The Completed Testament Age Pastoral Counselling Text and Audio Lessons
2018-01-20 · Source: tparents.org
“How to solve the problems of our mind and emotions” by Yuji Ootomo. We have for you, this publication (pdf text and audio files), on internal guidance written by Yuji Ootomo, who is a clinical psychologist living in Japan.
He and his Korean wife have 4 children. Some years ago I invited him to come to Europe to lead 2 seminars and Tomoko Harris was working with me on that project. On the very day when everything was in place to announce his coming and begin to register participants, he had a massive stroke and has never fully recovered. He had worked with youth in Japan and counselling interracial couples in Korea and USA for many years, and I had great hopes that his seminars would open up a doorway especially for Japanese members to understand about psychology from the Divine Principle point of view, and begin to understand the patterns of behaviour in our families more clearly.
He was in a coma for several months and since becoming conscious he and his wife have continued on. Mrs. Ootomo works to support disadvantaged Blessed Children in Japan, as she cares for her children and husband who cannot speak or even feed himself. Tomoko Harris has kept in touch with them, and sent the attached photo when she visited them last year.
Fortunately for us, I was able to recover some of his writings that I collected as I came to know his work with the help of a dear friend Hiromi Stephens, and arrange for him to come. This month, will show his book and audio files entitled “The Completed Testament Age Pastoral Counselling” subtitled, “How to solve the the problems of our mind and emotions.” by Yuji Ootomo . Link to the online audio files click here
It is accompanied by a wonderful little book called “The Mirror Rule”, the Japanese version which is referred to in the on page 44. We have the english translation of this little book. Please read it before Mr Ootomo’s or at least when you get to page 44. (download link to the English version here soon)
Then, as you finish those two readings, you will have had a delicious feast for your mind and will be digesting a lot of wonderful thoughts about how the Divine Principle relates to family relationships. Beyond that, there are 8 Practical Steps you can take. You have to take the practical steps after you read the other material if you want to have an adventure in liberation for your heart and emotions, in the privacy of your own home, just with you and Heavenly Parent. To do the 8 practical steps you need to put aside 2 hours and be undisturbed by anything else.
Some of you may have already read these books because I sold many at seminars in 2012-13. Now we are making the English pdf electronic version available here. Please fully enjoy and share with others. If you have any questions about the ‘8 Practical Steps’ please email me at eublessings@gmail.com and I would be happy to make an appointment to follow up with you how to integrate those changes within yourself more deeply and progressively.
Wishing everyone a month of discovery, greater awareness and growing hope.
Sincerely, Susan Crosthwaite FFWPU UK Blessing Department
“Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling”
How to solve the problems of our mind and emotions
Mr. Yuji Otomo Clinical Psychologist
Table of Contents
Introduction, Second Generation’s problems and solutions…………………………………………………page 3
No.1 Completed Testament Pastoral Counselling…………………………………………………………………page 7
No.2 Anxiety and Anger………………………………………………………………………………………………………..page 11
No.3 Self-evaluation and Self-respect…………………………………………………………………………………..page 15
No.4 Course of the Fall and Motivation Seen from Anxiety and Anger……….………………..page 20
No.5 Cain and Abel’s Story seen from Anxiety and Anger………………………………………….…………..page 24
No.6 God’s Anxiety and Anger and the life of True Parents……………………………………………………page 28
No.7 God’s Anger and Lucifer’s Anger and the Value of True Parents………………………………….…page 31
No.8 Original Nature and Fallen Nature……………………………………………………………………………..…page 36
No.9 The Power of Give and Take Action……………………………………………………………………………….page 40
No.10 The Law of the Mirror……………………………………………………………………………………………….…page 44
No.11 The Solution to the Problems of the Mind and Tribal Messiahship……………………………page 48
No.12 Reality of “Thank you” and “I’m sorry”…………………………………………………………………………page 52
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling Mr. Yuji Ootomo
Clinical Psychologist Now that we are in the Age after the Coming of Heaven and now that we have completed the entering of the True Parents of Heaven and Earth into the Cheon Seong Goong Palace, the establishment of Cheon Il Guk is looming as a reality. However, when we look around us, we do not feel that happening. Nothing has changed. We even feel that our problems are growing and that Cheon Il Guk seems to be a thing of the distant future.
I hear that at a 40-day workshop for the Japanese wives of Japanese-Korean couples at Yeosu Father said, “If all blessed couples lived a happy life, Cheon Il Guk would have already been realized.” What a painful heart is expressed in these words!
By being blessed by True Parents we were engrafted into True Family as the blood lineage of God. Originally we should be living the happier life than anybody else in this world, in the love of God and the fortune of True Parents of Heaven and Earth. We ourselves also received the Blessing, believing it. However, in reality we have various problems.
Among those problems, the most serious problem is the one concerning the second generation. No matter how great the accomplishments by the first generation are, what kind of meaning do they have if their children, the second generation is not grafted into the lineage of God? Our greatest accomplishment is to leave God’s lineage behind. There is no greater accomplishment than this in human history.
However, those second generation have various problems today. They have problems such as truancy, delinquency, not going to church, not receiving the Blessing, etc. There are no other problems than the second generation problems which hurt the church, the hearts of their parents, especially God and True Parents of Heaven and Earth.
I am an instructor at a college and have been counseling many blessed families and the second generation as a counselor as well. Through this experience, one thing I can say confidently is that “there are no problems that cannot be solved, which involve the blessed families.” All problems can be solved, because the Divine Principle is the truth and True Parents of Heaven and Earth have won a victory over all the historical problems of mankind. If there were unsolved problems, it would mean that the Divine Principle is not the truth and that there are problems remaining unsolved, which True Parents of Heaven and Earth have not won a victory
over. However, the Divine Principle is the truth and True Parents of Heaven and Earth have won a victory. Therefore, all problems can be solved.
Besides, as I was counseling, I have seen blessed families with such serious problems I had thought that they might not be able to solve those problems many times. As I had the same experience repeatedly, I came to be able to say with confidence to the bones that all sorts of problems could be solved, not just as ideas or a matter of faith.
I counsel blessed families but also the general public at schools, hospitals and so on. From those experiences I can say that once the blessed families start changing, it is quick, compared with the average family. Changes occur to the blessed families before you know it, while they might take the average family several months to some years. When I witness it, I really feel that the blessed families are incredible. It is incredible that we get engrafted to the lineage of God, being cut off from the bondage of the Satanic lineage.
Then, why have the problems in the blessed families not been solved until now? Why do many second generation still have to worry and struggle with problems? It is because the method to solve those problems has not been appropriate. If an appropriate measure is applied to the problems, the situation will change and we will solve the problems.
Then, where did it go wrong in the method to solve the problems up until now? In the Divine Principle, the Introduction states that “…… the way of religion and the way of science should be integrated and their problems resolved in one united undertaking; the two aspects of truth, internal and external, should develop in full consonance. …… will we enjoy eternal happiness.”(Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 3) When we try to solve the problems blessed families and the second generation have, we need approaches from both internal and external sides (religion and science). If they cannot solve the problems they have had but not found a solution to those problems for a long time, they may have inclined to a method inclined to one side or they may have tried to approach the problems from both sides without coordination.
For example, you offer wish papers diligently and visit Cheong Pyung very often. This act itself is very important. However, it is not enough. It is simply the internal approach (the religious aspect) alone. It neglects the external approach (the scientific aspect). On the other hand, there are parents who go to a school counselor and consult on school education, trying to understand their children to become good parents. I think there is a lot to learn from the school counselor and that there are many cases in which the parents can change through counseling. However, it is not enough. The average counselor does not know the truth. Therefore, his advice has great limitations.
There are parents who go to Cheong Pyeong and go to counseling as well. In this case it would be fine as long as they can have a balancing act between the two. There are often cases in
which they do not know what to do due to the contradiction between their church leaders’ instructions and their counselor’s advice. In this case, their sincere effort will have an adversarial effect.
If you really intend to solve the problems, it is necessary to approach the problems, integrating both the religious aspect (the Words) and the scientific aspect (medicine, education, psychology, etc.) into one.
As a scholar of clinical psychology, a counselor and a UC member, I have been trying the approaches, which integrated both the Divine Principle and clinical psychology towards the second generation problems. In addition, when both approaches are integrated without a contradiction and shine a light on a method of solution, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
In addition, one more important thing is the responsibility of the person involved. No matter how great the Words are, no matter what great psychological therapies are conducted, unless the parents and their children themselves make an effort to try to change, there will be no difference at the end. No matter how much their church leader prays for them, how matter good their counselor’s advice, unless they try to change, they will get nowhere.
However, there are many cases in which the second generation do not know what to do. For example, there are children who know that they should go to school but cannot go. In addition, there are children who do not think that they have problems. They are the second generation who stopped going to church, saying that the church is wrong.
In this case, the important thing is the responsibility of their parents. The problems of the second generation (as well as ours, the first generation) occurred as the substantiation of the hereditary problems of the family tree. Therefore, the problems which are occurring now are not the responsibility of the second generation themselves. They occur because they are the ones which need to be solved through their lineage and it is a result of our (the first generation’s) inability to solve the problems, which have been passed on to next generation. Therefore, their lineage is the only key to solving the problems of the second generation. Concretely speaking, it is the parents and their children. The problems they could not solve will be passed on to the third or to the fourth generation until they are solved.
Therefore, it is important that the parents make an effort to solve the problems. The more problems the parents solve, the less problems the second and third generations will have. We can say that it is imperative that the parents fulfill their portion of responsibility.
Let us change the subject here a little. Let us talk about who the second generation are. What is the difference between the children who were born the second generation and those who were not? Are the second generation all smart, athletic, leader-type and like Superman?
Never! It is not the case. There are children who are smart and those who are not. Some run fast. Others are slow. Some are class presidents. Others meditate alone. That shows that not all of the second generation are superior in the general sense. There are quite a few children who were born disabled.
Then, what is the difference between the second generation and the others? No difference? If there is no difference, they are not the second generation. The second generation are totally different from the other children. They are totally different from us, the first generation as well. The difference is their lineage. They were born of God’s lineage. We, the first generation were engrafted to God’ lineage but were born of the Satanic lineage. This is the point that separates us apart. I am not talking about this as a matter of ideas or faith. This is what I feel.
Here is a story of a second generation child.
This child had a failed Blessing, lost hope, had a girlfriend and had lived together with her for some years. He was thinking about marrying her. However, he thought about the church. He wanted to settle with his faith before he had a regular wedding. After a lot of contemplation, he decided to attend a workshop. He thought he would leave the church after he attended the workshop.
It had been many years since he attended a workshop last time. He says he hated it but that he thought he had to make a conclusion by attending the workshop in order to break off from his faith within him. He fought himself trying to avoid attending the workshop. He arrived at the venue the day before and attended a prayer meeting at night prior to the workshop. He says that it was a long time since he had prayed last. He did not want to pray. Since everybody else was praying, he closed his eyes unwillingly and murmured, “Heavenly Father!”
Then, he heard the voice of God immediately, “I have been waiting for you.” His love surged upon him and filled him with His love. He felt the love of God so much that he could not even pray. After that he just kept on weeping on the floor. Then from the next day he kept crying throughout the workshop. So many tears kept coming down that after several days he prayed and asked God, “When tears come down, I cannot listen to the lectures. Please do not let me cry.” After that, he said, tears stopped coming down during the lectures.
When I heard this story, I realised that what the difference of lineage really meant. No matter how ardently I live the life of faith (even though I cannot say that I am doing it.), I realized that I can never reach the level of the relationship this second generation had with God.
This is what the difference of lineage is all about. You can do only so much with the 5% portion of man’s responsibility. Whatever type of the second generation he or she is, even if the person has fallen, the value as the second generation is far greater than what we, the first generation can achieve. This fact makes me feel ugly and painful when I look back on myself. However, on the other hand, I find hope in that the second generation is totally different from us, the first generation.
There are members who say that there is no hope when they look at the second generation. Others say that they do not behave like the second generation. I do not agree. It is for us, the first generation who see the second generation that way only and who cannot understand the hereditary value of the second generation that there is no hope.
No matter what kind of second generation they are, they are the children born of God’s lineage. Even if they are in a dire situation with hereditary problems of their ancestors, they will blossom as part of God’s lineage once we provide proper assistance and clean up their hereditary problems. In order to achieve it, our involvement as the first generation is very important.
Then, in order to solve various problems of the second generation, what kind of effort should we make as their parents? I will explain it in an orderly fashion next.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 1)
At this time I will talk about the “Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling.” I do not think you have heard about it since I named it at random.
I will explain the meaning of this title. The word “Pastoral counseling” is already used in the Christian church. The “ministry” means the work to lead the sheep (believers) to the Lord Jesus Christ. The person who does “ministry” is a “pastor” or a “minister.” The “Pastoral counseling” is counseling which is conducted to lead the believers to the Lord Jesus Christ based on the Christian faith.
The “Completed Testament Pastoral counseling” means counseling to lead and connect the UC members with True Family based on the words of True Parents of Heaven and Earth.
Then why the Completed Testament? We are now in the Age after the Coming of Heaven because of the victorious realm of True Parents. The Age after the Coming of Heaven means an age in which all victories have been won. Therefore, no counseling is originally needed in this age. However, though we UC members live in the Age after the Coming of Heaven due to the realm of the grace of True Parents’ victory, there are many people who still need counseling. Only when our hearts are changed and get connected to the realm of True Parents’ victory in the true sense, can we also live in the Age after the Coming of Heaven. That is, even though we
live in the Age after the coming of Heaven physically, our hearts cannot go into the Age after the Coming of Heaven. In addition, as a way of counseling to connect the hearts which are left behind to the Age after the Coming of Heaven, I named this the “Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling,” meaning the counseling for the remnants of the Completed Testament Age prior to the Age after the Coming of Heaven.
