March 11, 2007
At a state where you do not fully understand things of the world, it will be challenging to grasp how the information you receive here serves as a solid foundation for your precious life. I explain that everything in the world is predetermined. Predetermined things are created by problems. This time is to help you serve your own life by finding out how something that exists in the world is created.
What I learned newly during my last trip to the United States was that modern education and social understanding are ahead of ours when it comes to technology and culture created by humans. However, I would like to tell you once again that the level of learning about the truth about what exists in the world is far superior to that of any other educational institution in the world.
A few days ago, people came to this office. They were intellectuals who had been active in past societies. They engaged in passionate discussions about human rights issues in Korea. Frustrated by listening to the debate, I eventually spoke up and said the following.
"In the world, everything is predetermined, and within these predetermined things, there is an order. If this order is reversed, it may sound appealing to the ears, but the practical consequences are detrimental."
What is the difference between good and evil? As I have mentioned to you in the past, a good person is someone who does not lie to others and does not engage in actions that harm others. On the other hand, a bad person is someone who, despite uttering all kinds of words as if they were pouring honey, lies to others and causes harm to them through those lies. You need to be well aware of these facts. It may sound like something even a 3-year-old child knows, but if you were to ask elderly individuals in their 80s about the difference between a good person and a bad person, you would find that there are absolutely no individuals who can answer that question correctly.
I met a scientist during my trip to the United States. He mentioned that he had visited Korea several times at the invitation of the Korean government. To gauge the level of his academic studies, I asked him a few simple questions.
"The purpose of education is to create good people. Can you answer how you can cultivate a good person through education? If a child says, 'Even the teachers at school and my parents tell me to be a good person, but I'm not sure how I can become a good person,' and asks me about the ways to become one. I explained the method to the child. Can you articulate what that method is?"
The professor said he had two sons and didn't know how to turn them into good people.
Although modern education has reached a significant level in terms of physical and chemical testing using materials, the level remains almost zero for things that cannot be tested.
What is the purpose of your life? Purpose means what you want to achieve through your life. However, for most people living in this era, the sense of the purpose of life has changed. They have become fixated on how to easily earn a lot of money, forgetting the true essence of life's purpose.
I was supposed to meet with a scholar at Princeton University, but when I arrived at his office at the appointed time, he had gone missing, leaving a note on the door canceling the meeting. As I was resting in the lounge because I was exhausted, I met a student from California who was majoring in business administration. When I asked him what he knew after going to college and learning business administration, he answered that he didn't know. I asked why he would choose to learn something even if he couldn't come to understand it through the university education, to which he explained that the university only accepts 1,800 students each year, making admission highly competitive with around 20,000 applicants.
When I asked him what the purpose of attending college was, he said it was to marry a decent woman and get a good job. It means that a university degree, like a signboard, is necessary for marriage and employment. This conversation has been recorded. I asked him how much he was paying in tuition to get that signboard, and he said $43,000 a year. This is too much money to pay just to get a signboard. After hearing those words, I looked at the sky and sighed. Students are paying such an amount of money that someone like me could live on for the rest of my life so that they can study at a famous university in the U.S., get married, and get a good job easily. I lamented that this is how the world works these days.
While traveling in the United States, I wanted to check whether American universities were teaching the knowledge to create a good society and good people for human life, and what kind of research American society was doing. I tried for 40 days to find out, but I confirmed that no organization or university was even interested in this field.
I always tell you that things like truth, love, happiness, etc. exist only in words, and there are no actual teachings about them anywhere in the world. I said this to the people who visited here last time.
“To build a strong house, the first priority is to strengthen the pillars. The pillars must be strong so they can withstand the load of the house. Human rights can only exist if the existence of justice comes first. No matter how much we cry for human rights to be guaranteed, it is of no use.
When I meet philosophers, I ask them what philosophy is. I heard that in the United States, there is a philosophy-related association founded by a certain president and that there are active philosophy-related activities, but no one at the philosophy association center wanted to meet me.
