The Mind Is the Master of the Body

The Mind is the master of the body. My mind is the master of my flesh. My flesh is the outer casing, and the master of my flesh is my mind.

If my mind desires to travel somewhere, my body is simply taken along. ①If my mind wants to scratch an itch, then that spot on my body must be scratched. If my mind becomes enraged and resolves, “I must hit that person,” then my body strikes that person. The body is the servant of the mind.

During their lifetime, a person functions as a person through the union of the mind-soul and the flesh. In death, a person no longer possesses the flesh, yet ②their spirit still functions as an entity. What, then, is the difference between a person and a spirit? ③A person is “an entity with flesh”; a spirit is “an entity without flesh.”

Be Aware of the Tides of Time

People must live in concord with natural principles. In fact, ①those who live in concord with the principle of heaven and earth flourish, while those contravene the principle of heaven and earth suffer ruin.
The principle of heaven and earth, or nature’s order, cannot be pulled, pushed, or halted. Possessing billions of dollars is worthless; owning everything on earth would be futile. The principle of nature cannot be challenged by any means.

You must understand heavenly time, just as humans understand the rhythm of the changing seasons—sowing plants in spring, cultivating them in summer, and harvesting them in autumn. ②Now is the age when the seasons of heaven and earth are changing. ③Those ignorant of this have no choice but perish. There is only one time for bearing fruit: autumn. If you do not survive this era, all of your ancestors from the many past generations will meet the same destiny: they all will die with you.

Ancestral Spirits Truly Care About Their Descendants

Let us address the most important point first: who are the important Spirits for each familial community? They are the spiritual ancestors of each family. ①The ancestral spirits are not unlike gods to the descendants, with there also being Sangjenim, the Master of them all. I am not expressing some personal opinion, and ②even if it were not part of Jeung San Do’s message, I would still proclaim this truth, as a devotee of Truth. Who are the paramount Spirits for all of humanity? For all people, their own ancestors are the Ones.

The ancestral spirits from many generations “accompany” each of us. ②Ancestral spirits, even if their descendant is a thief, a burglar, or a murderer, always follow their descendant to protect and preserve them. ③However bad the descendant’s deeds, the ancestors want to get them out of trouble. Thus, ancestral spirits are intimately tied to the life and death of their descendants. You must know this. Your ancestors are your paramount Spirits.

Our Ancestors Within Our Bodies

Within an earth year, life arises in spring, ①what sprouts in spring grows in summer, and in autumn, the essence of life is gathered to enable fruition. All life bears fruit and perishes in autumn.

After a grass seed has fallen to the ground, it sprouts in spring, grows in summer, recovers its original form in autumn, and dies by the chill of autumn. Then the next year, a new sprout emerges to pass on the genes to the next generation. In this way, a lineage spans ten, one hundred, one thousand, or tens of thousands of years. ②No life form transcends the bounds of this principle.

Likewise, there exists a cosmic year. Within a cosmic year, the universe cultivates humanity.

Our founding ancestors from seven, eight thousand years ago passed their genes down to their children, their children to their children, all the way to us today. You carry the genes of your first ancestors.

At the time of the Autumn Gaebyeok the seeds of various human lineages are culled. If our ancestors fail to harvest good descendants, ③all their efforts will have been in vain.

In What Period Are We Now?

The principle of heaven and earth lies in the dynamic of giving birth to life in spring and bringing death in autumn. You cannot do anything about the principle of heaven and earth.

Spring insists upon life, and autumn insists upon death. ①Spring gives life in order for autumn to bring death, and autumn brings death in order for spring to give life.

②We have lived in the world of the Early Heaven—64,800 years of spring and summer. The coming world will be the period of autumn and winter, spanning another 64,800 years. We are approaching the world of autumn and winter. ③The world of autumn and winter will be one of a mature culture.

Now is the time of the summer-autumn transition. There will be a mature culture in which politics, economics, culture, religion, society, and many more such elements will be brought together into one. It will be an integrative culture of living for all people. The world will be united as one family under one government.

It is humanity that accomplishes

①Sangjenim organized the government of spirits; planned the programs, the schedule, the timetable for the tides of the world; and compelled the world to turn in accordance with this timetable. This, Sangjenim named the Work of Renewing Heaven and Earth(Cheonjigongsa). In sum, Sangjenim’s Work of Renewing Heaven and Earth is the blueprint for the tides of this world.