Next, I will explain how the Completed Testament Pastoral counseling came about. I went to Korea once a month last year (Cheon Il Guk Year 5) with an invitation from the Korean Blessed Family Department to counsel and hold seminars for the Japanese wives of Korean-Japanese couples. The hardships of the wives I met were beyond my imagination. I had heard about their various hardships in Japan. When I counseled them, I learned that it was common that their husbands did not have the faith. I am not exaggerating when I say various hardships such as domestic violence, mental illnesses and poverty. The number of cases I counseled for the year in Korea was over 140 families. Whichever family I mention, it is just the right expression to say that they are just surviving by faith alone, literally “surviving” in the midst of the hardships you can never imagine in Japan.
Father has once said, “When the Japanese wives of the Korea-Japanese couples go to the spirit world, they will be at a higher level than those of the Japanese Unification Church leaders.” I can truly believe that the words are true when I see those wives who endure the hardships with their faith alone in such an incredibly miserable situation.
Though I came to counsel those wives in such a dire situation, I was at a loss to be honest. Their situation was so severe that I could never think that I would be able to sort out their feelings by counseling them and solve their problems.
I had been counseling Japanese members in Japan before. However, even though their situations were difficult, none of them were as miserable as that of those wives in Korea. That is why I could deal with them with the general psychological theory and techniques I had been studying till then. In other words, I had been dealing with them in the same way as those who were not in the church and even so, their situations had improved accordingly.
However, I could not do anything about the Japanese wives of Korean-Japanese couples with the conventional psychological theory and techniques. Therefore, I was searching for an answer, while just listening to what they had to say.
As I was counseling them in that manner, I began to see some cases, in which their feelings changed and their situations improved. Why did they improve? To be honest, I had no idea. As I kept on counseling them, I saw more cases of improvement. I kept thinking why those Korean-Japanese families in such a dire situation could change and what was leading them to change. With various guidance of God, I could sum up what the problems of the Korean-
Japanese families (blessed families) were, what kind of perspective they should have to understand their problems and how they should solve the problems.
This is how the Completed Testament Pastoral counseling was theorized and systematized. It has the word “counseling,” it is totally different from ordinary counseling. What differs is that it is based on Father’s words. To put it concretely, recognizing that all the problems we are currently having are historical ones our blood lineage is carrying, we find a way to solve them from the viewpoint that we are sorting out the historical problems.
Since the Completed Testament Pastoral counseling was systematized, I could carry out counseling the Korean-Japanese families with confidence. It is because I could have the image of solving their problems myself.
In Korea the “International Family Support Center” was opened last October on the third floor of the brand-new headquarters near Seoul Station. The Korean Blessed Family Department made this a reality to support the miserable situation of the international families. In addition, each of the 18 districts in Korea came to have a counselor as a support center chapter. In this year the headquarters hosts regular training seminars to educate those counselors. I am one of the lecturers there. In the seminar the central training as a support technique is the Completed Testament Pastoral counseling. Through the introduction of the Completed Testament pastoral counseling the problems of the Korean-Japanese families are getting solved gradually.
Needless to say, the Completed Testament Pastoral counseling is good not only for the Korean- Japanese families. In the case of counseling Japanese-Japanese families I use this Completed Testament Pastoral counseling in Japan as well. Because of that, more problems are being solved than before. Furthermore, I am also utilizing it when I counsel non-church members such as college and middle school students. As a result, it proves to be more effective than the conventional counseling method. It is only natural that it is more effective since it is based on the universal truth.
Next, I will explain what the Completed Testament Pastoral counseling is like.
First of all, we have to think what kind of status an “illness of the mind” or a “problem of the mind” is. It is difficult to define the illness of the mind academically. There is a publication which classifies the illness of the mind, which is “DMS –IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition).” This is a diagnostic standard for mental illnesses, which was determined by the US Psychiatric Association. This was published in Japanese as well. The book has *** [blank]pages and 17 chapters with large titles as for mental illnesses. Well-known illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression are defined and classified according to this diagnostic standard. By the way, even though these mental illnesses are diversified, there are two common elements.
1. They cannot see things objectively. 2. They cannot behave rationally or suitably.
For example, as for schizophrenia, which is considered a pronoun for mental illnesses, its typical symptom is a “delusion.” This is an illness that they believe something that cannot be possible in reality. For example, an illness called a bloodline delusion is a case in which the person believes that he or she is a descendent of the imperial family or that he or she is an illegitimate child of Rockefeller. Of course, such things cannot be true. The state of this kind of delusion is a typical example of the case in which you cannot see things objectively.
For another example, in the case of depression, which is called a “cold of the mind,” they think that “I cannot do anything right.” and it often incapacitates them. In reality, there is no case in which you cannot do anything right. Even if you cannot score 100 marks, you might get 70 marks. However, once you get depressed, you cannot help but think about everything pessimistically. This is another example of a case in which you cannot see things objectively.
In addition, there is famous anorexia among eating disorders. Once you get this, an adult female who weighs less than 110 pounds thinks that she is too fat and that she has to lose more weight. In this case as well, she cannot see her physical appearance objectively.
Likewise, when we are contracted with a disease of the mind, we cannot see things objectively in many cases.
Next, I will give an example of a case in which you cannot act rationally or appropriately. There is a disease called a threat disorder. A famous one is a symptom called a cleansing disorder. In this symptom, he feels that his hands are dirty and he keeps washing his hands with soap for 10 to 20 minutes. He feels somehow it is useless but he cannot stop the behavior.
In addition, as one of the above-mentioned eating disorders, if it comes to overeating, you will keep eating even if you feel that you should not eat any longer. Besides, after you finish eating, you fall into self-loathing and throw up. At this point you feel that you should not but you end up throwing up. In this case as well, even though you know intellectually, you cannot act rationally.
In another case of depression, even if you know should do something, you cannot. For example, even if you think you should go to work, you cannot.
As described above, the state of a disease of the mind is as such and you cease to be able to see things objectively and cannot behave rationally or appropriately. That state of the mind manifests in different symptoms.
Then why do these things happen? What is behind the diseases of the mind is anxiety. When we are anxious, we cannot see things objectively. Besides, in that situation, we cannot behave rationally or appropriately. On the other hand, when anxiety diminishes, we begin to be able to see things
objectively. Therefore, we can say that this anxiety is the very identity that causes all sorts of problems of the mind in us.
Moreover, the reason why anxiety is the problem is that it leads to anger. When the anxiety level increases, it causes frustration. In addition, when the frustration comes to its limit, you feel like lashing out at someone. After that you feel self-disgusted and depressed.
Likewise, anxiety and anger are two sides of the coin and the viscous cycle of this anxiety and anger causes all sorts of problems. Therefore, when we try to solve the problems of the mind, we need to know well about anxiety and anger.
Then what are anxiety and anger like? And how do they come about? Moreover, what are we supposed to do to minimize anxiety and anger?
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 2: Anxiety and Anger)
Last time I mentioned that the diseases of the mind are the state of “not being able to see things objectively and not being able to behave rationally or appropriately.” In addition, I mentioned that what was behind those diseases was anxiety and this anxiety led to anger.
This time I will talk about these anxiety and anger in detail.
Anxiety means the state of restlessness, anticipating that something bad might happen. It is a state in which you wonder if it is ok without doing anything about something or you think something serious might happen, thus you cannot sit still. When you feel anxious, you feel that you have to do something and take action. You feel pushed by anxiety. In this kind of state of the mind it does not bring good results in many cases. It is because as mentioned above, when anxiety arises, you cannot see things objectively and cannot act rationally or appropriately.
Besides, to the contrary, when you are stricken with anxiety, you do nothing and feel immobilized. Those who see your situation feel that something grave will happen unless something is done. Even in this kind of situation, you will not (cannot) do anything about it, which only frustrates the people around you. This is the case in which you cannot see reality due to the anxiety.
In any case, I think you can understand that as the anxiety level increases, you cannot see things objectively or take a rational or appropriate action.
A greater problem than anxiety is anger. Anger is a “destructive impulse.” Anger destroys everything. Nothing comes out of anger. Even if you get angry and say something based on the anger, it only destroys the other and the relationship between the two of you. In addition, at the end the anger will destroy you. Therefore, those who are angry tend to harm their health.
Daemonim gave 11 articles as conditions in life to go to Heaven (probably in 1999). The first one listed in them is: “Never get angry.” Many of you may already know them but I will introduce all of them:
1. Never get angry. (When you get angry, God and the spirit world cannot come and go back to Cheong Pyeong.) 2. Fear the invisible world. (After 2000, if you do not know the spirit world clearly, problems will occur.) 3. Cleanse your heart and mind so that God can dwell inside you. (life of sanctity) 4. No drinking. No smoking. (My body is the temple of God. Once my body is defiled, God cannot dwell in me.) 5. Never fall. (Chapter II problem: Do not see/watch obscene magazines, TV movies and adult videos. Do not go into a bad environment full of temptation.) 6. Fear public money. (tithing, family donations and public donations) 7. Do not hurt the hearts of people. (Cain-Abel problem, conjugal problems, etc.) 8. Centered on the church, live the right life of faith. (Attend Sunday service without fail. Take public meetings seriously. Attend them as a family.) 9. Host a family service once a week. (Have a dialogue between husband and wife, parents and children so that nobody may have secrets.) 10. Get interested in bringing back ex-members. Visit them with love and get them connected to the church. 11. Be ardent about having Hoon Dok Hae and witness. (Note: Words change as the times change. For example, recent words by Daemonim mention 3/10 instead of 1/10 as for public money. Heeding such historical changes about the above-mentioned 11 articles, I encourage you to relate to the latest words.)
By the way, when members who have been working hard leave the church, they often tend to leave the church with a grudge. It is the same when the second generation fall. They fall with a grudge. Then what is a grudge? What is the difference between bitterness and grudge?
In general, we use both of them indiscriminately in Japanese. However, we members use them separately. First of all, as for bitterness, it means the “sadness due to an unfulfilled ideal or goal.” We call this “heart of han.” Basically this is a heart of sadness. When Adam and Eve fell without fulfilling the ideal of creation, the heart of God was the heart of han. It basically indicates the sad heart of God.
On the contrary, the grudge indicates the feeling of “han + anger.” Apart from han it comes with the destructive impulse. Therefore, when we mention a deep-seated grudge, we are talking about making someone miserable or cursing him to death. That is, when a member or a second generation leaves the church, there is anger behind it and the anger is pointed towards
themselves. That is why they leave the way of life. This is how we can see it. That can be called a “spiritual suicide.”
The Divine Principle Chapter 2 Section 5 “Freedom and Fall” reads: “Freedom cannot exist outside the Principle. — Therefore, it cannot be that freedom caused the human fall.” Today the society is inundated with information about sex. The environment to tempt the second generation is abundant. However, their curiosity alone does not cause their fall. When they fall, they have a grudge against their parents or the church without fail. That is, since they have anger, they destroy themselves. Of course, if they have never received Principle education and do not know about God and True Parents, that is another issue.
I think you could understand anxiety and anger are a serious problem. Then how do we handle the anxiety and anger within?
The first step is to understand the structure of anxiety and anger.
Many people think that the cause of their anxiety and anger lies in somebody else or their environment. That is, they think that they feel anxious because for example they have debt, or that they are angry because someone said such and such. Likewise, the cause does not lie in them but something makes them anxious or angry. However, this is a grave mistake. Jumping to the conclusion, the cause of anxiety and anger lies within me.
Let us think about anxiety first. Those who come to me for consultation say, “I’m worried about debts.” “I’m worried that my husband might be having an affair.” In many cases, people like these do not know what to do in the midst of their anxiety. However, even if others have the same amount of debts or more, they do not worry about them but work hard to try to pay them back. There are also others who cannot pay them back at all. They may declare bankruptcy based on the law and start all over again. In either case they are not swamped in anxiety and try to deal with their problems, accepting their reality.
It is the same in the case of the husband’s affair. There are wives who are lost in anxiety and do not know what to do. On the other hand, there are wives who go to the woman’s house and convince her to break up with her husband. There are others who reflect on their attitudes as a wife and make an effort to win back their husbands by becoming a better wife. In other words, even though they are in the same boat or in a worse situation, there are people who do not get anxious.
Let me bring up another example. There is a disease called comprehensive anxiety disorder. In the past I have had a client who had this disease. He gets anxious about small things. One day he came in for a session. He looked anxious when he came to the office. I asked him; “Do you have anything you are worried about?” He answered; “Can you tell? In fact, I won a lottery.”
He said that because he won the lottery, he thought that something bad might happen when in bed, which led him to insomnia.
You may think that it is silly to get anxious just because he won a lottery. That is correct. But I think it clearly shows the essence of anxiety, which is that it is not the situation but the problems in my heart.
It is the same in the case of anger. In general, we think that we get angry because the other party is wrong. We say that we get angry because this happened and that happened since the other person is wrong but not me. Is it truly the case?
There are people who are said to tend to get angry easily. They get angry about anything. While such a person is reading the paper, he might say, “How selfish is Bush!” or “The government always sides with the rich.” When he is walking on the street and stumble on something, he would say, “Who did this? Who dropped this and left this here?” and gets angry. On the other hand, those who are mild-minded and patient do not get angry even in the same situation. While reading the paper, he might say, “The society has become hopeless!” and lament. But he will not get angry. Even if he stumbles on the object on the street, he would say, “If this stays here, it would be dangerous,” and he would put it away. He does not really get angry.
Likewise, there are people who get angry and those who do not in the same situation. When we think about this one example, we can see that anger occurs not because the other person is wrong but it is the anger within me. However, in many cases we blame the shift on the other about our anger. We think that because the other person is wrong, we get angry. Why? It is because anger is a fallen nature. Because of that we shift blame on somebody else. The person who has a destructive impulse is and we justify ourselves and shift blame on somebody else for our anger. Still, there are people who say, “The other person is wrong!” It might be true. He might be wrong and you might be the victim. However, even so you should not be angry. Even if you are angry, nothing is solved. On the contrary, it only causes a chain reaction. Since the fall, such a chain reaction of anger has spread, screaming, “Because the other person is wrong, I get angry!” That is how the miserable hell on earth has spread out.