I heard that there are philosophers in America, so I tried to meet them, but I couldn't meet a true philosopher. At a university where tuition was $43,000 per year, there was no one who knew the meaning of philosophy, which is the most basic and most important thing to know. I was very shocked by that fact. There are quite a few people who studied abroad, received a doctoral degree there, and returned to Korea to become university professors. Almost all of them are scams. They pay a lot of tuition and receive training. They have been trained to pretend to know something even though they don't know it. They submit their thesis and receive a degree from it. But if that degree was earned as a result of truly knowing something, does it make sense to not know philosophy in college?
A professor of philosophy at New York University seemed to understand me to some extent and said this.
“Universities are generally called the Hall of Truth, but the Hall of Truth refers to an institution that studies existing things. In other words, philosophy means studying things to know what exists.”
Philosophy is study. It is said that philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge, the exploration to understand something. Since universities are research institutions, aren't they organizations that inquire about existing matters? University is a place to learn philosophy. However, if professors or students at universities do not know what philosophy is, where should we go to ask about philosophy? I couldn't help but be surprised by the fact that although a university is an institution that studies existing things, no one knows what the most basic thing, philosophy, is.
Good words exist in Korean society. In church, there is the word love, in temples there is the word compassion, and in school there is the word study. However, there are no people teaching or learning anywhere about the important parts that should exist in those words. This fact is the greatest misfortune of our time. You need to know this. If you do not realize these things, you are living a meaningless life.
In today's society, there is no one we can trust. People who want to make easy money don't care whether others live or die. This is really scary. Who is creating this kind of society and why? Modern people pretend to be very smart and know a lot, but in reality they are just fools. They do not check the most important things and only check the useless things. They only pretend to know what they know about useless things. They are good at doing things they don't have to do, but they don't do things they absolutely have to do. Why is human society becoming increasingly difficult to live in? This is because wrong teachings and wrong forces dominate society.
What I felt once again through this trip was that the world is really fair. The creator of this world left very fair laws to the world. When humans attain enlightenment, a good world and a good life can exist for them. You must continue to engage in life activities that enable you to achieve the purpose of a good life through a good life.
There is a difference in the ability to see the world when they know and when they do not know. People who are learning here are said to be very smart in real life. What you hear here may sound the same all the time, but that's not the case. It makes a clear difference when the people learning here are in the same place as everyone else. This is because the people learning here have a different ability to see reality. That's why you can protect yourself and protect yourself even in these difficult times. You must be well aware of this fact. If you do not know these things, you will live and die without knowing what you should live for all your life. We must have a purpose for living. To that end, we must never ignore what exists in reality even for a moment. If you live ignoring it, you will become food for the wicked overnight. Only after we have lost everything will we truly feel and regret how unhappy we have lived. In order to live a life with no regrets, the only way is for you to know for yourself.
Throughout my many travels, I have conveyed love to people and told them so. The love I preached was to teach people justice and conscience. If you teach people conscience and justice, they will stop harming others or doing wrong even if there is no law. Such a society is like heaven. Wouldn’t a society where people can live well even though there are no laws be heaven? On the contrary, it is difficult to live in a society with many laws. Why make laws? Because society cannot be maintained without law. How did society become so dangerous that it was difficult to maintain it? It's because of ignorance. When no one teaches good teachings and no one wants to accept good teachings, society becomes governed by laws created by humans. No matter how much we emphasize freedom and create many laws, it is of no use. If we teach the people of the world conscience, justice, and love, even if there are no laws, nothing unfortunate will ever happen in that society, and eventually that society will be able to transform into the most beautiful society.
The laws created by humans are so numerous and complex that ordinary people cannot even read them all. It would be nearly impossible to memorize so many complex laws with even a decent memorization ability. But what is the use even if there are people who memorize all the information and they become the leaders of a society? The fundamental cause of all life in the world is created through the activities of existing things. In other words, the things that exist in the activity become the cause and the living being is resurrected. Even if one is born into a rich family and grows up with good fertilizer, a wild persimmon tree can only produce persimmons which are not tasty. Isn't that right? No matter how poor a family one is born into, a sweet persimmon tree will produce sweet persimmons. Even though the tree is small, it produces large and delicious persimmons. This is what happens in the world.