Sangjenim’s work is further defined by His proclamation: ②“It is heaven that devises and humanity that accomplishes” (Dojeon 4:4:4). “It is heaven that devises” connotes that Sangjenim had already established the framework for the tides of the coming world. “[It is] humanity that accomplishes” signifies that Sangjenim entrusted the specific implementation of this framework to humans.

Sangjenim’s culture is not simply another culture, but rather the ‘gaebyeok culture,’ or the ‘culture of renewal.’ It is the culture that shall completely transform everything. It is the culture that will deliver humanity from annihilation and create a new world—the new heaven and earth. Sangjenim ‘devised’ this culture, which shall bring this new world to pass. Will most certainly bring it to pass! ③To ‘accomplish’ this through human undertakings, Sangjenim entrusted the work to His workers.

Forming the Government of Spirits to Establish the Framework of the Coming World

①In order to fundamentally correct this world so as to build a magnificent new world, the spirits must first be resolved of their bitterness and grief. Since ②spirits are the principals in the devising of the foundation of the new world, those spirits who harbor bitterness and grief must first have their bitterness and grief resolved.

Sangjenim assembled all the spirits and reorganized the spirit realm. This was the formation of the government of spirits. He established within this government the framework of the tides of the world.

The tides of the present world are manifestations of Sangjenim’s works of renewal for the resolution of bitterness and grief, created as these works unfold as historical events. These works entailed both the spirits’ undertakings and the achievement of their resolution of their bitterness and grief. ③The world in which we live could not have been saved by any means if Sangjenim, the Supreme Governor of the Universe, had not come to the world Himself to alter its course with a new framework.

Spirits Harboring Bitterness and Grief Fill Heaven and Earth

Since division and development occur ceaselessly in the Early Heaven during the birth-growth era of cosmic spring and summer, mutual conflict and domination naturally dominates. Because mutual conflict and domination dominates the human world, nobody has ever actually lived a mortal lifetime as they truly wished. By nature, each and every person is born into this world to live a lifetime of freedom. ①Yet, living within a physical body, no one has ever lived entirely in accordance with their own free will.

Humanity’s history has been stained with blood and gilded with unrighteousness. It is not too much to say that, ②among all who have dwelled in this world in human form, not a single person ever departed this world without incurring a burden of bitterness and grief. All people who died bearing bitterness and grief became ‘spirits filled with unresolved bitterness and grief.’

Throughout humanity’s history of struggle, people have died while afflicted by bitterness and grief so intense that it reverberated throughout the heavens; these people, having become spirits, now fill heaven and earth. ③Spirits harboring bitterness and grief now fill all of heaven and earth.

A Spirit Is a Human Without a Body

“The mind is the master of the body.” My mind is the master of my flesh. My flesh is the outer casing, and the master of my flesh is my mind. The mind, expressed in different terms, is the ‘mind-soul.’ ①The body is merely the servant of the mind.

During their lifetime, a person functions as a person through the union of the mind-soul and the flesh. In death, a person no longer possesses the flesh, yet their spirit still functions as a person.

What, then, is the difference between a person and a spirit?

②A person is ‘a human with flesh’; a spirit is ‘a human without flesh.’ Save for the lack of a physical body, a spirit is exactly like a person.

Countless people have died throughout history, and most of their bodies have long disappeared, but the spirits of the deceased live onward as people without their physical bodies. When the body expires through the process of birth, old age, sickness, and death, it eventually disappears forever. The spirit, however, does not pass away in this manner. ③Depending upon the degree of a person’s self-cultivation, their spirit may live onward for one thousand years or even ten thousand years.

In the time of cosmic autumn, new culture of fruition arise

It may be misleading to speak of what one gains or loses by practicing a particular religion, but generally religious cultures were far too remote from the culture of everyday human life. ①Whatever form it takes, the culture of belief and faith should suit the reality of people’s lives, regardless of the era, society, or ethnicity. A religious culture that fails to do so is only a burden to people.

As a Korean proverb says, “One must say what is right even with a crooked mouth.” One must criticize correctly, know correctly, and live righteously. Throughout human history, countless people lived and died suffering in those cultures. What else could they do when that was all they had in their world? ②The cultures of the Early Heaven could not be otherwise. Isn’t it true that fruit ripens only in autumn? Throughout human history in the time of cosmic spring and summer, it was impossible to create a culture of fruition.

Because they had nowhere else to look in such circumstances, multitudes of living spirits still hold on to such cultures. However, they cannot be blamed. They in fact want to have faith in something, but they don’t know what to believe in. That’s why they cannot be condemned. ③Existing cultures are products of history. It was process of history that made them what they are.