Then what should we do when the other person is wrong? It is what we have already learned from Jesus and True Parents. It is simply to forgive him. If you do so, he might take it for granted and do something bad. Even so, we cannot help but forgive him.
When I gave a talk on this, I received a question; are we not supposed to get angry even if we get killed? I could not help but chuckle. The answer is: You are not supposed to get angry even if you get killed. Jesus was such a person who did not get angry even if he was killed.
I have seen a movie entitled “The Passion.” This is a movie which became a worldwide sensation. It depicts scenes from the Bible, starting with Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane to his crucifixion. He gets betrayed by his disciples, impugned, tried in an unjust court, whipped, ridiculed and at the end goes to the spirit world on the cross. During that time he never got angry. He did not get angry even though he was killed, but simply forgave. Therefore, the way to the spiritual salvation was opened. If he had lashed out his anger against his disciples, crowds, those who falsely testified against him, he would not have opened the way to the spiritual salvation.
Therefore, even when the other person is wrong, it is important not to get angry, to see things objectively and to take action rationally and appropriately. This is the best way to solve problems.
I expanded the topic too widely. However, I think you could understand the structure of anxiety and anger; the problems or diseases of the mind come from these anxiety and anger; they are the two sides of the coin and lie within me.
By the way, when anxiety grows bigger, it leads to fear. Fear is no different from anger. Fear causes panic. When fear grows even bigger, it turns into despair. Kierkegaard once said that despair is a “disease which leads to death.” You simply become lethargic and accept your bad situation.
Then how should we overcome anxiety and anger? In order to do this we need to know how we fall into the mental status of anxiety and anger.
I will explain where they come from next.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 3: Self-evaluation and Self-respect)
Last time I mentioned that there is anxiety behind the problems and diseases of the mind, that as the anxiety level increases, it leads to anger and that it is within us that the seed of anxiety and anger lies, instead of the environment or the other person. This time I would like to talk about where the anxiety within us comes from.
When do we feel anxious? The anxiety level increases when we are put in a negative environment or receive negative messages. The negative environment means negative aspects for you such as bad family dynamics, getting sick, getting low grades at school, work not going well, a lack of money (an increase of debts), getting involved in an accident or a crime, being in a war, etc. They range from things close to home to anxieties for the whole society. The negative messages mean a message which denies our deeds or character by being scolded in such a way as “What are you doing?” “You can’t do such a thing!” “You are making the same mistakes!” “Don’t get involved anymore!” and “Don’t get close to me!” Whoever is in this kind
of negative environment or receives such messages, he or she feels anxious and their anxiety level increases.
On the other hand, when you are put in a positive environment or receive positive messages, your anxiety level decreases and you can live a peaceful life. The positive environment means the opposite of the negative environment, that is, “Great! You can do it if you try!” “You are going to be OK if you do as you have been doing.” “I owe it to you.” “You are a good person.” “I enjoy your company,” etc. These are the messages which give you credit for your deeds or character. When you are in such a positive environment or receive positive messages, you will feel calm and relieved.
Then why does a negative environment or messages increase anxiety? They lower your self- evaluation. The self-evaluation means a feeling that you are capable of doing or overcoming something and that you can do it if you try. When you are in a negative environment or receive negative messages, you feel like you are no good or that you do not qualify for something. Therefore, you cannot have a perspective that you can improve your situation and thus the anxiety level increases.
On the contrary, a positive environment or message helps increase your self-evaluation. Concretely speaking, you begin to have a feeling like you can do it or you are OK.
By the way, the counselor always tries to relate to his clients positively during counseling. One of the most important attitudes he should have is to relate to his clients with an unconditional positive consideration. Such an attitude has an effect that it increases his clients’ self- evaluation and reduces their anxiety. Please do your best not to get angry at people who come to you for counseling or respond to them negatively. Even if you intend to encourage them, in many cases your negative approach will reduce their self-evaluation and make to harder to solve their problems.
Now I think you understand that the anxiety level will increase by a negative environment or message. There is a problem we have to think about. For sure, when many people are put in a negative environment or receive negative messages, their self-evaluation decreases and their anxiety level increases and when they are put in a positive environment or positive messages, their self-evaluation increases and their anxiety level decreases. However, for some people it is not the case. Even if they encounter a negative environment or negative messages, their self- evaluation does not decrease. To the contrary, in that negative environment they overcome the difficult situation and solve their problems, saying, “This is where I can prove myself.” Even if they receive negative messages, get scolded and insulted, they think that they are telling them those things for their sake. Likewise, they use those as food for their growth. In general, they are often called Polianna (Ms. Positive.)
On the other hand, there are people whose self-evaluation does not increase even if they encounter a positive environment or positive messages. When they get praised, they say, “Oh, I’m not that great,” and put themselves down. Even if things go well for them, they say, “It’s not that I did well. I just happened to be lucky.” It is important to be humble, but it is not good to put yourself down. Such people tend to see only the bad side of things and always feel anxious. Those who tend to have problems or diseases of the mind are the ones who always feel anxious without their self-evaluation increasing even if they are in a positive environment or receive positive messages.
As mentioned above, there are people who do not have lower self-evaluation even if they are in a negative environment or receive negative messages. On the other hand, there are people who do not have high self-evaluation in a positive environment or with positive messages. From where does this difference come?
It comes from the difference of the feeling of a self-respect behind their self-evaluation. The feeling of self-respect is literally the feeling to respect self. It is not that you are valuable because you have abilities or something attractive. It is a feeling that you have confidence that you are allowed to exist even if you cannot do anything or whatever you do. That is, it is a sense that you accept who you are.
Self-evaluation changes as the surroundings change. For example, I can do well academically, but I am not so good at sports. In this case, your self-evaluation may increase in English or math class. However, it may decrease in P.E. class.
However, self-respect does not get affected by the surroundings. The person with the feeling of self-respect may easily have lower self-evaluation even in his favorite English or math class as soon as he faces something he does not understand and feel uneasy. It might be much more so in P.E. class and he may feel so painful just to be in the class. On the other hand, the person with high self-respect may enjoy English or math class regardless of his self-evaluation of his classmates and enjoy P.E. class with his classmates even if he is not good at it.
In short, self-respect is not determined by exterior elements such as the surroundings or other people’s opinions but it is something he holds up from within as a conviction of his existence.
This self-respect affects their feelings towards others. Those who have high self-respect not only accept themselves as they are, but also accept others as they are. Whether they are smart or not, whether they are good at sports or not, whether they are pretty or not, they can accept others as they are.
However, those with low self-respect cannot only accept themselves as they are but also have a hard time to accept other as they are because they value themselves in their relationships with others. They maintain their self-evaluation by looking for better points, compared with others,
saying, “My grades are good,” or “I’m athletic.” Because of this they end up judging others in the same manner, saying, “That person’s grades are good,” or “That person is very athletic.”
I reiterate here that those with low self-respect always value themselves in relation to others and cannot accept themselves as they are. They always feel lonely. They always have a sense somewhere in their minds that “Nobody values me unless I am smart,” “I cannot be accepted unless I am helpful to others,” and that “It doesn’t matter whether or not I exist.” In other words, they feel that they are someone who is accepted conditionally and not someone who is respected unconditionally. That is why they have a hard time to find their own place and susceptible to loneliness.
Then how is self-respect developed? From where does the difference between the person with high self respect and the one without come?
It is formed by the child’s environment and messages he receives from his parents. If the child is filled with his parents’ love and raised in a stable environment, his self-respect will increase. On the contrary, if the child does not receive enough love from his parents or experiences his parents’ divorce which puts him in a negative environment or does not receive positive messages, his self-respect will decrease.
It is clear that in many instances, when the child grows up without receiving enough proper nurturing from his parents, he will have a hard time with relationships in his adulthood.
Those who grew up in these dysfunctional families and have such difficulties are called “adult children.” I will list up the characteristics of those adult children briefly. For those who would like to get more information on adult children, I recommend you to read introductory books on the subject since there are many books on it.
Characteristics of Adult Children:
*Not confident of their decisions *In constant need of other people’s agreements and praises *A tendency to think that they are different from others *A tendency to get hurt easily and withdraw into themselves *Loneliness/Self-alienation *Erratic emotions *Hard to complete their jobs *Habitual to lie *A tendency to feel guilty/self-punishing and self-tormenting *Excessively self-reproaching but irresponsible on the other hand *Poor recognition, expression and control of their emotions *An excessive reaction to things they have no control over
*A tendency to get obsessive with taking care of someone *Excessively self-sacrificial *Get absorbed in something and hard to change to other things *Impulsive/active and get into trouble due to that *Dependent on others but very domineering on the other hand *Incapable to relax and have fun
What are the negative messages from parents like? The most hurtful things for children are parents’ anger and indifference. I think you can easily understand about parents’ anger. As I mentioned earlier, the anger is a destructive impulse. The parental anger destroys children’s heart, character and dignity. Therefore, it creates children who cannot have self-confidence with low self-respect.
The more damaging than parents’ anger is indifference. Mother Teresa left a phrase; the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference.” For small children their parents are everything in the world. The fact that the children who do not receive attention from their parents is the same thing as they do not receive attention from the world. Therefore, it is the same as that the value of their existence is denied. Those children who do not receive attention from their parents try to get their attention to the extent of doing something bad. If they do something bad, their parents will scold them. Being ignored is worse than being scolded. Therefore, those children who do not receive attention from their parents intentionally do something bad to get their parents’ or other adults’ attention.
When do parents get indifferent toward their children? That is when they become full of anxiety themselves. When they become anxious, they are absorbed in themselves and do not have room in their heart to pay attention to their surroundings. Therefore, when they are full of anxiety, they cannot pay attention to their children.
That is, anger and indifference, the parents’ negative message for their children are derived from their parents’ own anxiety and anger.
Now you understand that as we look into the diseases and problems of the mind, there are anxiety and anger behind them, further low self-evaluation and low self-respect behind them and, furthermore, anxiety and anger the parents carry behind them. Namely, our problems of the mind come from the problems our parents carry. There is a saying that the family culture is passed on. Children who grew up, being abused think that they do not want to raise their children the way they were raised when they become parents. However, even so, they end up abusing their children. Such a chain of abuse is a form of the succession of the family culture.
Then, from where did anxiety and anger within us come? I will explain the history of the problems.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 4: Course of the Fall and Motivation Seen from Anxiety and Anger)
Last time, I mentioned that the anxiety and anger within us come from those of our parents. As a reminder, let us look back on what we have learned so far.
1. The common factor in the diseases and problems of the mind is that “they cannot see things objectively” and that “they cannot act rationally or appropriately.”
2. Anxiety lies behind those problems and as the anxiety increases, it turns into anger. Then, after the anger increases and explodes, people fall into self-hatred and their anxiety increases. They repeat this vicious cycle.
3. Anxiety and anger come from within, not from other people or the environment and increase through a negative environment or negative messages. They decrease through a positive environment or positive messages.
4. There are low self-evaluation and low self-respect behind anxiety and anger.
5. The feeling of self-respect is formed in the family relationships during childhood. Those with low self-respect are often hurt by their parents since their childhood.
6. The greatest cause which hurts children’s self-respect is their parents’ anxiety and anger.
This can be shown as in the figure below: Figure: Background of Problems of the Mind
Problems of the Mind
• Cannot see things objectively • Cannot act rationally or appropriately
Anger Anxiety ----- Anxiety grows according to negative environment or messages and decreases according to a positive environment or messages Root of anxiety = Low self-evaluation
Loneliness ---------------- Low self-respect
Negative environment since childhood Negative messages from parents Parents’ anxiety and anger
There is one thing in this figure I did not explain previously. That is “loneliness.”
I already explained that there is a low level of the feeling of self-respect behind anxiety and that it comes from a negative environment or negative messages from parents during childhood. Those who grew up throughout their childhood that way feel lonely somewhere in their hearts. They have feelings such as “Anyway I’m not someone who should be taken care of well.” or “Nobody can understand me.” In other words, I may as well say that the low level of the feeling of self-respect is synonymous with loneliness.
Then, from where do parents’ anxiety and anger come? As our anxiety and anger come from our own parents, their anxiety and anger come from their parents, that is, our grandparents. Then, from where do those grandparents’ anxiety and anger come? Their parents! What about those great grandparents’? Again their own parents and so on and on …….
How far does this chain of anxiety and anger go back? Those who know the Divine Principle can tell that they go all the way back to Adam and Eve. That is, our anxiety and anger started with Adam and Eve and they have been passed down to us through the blood lineage. Besides, it happened as a result of the fall.
As members of the church, you must have heard many times about the motivation and the course of the fall. Let us think about the motivation and process of the fall from the viewpoint of anxiety and anger.
In the Divine Principle Chapter 2 Section 2 (1) The Spiritual Fall, the motivation of the Archangel Lucifer’s fall is described as the “lack of love.” The Archangel who had served God since the beginning of the creation learned that God gave Adam and Eve the three great blessings, felt a lack of love and seduced Eve. What kind of state of the mind was Lucifer in at that time?
I digress but there is a word called “resentment.” There are two types of Kanji for this word [both pronounce the same way] in Japanese but we use them interchangeably. However, in our church we use them differently. One (“urami” or “han”) is sometimes described as the “heart of han [in Korean]” and it means “sadness or pain when an ideal or hope was not fulfilled.” In order to ease this type of “urami (resentment),” the person or somebody else on his behalf needs to fulfill the unfulfilled ideal or hope. God heart, True Parents’ heart and the historical hearts of the Koreans are considered this type of “heart of han.” True Parents have resolved the han of God by fulfilling His ideal of creation on His behalf.
On the contrary, the other “urami” is “resentment + anger.” “Han” is basically sadness and therefore it does not accuse someone. But the other “urami” contains anger and it accuses someone. When we say, “How can I leave this urami (resentment) unrevenged?”, it means that we try to make someone miserable or curse him to death. This is because there is anger in “urami” which is a destructive impulse.
