GOD’S PRESENCE
We know that the air is circulating around us, but we do not feel it. If we are unaware even of the air circulating around us, how can we expect to be aware of God’s presence?
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 34
How can we know whether God exists or not? We know air exists, even though it is invisible. How do we know? We know because we live by breathing it. Does the air have any taste? It has no taste and it is invisible; still, we know without a doubt that air exists. Similarly, we have a mind. Even though it is invisible, we know with certainty that we have it.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 20
The question is how we empathize with God’s feeling ins our daily life. When you are alone… call out to God, “Father!” Then you will feel God’s reply, “Yes, I am here!”… It seems that no one is around, but someone is leading and guiding you.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 1, Verse 8
If you reach a mystical state in prayer, enter the realm of spiritual experience, and call out to God, “Heavenly Father,” you will hear the answer from deep inside, “Why are you calling me? I am right here. Here!”
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 21
There is no place in the universe where God is not present, and yet we live unaware of His presence or absence. Air surrounds us, but ordinarily we do not feel it; it is only when we are suffocating that we realize that air exists.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 31
It’s all up here in our minds how close we are to God.
Sun Myung Moon
Do not be discouraged. Even though sometimes you feel that there is no God, know that He is always present. With that feeling you must remember that God is with you.
Sun Myung Moon
A PERSEVERING GOD
God is not the God of one particular time period; He is the God of history. He is the God who has toiled hard through countless saints and sages who represented Him throughout history.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse, 29
God has a purpose for the world, which He holds in the depth of His heart. Even though we have fallen, He is determined to find human beings who can be instilled with this purpose, which has nothing to do with the Fall.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 8
Before you think about this, you should pray, “God, as I lead my life I am dealing with these kinds of sensations. Yet I want to lead my life understanding the heart of Adam and Eve toward you before the Fall, the heart they had at the time of the Fall, the heart You experienced when You had to expel Adam and Even, the heart with which You toiled hard for humanity for 1600 years until You called Noah, and Noah’s heart as he worked for 120 years bearing ridicule and persecution, holding on to Heaven in order to build the ark on top of a mountain. I want to know Your heart through all the twists and turns of history, and hold on to that heart.”
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 1, Verse 7
We need to understand God’s heart in history, always wanting to say to us, “I want to talk to you; I want to work with you.” God does not forget us; He waits for us.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 1, Verse 10
In reality, God put all His life, love and hope on the line to create human beings. We can say in short that God invested everything into the relationship between Himself and human beings. His was an unconditional, total investment.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 3, Section 1, Verse 14
In order to create all things, God had to pour out His very essence. That is, He invested a great deal of energy… God’s total self-investment meant that He was not conscious of Himself as He worked. He was so immersed in pursuing the purpose of His partner that He completely forgot Himself. In the end, God wants to live for the sake of the human beings whom He created.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 3, Section 1, Verse 19
WHO IS GOD?
Although the incorporeal God can be as big as He wants, the universe is too small to contain His heart; He desires something even larger.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 34
God is the ultimate being of love and the origin of heart, which is deeper than love. God’s Word, deeds and philosophy are rooted in His heart. None of these can exist by itself. Each stems from god’s vertical heart.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 10
God is also the only one who knows everything we are pondering, and the only one, the Absolute Being, who can solve our fundamental problems.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 10
The Creator, standing at the center of the universe, protects it with a strong sense of responsibility. He protects and nurtures the universe well… He takes responsibility for all things, good and bad. He never runs away from that responsibility.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 17
God has boundless blessings to give….. You cannot purchase them and you would never exchange them for anything in the world. He is in possession of everything that you could want.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 18
God is a personal being.. Thus, God and we can communicate with each other. For instance, when we laugh, God should be able to laugh. Then does the absolute God, who can do whatever He wants, shed tears? Yes, God also sheds tears.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 4, Verse 16
The important question is, what is God’s essence? It is love. It is not love that seeks to be served, but love that seeks to serve.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 3, Section 3, Verse 1
HOW CAN I MEET GOD?
