our absolutions and devotions, it is still difficult to pray. It also varies depending on the location of the room because North, South, East and West exist based on a central point. Further, it varies depending on the direction. Even in the mountains, there are places where you can pray well. Also, there are places where satans gather. Those are the shady spots. Shady and sunny spots are spiritually formed in this way. If you experience this many times, you will understand. When receiving intimations, dreams, revelations and visions, we must make efforts to apply them to our lives and not ignore them. They are the inevitable phenomena for pioneering and developing the relationship between God and humankind. (76-142, 1975.2.2)

For this purpose, you have all been making efforts seeking to open the doors of your hearts and cultivate the fields of your hearts within yourselves. It does not end when you have cultivated the fields of your hearts. You should then apply this to the relational world. (76-155, 1975.2.2)

4.2. The meaning of “Opening the Gate of Heaven”

4.2.1. The reason for “Opening the Gate of Heaven”

Why did the Day of the Opening of the Gate of Heaven come into being? Adam and Eve erred but God took full responsibility. By inheriting the responsibility from God, I have to open the gate. He must open the gates for individuals, families, and tribes as well. All those gates have been blocked. The gates for races, nations and the world have also been blocked. They must all be opened. I am seeking to open those blocked gates through Unification Church families. God’s strategy is to prepare small things for the sake of recovering bigger things. From the individual through the family, tribe, people, nation, world, and cosmos and even to the afterlife, they have been blocked by heaven and hell. Because of who are they blocked? Had Adam and Eve become true parents, this could have been one world, but because of the emergence of false parents through the Fall, heaven and hell have been blocked. Who should break down this historic wall of bitter grief? The True Parents of humankind. It’s not something they are doing vested with kingship on a throne. People are living in hell on earth, and spirits are suffering in hell in the spirit world. The gate of hell on earth and the gate of hell in the spirit world must be opened. Through these gates a pathway must be connected leading from the individual to the nation and world on earth. Then there must be a connection leading from the earth to the spirit world. It must connect to that single pathway that leads to the mainstream. Your mind and body must become one. With that level of oneness, there must be no barriers blocking your path as you pass through the family and tribe. From that level you transcend the race, nation and world to the spirit world. Everything must be broken down. The final problem is opening the blocked spiritual gates of hell and heaven. It is impossible to enter heaven without opening the gates of hell on earth and in the spirit world. Only those who overcome hell can go to heaven. You must overcome not prayer, but God’s love. Otherwise, you cannot enter heaven. This is why I paved the way from earth to heaven by opening the gates of hell on earth and in the spirit world, centered on God’s love. The name of the International Peace Highway came from this. This is to break down the wall, which has been blocking us. Jesus had the authority of the prince of heaven and God’s only begotten son because he was able to love not only the satanic world, but also the spirit world. Even the spirit world has been entirely blocked by walls. The Buddhist and Confucian realms are entirely blocked by walls. These must be taken down through a higher standard that comes from God’s heart. From the high throne of heaven, work must progress downward having all the walls broken down. Starting with the walls of our ancestors of ten thousand years ago, a thousand years ago, several hundred years ago and those of the people who passed a few years ago, all must be broken down. Also the walls on earth must be removed as well, and a way to connect this to hell must be paved. Otherwise, the gates of heaven cannot be opened. (140-41, 1986.2.1)

4.2.2. The origin of the “Opening of the Gates of Heaven”

I greatly appreciate Mother. She had many very deep experiences of the heart during my time in Danbury. Being a mere child when she met me, she has had to lead a life that was to reach the line parallel to mine. Having lived that way, her standard has gradually risen. Before, she probably did not experience the deep valleys of the heart. After being separated from me because of Danbury, she was able to realize the precious value of the True Father and understood how lonely it could be for a woman without her husband. As a result, on February 1, we conducted a ceremony to open the gates of heaven and hell. Now they cannot be closed. Through the True Parents standing at opposite poles, a solution can emerge from the place where the two poles connect. This was to connect the spiritual and physical worlds. On February 1, 1985 at 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, this standard was established at Danbury and East Garden. With God’s heart, you have to act so that the force of love can be connected. Are you going to become audacious leaders who will have to stand before God in need of salvation or are you going to go along this vertical line? The way to the heavenly palace is the path on which man and woman travel as one. Where do they become one? They become one there and then must follow it. When ascending, you should ascend towards it. When descending, you should descend towards it. Everyone has to go this way of the sphere of the tribe, people, nation and world centering on the family in accordance with the principle of restoration through atonement. Everyone has to go through this path because they are in the realm of the Fall. (136-45, 1985.12.20)