Then, when the Archangel Lucifer felt a lack of love, did he have this “han” or “urami”? If he had felt “han,” I do not think that the fall would have taken place. “Han” is basically the heart of sadness. So Lucifer would have felt the sadness that he was not loved by God. In order to resolve the sadness he would have had to be loved by someone in the same position as God’s. If he had had that kind of heart of han, Lucifer could not have helped but look for someone who could love him instead of God. He would have learned that it was only Adam and Eve and that he would have waited for them to grow up to receive the same love from them as from God and thus he would have resolved his han.
However, when Lucifer felt the lack of love, he must have had “urami (resentment).” That is, I think that he must have had anger as well as sadness. As I indicated on the diagram, when he saw God give the three great blessings to Adam and Eve, his feeling of self-respect was hurt. He felt lonely and anxious about his very existence. This anxiety must have turned into anger.
As I explained earlier, anger is a destructive impulse. Lucifer might have thought that he wanted to hurt God who hurt him but he cannot hurt God directly since He IS God. That is when Eve might have caught his attention. As the Divine Principle states, Eve who was receiving God’s love must have looked beautiful to Lucifer. However, if Lucifer had related to Eve, feeling the original love for her, he would not have fallen no matter how beautiful Eve was since the original love desires happiness for the other. However, since Lucifer had anger, he not only loved her but also threw his destructive impulse at her. Then the fall took place.
As a result, God’s ideal of creation was destroyed. In addition, Lucifer inflicted deep sorrow on God. He left the position of the archangel and died spiritually (?). That is, we can say today that he carried out a so-called “suicidal bombing.”
Think about Palestinian young people who die as suicidal terrorists. They do not have hope. It turns into anger and is directed toward Israel. Because there is strong backing of the US, Israel is formidable and they cannot do anything about it. Therefore, they wrap bombs around their bodies and hurt Israelis in exchange with their lives.
In the midst of sorrow which came from the lack of love, Lucifer threw his anger at God who is all powerful by causing Adam and Eve, whom God loved most, to fall and thus destroyed the ideal of creation and killed himself, in spite of the fact that God loved Lucifer, too.
The Divine Principle states that Adam and Eve who fell due to Lucifer’s temptation inherited all proclivities incidental to the fall when they had a sexual relationship. We call them the primary characteristics of the fallen nature. Adam and Eve must have inherited intense anxiety and “anger (destructive impulse)” from Lucifer due to the fall.
Let us think about the hearts of Adam and Eve after the fall. After the fall, God said to Eve, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your
desire shall be for your husband. And he shall rule over you,” and He said to Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the ants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” When Adam and Eve heard this, what did they think of this? They must have been conscience-stricken and intensely anxious.
After they were chased out of the Garden of Eden and started a new life, what was their family like?
As I mentioned earlier, they must have been intensely anxious. They must have been confused without any perspective or hope for the future, not knowing what to do. Anxiety turns into anger. I suspect that since the anxiety must have been intense after the fall away from the ideal of creation, the intensity of anger must have been also great in their family. Every time Adam remembered the anxiety after the fall, the anxiety must have turned into anger and the anger must have been directed toward Eve who seduced him. He could have insulted Eve in a loud voice. He could have lost control over his anger and hit and kicked Eve. When he thought he did not want to see Eve’s face, he could have gone out and would not have come back home for many days.
What about Eve? Eve’s anxiety could have been greater than Adam’s. Her anxiety about her future must have been as great as Adam’s. Her guilty conscience that she became the cause of the fall could have driven her into the corner. In addition, she would have had to endure Adam’s anger.
Naturally, the intense anxiety within Eve could also have turned into anger. To who was her anger directed? Probably it could have been her first born child, Cain. When Eve was frustrated, she could have been hard on Cain. Possibly she could have hit Cain. When she was occupied by her anxiety, she could not have taken care of Cain and left him alone. She could not have prepared meals for him. In the midst of it, even if Cain was good, her mother, Eve could not have paid much attention to him. Cain could have tried to call his mothers’ attention by doing something bad.
Namely, Adam’s family, the first human ancestors could have been a dysfunctional family full of domestic violence and child abuse.
Next, I would like to talk about Cain and Abel’s story from the viewpoint of anxiety and anger after Adam’s family.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 5: Cain and Abel’s Story Seen from Anxiety and Anger)
Last time I mentioned that Adam’s family, the first human ancestors could have been a dysfunctional family full of domestic violence and child abuse. When anxiety turned into anger, Adam who was full of anxiety due to the fall could have been violent against Eve and left home without returning for many days. When Eve was full of anxiety, she could have spent many days crying without even taking care of her son. When her anxiety turned into anger, she could have been hard on Cain and hit him. This could have been a picture of Adam’s family.
Since Cain was the first-born son, he could have taken all of Adam and Eve’s anxiety and anger on himself. Depending on the mood of his parents, he could have been scolded or beaten or left alone when he was hungry. He could have helplessly witnessed in fear his parents arguing with each other.
On the contrary, how about the time Abel was born? Some years have passed since the fall and Adam and Eve could have calmed down a little. In addition, after Cain girls might have been born, which could have changed the family atmosphere considerably. Abel was born to that kind of environment. In general, younger siblings grow up, looking up to their older siblings. They often tend to be said clever and good at gaining their parents’ favor. Abel also could have grown up clever, looking up to his older siblings and gained a favor from his older sisters, too. Moreover, time has passed since the fall and Adam Eve must have calmed down and mellowed. Growing up in that kind of environment, Abel could have been good at repaying his parents’ love and have been cute.
Looking at Abel like that, how could his brother, Cain have felt? Surely when Abel was born and was being raised, Cain could have often been scolded by his parents. He could have been abused by his parents since he was a small child and have grown up twisted. He could have done intentionally something his parents did not like.
In addition, Adam and Eve could have loved Abel unconditionally but could have struggled with Cain, who reminded them of the fall. Therefore, they could have been hard on Cain even after he became an adult. That is, it is likely that they could not relate to Cain and Abel equally, in spite of being their own children, and loved Abel but were hard on Cain. Cain who grew up in that kind of environment must have been envious of Abel and mean to him, struggling with his situation. Therefore, it was natural that their relationship could have been bad, rather than not being in good terms.
The Bible has a story of Cain and Abel, in which Cain kills Abel after the story of the paradise lost. It is plausible that there was the above-mentioned family background.
Cain and Abel are brothers. In the first family in humankind, a fratricide, that is, a domestic killing took place.
Recent newspapers carry articles about domestic killings. There are killings between parents and children and between brothers. They are not the only killings. Domestic killings are rather rare, compared to all killings. Then why do they take up a big space in the newspapers? I t is because it is so tragic that family members kill each other and because it is hard for the general public to understand. The fact that the domestic killing which is considered so tragic even in today’s fallen society happened in Adam’s family, the first family of mankind proves that Adam’s family was in a tragic situation just as today’s desolate society and families.
When Cain and Abel who grew up in the above-mentioned family situation made an offering to God, He accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. What was Cain’s heart like then? It was Cain that was given a hard time by his parents in his childhood, lowering his self-respect and grew up twisted. It is Cain that was envious and jealous of Abel who was loved by their parents. When God accepted Abel’s offering but not his, he could have thought; “Is even God ignoring me?” “I’m no good. I’m a man nobody cares about!” He could have become desperate and angry. When he saw Abel who was loved by God, he could have gotten upset and hated him as his resentment against him grew daily. That is, his heart could have been filled with a sense of alienation which is derived from loneliness, a sense of humiliation as being treated like a fool and hatred toward Abel who was loved.
Cain’s feelings for Abel at that time could have been the same as those of Lucifer in front of Adam prior to the fall. Namely, Cain stood in the same position as Lucifer.
Lucifer killed Adam and Eve spiritually without being able to control his anger. If Cain kills Abel without being able to control his anger, he would stand in the same position as Lucifer’s. However, if Cain controls his anger, he would restore Lucifer’s position through indemnity.
As we all know well through the Bible, the result was that Cain killed Abel without being able to control his anger.
When Cain killed Abel, he could not have killed Abel in a rage. Both of them must have been equally big. So even if they fought face to face, they would lose strength after an hour of fighting, which barely come to a draw. At that time there were no guns or swords. There might have been twigs and rocks at best. It is not easy to kill someone with both hands. Probably Cain must have thought about how to kill Abel. Luring him out to a far place where their family could not see anything or hear any loud voice, while Abel was looking away, he must have given a fatal blow on Abel’s head with a rock…… He must have had a plan like that, prepared himself and waited for the right moment.
He must have had not only an intent to kill him but also a sense of bewilderment and a hesitation to execute the murder. Therefore, God had room for a warning for him, by saying, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”(Gen 5.6-7)
From the time of his offering till the murder what had Cain been thinking and how had he been spending time? The whole family must have known that God had accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. Even if Cain had been quiet about it, Abel could have told their family. If Abel had not told their family about it, speculating how Cain might be feeling, Cain would not have resorted to killing Abel.
What could his family have told Cain about his offering not having been accepted? Did they comfort him? They could have criticized him by saying to him, “You deserve it because your daily behavior is bad.” If his family had considered his feelings and comforted and consoled him, Cain would not have killed Abel.
The most important thing here is parents’ attitude. There are almost always problems with parents’ child-rearing attitude behind the struggles of the siblings. In this case, how were Adam and Eve as their father and mother relating to Cain? I have heard Father say to the effect that “Eve could not fulfill her duty as the mother.” Probably, if his parents had understood Cain’s situation and handled it along with his feelings, this incident would have taken a different direction.
In any case, Cain was isolated and could not control his anger in Adam’s family and killed Abel. Thus it became decisive that mankind entered into the Satanic lineage. We are descendents of this lineage. Therefore, what was created within Satan through the fall, which is anxiety and anger within us was multiplied by Adam and Eve, our first human ancestors, and has been passed down to me through the blood lineage. The anxiety and anger within me are the very same anxiety and anger Lucifer felt at the time of the fall, and the anxiety and anger within our families are the same anxiety and anger which existed in Adam’s family and our ancestors have been feeling.
If you think like this, you can understand that the problems and diseases of our minds within us are not our own problems but rather historical and hereditary problems which have been passed down generation to generation through the blood lineage and through human history, beginning with our human ancestors. Anxiety and anger, which were caused by the fall, have been inherited substantially by us through the parent-child relationship from generation to generation and are emerging as various problems of the mind.
Therefore, when we think about our problems of the mind or problems in our families, it is important to look at them from the standpoint that those problems are historical ones and that they are the hereditary problems our ancestors struggled with and suffered from but could not solve. In addition, we always need to be aware that solving our own problems means that we solve the problems our ancestors could not solve, that is, we solve these historical hereditary problems, representing our blood lineage.
In other words, the problems which have been accumulated vertically are spreading horizontally in today’s families. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that the solution to the problems will not be found in an effort to solve them from the current viewpoint but in an effort to do so from the vertical viewpoint that they are historical problems.
Then, what is the vertical way of solving the problems, seen from the vertical point of view? How can we solve them in reality?
Before we think about it, we have to think about one more thing regarding anxiety and anger as historical problems.
Previously, I wrote that there is “loneliness] behind anxiety and anger. Anxiety and anger come from a low self-respect within us and the low self-respect comes from negative messages from parents in our childhood. Therefore, those with low self-respect have a sense of loneliness and that loneliness is behind anxiety and anger.
Lucifer who was the cause of the fall felt lonely when he saw God love Adam and Eve. Cain also felt lonely when he saw God accepting Abel’s offering alone. That loneliness led to anxiety and anger.
Though I wrote that Lucifer and Cain were lonely, who was the loneliest in history? Anybody who studied the Divine Principle knows the answer. It is God. It is God that lost everything, including family and the creation. Fallen people have a family no matter how lonely they are. They have nature which consoles them. Even though Lucifer was lonely and it was a false relationship due to the fall of mankind, he came to have a family. However, God lost everything, including family and the creation to have a relationship with. Therefore, the loneliest person in history is definitely God.
I wrote that loneliness leads to anxiety and anger. Then how about God? God has also human feelings after all. I doubt the propriety of the expression, but God and man are parent and child. This relationship must have the same emotional structure. It means that God was in the midst of loneliness, and that loneliness could have led to anxiety and anger.
Next I would like to explore God’s anxiety and anger.
Completed Testament Ministrial Counseling (No. 6: God’s Anxiety and Anger and the Life of True Parents)
Up until now we learned that the anxiety and anger within us are derived from the lack of love Lucifer, the Archangel felt, that they were passed on to mankind through the fall of Adam and Eve, that it became decisive by the killing of Abel by Cain and that they have been passed on through our blood lineage.
This time we would like to think about God’s anxiety and anger.
I have serious reservations about delivering these contents, because I have no idea how those who read these contents feel and take it. I have done lectures on this Completed Testament ministrial counseling at various venues. There is a big difference between giving lectures and writing. Once I write something, an unspecified number of people will get to read it. It clearly remains as a record. However, I felt that I should write these, because I wanted to think more deeply about God’s heart and the value of True Parents of Heaven and Earth. This discourse may receive opposition and may require further discussion. In any case, upon confirming that I alone am responsible for the contents, I would like to move on.
As I mentioned last time at the end, there is loneliness behind anxiety and anger and the loneliest person in history is God. Then did God have anxiety and anger? If so, what were they like?
We think that God is omniscient and omnipotent and is absolute love. Therefore, isn’t it a general understanding as an image of God that God can see everything and that He is gentle and loves, leads and looks over mankind. Through True parents we came to know that God has a heart of “han,” and that He is a miserable God who grieves and suffers, watching the status of mankind.
However, we might not have paid much attention to the anxiety and anger of God. When we think about God seen from the structure of human feelings, we cannot help but have the view that God has anxiety and anger.
By the way, how many times does the phrase the “wrath of God” appear in the Bible? There are 23 times in both the New and Old testaments (the new co-translation version). In addition, the phrase the “anxiety of God” does not appear anywhere. How do you feel about the search results? Even if the word “wrath” is not clearly used, as we read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, there are quite a few passages where His wrath is implied.