You do not keep your most precious things in a place where people can just see and touch them. You secure them in a place where no one can steal them. If you had a most precious, prized and unique treasure, you would secure it where no one could take it. You would keep it in the deepest part of your heart, the place to which you alone had access. Your heart is the only place where you can meet God one-on-one. God too does not want to meet you in an exposed place. He seeks a unique place where He can meet you you as an individual with unique character, thinking and feeling.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 35
God’s heart exists not only in the Word but in everything He created. God’s heart is everywhere throughout heaven and earth. Thus we say there is nowhere that God does not exist; that is, God is omnipresent. Since God’s heart is in all things of creation, if you want to be in His heart you should embrace everything that exists in heaven and on earth as your own. Our heart desires to go beyond our people, the world and all created things and be with God. In our heart, we yearn to go to the place where we can even claim that God is ours. A person who has such a heart is with God.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 38
How can we feel God’s ubiquitous presence? We should feel the air as God’s breathing, and when a storm hits, we should feel as if He were sneezing. When we see flowing water, we should perceive it as the sweat God has shed as He overcame His course of suffering for the sake of the world. When we look at the sun, it should bring to mind the life elements of the entire universe, and teach us God’s love. God created nature as a textbook for us, His beloved sons and daughters, to provide us deep experiences of His heart and bring us joy.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 39
Where is [God] then? He is in the place nearest to us. That is why we cannot See Him. He is so extremely close to us that we cannot see Him.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 42
God is the motivation within our hearts. He is our original source, and the root of our ideals. Without a cause there can be no result. Therefore, the universe cannot exist apart from God. Dwelling on this earth, we are like orphans who have lost our parents. Imagine the joyful shout of someone who finds his or her lost parents. That joy would be incomparably greater than the joy of a general who conquers the world and gained a material fortune. The heart is what is important.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 6
Therefore, if you want to have a relationship with [God], stay together with Him and enjoy His reign in the realm of love, you too have to assert yourself through a life of loving and caring for others.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 2, Verse 7
The whole world will belong to the one who loves God.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 2, Verse 26
Depending on the depth and breadth of our preparation, our capacity to experience God’s heart grows. Within the Word, God’s heart is beating. Therefore, once we hear the Word, even we fallen people feel God’s heart beginning to bud within our heart. When our hearts thus begin to bud, we acquire the strength to love our enemy, and the power to subjugate Satan’s world is activated. Thus you must never keep God’s Word to yourself; you need to gain the ability to activate God’s heart within you.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 3, Verse 7
As God believes in us, we have to believe in Him.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 3, Verse 16
How much we empty ourselves determines how close we are to becoming one with God.
Sun Myung Moon
In the desire of the One to know Himself, We exist. ~Rumi
Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation. ~ Rumi
You are looking for God. That is the problem. The God in you is the one who is looking. ~ Rumi
You believe God is not there, but He is, Hidden in the secret of the divine mystery. ~Rumi
There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen ~Rumi
I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God. ~ Rumi
Don’t turn from yourself. God is with you. ~Rumi
Stop the noise and you will hear his voice in the silence. ~Rumi
At a distance you only see my light… come closer and know that I am you. ~ Rumi
THE CREATOR
The creation of human beings, God’s manifestation in substance, reflects God’s own growth. God finds this process interesting and stimulating. Human beings feel the same way. An artist paints with the idea of creation a masterpiece that can express his or her inner attributes fully and substantially. in order to do this, the artist has to wrench the essence and energy from deep inside his or her bone marrow, and invest that into the work.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 2, Verse 20
If human beings have a tendency to always desire something higher and better, God must have the same tendency. If He had that mindset when He created human beings, how wonderful they must be! We can conclude that God wanted to create us as His greatest masterpiece.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 11
Consider your ears. They face the front. What if they were positioned to face the other way, or what if they were missing? We would not be able to pick up sounds from in front of us. We would also not be able to hear voices from a distance. The ears were formed to catch the sound of voices coming from in front of us. Why? It is because people face each other when they talk. No one talks to the back of your head. The ears face forward because when we meet people, we talk face to face. The fact that they face front means that someone knew in advance that the ears were to hear the sounds that come from in front of us.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Verse 13
[ For more about the amazing human body check out Book 1 of the CSG “The Mysteries of the human body testify to God’s existence”]
God did not intend to simply create something and leave it alone; He wanted an eternal relationship with His creation. God intended an ideal of total oneness, an inseparable relationship that no one could break, that even He Himself could not break. Therefore, from the time the first human beings were created, God and human beings were meant to be together, not separate. From that starting point, God and we human beings were meant to stay together for eternity.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 3, Verse 2
The center of it all was God’s heart of love. The origin of the cosmos was God Himself, and it was God’s heart that provided the original impulse that set in motion the phenomena of creation. From that heart of love springs the ideal realm where all things come into oneness.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 3, Section 1, Verse 3.
You will see even within a single atom the endless and inexhaustible harmonies of the universe. Although we may not understand it well, we can never deny that all existence results from a complex of forces. Within molecules there are atoms, and within atoms there are elementary particles. Yet even these entities are not without consciousness. Each exists with a specific consciousness and purpose. We thus can state that all existing beings have come about through God’s loving hand and are surely tied to God’s heart.
CSG, Book 1, Chapter 3, Section 2, Verse 24