In this era, all the laws created by the Creator in the beginning have disappeared, and a bad world created by the plans of evil humans is being created. There is a tremendous difference between the world five years ago and the world today. I don't know how much longer I will live, but I cannot guarantee what will happen in this era. It was really sad to see young people. How should they live from now on?
The purpose of coming here for all of you is for the sake of your own lives. Isn't it to come here in order to become someone who cultivates and nurtures their own life with their own strength, without lying, cheating, stealing, or harboring resentment towards others? The fact that there are no people with such purposes, learning or teaching something, is the biggest problem of this era. Going to a university without philosophy, just to obtain a diploma and get married or find a job, is truly a humorous matter.
There is a young man currently working hard in the United Kingdom. Hearing that he wasn't contributing much to his household, he was brought to the UK and encouraged to learn English. However, living in a positive society, he transformed into a hardworking individual. After about six months, he independently found a job and, later, gained admission to a university with a culinary program. After attending for about a year, he decided it was unnecessary to continue and expressed that learning on the job, especially in places like hotels, is much more beneficial than completing the university education solely for the sake of a diploma. Currently, he works at a restaurant in the heart of London, considered one of the top establishments in the world.
One of the biggest reasons why our society is going wrong right now is universities or college education. There is no country in the world with so many universities as Korea. In other words, it is the most complex country in the world. On the surface, it doesn't seem like it at all. People are well-dressed, their faces are straight, and they don't seem to have any problems. However, there was an article in today's newspaper that three Korean consuls stationed abroad held a press conference urging Korean travelers to shed their bad image. Because this society does not provide essential education to humans, members of the society ruin their purity due to their wrong thinking in the social environment and are eventually reborn as wrongdoers. This is very dangerous.
If you know in what way things in the world are decided and live accordingly, there will be no problem. There is a saying that if you live in violation of established principles, you will invite disaster, but if you live in accordance with principles, even the existing disaster will disappear. People now in this age are creating disaster.
People read newspapers or watch TV and think that science and technology are great. In reality, science and technology are showing tremendous progress in various fields, and people are enjoying the benefits. However, the development of material civilization based on the advancement of science and technology is causing mental pain to humans.
About fifty years ago, when I was in my early twenties, life for the people of this country was tough. They were economically impoverished, and the social environment was very harsh. However, society at that time had a keen sense of observation. People valued the way others perceived them. Nowadays, people don't consider others' eyes or perspectives as important.
It is very important for all of you to open your eyes to reality. There are predetermined things in the world. You need to open your eyes to see these predetermined things. Education is necessary for this. Through education, people must learn what to keep and how to do certain things. If you demand without keeping what needs to be kept, you cannot gain anything. If a farmer sows seeds, he must nurture them well to obtain a good income. If you only hope for a good harvest without going out every day to check if weeds are growing or if birds and animals are harming the crops, you will never get a good harvest. This is the reality of our society today. All kinds of excuses abound, and no one is keeping or doing what needs to be done, nor teaching others to do so.
People are born with themselves. That is, they are born again with themselves, based on the fundamental things that existed in themselves in the past. For this reason, living beings can never ignore all the connections they had in the past. Only through enlightenment can one be freed from the things that existed in bad relationships. If one does not realize this, their life will ruin themselves. You must remember this fact.
No one in today's world is willing to accept good things. When the world turns bad, there is no one to keep the good things. This is a phenomenon of the end times. Fortunately, you have heard about how the world will come to an end. If a world where people cannot live comes, the world will collapse. How terrifying things will happen in this world? This phenomenon is not limited to our country. It's the same all over the world. Everyone is playing a drama. No matter how good actors perform, they can never change the world. People like useless actors or singers and call them stars. When you see such phenomena, it seems so natural that no one thinks about the correct teachings or the purpose of why they should live in the present world.
I used to convey to people that I had attained the supreme enlightenment, but I no longer do so. Occasionally, while traveling, I happened to encounter people who claim to have achieved enlightenment or who claim to teach the truth. What such individuals are doing is quite terrifying. I once met a young man in the United States who was telling people that they needed to abandon themselves in order to attain enlightenment. What would happen if you abandon yourself? Who would come into that body if you abandon yourself? Would it be the spirits around you? It means that the things connected to the demons possessed by that young man come in. Those who have experienced this do not know what they are doing in a state of losing themselves.