For example, there is a story of Noah. God regrets over the creation and destroyed mankind except for Noah’s family by a flood. At that time God said, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold. I will destroy them with
the earth.” Then, after the flood He said, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
Father says that God wondered if He should cause the flood after He said He would. However, Noah kept God’s command so seriously that He could not help but cause the flood due to the faith of Noah.
When we think about the Words of God in Noah’s story and Father’s words together, I feel God’s unstable heart. While He was in the anxiety and anger toward mankind who was wicked, once he said He would destroy mankind but hesitated to execute the decision.
After all, He executed it due to the faith of Noah and repeated, “I will never again curse the ground.” During all of this what kind of heart did He have?
The same kind of heart of God was felt during Moses’ course. I heard this during the lecture on Moses’ course at my 40-day workshop. From the exodus out of Egypt till the time they reached Canaan during the 40 years in the wilderness, God said to the Israelites, “I will destroy the Israelites,” ten times. (Unfortunately the author has not been able to confirm all of those passages.) Every time Moses interceded with God. Because of his intercessions He calmed down and the Israelites could continue their journey.
The following is one of the intercessions (Exodus 32:9-14).
And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is stiff- necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you I will make a great nation.”
But Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does thy wrath burn hot aginst thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thine own self, and didst say to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.’” And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.
Here God clearly expresses His anger and declares that He would destroy the Israelites and with Moses’ intercession His anger was calmed down.
Further, as we study Father’s words, we learn that since Adam and Eve were His first children, when they fell, He was completely lost and did not know what to do.
According to the Bible, the time from Adam to Noah is 1600 years, but in reality it is said that the period spans for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. During this period what had God been doing? I have heard Father say that God was shocked by the fall of Adam and Eve that He could not bring Himself to start the restoration of mankind and that mankind was so miserable that He hid Himself in His own light.
Namely, God was also lost and hid Himself. The first incident of the hiding oneself, which is prevalent in Japan today happened to be God!
In fact, it is no wonder if the fall was so shocking and its result was so miserable that He had no interest in starting His restoration Providence and that He was lost in a fantasy that if Adam and Eve had not fallen, what kind of world would have been created.
Father says that it was more difficult for God to send a messiah to the earth than to find the last surviving fish in the oceans throughout the world. Since the restoration course includes human responsibility, it must have been such an unforeseeable course for God.
When we look at His situation this way, we can clearly come to see the anxiety and anger of God. It was the state of God who was agonizing in anxiety and anger since the fall of Adam and Eve. That is, I think I can say that God was suffering from a disease of the mind Himself.
Then, what kind of people are True Parents of Heaven and Earth? I think I can say that they are the ones who cured God’s disease of the mind, that is, that they performed the role of the lead doctors for Him.
It is not easy to cure diseases of the mind. I myself am an expert of curing diseases of the mind but it is not easy to listen to those who have an unstable mind in anxiety and anger, sort out their feelings and to calm them down. The reason why I can do this is that counseling has a framework, for example, it is divided like for one hour, once a week. In general, counselors do not give their patients their personal contact information. If they gave it, their patients would call them whenever they feel anxious. If it happens, the counselors cannot go on.
Therefore, the families of a member with a disease of the mind struggle a lot. Whether it is schizophrenia or alcohol dependency or any other disease, the families of a member with a disease have to deal with the situation 24/7. There is no time to rest. Therefore, after all, they consider being separate from them by having them live separately, hospitalizing or institutionalizing them.
However, True Parent has been comforting, consoling and attending God throughout his life. How difficult has it been? Since he was called at the age of 16, he has devoted his life single- mindedly to God without a rest. That is True Parent.
Anxiety and anger are directed to someone close. Things, which do not bother you if strangers are doing them, cause anxiety in you if a spouse or a child is doing the same things. I think everybody has experienced it. Even if you can say to a stranger, “You worry too much. It’s ok,” you cannot think that way when it comes to a family member.
Anger is the same thing. The sense of anger springs up toward a family member more than anybody else. It makes you feel irritated when it comes to your husband or wife, though it does not bother you if it is a stranger. If it is someone else’s child, you can laugh and forgive him. When it comes to your child, you get upset. I think everybody has experienced it. Anxiety and anger are raised toward someone close to you.
Since True Parents are the closest to God in history, it is safe to say that they are the ones who received the anxiety and anger of God most. It is True Parents that received all of God’s anxiety and anger which had been historically accumulated, then comforted and healed Him. How great have God’ anxiety and anger been? I cannot even imagine.
Father says that since God had been betrayed by mankind so much, He could not believe even True Father and had been testing him. Father must have been receiving the greatest anxiety and anger of God!
When we think about the course of True Parents, we imagine battles with Satan. It is the image of True Parents who have been fighting Satan at the cost of their lives and have won a victory. However, it is possible that the course of resolving the anxiety and anger of God was more difficult.
Father sometimes talks about his fights with Satan, but I do not think that he barely talks about how he attended God about His anxiety and anger. It might be because it is not something God can be proud of. However, when we speculate the suffering heart of True Parents, it seems to be very important to explore this because I think that the liberation of the heart of God is to liberate and free Him completely from His anxiety and anger.
How great True Parents of Heaven and Earth are!
Hallelujah! Aju!
Next time, I would like to talk more about the anxiety and anger of God and the course of True Parents on them.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 7: God’s Anger and Lucifer’s Anger and the Value of True Parents)
Last time I wrote that pondering upon the anxiety and anger of God through the Bible, we concluded that it is True Parents of Heaven and Earth that took upon the anxiety and anger of
God all by himself and dissolved them, that is, cured the disease of the mind of God. This time continued from that, I would like to think about the anxiety and anger of God and True Parents who took upon them through the substantial course of True Parents.
I wrote last time that God’s anxiety and anger might have been directed to True Parents more than anybody else. It is because as our anger is more easily manifested between spouses and between parents and children, anger is directed towards someone closest in heart. By the way, what was God’s anger like toward us (blesses families)? Have we been continuously returning comfort and joy to Him without causing His anger?
Last time I introduced a scene of God’s anger toward the Israelites, which is described in Exodus (Exodus 32:9-14). In addition, I introduced the words of my 40-day workshop lecturer that there were 10 times when God told Moses that He would destroy the Israelites during the40- year wilderness course on their way from Egypt to Canaan and that God calmed down His anger because Moses interceded with Him to calm down.
According to the Divine Principle, it describes that the Moses’ course is the image-course for the Messiah and that Jesus’ course the substantial course for the Messiah. Then during the 40- year wilderness course from 1945, which True Parents who are the lord of the Second Advent walked, just like the time of Moses, God could have said to True Parents as many as ten times, “I have seen this people (UC members), and behold, it is stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you (Father) I will make a great nation.” As the Israelites were not consumed due to the intercessions of Moses, True Parents set up conditions and interceded with God. As a result, God calmed His anger due to True Parents and thus we are still alive here. That is how I look at us. If True Parents had not calmed down God’s anger, World War III could have broken out. Communism would have expanded. We UC members would have been annihilated.
As far as we see the descriptions in the Old Testament, the Israelites who followed Moses repeated their lack of faith and became a burden on Moses shoulders. However, they followed Moses, leaving fertile Egypt behind and kept on wandering around in the actual wilderness with Moses.
Then have we, UC members, been walking the suffering course of the restoration of heaven and earth, united in oneness with True Parents as much as the Israelites suffered and walked through the wilderness, in oneness with Moses at that time? Of course, I know quite a few members are really going through hardships. However, I myself Is not confident that I am attending True Parents with faith as deep as that of the Israelites at that time with which they followed Moses. I do not think that I share the same sufferings of True Parents as much as the Israelites suffered together with Moses. Probably there may not be anybody who can say that he or she is attending True Parents with the faith as deep as that of the Israelites at that time.
Six million Jewish people were massacred by Hitler. According to Father, in spite of ushering in the age of the Lord of the Second Advent, the Jews were still stiff-necked, God gave permission to Satan to massacre the Jews. In other words, God’s permission made such a massacre by Satan possible.
Likewise, if True Parents had not been able to resolve the anger of God, we, UC members, would have been killed in the middle of the expansion of the communist forces.
In the past when we were in the middle of the fight against communism, while Father was developing the CAUSA movement in South America, Father said that all of us would go to South America and start all over again there if the world was communized. Probably, at that time Father might really have thought that the world would be communized without being able to calm down the anger of God. Was Father developing the Providence in South America for that reason? However, I think that as a result, because True Parents resolved the anger of God, communism declined and we, UC members, could continue to live on earth. If we think like this, True Parents are the benefactor of life who not only gave us spiritual lives but also saved our physical lives.
Next, I would like to think about the anger of God toward the Archangel Lucifer.
March 21, 1999 was a historical day when the Archangel who had become Satan was taken by Daemonim to God. Daemonim said that she had visited Lucifer every day for five and half years to usher in this day and that she had never gotten angry no matter what Lucifer said. I hear that on the way to visit God with Daemonim Lucifer said that if God got angry even slightly, he would return and would never go and see God. However, once Lucifer got there, God welcomed Lucifer in joy with a hug and comforted his sufferings to stand in the position of having to take dominion over man, instead of originally being a servant. After being touched by the great love of God, Lucifer said, “I am sorry,” came to be the Archangel Lucifer from being Satan and came back to the bosom of God.
When I heard this story for the first time, I thought that “Since God is love, he wanted to love Lucifer who became Satan as well. However, since Lucifer was stiff-necked, he could not meet God’s love for 6,000 years. Now, due to the victory of True Parents, stiff-necked Lucifer’s heart was melted and he could meet God’s love.”
However, seen from the viewpoint of the anger of God what really happened?
In the Cheon Seong Gyeong, it states clearly that “What is Satan? He is the enemy of God’s love. Even God of love cannot forgive Satan since he was a fornicator who robbed His children. There is no way to forgive the fornicator of love. Therefore, even if God can forgive other things, He cannot forgive Satan. If He forgave Satan, all of the heavenly laws would be destroyed.”(Cheon Seong Gyeong in Japanese, p. 1249) [Note: This is a literal translation by the
translator. Please confirm the exact translation in the actual English publication.] There are other similar passages in the text. That is, God could not forgive Lucifer. He must have thought that even though He could forgive mankind in spite of the fall since they are His children, He could not forgive Satan, the fornicator, no matter what. That is, the unresolved anger of His had been directed toward Satan for 6,000 years.
Probably, since Lucifer might have known such anger of God, he was so scared. I think that due to His anger he could not return nor apologize to Him. As you know from the story of the lost paradise in the Old Testament, which reads, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise his heel,” (Genesis 3:14-15) God clearly cast words of a curse and hostility upon Satan.
I am sure that everybody has an experience, but when you are caught with anger, it is very painful. It goes around and around in your mind. You cannot sleep at night. Whatever you do, you feel irritated. God has been enduring His fierce anger toward Lucifer for 6,000 years. How miserable He must have been! His anger towards Lucifer which seemed to be eternally unresolved has been resolved. It is True Parents that have done it! True Parents resolved His deep anger towards Lucifer, which had immobilized God. Last time I wrote that to liberate the heart of God is to liberate and free Him completely from His anxiety and anger. It could mean the liberation and complete freedom of God from His anger towards Satan more than anything else. True Parents have resolved His anger towards Satan, the fornicator and enemy. How great it is!
Therefore, March 21, 1999 is such a commemorative day when God could actually forgive and love Lucifer in person and thus His anger towards Lucifer, which had not been resolved since the fall was resolved.
To digress, there is a phrase, “True God.” Cheon Seong Gyeong also begins with “True God.” I felt awkward when I heard this for the first time. I understand the phrase, “True Parents.” Since we, mankind have had only false parents by a false lineage, we needed the phrase, “True Parents,” which had a true lineage. Then, was there a “false God”? I thought it meant Satan. Many saints, to begin with Jesus have talked about God but nobody could reveal the truth about His situation and heart. It is True Parents that revealed them. Then I thought that the phrase, “True God” was used to describe what God is really like. It may be the case.
However, as I mentioned up until now, when we think about the anxiety and anger of God, He might not have been a “True God (of love),” who had been caught with the anger toward Lucifer. It can be said that such a God whose anxiety and anger were resolved by True Parents
could love even His enemy, Satan, that is, that He could become a “True God (of love).” Furthermore, True Parents led God to become the True God.
Love is not established without a counterpart. The growth and perfection of love cannot be achieved without a counterpart. Men who are the object of God’s love fell at the perfection level of the growth stage. It means that God’s love was considered to be remaining at the same level. In Cheon Seong Gyeong Father says, “Then the Archangel asks God when He loved him at the perfection stage. This is where God also gets stuck. When God loves the Archangel to the end at the perfection stage in the Garden of Eden, the heaven and earth of freedom, then God can say that He has fulfilled His responsibility.” (Cheon Seong Gyeong in Japanese, p. 1,249) [Note: Please confirm the exact translation in the actual English publication.]
Truly, it is True Parents that made an imperfect God True God (who perfected love). If we think like this, True Parents are as great as God in history and no accolades can ever praise them enough.
Now that He could resolve His anger toward Lucifer, God became True God. We ushered in the age when He could exercise all of His might and have the Coronation Ceremony of the Kingship of God on January 13, 2001. Furthermore, after ushering in Sanghap-shipsoong-il, we entered into the Age after the Coming of Heaven from the Age before the Coming of Heaven.
This is the year when the Year of Jubilee was declared for the first time in human history. This is an age when all anxieties and angers that we, blessed families carry, can be resolved. No, this is the age when we must resolve those problems. By resolving all anxieties and angers of the past, we must rejoice over the Year of Jubilee together with God and True Parents of Heaven and Earth because it is when all blessed families are liberated from their anxieties and angers that God and True Parents can truly usher in the time of joy.
We have been discussing anxiety and anger within us until now; the structure of anxiety and anger is a historical problem, which has been passed down generation to generation through the blood lineage since the fall of Adam and Eve; furthermore, even God has been in anxiety and anger; the anxiety and anger of God have been resolved by True Parents; and we live in a age when all of our anxieties and angers can be resolved.
Then how can we resolve our anxieties and angers concretely?