All my life I have loved the enemy – on the stages of the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, and world, and all the way to the cosmos. Why did I enter Danbury prison? It was because of the walls that had blocked the spiritual and physical worlds. In order to resolve what was disrupted due to the fallen parents, I had to pave a way in the spirit world and in hell. On February 1, 1985 at 3 a.m., Mother and I established this condition through special prayer. Thenceforth, all the barriers of hell crumbled, so whoever makes effort on that foundation can rise up to the heavenly world. Also, if there are good spirits among your relatives in the spirit world, they will come to you, educate you and even take you with them to the heavenly world. Their role as the Savior in the spirit world has begun. The mission of the Savior lay not in the spirit world, but has been limited to the earth, yet now, by paving this way, the good spirits in the other world can educate the evil spirits in hell. While the good ancestors play the role of the Savior, a way has been opened allowing them to develop and ascend to the heavenly world. (136-183, 1985.12.22)

4.2.3. True Parents and the gates of Heaven

What is the mission of the Unification Church? It is different from past religions, which sought individual salvation. It is a religion that seeks an original ideal world as it would have been without the Fall. The original ideal world is where people perfect themselves in heart, marry with God’s love at the center of their relationship, give birth to children, and go to heaven. What kind of heaven would it be if a father went to hell and a mother to heaven, or if the parents went to heaven and the children to hell? Heaven is the Kingdom everyone enters: parents, children, tribes, races and nations. True Parents must emerge to open the gates of Heaven for humankind, who started from false parents. Even God cannot open the gates of heaven by Himself. If He could, being omnipotent, why didn’t He? The Fall was due to human beings. The Fall is why they, as the perpetrators of sin, must receive punishment. Having lost the kingdom, they must recover it. It has taken six thousand years. What must be done to open the gates of Heaven? God must take someone in the position of His servant, as His adopted son and give him the opportunity to relate to His legitimate son with absolute obedience. Here, the legitimate son is Adam before the Fall. The adopted son is the archangel prior to the Fall. Originally, an adopted son, in the position of a servant, cannot receive love directly like a legitimate son. (42-286, 1971.3.27)

Had there been no Fall, people who went to the spirit world would have been able to enter heaven by connecting with the core of God’s love and True Parents’ love. Instead, our journey to heaven has been deferred because throughout history, nobody had been able to attain that bond. People have become stranded in hell and paradise, which is why heaven has been empty. The people to enter heaven first must be the True Parents. If I were to say that heaven is empty, people would think I am demented, yet even Jesus could not enter heaven. One cannot go there alone. Our original ancestors should have grown through adolescence, established the ideal of love centered on God, become parents and bequeathed the seeds of true love. Then, the first place they entered would have been heaven. As yet, there have been no parents centered on God’s love who were able to bequeath the seeds of true love and thus no foundation of leaving behind such descendants. Heaven, thus, is empty. If we want to go to heaven, we must pass through and conquer hell. The conquerors of hell go to heaven. Having surmounted hell, they are on the roadside leading to heaven, and that place is paradise. (140-45, 1986.2.1)

Look at humankind as one man and one woman. If there are four billion people, you should think, “Half of humankind’s four billion people are men and the other two billion people are women. That constitutes a man with two billion cells and a woman with two billion cells. With that mind, I will love those two people.” You have to think that way. God is planting those four billion people to engage in the work of re-creating Adam and Eve. That means that God chooses one representative man from among the two billion men and one representative woman from among the two billion women to be His first loves. These representatives will be seen as the fruit of the love of humanity. You should be resolved to loving that entity which is the fruit of the love of two billion people more than the father and mother who gave birth to you. Then you become someone who can love the four billion people more than your father and mother. At that point, you will have nothing to do with Satan because you will be totally one with the realm of God’s love. You will then be in the position of loving humanity in oneness with God. Those representatives are the True Father and True Mother. If you have the heart to love humankind more than the True Parents, everything will be okay. The gates of hell in the spirit world and on earth will be opened. Wherever such a person goes, it will be a highway. But then, you will have to pay for the gasoline. In the original world, angels are to lead the way to heaven, not True Parents. It is not the Principle to have the True Parents lead you. They paved the way and you are destined to follow it if you love them. While following this path, in the position of loving the True Parents, and loving humankind more than the True Parents, everything will go well. No way would be blocked. There would be no alleys. We are going along the mainstream of heart, which directly connects to the highway. Thus, we can go directly from the earth to heaven. With regard to this world, there are two kinds of people, men and women. We are entering the realm of heart, the heart that loves the parents, which transcends the satanic world. If you have made bad conditions in front of True Parents, then you have to go that way again. Throughout my life, as a parent, I have taken responsibility to prepare the way for my children to go. If you stand in the place where you love humanity with the same heart as you love the True Parents, you will become one with the True Parents and stand in the same line horizontally with True Parents. If you do this, Satan cannot influence you, because the realm of fallen heart will be below you. You can connect to heaven directly. To commence this work, I declared the Day of the Opening of the Gate of Heaven. (140-56, 1986.2.1)

