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Our mind constantly redirects us along our way. It tells us, “Turn around. Return to the ancient place. Return to the deepest place in your mind.” This is why Buddhism encourages us to meditate.

Sun Myung Moon

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To the Ancient Place

Topic: Virtue, Morality, & Ethics

Our mind constantly redirects us along our way. It tells us, “Turn around. Return to the ancient place. Return to the deepest place in your mind.” This is why Buddhism encourages us to meditate. The reality of our life on earth is that through our original mind’s guidance we sorrowfully seek our original selves. Once we have purified ourselves and returned to the ancient place, it is excruciating to recall our past, even in dreams. God’s goal is to eliminate this kind of sorrow-filled life. We should be living in the new, ideal world, enraptured with renewed hope.

Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon, born on January 6, 1920, was a spiritual leader and luminary hailing from North Korea. He founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, better known as the Unification Church, in 1954. Drawing upon direct Prophetic revelation, influenced by the major faith traditions—especially Christianity, but also Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, and Buddhism. He also developed a political philosophy to resist the spread of the anti-religious Communist ideology. Reverend Moon's teachings centered on love, unity, and peace. He aimed to spark a global spiritual movement that transcended religious and cultural divisions, and his vision resonated with followers all over the world. Through the Unification Church, Sun Myung Moon also promoted interfaith understanding and collaboration, striving for harmony among diverse religious traditions.

Reverend Moon's teachings went beyond the realm of the spiritual to touch on the universal human themes of love and family. He emphasized the importance of nurturing strong, loving families as the cornerstone for a harmonious and peaceful world. To this end, he conducted mass wedding ceremonies known as the 'Blessing', symbolizing the unity of all people under God, regardless of their cultural or religious backgrounds. Moon also stressed the value of community service and encouraged his followers to actively contribute to their local communities.

Sun Myung Moon's partner in both life and work was his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. As co-leader of the Unification Church, she is a pivotal figure in spreading their shared vision of a world unified by love and peace. Affectionately known as 'True Mother', she embodies the ideal of nurturing and unconditional love in their teachings. After Reverend Moon's passing in 2012, Hak Ja Han Moon assumed sole leadership of the Unification Church and changed the name to Heavenly Parent's Holy Community. In her leadership role, she has tirelessly carried forward their mission, upholding the church's emphasis on peace, interfaith dialogue, and strong, loving families. Under her guidance, the church has continued to flourish, spreading its message of unity and love to people around the globe.

(1920-2012) Heavenly Parent's Holy Community
Cheon Seong Gyeong

Moon, Sun Myung, and Hak Ja Han Moon. Cheon Seong Gyeong. Seonghwa Chulpansa, 2015, pp. 816-817 [Book 8, Chapter 1.24 and 26].

Sun Myung Moon


Sun Myung and Hak Ja Han Moon, Cheon Seong Gyeong

The path to find my original self

You cannot rejoice in who you are, since you are not your original self. You must recognize that your situation is sorrowful. Your grief, however, should not be directed toward the world. Even when you feel pain, your pain should bear no relationship to the anguish of the secular world. When you feel sadness and pain, your sadness should come from being unable to find your true self. No matter how great the anguish and suffering of the world, they do not exceed the sadness and pain people experience being unable to find their true selves. Given this situation, for whom has God been searching until now? God has been searching for each of you. This is why you need to uncover and strengthen your true selves. Otherwise, you have no relationship to a true family of true individuals, a true society built upon true families, a true nation of true societies, a true world made up of such true nations, or to the cosmos that bears this ideal world that perfectly centers on the substance of oneness. The first standard for all these levels of goodness is individual perfection.

By disobeying God’s Word, humankind lost God’s Word, lost His substance, and lost His love. Can you imagine God’s heart as He spoke the Word, His heart as He created human beings to be His substance, and His internal heart anticipating the pride He would feel through that substance? We are the ones who lost God’s Word, failed to embody Him, and failed to embody the love that could create the garden envisioned by God. Hence, we must realize that we are all sinners who cannot take pride in ourselves. On the contrary, we are beings who are incapable of establishing initiatives on our own and unable to find any basis to discover the foundation for the Sabbath within our own minds.

Our mind constantly redirects us along our way. It tells us, “Turn around. Return to the ancient place. Return to the deepest place in your mind.” This is why Buddhism encourages us to meditate. The reality of our life on earth is that through our original mind’s guidance we sorrowfully seek our original selves. Once we have purified ourselves and returned to the ancient place, it is excruciating to recall our past, even in dreams. God’s goal is to eliminate this kind of sorrow-filled life. We should be living in the new, ideal world, enraptured with renewed hope.

In the secular world, people seek good food and wear fashionable clothes. In contrast, the basic attitude of a religious seeker should be to eat simple food by choice. This is opposite to the way of the world. When you look at religious seekers, you see that despite eating humble food, wearing shabby clothes, and leading impoverished lives, their way of life and their purpose is to find the original relationship—the love that can embrace them eternally.

The original place of the Will is where God dwells. Therefore, that original place is sacred. When we transcend all levels of creation and measure our coordinates from all directions, we can determine exactly where we are in relation to the Absolute. However, if we are mistaken in measuring and are not aligned with the original point at 180 degrees, we cannot reach it until we realign and straighten ourselves out. Given the context of our sinful history, this is the inevitable conclusion. We need to realign ourselves with all four directions in order to find the original zero point. And in order to find that zero point, we need to clearly understand the original center. Only when we fully unite with the zero point can we reach that original center. Until we understand this, we cannot recover our position as a second, resultant being, totally united with the Will, through which we can achieve a new beginning. This is logical and no one can object to it.

—Sun Myung Moon [Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 8: Life of Faith and Training, Chapter 1: What Is a Life of Faith, Section 3: The Path of Faith, 22-26].

Additional Passages from Sun Myung Moon

“We who follow the path of faith should aim for that which is unchanging. We must restore relationships that are unchanging. We need to realize that such bonds are made not separately from our daily lives but from within the sphere of our lives, with everything connected in oneness. We need to know this and live our lives while actively relating with God. Only through relating with God in our lives can we reclaim our true value and allow God to dwell in our heart, attaining oneness with Him. In other words when you experience God’s substantial presence, which allows you to live in such a way, you will realize that this has unlimited value. When you create the environment in which universal values can be actualized, the value of both individuals and the whole will start to grow centering on you.”

—Sun Myung Moon [Cheon Seong Gyeong] p. 806.

“Our spirit self and physical self should resonate like a tuning fork. When a tuning fork is struck, it makes a nearby tuning fork resonate at the same frequency. By the same principle, once God’s love moves in our spirit, our body automatically responds.
What causes our mind and body to resonate 100 percent and brings them into the realm of oneness? It is not God’s wisdom or power. It is only love.”

—Sun Myung Moon [138:255, January 24, 1986].