Up until this point is Part I of Completed Testament Counseling or the theoretical phase. Has it been long? From now on we will go into Part II or the practical phase. I would like to convey the concrete methods of resolving anxieties and angers within us.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 8: Original Nature and Fallen Nature)
We may say Mr. so-and-so’s personality, my personality, our spouses’ personalities, children’s personalities, our pastor’s personality, etc. For example, we may say, “My husband’s personality is cheerful. He plays with our children very often but he is a little short-tempered.” When we talk about someone’s personality, we generally confuse original nature and fallen nature. Going back to the above-mentioned example, the part: “He is cheerful and he plays with our children very often” might be an example of his original nature. On the other hand, the part “a little short-tempered” might be description of his fallen nature. Likewise, when we talk about someone’s personality, in most cases we do not distinguish their original nature and their fallen nature. However, there seems to be a problem with these descriptions here.
The life of faith we are trying to live every day is a life to aim for the perfection of character. We live the life of faith to become a perfected person. Not to just make donations or to attend pledge service. The goal of the life of faith is to become a perfected person. When we become perfect, we do not need faith any longer. Then what kind of person is perfect? The perfect person is without fallen nature at all, but only with original nature. That is, a life to remove fallen nature is the life of faith.
When you want to clean up a room filled with stuff all over the floor, what would you do first? You would separate the stuff to be discarded from the stuff to be kept. If you cannot clearly distinguish the stuff to be discarded and the stuff to be kept, you cannot discard anything. If you cannot throw out the dirty and the unnecessary things, you cannot clean the room. Therefore, separating trash is necessary.
It is the same with our hearts. In order for us to become a clean (perfect) person, we must distinguish the trash to be tossed out (fallen nature) from the stuff to be kept (original nature). If not, we can never toss out the trash (fallen nature) or become clean (perfect). Therefore, going back to the first example, instead of bundling up everything with word “personality,” we should say, “Original nature of my husband is that he is cheerful and plays with our children very often, but his fallen nature is that he is a little short-tempered.” This is how you should think. If you think like this, you will begin to see the image of your perfected husband. This is what we call the division of heart or division of original nature and fallen nature.
I receive a lot of comments from my clients that they fight with their husbands or that they cannot love their wives. Some of them say that they want to get divorced. As I wrote at the beginning of this series, it is not uncommon that husbands, in the case of Korean-Japanese couples, do not have faith, keep gambling without working, create more debt and thus, they
cannot make a living, and are alcoholic and violent. It is understandable for them to complain that they cannot live together any longer and that they want to get divorced.
When I counsel those wives, I talk to them as follows:
“As long as we are human beings, we must enter Heaven. Unless all people are saved, the hearts of God and True Parents can never be comforted. It is our duty as children of God and True Parents to enter Heaven. In order to enter Heaven we have to be paired as a man and a woman. Then, in order for you to enter Heaven you need your husbands, who are your subjects absolutely. When you enter Heaven, everybody is an absolute good spirit and therefore, so are your husbands. That is, they are the people who have original nature only without fallen nature. At present, there are many men on earth. There is no one who is perfect except for True Family. It means that your husbands who become absolute good spirits will be more wonderful and attractive than the most wonderful and attractive [non-blessed] man on earth. When you enter Heaven, would you like to enter it with your current husbands who will become absolute good spirits or with another man?”
When I ask them like this, more than 90 percent of them answer that they want to enter Heaven with their current husbands. Since they only see the current image of their husbands in a miserable situation, they say that they want to get divorced. If they can think that their current miserable husbands will become absolute good spirits and wonderful husbands, they can muster up their courage to overcome their current miserable situations.
One thing I do not want you to misunderstand is that I am not saying, “Therefore, do your best to continue the current life style.” Especially, when violence is involved, it is not necessarily a good idea to continue to live together. Rather, there is a case in which it is necessary to live separately for the time being, depending on their situations. Even if they force themselves to live together, it may not last long. It is necessary to deal with each situation precisely from a long-term perspective. Living separately does not mean a separation, which leads to a divorce. It is a temporary separation to rebuild each one’s life to live together for happiness without fail in the future. I call these separations a “strategic retreat.” Instead of forcing themselves to live together, exhaust themselves and leave no other way but to take to flight, it is an idea to retreat strategically for now, regroup themselves and to build a stable life again for a victory in the future.
What we have to do is to distinguish original nature and fallen nature within us. Next, we need to remove our fallen nature. Then, we can become perfected people.
It is easy to write about it, but the reality is not that simple. First of all, many people say, “Since original nature and fallen nature are all mixed up within me, I cannot sort them out.” It is sad but even though we learned the Divine Principle as a theory, since the fallen people are filled
with so much fallen nature that they cannot distinguish original nature and fallen nature within them.
Then, let us begin with something simple. This is what I have been discussing repeatedly in this series. Let us remove anxiety and anger. I think this is simple enough. I will make it simpler. Please begin to practice the first condition; never get angry, in the “Conditions in Life to Go to Heaven” Daemonim gave to us as I introduced them earlier. It is clear to everybody, isn’t it?
However, it is easy to understand but difficult to put it into practice. Anger springs up from nowhere. Anger arises when we look at our wives’, husbands’ and children’s faces. It is triggered by small things.
I deliver this message to people who are not UC members. I also give lectures in my class at my college. Of course, I do not talk about Adam and Eve, the motivation and course of the fall, God or True Parents. I tell them that there are anxiety and anger behind the diseases and problems of the mind, that they are derived from a low self-evaluation, that there are problems of self- respect behind it and that a lack of self-respect comes from their parent-child relationships, etc. and as I tell UC members, I tell them not to get angry. This analysis of the heart described in Completed Pastoral Counseling can be understood by non-members as well. Once they see the construction of their feelings, they can see why they feel the way they do. Even so, it is not easy to avoid getting angry. One student said, “I do not think that anger will be eliminated. I think that it is an instinct.”
The idea that anger is an instinct appears in psychology. Such an idea is not necessarily wrong.
In the Divine Principle the phrase the “primary characteristics of fallen nature” appears. We can understand original nature. It is a nature bestowed by God at the time of creation. Then is fallen nature natural? It arose incidentally at the time of the fall and is passed down through blood lineage. Therefore, fallen nature is what the fallen people possess since their births and is connected to Satan through their blood lineages. That is why the Divine Principle states, “Eve inherited from the Archangel all the proclivities incidental to his transgression against God when he bound her in blood ties through their sexual relationship. Adam in turn acquired the same inclinations when Eve, assuming the role of the Archangel, bound him in blood ties through their sexual relationship. These proclivities have become the root cause of the fallen inclinations in all people. They are the primary characteristics of the fallen nature.” (Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 72) Therefore, fallen people have these primary characteristics of the fallen nature which induce their actions of fallen nature. They are so deeply rooted in us that they might be as well called instincts. It is very difficult for the fallen people to resolve their fallen nature by themselves (since it is not the original sin, it is logically possible, though). If we think this way, we can conclude that what the student said is not necessarily wrong.
Original nature and fallen nature can be described as the following:
Figure 1: The Structure of the Mind
Primary Characteristics of Original Nature Satan God Fallen Nature
For fallen people fallen nature is connected with Satan through their blood lineages. Therefore, no matter how hard you train yourselves, it is very difficult to remove your fallen nature. The ultimate anxiety within us may be an anxiety that we got being separated from God. An existentialistic anxiety in philosophy might mean this fundamental anxiety mankind, who got separated from God and became lonely, carries. On the other hand, no matter what atrocious and cruel act we might conduct, it does not remove our original nature. Even though we are fallen, the original nature we have from the beginning is imbedded in us who are connected with God through our blood lineages.
Figure 1 shows the situation in which we have the original sin. The original sin within us, blessed families was cleansed by the Blessing by True Parents. Therefore, the blessed families who received the Blessing, including the second generation should look as described in Figure 2 below. This figure means that we received the Blessing, that our original sin was cleansed, that fallen nature is not natural any longer and that Stan cannot have a relationship with us.
Figure 2: The Structure of the Mind
Satan X Fallen Nature Original Nature God
If we are like Figure 2 indicates, the source of energy for fallen nature should be lost while we receive a lot of words from True Parents and are doing God’s Will. Therefore, the more time lapses, the more fallen nature should naturally die away and our original nature, receiving energy from True Parents’ words should grow big. In the end, our fallen nature should completely disappear and we should become people with original nature, that is, perfected people.
Then, how is the situation of the blessed families? Of course, I think that there are many families who are moving toward perfection, shedding their fallen nature little by little. However, on the other hand, there are quite a few blessed families, which are stuck with an
increase of their anxiety and anger in their families as time passes by. Even if there are families in which the husband drinks, smokes and becomes violent, they did not necessarily have those problems from the beginning. Many of them say that the problems are worse than the beginning. It is not an uncommon to have a case in which the second generation are causing domestic violence. Of course, those second generation were not violent since their births, but various environmental elements built up stress in them, which led them to violence.
Why don’t anxieties and angers in blessed families diminish, though their original sin was cleansed and they severed their blood relationships with Satan? They sometimes increase. Why is it so? Next, we will talk about those anxieties and angers which do not diminish in these blessed families.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 9: The Power of Give and Take Action)
Last time we discussed the structure of the mind within us with a subtitle, “Original Nature and Fallen Nature.” Let me review it briefly.
We have our original nature which makes us want to love, nurture, attend and return beauty. It is connected to God through the original relationship of parent and child. On the other hand, we have fallen nature which causes anxiety and anger. It is connected to Satan through our blood lineages. If we show the structure in a diagram, it will be as follows:
Figure 1: Structure of the Mind
Satan Primary Characteristics of Original Nature God Fallen Nature
Figure 1 applies to the mind when we have the original sin. The original sin of the blessed families was cleansed by the Blessing by True Parents. Therefore, the minds of the blessed families which received the Blessing, including the second generation should look like Figure 2 below. This figure implies that since the original sin was cleansed by the Blessing and fallen nature is not natural any longer, the mind cannot have a relationship with Satan.
Figure 2: The Structure of the Mind
Satan X Fallen Nature Original Nature God
If we received the Blessing and our minds look like Figure 2, the energy source for fallen nature should have been lost. Therefore, the more time lapses, the more fallen nature should die
away naturally. In the end, all of fallen nature should be gone and we should have original nature only and, namely, become perfected people.
However, among the blessed families, there are quite a few families whose fallen nature is not diminishing but rather whose anxieties and angers are growing despite that time has lapsed a lot since the Blessing. That is the problem. Why don’t anxiety and anger disappear? It got a little lengthy but that is the summary of the previous session.
Now, about the answer to the above question. The answer is that there is “give and take action.” The Divine Principle Chapter 1 Section 2 (2) states, “Through the agency of universal prime energy, the subject and object elements of every entity form a common base and enter into interaction. This interaction, in turn, generates all the forces the entity needs for existence, multiplication and action. The interaction generating these forces through this process is called give and take action.”
By cleansing the original sin through the Blessing, Satan could not have the ability to form a common base directly with us through our blood lineages. However, we have a lot of give and take action with human relationships with people in our daily lives. In such daily lives we have give and take action with fallen nature. It is the same thing in our family lives. Because there is give and take action of anxiety and anger in our families, they increase there.
In order to have give and take action a common base must be formed. The common base cannot be formed unless both parties are similar. Therefore, there cannot be give and take action between original nature and fallen nature. The feelings of original nature within us must form a common base with those of our counterparts and through this common base we begin to form a relationship (give and take action) centered on the feelings of original nature. On the other hand, the feelings of fallen nature within us (anxiety and anger) must form a common base with those of our counterparts, through which we form a relationship (give and take action) centered on fallen nature. These dynamics can be drawn as follows:
Figure 3: The Structure of Give and Take Action of Human Relationships
Fallen Nature Original Nature
Fallen Nature Original nature
From this figure, I think you can understand that the words which are uttered with a motive of anxiety or anger can only interact with the anxiety or anger of the counterpart. UC members often talk centered on Father’s words. Of course, the content of Father’s words themselves is that of original nature. However, no matter how great Father’s words are, if the
feelings with which they convey the words are based on a motive of anxiety or anger, those words will face the anxiety or the anger of the counterpart.
Let us look at it concretely. You might have said the following out of your irritation; “True Parents are saying like this,” “Daemonim is saying like this about the second generation, isn’t she?” or “Hyun Jin Nim was talking about what the second generation should be like, wasn’t he?” Haven’t you said similar things to your husband or wife, not just to your children? Even if the content you are conveying to your counterpart is great, if you are angry, your counterpart may speak back, saying, “Be quiet! That’s why I didn’t want to be born as a blessed child,” or “What about you?” Even if the counterpart does not speak back, he or she must be feeling that way inside. He or she will not reflect on his or her conduct and it will only increase the irritation inside each party because our anger only forms a common base with that of our counterpart.
Then, what shall we do? It is simple. You need to have give and take action with your husband, wife or children with a motive based on the feelings of original nature. You do not have to speak complicated words by Father. Say only ordinary words in every life, which are derived from the feelings of original nature such as “Have a good day” or “I’m home” with a heart of thoughtfulness for the other. Then the words which are derived from original nature will interact with the other’s original nature and make him or her feel warm and kind and the other should return the same because your feelings of original nature form a common base with the other’s original nature and begin an give and take action of original nature.
No, even words are not necessary. Any small act which is derived from your thoughtfulness for the other such as bringing a glass of water or handing a handkerchief reaches the other’s original nature and thus a give and take action of each other’s original nature will begin. As we repeat this, the feelings of our original nature will grow and our fallen nature will diminish, that is, the feelings of anxiety or anger will disappear. Thus, we will approach the perfection we aim for, that is, the ideal of our original nature.
Now, we have come to the conclusion. I have been writing this for almost a year. The way to solve problems of our minds is really simple. It is; “Let us have give and take action with our original nature.”; “Let us stop give and take action which is derived from anxiety or anger.” You may think; “What!” When we think about the Principle, since give and take action is the primary force of all of the creation, existence and development, it is natural to come to this kind of conclusion.