Similar things also happen a lot in Korea. A young man in his twenties came to me for counseling with his younger brother about a dozen years ago. They said their father passed away and left behind a house. He had joined a certain organization where people said that if you donate money, you can go to a better place after death. When he said he didn't have money to donate, they told him to put up the house as collateral and borrow money to give them. He said he followed their instructions and ended up in a difficult situation. Legally, money donated to religious organizations cannot be refunded.
Here is another example. My younger cousin, one of my wife’s relatives who lives in Gimhae, married the son of a wealthy family who owned about 100,000 square meters of land in Gimhae. However, her husband happened to meet someone who told him that if he performed a specific ritual, their household would prosper even more. Eventually, he performed the ritual, and shortly after, he became mentally ill. It turned out that the person who advised him to perform the ritual was a member of an organization practicing Taegeukdo(太極道). They claimed that people could learn how to become sacred beings there.
As a side note, I once asked someone who claimed to do something similar:
"Does a sacred being himself teach how to become sacred beings at that place? Or have there been any people who have become sacred beings through that study?"
He couldn't provide any response.
The people from that organization told her husband that in order to empty his mind and become a sacred being, he needed to first abandon his possessions. Eventually, he gave up all of his belongings. However, despite donating all his wealth and efforts, he couldn't become a sacred being. When he kept asking the person who claimed to be his master, one day, that person disappeared without a trace. Despite searching everywhere and eventually giving up, her husband couldn't transform into a new person in such circumstances.
When people go to the wrong places, they come into contact with spirits in various ways and end up losing themselves. Their parents still think of them as their children because their bodies are those of their children. However, the consciousness within them is not that of their own children. People are unaware of this fact. There are many wrong individuals in the world selling enlightenment and falsehoods. For this reason, practicing righteous deeds and awakening humanity in the world is incredibly difficult and challenging. You must understand this fact well.
Due to incorrect education, society has become darker, scarier, and more hostile, reaching a point where people must be wary of one another. Through learning at this time, you must not forget how to protect yourself and achieve your desired goals in such a society. No one can be trusted. You can't trust your children, siblings, or neighbors.
Many people who live and die in a wrong society often have souls that do not undergo reincarnation. There are billions of souls in the world that haven't undergone reincarnation, wandering aimlessly because they have nothing to do. These souls target human bodies. You must be very careful about this. You must always keep in mind what is right, how to deal with things you encounter in this dangerous society, and who will give you trouble or ruin you. You should also always be vigilant about whether your parents are demanding things from you that might harm you, and whether your siblings are not a source of suffering for you.
The best teaching is to teach people to strive and live by their own strength. Training your children to live righteously by doing what is right blesses both the children and society. That is love for the children and love for society. I taught you that ‘love is a blessing, didn’t I? However, no matter how much I love, if I choose the wrong partner, my love will turn into unrequited love. If the other person is ignorant and so doesn't understand my heart, my love becomes unrequited. To become genuine individuals, we must also be able to do unrequited love. This is because, only through the experience of being deceived you can realize that no matter how much effort you put into people who are not compatible with you, it is of no use. Knowing this fact can make it possible for you to know whether or not to give up or whether or not back down in some cases if the other person doesn't like it.
Things of the world are already predetermined. In some eras, certain things are necessary to become materially wealthy, while in other eras, different things are required. However, one must never ruin oneself for the sake of wealth. Deceiving others, harming others, or taking away what belongs to others should never be done. If such actions become commonplace in this world, what difference would there be between this world and the world of animals? Education is what makes us uphold what we should uphold. What we do to protect ourselves is to protect others as well. If we do not learn what is right and fail to uphold it even after we learn it, there will be no righteous world. In today's society, the most precious things accumulated by humans are being forgotten. This phenomenon is a result of material civilization. In the future, this trend will worsen. You must always bear this fact in mind.
Computers have now become an indispensable necessity in our lives. However, you need to think about how much damage human society is suffering due to the development of computers. In other words, we must never forget that although we gain something due to the development of material civilization, we also lose more.