4.2.4. Our attitude to the “Opening of the Gate of Heaven”

On earth, True Parents have prepared the highway and brought the victorious power of heaven and passed it on to you. In that very place where you inherit that power, you must plant God’s love in your mind and body and become one with True Parents Then Satan cannot separate you from God. What will happen to you? Together with me, you who represent the world have been restoring Cain’s sons and daughters. If you too have the heart to love the world more than the True Parents, nothing evil can block your way to God’s Kingdom, whether on earth or in heaven. You start from the earth and then can go beyond the world and the spirit world directly to heaven. Yet if you cannot do it, your way will pass through so many high and steep mountains. Knowing this, I dedicated my life up to now to prepare the way. Since I gave you the privilege today to attend the Day of the Opening of the Gate of Heaven, please, become the victors who can pass through safely and attain that realm of heart without fail. (140-61, 1986.2.1)

4.3. The path to heaven through fulfilling one’s portion of

responsibility. Where are you now? You must know your location. You must know where you are. Satan and God are dividing you up between them based on the fulfillment of your portion of responsibility. They are saying, “This person is yours, that person is mine.” People who do not fulfill their portion of responsibility will not belong to God. Satan will claim them as his. While longing for God’s love, ideal conjugal love and ideal filial love, fulfill your portion of responsibility. You cannot do that by saying, “I need money. I need this and that. I must educate my children.” As you seek to enter heaven, the gatekeeper will ask you whether you fulfilled your portion of responsibility. In the fallen world, there is no one who can ever go to heaven. Upon ushering in the era of the Second Coming, and, after going through the time of Adam and the time of Jesus, God has brought forth this movement to break through the standard of the fulfillment of our portion of responsibility by raising the third Adam. Now all religious believers seek to fulfill their portion of responsibility in order to go to heaven. Satan thinks he cannot give this portion of responsibility to humankind even if he has to burn all the religious people and offer them as a sacrifice. But God thinks that even if He were to sacrifice all the religious people, He would want to restore this portion of responsibility. (149-322, 1986.12.21)

4.4. Heaven and hell are our options

In our life of faith, we should not complain. There is nothing to complain about. You should be joyful. You should go joyfully even when shedding tears. You are to go laughing while shedding tears. If, after being taught this, you do not do it, what will happen? If you do not do it, there is no other way. God cannot help you, and I cannot help you. Thus, you decide whether you go to heaven or hell. Rev. Moon doesn’t decide, God doesn’t decide, you yourselves decide. The decision is yours. If you complain, that is hell. If you go with gratitude even when you have something to complain about, that is heaven. (96-122, 1978.1.2)

Heaven is not somewhere you go through being taught. It is the automatic destination of conscientious people. When the sun rises, the buds of all the trees turn to face it. If even the grass and trees can turn to face the sun, then how much more so can people as the Lords of creation not know the way to go? Such phenomena will take place. (75-41, 1975.1.1)

Section 5. Instructions Concerning Heaven and Hell

5.1. Formulating our view of heaven and hell

The mission of the Messiah is to restore tribes centered on his family. By fulfilling our mission as tribal messiahs we are formulating our views of heaven and hell. You have to clearly distinguish “There is heaven, here is hell.” Do not go toward hell and make others not go that way. If your tribe knows the way, many tribes around you, even villages will come to follow you. (217-84, 1991.4.16)

5.2. The importance of life in the spirit world and life on earth

Life in the spirit world and life on earth are not separate. Both are important. That means that our life in the spirit world is connected to our life on earth. They are both important, yet people who live on earth today do not understand the concept of eternal life. They think that only life on earth is important. That is the problem. Even many Unification Church members do not understand that how you live on earth is the foundation that guarantees your life in the spirit world. Hence, you need to be constantly aware of the importance of your life. You must live for the sake of your eternal life based on the formulation of your view of heaven understanding that eternal life begins from the present moment. If you do not understand this point, you will end up doing something else. Everything that you do now determines the value of your eternal life. The physical and spirit worlds move facing each other. If the physical world ascends, so will the spirit world. If the physical world descends, the spirit world follows suit. If one turns, the other does likewise. So you have to realize this point during your life on earth and live in a way that adds to your eternal life. The spiritual and physical worlds are not separate. If you do not clearly distinguish between heaven and hell, you will not understand this. In this way, you must always work with the feeling that both eternal life and life on earth are important. No one can take care of your life except you. More than anyone else, you yourself know God. If you become like that, wherever you go heavenly fortune will embrace you. In that case, if you are gone from your village, people will search for you saying, “Where did that person go? I have not seen him for a few days. I miss his voice, as I am used to hearing him in the morning and evening.” You cannot stop it from happening. Because heavenly fortune is with him, someone who lives according to his conscience automatically orients himself to that direction, similar to iron filings moving towards a magnet, or like whatever has life moves with all its tactile sense towards the light. If I am not here, it will be a problem for the Japanese, Koreans and Americans. Why is that so? Because within the concept of eternal life there must be order to bring unity. We can make this concept the standard for the earth and eternity. This is most important. (217-85,