I wish I could say that we finished this series happily here. However, unfortunately, we are not done yet because this give and take action of original nature is not that easy but rather difficult since it is not easy to control our anxiety and anger toward our husbands, wives and children, which spring up from nowhere. Even though everybody knows that it is bad, we cannot control these feelings of anxiety and anger and get swallowed up in them, which lead our families into a whirlwind of give and take action of anxiety and anger. Therefore, unless I tell you how to control these anxieties and angers, which spring up within us, I cannot conclude this series. Then how do we do that?
In Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling No. 4 and No. 5, I wrote the following:
“As our anxiety and anger come from our own parents, their anxiety and anger come from their parents, that is, our grandparents. Then from where do those grandparents’ anxiety and anger come? Their parents! What about those great grandparents’? Again their own parents and so on and on…….”
“If you think like this, you can understand that the problems and diseases of the mind within us are not our own problems but rather historical and hereditary problems which have been passed down generation to generation through the blood lineage and through human history, beginning with our human ancestors. Anxiety and anger, which were caused by the fall, have been inherited substantially by us through the parent-child relationship from generation to generation and are emerging as various problems of the mind.
Therefore, when we think about our problems of the mind or problems in our families, it is important to look at them from the standpoint that those problems are historical ones and that they are the hereditary problems our ancestors struggled with, suffered from but could not solve. In addition, we always need to be aware that solving our own problems means that we solve the problems our ancestors could not solve, that is, we solve the problems of our blood lineage, representing our blood lineage.
In other words, the problems which have been accumulated vertically are enveloping horizontally in today’s families. Therefore, we can come to a conclusion that the solution to the problems will not be found in an effort to solve them from the current viewpoint but in an effort to do so in a vertical way from the vertical viewpoint that they are vertical problems.”
In short, the feelings of anxiety and anger within us are hereditary problems. What should we do to resolve them?
We are now in the Age after the Coming of Heaven, beyond the Last Days in history when all historical problems are unfolding on earth. As we resolve the earthly problems, historical and hereditary problems will be resolved. We live in such an age. Therefore, the problems of anxiety and anger within us are substantially unfolding here on earth as historical ones. The substantial expansion of the historical vertical relationship is the parent-child relationship. Therefore, resolving the anxiety and anger in the parent-child relationship will lead to resolving the feelings of anxiety and anger within us.
Now, we are getting close to the end of this segment. I will talk about a concrete way of resolving the anxiety and anger within us in the next segment.
Before I finish this segment, I have a favor to ask of you. I would like you to read something before you start reading the next segment of this series. It is called the Laws of the Mirror. It is one of the best sellers. Some might already have read it. It is spreading among UC members by word of mouth. It originated from a blog. So you can read on the Internet as well. The Laws of the Mirror shows concrete examples on how to solve our anxiety and anger. The author, Yoshinori Noguchi, is not a member. Therefore, there is a lack of explanation, but the contents are very principled. Next time I am planning to give a principled explanation to the concrete examples in the Laws of the Mirror as a way to resolve anxiety and anger within us.
Here is the title and the address:
The Laws of the Mirror written by Yoshinori Noguchi, published by Sogo Horei Shuppan, 999 yen Home Page: http://coaching-m.co.jp/reportaaa.pdf
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 10: The Laws of the Mirror)
During next several segments I will introduce ways to remove anxiety and anger within us. First of all, I would like to begin with a principled explanation on the Laws of the Mirror which I introduced last time.
Have you read the book? Those who have read it, please proceed to read this segment. I am grateful if you read it first before you go on reading this segment. Since I will explain with the examples in the book, if you have not read it, you may get lost along the way. The information on the book is as follows:
From now on, I will proceed on the assumption that all of you have read the book.
What did you think of it after you read it? Some of you might have been moved by it or shed some tears. Others might have read it calmly. No matter what you thought about it, you might have felt that the way to solve the problems is close to what Father is teaching. Since the author, Mr. Noguchi is not a member (probably), the interpretation in the book or on the blog has quite a few points which are not necessarily from a principled point of view.
I would like to proceed here to find a way to solve the problems of your minds, interpreting the Laws of the Mirror in a principled manner.
I assume that there are people who have read the actual book, the Laws of the Mirror and others who have read it on the website. On the web Mrs. A is the main character. Mr. B is the management consultant Mrs. A consults with. The son of Mrs. A appears as “Son” or “So-and- so (his actual name).” In the book, they are Eiko Akiyama, Mr. Yaguchi and Yuta respectively. Here I will proceed, using the names which appear in the book.
Now, last time I wrote that the reason why fallen nature such as anxiety or anger within us do not go away is that there is give and take action. How were Eiko’s relationships at the beginning of this story from the viewpoint of the give and take action? If I describe it in a figure, they will be like Figure 1. When you look at the figure, you can see that the relationships centered on Eiko are having give and take action centered on fallen nature (anxiety and anger).
Eiko utters words to Yuta from her worries, that is, anxiety. Because of that, Yuta thinks that his mother is annoying, stops opening up his heart to her and responds to her with irritating words. She also holds the feelings of dissatisfaction (anger) with her husband. Where does this give and take action of fallen nature centered on Eiko come from? It is from her relationship with her father. Their relationship is also filled with anxiety and anger. The father was always so worried about her that he was giving her words out of his irritation, which sounded angry. As a result, anger was generated within her as well and she was directing her feeling of anger toward him. Likewise, her relationship with her father created and multiplied anxiety and anger within her, and her fallen nature was directed toward her husband and her child. Thus her relationships with her husband and her son deteriorated.
When you continue the give and take action of fallen nature, it torments you gradually. It will make you feel disgusted with the give and take action itself so that you may rather stop doing so all together. Yuta’s avoidance of his mother and Eiko’s lack of communication with her father are direct results of the give and take action based on their fallen nature.
Figure 1: Eiko’s Relationships Prior to Saying “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” to Her Father
Father Fallen Nature Original Nature
Fallen Nature Original Nature Fallen Nature Original Nature Eiko Husband
Yuta Fallen Nature Original Nature
After Eiko started saying “thank you” and “I’m sorry” to her father according to Mr. Yaguchi’s advice, her relationships changed to Figure 2. Her words to her father, “thank you” and “I’m sorry” stimulated her father’s original nature (Feelings; His daughter is sweet and dear.) and he broke down into tears. Then he uttered the words from his feelings of original nature; “Eiko, I’m sorry. I wasn’t a good father. I made you go through many terrible times.” Furthermore,
the father’s feelings of original nature stimulated Eiko’s original nature as his daughter (Her feelings; her father is dear; she wants to be dutiful to him.) Thus, she could begin to say honestly, “Father, I’m sorry. I was also a bad daughter. Thank you for raising me.”
Likewise, her feelings of original nature, which was invigorated, were directed toward her husband and son. As a result, Eiko could transform from a “wife who despised her husband” to a “wife who appreciates her husband” and from a “mother who was worried and nagging” to a “mother who trusts and respects her son.”
Figure 2: Eiko’s Relationships after She Started Saying “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” to Her Father
Father Fallen Nature Original Nature
Fallen Nature Original Nature Fallen Nature Original Nature Eiko Husband
Fallen Nature Original Nature Yuta
Then, why did Yuta’s friends’ bullying against him stop? This explanation on this is not clearly given in this book. However, if we think about it from the principled viewpoint I have been explaining, we can understand the change of Yuta’s relationship with his friends.
Before Eiko started saying “thank you” and “I’m sorry,” Yuta must have had a lot of anxiety and anger within him, which he had received from his mother. Therefore, he related to his friends with the feelings of anxiety and anger. As a result, it triggered the anger of his friends and he became the target of their bullying. This is illustrated in Figure 3.
Here let us think about bullying problems. Ethically speaking, the bullies are bad and the bullied are not bad. Those who should apologize and change are the bullies. However, as I actually got involved in bullying problems myself, I cannot help but feel that there are quite a few cases in which there are problems with the bullied. When I was school counseling, I heard from the teachers who were in charge of bullying problems that those bullies were bad, but the bullied say things, which instigated bullying and the bullied always looked timid and did not say things clearly, and therefore the classmates got irritated and gave them a hard time. If we look at this from a principled viewpoint, all give and take actions do not take place without a
common base being formed and so the bullied are forming some kind of common base with the bullies.
When we look at bullying closely, as the above-mentioned teachers said, in many cases there seems to be a pattern of the bullied having a strong sense of anxiety and not being able to take a clear stance, which leads to the bullies’ irritation. The irritation of the bullied also seems to provoke the anger of the people around them, which leads to their bullying.
Figure 3: Yuta’s Relationships with Friends before His Mother’s “Thank you” and “I’m sorry”
Yuta Fallen Nature Original Nature
Friends Fallen Nature Original Nature
Yuta used to be as the figure shows, but as Eiko started saying “thank you” and “I’m sorry,” her feelings of original nature were invigorated as his mother. For Yuta who started receiving his mother’s feelings of original nature, his feelings of original nature were invigorated and thus he might have been able to relate to his friends with the feelings of original nature. As a result, the give and take action of the feelings of original nature (a desire to get along as friends; a desire to relate to each other with thoughtfulness) among his friends began to be formed. It is likely that his friends felt guilty, apologized to Yuta for bullying him and invited him to play baseball together.
This can be illustrated in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Yuta’s Relationships with Friends after His Mother’s “Thank you” and “I’m sorry”
Yuta Fallen Nature Original Nature
Friends Fallen Nature Original Nature
If we think like this, though it seems that there is no correlation between the change of Eiko’s feelings and the fact that the bullying against Yuta ended, you can understand why.
This is a principled interpretation of the Laws of the Mirror. Then, based on this understanding, what are we supposed to do to remove our fallen nature? Next, I will give you things we should be doing.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 11: The Solution to the Problems of the Mind and Tribal Messiahship)
I explained two segments ago that our problems of the mind (anxiety and anger) are maintained and developed by the give and take action based on our fallen nature. In addition, last time we saw examples for solving the problems of the mind through a principled interpretation of the Laws of the Mirror. This time I would like to present what to do in reality based on the examples in the Laws of the Mirror in order to remove our fallen nature.
When we read the book, the Laws of the Mirror, Mr. Noguchi, the author reiterates the importance of forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to do to practice love and this is the most important theme in the New Testament. Jesus forgave our sin on the cross. As a result, the way to the spiritual salvation was opened. Therefore, in the Era of the New Testament or Christianity it is not excessive to say that the Providence has moved forward centered on this love and forgiveness.
Though I digress, when we think about the issue of forgiveness in the faith in the New Testament, there is a book which had a deep impression on me. It is a book entitled, Left to Tell. It was written by a woman, a genocide survivor in Rwanda in 1994. The genocide in Rwanda was carried out by the Hutu tribe against the Tutsi tribe. For about 100 days this genocide caused 800, 000 to 1,000,000 deaths. A horrible thing was that neighbors who lived together got divided into one group to kill and the other to be killed. For Immaculee Ilibagiza, the author of the book, her family and relatives were killed by the neighbors she was close to. She was hiding in a bathroom with seven other Tutsi tribal girls. She was almost killed. The book tells how she survived the period of the genocide and how she lived afterwards. One consistent theme throughout the book is forgiveness.
For three months she had been hearing the footsteps of the killers who came around, looking for her and had been hearing their vulgar words. She was holding a rosary and reading the Bible, fighting her anxiety, fear and anger. She kept praying to forgive the killers who came to kill her and those who killed her family. After the genocide, she met the ringleader (the man her father had taken care of before the genocide) of the people who killed her family and forgave him.
When I read this book, I felt the strength of the faith of the New Testament and the greatness of the act of forgiveness. This book describes a noble world of faith I can barely fathom since I did not have a Christian background before. I strongly recommend that you read this book.
Let me go back to the topic of forgiveness. Is it part of the process to move on toward resolving problems by the Laws of the Mirror that you forgive the person you have not forgiven?
If I am to give the conclusion first, it is not forgiveness. Of course, forgiveness is an important theme. However, I think that in the story in the Laws of the Mirror, the most important point for Eiko to solve her problems is her encounter with her father. In the first half of the Completed Testament Counseling, I mentioned that anxiety and anger, which are the core of our problems of the mind, are vertical hereditary problems which have been passed down from the fall of Adam and Eve and that we need to solve these hereditary problems vertically in order to solve anxiety and anger within us. In the Laws of the Mirror, the fact that the relationships centered on Eiko changed from those of the give and take action of fallen nature to those of the give and take action of original nature is a result of a change in the parent-child relationship, which is this vertical relationship.
The anxiety and anger Eiko has are a result of the vertical sadness and suffering her ancestors inherited historically. Such hereditary problems occur intensively in earthly vertical relationships, that is, the parent-child relationships today. In Eiko’s case, her hereditary problems occurred in her relationship with her father as a vertical one, which brought her internal suffering.
In such a circumstance, she overcame her anger toward her father and could say “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” Those words resolved his anxiety and anger toward his daughter and thus they could begin their parent-child relationship centered on the feelings of original nature. Because of that, she could overcome the historical problems of fallen nature, that is, anxiety and anger and restore the feelings of original nature as her own.
Seen from this historical viewpoint, you can understand that it is decisively crucial in order to remove fallen nature that you restore your parent-child relationship.
Here, we have come to the final conclusion. It is necessary to change the parent-child relationship, which is the fruit of the historical, hereditary and vertical problems, to that of original nature in order to solve our problems of the mind. In that process, we can remove fallen nature and become people with original nature. That is, we need to win a victory in the tribal messiah Providence in order to solve the problems of the mind.
The tribal messiahship does not mean to teach the Principle to your relatives by video or lectures or to pray for them after you ask them to drink the holy wine. As I wrote earlier, True Parents could become the Messiah to mankind by resolving God’s anxiety and anger. We can
become tribal messiahs by resolving our physical parents’ anxiety and anger and by restoring the parent-child relationship of original nature. Once we resolve their anxiety and anger and restore the parent-child relationship of original nature based on love and trust, they will naturally become supportive to UC and will drink the holy wine.
