1. RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANS

1) How to Relate with Humans

In our daily life, everybody has his or her own concept of good and evil. I think that you often experience the following. When you meet a person for the first time and just look at her you can recognize whether she is a good person or not. If you are a religious or spiritual person, you will recognize it all the more easily. When you meet a person you will understand with your conscience whether or not she is good, even if you meet her for the first time. You may have had such experiences in your religious life, especially if you have spiritual ability.

It is from our human relationships that we can recognize others as good or evil. This is better than any other means. \ (27-46)

2) Desirable Human Relationships

Let us examine human beings. One smiles gently, and another one laughs with a loud voice. There are many kinds of laughing. (46-285)

In your religious life, you should establish your position, where you stand. You should examine everyone as to whether he or she is good or evil for you, or whether he or she is a plus or minus for you. You must determine from the person's words and behavior whether he or she is plus or minus for you. In other words, you must examine whether a person is helpful for God's providence and for your religious life or not. (40-88)

3) Three Classes of People

In the fallen world we can classify human beings into three categories. One class of humans belongs to hell. Another class belongs to the world which is located between the satanic and heavenly worlds. The third class of humans belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven.

An individual human being has a mind and body. The mind does not always follow the spiritual; it is usually between the spiritual and the physical. Thus, there are three types of human beings; the physical, the mindful and the spiritual, who belong to the satanic world, middle world, and heavenly world respectively.

When you meet someone for the first time, you sometimes feel pleasant, and you are attracted to him or her in a moment. Why is it so? You are attracted to him or her because he or she is spiritually higher. You will feel naturally pleased to meet a person who has a higher spiritual foundation which his or her ancestors have established. It is because you will benefit rather than lose by relating with him or her. You can decide whether a person is good or evil by seeing whether you benefit or lose from your relationship. In other cases, you don't feel pleasant or unpleasant when you meet a person. In yet another case, you feel unpleasant seeing a person. Everyone emits rays, which affect the people around him or her.

Thus, you should correctly evaluate people. When you think that someone is good just by looking at him or her, you are already engaged in a give and take relationship, regarding him or her in the subject position while you are in the object position. From the Principleis point of view, when a subject and an object establish a complete reciprocal standard and are engaged in complete give and take action, God dwells in them. (50-258)

4) A Being in Connection with Ancestors

When you meet a person and feel pleasant, you naturally want to give him or her something and receive something from him or her. In the same way that iron is attracted to a magnet, two persons are united as an invisible connection works behind them. God dwells in them when they have a strong connection between them.

Give and take action gives rise to a movement based on a center, and the movement spreads around the center. When a center is established quickly, the movement will last for a long time, but the movement will collapse easily when it takes a lot of time to establish a center.

When two parties are engaged in give and take action, God dwells in them. When someone feels it is pleasant to see another one for the first time, there is a connection behind them, the connection between their ancestors.

One of your grandmothers may belong to the Choi family and another one may belong to the Kim family. From the ancient ancestors down to the present parents, one's ancestors belong to various families. However, one has special connections to some families, and we can divide our ancestors into some classes. Then we can say that one is mostly connected with the first class of ancestors, say, the ancestors who belong to the Choi family, and then with the second class of ancestors, say, the ancestors who belong to Kim family, and so on. There are tens of classes in one's ancestors.

Even though I was born physically as the son of my present parents, I am not merely a horizontal being of this age. The bloods of my grandfathers and grandmothers as well as those of many other ancestors are mixed in my blood. Six billion cells in one's body are connected with one's ancestors.

It is important for us to know from which ancestors we have mostly inherited our characters. Your uncle may belong to the Cho family, but he does not represent merely the Cho family. If his mother belongs to the Park family, he has some character of the Park family. Thus, the present "I" was born as the combination of all my ancestors.

When you meet a person, say, Mr. Park, for the first time and feel pleasant somehow, it is because you have many Park ancestors. On the other hand, if you feel disgust from a person whom you meet for the first time, it is because ancestors of both parties were in an antagonistic relationship. Perhaps his ancestors did harm to your ancestors. Thus, our ancestors' conflicting relationships appear as repelling human relationships today.

Some persons are neither pleasant or unpleasant to you. They belong to the neutral position. You can influence and move them if you want. They will be attracted to you if you, as a subject, do your best to serve them with all your sincerity. Then, if they are attracted to you and come closer beyond a certain line, you will be able to guide them to go the same way you go.

If you want to witness to a person with whom you feel it is difficult to get along with, you have to solve the problem of restoration. You cannot restore him or her for nothing. Standing in the position of goodness, you have to pay the price for him or her.

It seems that we are just living together horizontally in this world. It is not true, however, seen from the spiritual and heavenly viewpoint.

There are mountains and valleys in our human relationships just as in the natural world. Thus, one goes the flat way, another descends, and the other ascends mountains.

You may think that all human beings are the same, but they are not. When one likes this, another likes that. Everyone feels in his or her own way. All these feelings are related with the historical background and spiritual connections. (50-259)

5) A Good Person

What is a good person? If you try to find only shortcomings in others, and if you accuse someone ten times for his or her ten shortcomings, you are not a good person. You should forget the shortcomings of others and evaluate their good points rather than accusing their shortcomings. Thus, you can be related with others in the position of goodness, and you can guide them to happiness. They will follow you and be closely associated with you. If you just hate the shortcomings of others and judge them as worse than they are, you should know that you cannot find goodness on earth.

Then what is a good person? A good person is one who loves even bad people; a person who sympathizes with those in sorrow as if he himself were in sorrow. If you become sympathetic with others and indemnify their sorrows and give joy to them, you can be a model of a good person in any situation.

How can you become such a person? You should transcend superficial, worldly habits and ideas. You should think, "I was born in order to change bad people into good people," or, " I was born for the sake of others." If you think that is the mission of your life, you will be able to get rid of all evils, whatever difficult problems may arise in your surroundings.

You should not think that you have nothing to do with the evils of others. You should suffer from them, and you should pray with tears for others, and you should live with determination to indemnify their sins. Then you will become central figures to guide them. (34-130)

We should know who is a good person. A good person loves children, young people, and old people. In relationship to nature, he or she loves spring, summer, autumn and winter. That is a good person. (72-102)