Strengthen the Power of your Conscience
by Rev. Sun Myung Moon
1995, Unification Theological Seminary
New York (USA)
Edited by esgd
10 minutes
The message I want to convey to you today is: strengthen the power of your conscience to possess the true love of God.
To possess the true love of God is not a selfish act at all, but rather a very unselfish one. The reason is that the true love of God is, by nature, unselfish and sacrificial. When God created the world, He in His act of creation completely invested and sacrificed Himself out of true love, hoping that Adam and Eve, His objects of true love, would also assume the same sacrificial nature of true love to build His joyful kingdom. Unfortunately, this hope of God was completely shattered by the fall of the first human ancestors who acted selfishly. But even after the fall, God continued tirelessly and sacrificially to pour out His heart of love towards fallen humanity, hoping that someday the whole of humanity would come back to him to restore the true love relationship.
In order to inherit and possess this true love of God, you have to strengthen the power of your conscience, overcoming your physical desire. Unfortunately, after the fall of man, a fierce battle within the individual between the conscience and the physical body started. This battle within the individual seems to be even fiercer than major wars in human history such as World War I and World War II. For whereas those historical wars usually ended within a few years, the individual war between the conscience and the physical body seems to be unending, not only within the entire life of a person, but also for generation after generation. The fall of man allowed the physical body to become the instrument of Satan’s selfish desire. As a result of this, the physical body has always tried to fulfill its selfish desire, entirely against the direction of the conscience, which is the dwelling place of God. Therefore, whatever little conscience the individual has had, has always been completely dominated by the physical body as a result of the fall. Thus, coming from these individuals there have always been families, tribes, nations and the world under the domination of Satan.
But today, I really want to encourage you to strengthen your conscience, fiercely challenging your physical desire. You know that you still have a conscience, even after the fall in the Garden of Eden. You know that some force within your mind is still urging you to live for the sake of others, practicing true love. That force is your conscience. Just develop and strengthen it. This may not be an easy task, at least in the beginning. But remember the situation of God: throughout history God has always been investing and sacrificing Himself for the sake of the salvation of miserable humanity. So, if you stubbornly challenge your physical desire in order to develop your conscience, then God will definitely be with you to offer you His help.
Be bold and courageous in developing your conscience. Sacrifice yourself and live for the sake of others. If you carefully study yourself, you will notice that your conscience knows everything that you have to do. In that regard, the conscience within yourself is the greatest teacher of all. The conscience as God’s dwelling place is greater than all of your teachers. It is even greater than your own parents, once you develop and strengthen it.
When you have gained total control over the body, totally liberating the conscience within yourself, the ambition of the conscience will be completely satisfied. That is because the conscience reaches the highest possible position in the entire cosmos – the domain of God’s true love. If you reach that domain, you will inherit and possess not only the true love of God, but also His true life and true lineage, thus being able to multiply God-centred children, families, tribes, nations and the God-centred world to build the Kingdom of God on earth.
You are all expected to join this final battle to defeat the force of Satan’s selfish desire. But before winning this battle, equip yourselves with the unbreakable power of the conscience to possess the true love of God.
Even though the human conscience is of noble character, at the same time different men and women have different types of conscience and cannot unite them. For that reason, the Almighty created the element of love as a catalyst, to enable them to become one. Love brings them together like glue. So therefore the conscience’s ultimate direction and ultimate goal has to be love. Conscience is driving man toward love as its ultimate goal. The love Father is speaking about is the most powerful and at the same time the most inspiring. For that reason it can step over, create a bridge all over the area.
No gap can be created by love; love fills everything, every hole. Therefore, by stepping on that love staircase you can go all the way up to the highest possible realm, which is greater than any emperor or king, greater than any power. Love creates incredible virtues; toward the parents, love creates filial piety. Among the brothers, love creates brotherhood. Nothing else can bridge all of these things into one harmonious line except love. Love is unique and is the only thing that has the power to bridge from the level of pious son all the way to the saint.
We came to the conclusion therefore that the root of conscience is the Almighty God and that the conscience’s goal is love. Love will create all kinds of harmony, all kinds of beauty, all kinds of goodness and all kinds of happiness. Love is so flexible that it can turn and bring the front and rear into one, left and right into one, up and down into one; it’s almost like Disneyland. There is so much turning, riding, going in all kinds of directions with everybody riding in and enjoying the many different kinds of rides. Conscience and love are like that. A roller coaster goes up to the top of the hill and then starts to go down, with everybody screaming and screaming together. Even old Grandpa and Grandma will scream also and at the same time, they laugh and smile with everyone. The feeling is one, harmonious. In that kind of situation, an old grandma holds her young grandson, or even a strange young man, or holds onto someone else’s wife; they are just absolutely so flexible. On a roller coaster everyone is united, it doesn’t matter who that person is, in that particular place you kiss and nobody will blame you. (laughter) White one kiss black one, black one kiss white one, white one kiss yellow one, yellow kiss red one, it doesn’t make any difference, go ahead. Everything good!
As a human being you have a master whom you often do not recognize, which is your conscience. The conscience has planted within us the idea of God, who is the original root. I was really surprised when I discovered this. The result of everything I was looking for, the hidden home within me, was my own conscience. I said to myself, “I cannot hold God responsible for anything. I have to hold myself responsible to follow my conscience and fulfil my mission. Therefore, there is no situation in which I can ask someone else to take responsibility. I must take responsibility myself.” This is the view I take.
Your conscience or higher mind is your second God. God is your first God, in the plus position to your mind. Your mind, in the minus position to God, is your second God. You need to understand this. Again, the mind is your second God. That second God, the mind, is always with you. It relates to you from deep in your conscience, from within the depths of love, life and lineage. It is ever cleansing and removing anything impure, resolving your inner problems and guiding you to a higher place in life. Thus, your conscience is your second God. It is your centre, from which arises a powerful force that governs you all the time.