Then, how can we resolve the anxiety and anger within our parents and restore the parent- child relationship of original nature? The first step is to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” as written in the Laws of the Mirror.
Why “thank you” and “I’m sorry”?
I think that they are probably the words which are unconditionally uttered from original nature. You cannot say those words to someone you are angry with whom or cannot forgive. I think that gratitude and apologies are what you cannot express unless you are in a mental state without anger. Therefore, “thank you” and “I’m sorry” are the words in the background of original nature and thus reach the other’s feelings of original nature. Therefore, the first step to have an encounter with your parents begins with conveying those words.
Of course, that is not the end. There are quite a few people who came to me for counseling, saying, “I told them that. What’s next?” Though I said that saying those words was the first step to have an encounter, what is the goal of saying that? It is to establish the “ideal parent- child relationship.” That is the goal. For that purpose, you may have to attend your parents, resolve their “han” and keep giving them joy.
What is the parent-child relationship of original nature like? Here is the following passage on a life of true love in one of Father’s Peace Messages:
True love gives, forgets that it has given, and continues to give without ceasing. We find it in the joyful and loving heart of a mother who cradles her baby in her arms and nurses it at her breast. True love is a sacrificial love, as with a filial son who gains his greatest satisfaction in helping his parents.
When I saw this passage, I was astonished. I learned it for the first time that the level of joy that is felt by being dutiful to your parents is the same as that of joy which is felt when a mother is cradling and nursing her baby. Since I am a man, I have never experienced the joy of cradling and nursing a baby. It is not difficult to imagine that it would be the sweetest joy. The joy of filial piety is no less than that! It was a moment that I felt how far off my heart for my parents was from the original standard. We must restore such a heart.
What are we supposed to do in order to restore the parent-child relationship of original nature? What does it mean to attend our parents? What is true filial piety like? It is not easy to answer
these questions. If I am to give you a hint to answer these questions, here it is. The parent- child relationship of original nature is the basis of the culture of heart. In order to understand the culture of heart, we need to understand the Korean culture and tradition in which True Parents were born and raised. That is, to understand the tradition of “filial piety” or the way of filial piety in the Korean tradition. I would like to talk about this in detail when I have another opportunity.
One thing I would like to convey here is that it is an absolute necessity to live together in order to restore the parent-child relationship of original nature.
Fallen nature in the parent-child relationship contains all of the hereditary problems and is deeply rooted. When we live far away from each other, we are not aware of fallen nature which is deeply rooted in our hearts. However, when we live together, on the whim of the moment, anger or an unforgivable feeling toward our parents springs up.
I will talk about myself. I was the only child and was raised with affection. My father was a professor. My mother was a housewife and taught a cooking class. I was raised completely free of want. My parents barely raised their voices. Needless to say, I do not remember being spanked.
I left home to go to a graduate school and lived away from my parents for a long time. When I lived far away from them, also knowing the Divine Principle, I had never experienced anger toward my parents but I was very sorry that I had not been a dutiful son.
Then about five years ago, we began to live together and I began to find myself irritated by their small words and deeds. Their trivial words and deeds, and even what they sometimes say for my sake, irritated me. Watching my own reactions, it reassures me seeing how strong my fallen nature is and of the sinfulness of the fallen man.
Right now, I am taking one step at a time to reconstruct my relationship with my parents. I live each day, desiring to become a dutiful son who can experience the sweetest joy as described in Father’s Peace Message I introduced earlier. However, the goal seems to be so far away.
From my own experience, I can definitely say that it is essential that parents and their children should live together because when they are separated, they cannot dig up the deeply rooted historical fallen nature. In Father’s Peace Messages he often says, “Three generations should live together.” It may mean that when three generations live together and establish the heartistic parent-child relationship of original nature, they can solve their historical, hereditary problems and perfect themselves, overcoming their fallen nature in the true sense.
Up until now for a year I have been writing this paper entitled, the Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling which describes how the problems of the mind occur and what to do to solve them.
Tribal messiahship is the key. Some of you may think that it was unexpected. Other may say that it was a natural conclusion. No matter how you felt, please try and practice the Laws of the Mirror, which is to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” to your parents. Furthermore, please try it on your in-laws as their son-in-law or daughter-in-law. Especially, it is important for sisters to say that to their parents-in-law. Since the vertical develop horizontally, please try it on your siblings and relatives. Something will change in your life. Then you will surely take the first step toward victory in your tribal messiahship.
Now that the final conclusion has been presented, I might as well finish this series here. However, we need to pay attention to various things in order to solve the actual problems. Next, through clinical examples I was involved in, I will talk about how to practice what you have learned and what the problem is when things do not go well.
Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling (No. 12: Reality of “Thank you” and “I’m sorry”)
Last time I stated that in order to solve the problems of the mind, it is necessary to bring our parent-child relationship to the level of original nature, that is, to achieve victory in tribal messiahship. I also mentioned that for that purpose, you only have to begin with conveying what you are grateful for (thank you) and what you want to apologize for (I’m sorry). Among those who are reading this now, is there anyone who has done it? How about the results?
There might be some who say that as a result, not only your own feelings or your relationship with your parents, but also your conjugal relationships and your relationships with your children or other various things in daily lives, started changing. On the contrary, there might be others who say that you feel a little better but nothing has actually changed.
This time I would like to talk about how to practice it in order to succeed in the Laws of the Mirror.
First of all, it is a matter of how to do it. All you have to do is go through the steps described in the book. The first object is your parents. First, list all the things about them you cannot forgive. Next, write down things you are grateful for and want to apologize for. After that, you tell them what you are grateful for and what you want to apologize for. The method itself is simple. However, there are some points you have be aware of in order to execute the Laws of the Mirror well.
The first point is about the things you cannot forgive. We know the Divine Principle. When we learn it, our capacity of the mind expands and we are able to understand people much more
deeply. Therefore, we come to be able to forgive many things about our parents. For this reason, some say that they cannot think of anything which they cannot forgive. That is fine itself. There are other people who say, “There is nothing I cannot forgive. Since I heard the Divine Principle, I could forgive everything about them. Therefore, I don’t need the Laws of the Mirror.”
As I wrote before, as seen from a principled point of view, “forgiving” is not important per se. It is important to build the ideal parent-child relationship and to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” To write down what you cannot forgive is simply a prerequisite towards forgiving. Therefore, even if you cannot think of any you cannot forgive, let us move on.
The second point is about what you are grateful for and what you want to apologize for. If you have not done that yet, please write them down now. If you just think about them, you cannot really deepen your thoughts. So I recommend you to write them down, not just to think about them.
What kind of things did you write? There must be all kinds of things you can say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” for. After you have done so, it is more effective to verbalize it with “thank you” and “I’m sorry” with as much emotion as possible, rather than writing them down objectively. Concretely speaking, instead of saying, “I am grateful that my father used to take me to the park during my childhood,” you can express your feelings more deeply if you say, “Father, thank you for taking me often to the nearby park when I was a child.” This will you remember other things more easily.
Next, please write this. As there are all kinds of parent-child relationships, there are many forms of “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” However, there are ways of saying “thank you”and “I’m sorry” which work well and those which do not. Those which work well are the ones of the parent-child relationship. The Laws of the Mirror of plain “thank you” and “I’m sorry” do not work.
It might be hard to understand. Let me give an example. Some wrote: “Thank you for buying me clothes.” “Thank you for sending me a lot of apples.” and “I’m sorry that I damaged your car when I came home last time.” These are examples of not using the Laws of the Mirror well. What is the problem here? You would say, “Thank you,” if you are given clothes or things by a neighbor or a church member. If you damaged a rental car, when you take it back to the rental place, you would say, “I’m sorry.” Therefore, these are not the “thank you” and “I’m sorry” of the parent-child relationship but general “thank you.”
Then, what are the “thank you” and “I’m sorry” of the parent-child relationship like? “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” exist because of the parent-child relationship. It is because of the parent- child relationship that you can say, “Thank you for sending to college when you did not have
enough money.” “Thank you for taking care of me when I was small and sickly.” “I’m sorry that I said, ‘I hate you.’ when I was in middle school.” These are the expressions you can say because the parent-child relationship exists. The ultimate expressions for your parents would be: “Thank you for having me.”; “Thank you for being my father.”; “I’m sorry that I have not been a dutiful child.”
What are the “thank you” and “I’m sorry” you wrote like? I hope that you can express your “thank you” and “I’m sorry” to be said exclusively to you parents.
The third point is how to convey them. There are different ways to convey your feelings such as letters, E-mails, telephone calls, in person, etc. What is the best among them? The method I recommend best is telephone calls. The reason is that you can convey your feelings more directly, compared with letters or e-mails. Some say that you want to tell them in person. It takes a lot of energy and I admire your spirit. However, among those I met, there are quite a few people who said that it did not go well when they talked to their parents directly in person.
Why so? If you are on the phone, you can tell them what you wish to say and get off the phone. Just as in the story in the book, Eiko conveyed her feelings on the phone and got off the phone at an opportune time.
What would happen if you conveyed your feelings to your parents in person? Try to imagine the situation. If they live nearby, it is ok. If not, you may have to stay overnight. Then, you may end up conveying not only “thank you” and “I’m sorry” but also other things. Then, unless you really have your feelings under control, you may utter words of demand or blame them and make excuses for your behaviors. So far, some people told me that they had gone to see their parents to convey “thank you” and “I’m sorry” but in addition, they ended up making excuses after they said ‘I’m sorry” and told them what they had not liked or painful things they had had toward their parents. They ended up having the same old conversation.
If you are on the phone, this does not happen. You tell them the words of gratitude and apologies and then you can hang up the phone. You can minimize the risk of having the same difficulty as seeing them in person. From this, I recommend that you make phone calls, deepen your relationship with them first, and then visit your parents to serve them.
Some say that they want to write letters to their parents, instead of calling them. They might be shying away in their hearts from what should be done. There are people who say that they get nervous when they talk to their parents in person and cannot convey their feelings straight. In that case, it may not be a bad idea to start with letters. E-mails seem to convey feelings less than handwritten letters. So if it is difficult to make phone calls, at least convey your feelings by handwritten letters.
However, if you live together with them, you may want to make time and talk to them about your feelings. In that case, you do not want to have a lengthy conversation. You tell them that you have something to say. Create an environment to talk to them face to face and convey “thank you” and “I’m sorry.”
After you have accomplished expressing your gratitude and apologies to your parents, please do the same to your in-laws. It is especially important for the wives to talk to their parents-in- law. It could be more important than talking to their own parents. The lineage is connected through the husband. Connecting to the husband’s lineage is his wife’s role. Therefore, the wife has the mission to solve her husband’s problems in his lineage. It is the wife’s role to connect her husband’s lineage to God. The way to carry it out is the same as with her own parents. Practicing the Laws of the Mirror on her parents-in-law rather than on her own parents might be able to solve the current family problems. This is because the lineage of the family is on the father’s side. Please practice attending to the lineage.
When I talk about the Laws of the Mirror, one of the most frequently asked questions is what to do since their parents are in the spirit world. Even though they are in the spirit world, they are still your parents. You can still convey “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” Today we have the grace of the Cheong Pyeong Providence. You can write down what you are grateful for and what you want to apologize for. If possible, you might want to convey those at the Prayer House (Jeong Shim Won). If you have a hard time to get there, you can place a photo in front of you and talk to it formally. Even by doing so, something in your heart will start changing.
In addition, the vertical develops horizontally. The parent-child relationship is reflected onto the sibling’s relationships. When there are problems with the parent-child relationship, there are many cases in which the siblings have problems. Especially, if parents get angry, it becomes more prevalent in the family and it often manifests itself in the form of sibling fights. If your parents are in the spirit world, you can say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” to your siblings and try to establish the sibling relationship of original nature. Likewise, since the vertical relationships expand horizontally to the relatives as well, it becomes important to practice the Laws of the Mirror throughout the entire clan as a tribal messiah.
Of course, the best way is to convey the messages to your parents directly, but we never know when they will go to the spirit world, though you may think that they are well enough right now. For that reason alone, please try to tell your parents “thank you” and “I’m sorry” as soon as possible and based on that, start a life of attendance for them.
It definitely takes courage to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” to your parents. Especially, when you have problems with your parents and you may not feel like doing it. There are some people who say that they do not want to say “I’m sorry,” fearing that they might be ridiculed by their parents, who could say, “What took you so long to realize it?” However, as far as I know,
there has been no case yet in which they were hurt further by their parents when they said “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” In all cases their parents listened quietly and returned warm words. Even if they do not say anything at that moment, you will surely hear a positive message later on. Once you cast words with the feelings of original nature, they cannot help but respond to it with the feelings of original nature. That is the Principle.
This is it for the Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling. Once you read through this, you will understand the following: the structure of our the mind, especially the problems of the mind is rooted in anxiety and anger and those feelings have been passed on through the blood lineage since the fall of Adam and Eve; those feelings come directly from our parents; therefore, the problems of our relationships with our parents are the substantial development of our hereditary problems; by changing our relationships with our parents to the those of original nature, our hereditary problems will be solved and at the same time anxiety and anger within us will be solved as well; furthermore, the conjugal relationships and those with our children, which are the results of the historical problems will be solved; those problems will be solved by the Laws of the Mirror.
If you think that it is not clear from reading this paper alone, please contact your Family Department representatives in each district. DVD’s or videos of my Completed Testament Ministrial Counseling should have been sent to your Family Department directors from the HQ Family Department by now.
The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth we are aiming for is not a well managed institution or a place with the abundance of wealth. It is a world where there are family relationships of original nature. That is the place where three generations live together. There is no anxiety or anger among our relatives there. It is the place where human relationships filled with love and thoughtfulness are established. We do not practice our faith to make donations or to travel all around the world. The Kingdom of Heaven is in a nearby world, called family. I would like you to live everyday life of faith, taking the above-mentioned things to heart.
In conclusion, I would be very happy if the contents of the Completed Testament Pastoral Counseling I have written so far play a role in your happiness and in solving your everyday problems. I would like to thank Mr. Zama of the Shimjeong Cultural Institute for giving me this opportunity.