Session 3 It is my great pleasure to share Discovering the Divine Principle, the Principles of Creation, part 2of2. Session 3.

2 In the previous segment we looked at the nature of God, and the structure and purpose of God’s creation. We learned that God is a

3 being of heart and that He is the source of

4 the energy of the universe. We learned that God is a being of

5 masculinity as well as

6 femininity and that all things exist and grow through the relationships of

7 giving and receiving. We also learned that the most essential desire of God’s heart, what motivated God to create, was the desire to experience total joy in authentic relationships of love.

8 We described God as our invisible Parent, motivated by love to bring forth the universe and us, His children, in the deepest place of His heart.

9 In this session we will cover three areas. We will complete our overview of the purpose of creation by discussing the second and third blessings “to multiply and have dominion”. We will learn about the principle of

10 spiritual growth and human responsibility in God’s ideal of creation. And we will study the

11 spirit body, and what God has planned for us after we leave this physical world.

12 The creation’s purpose comes from God’s heart to experience love and joy. This is why God created the universe as the home for His children. As children, joy comes through fulfilling three blessings: to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion.

13 We already covered the first blessing, to become a mature person, acting in a way that is true to our conscience. A person who has grown to this point will live in love with God and realize their original nature. This is the critical first step.

14 The next blessing is to multiply: to come together in love as husband and wife and create a family. It’s important to note that this blessing comes after we become a true person. God intended that man and woman first mature as individuals before they express the romantic and sexual aspect of love.

15 Love blossoms and even explodes. This is where God is fully present. And the place a man and woman become one is where a new life is conceived, the conception of a child.

16 This is where we become parents and come to know God’s deepest heart. If the first man and woman had fulfilled this blessing, their family would have been rooted in the love of God. Their children and descendants would have inherited this love and would have lived as one global family under God.

17 The third blessing is to have dominion over all things. Caring for the creation as God’s sons and daughters gives us rightful dominion. We would have cherished the creation and brought forth its limitless energy and beauty.

18 True men and women would not abuse the creation; or misuse natural resources. In this sense, poverty is not a resource problem, but a love problem. Our first ancestors did not love with God’s love and, as a result, many today live in misery. If we do not discover God’s principled love, we will end up destroying the creation.

19 This brings us to the principle of growth and human responsibility. How is it that created things fulfill their purpose? All things come into existence and mature through stages of time that we call a growing period.

20 We view the growing period as having 3 stages: formation, growth, and completion.

21 Minerals take time to form,

22 a tree starts out as a seed – then sprouts, and finally bears fruit, and a

23 chicken starts out as an egg, hatches and grows to adulthood.

24 In human life we have the stages of child, adolescent and adult.

25 How does this purpose-driven growth come about? For plants and animals, the answer is simple: it just happens -automatically, by the laws of nature. It’s the same with the human physical body.

26 Then why aren’t we ideal people? It’s because we are much more than just a physical body.

27 We have heart and character, a spirit self. But the heart and character does not grow automatically.

28 The growth of our heart takes effort, and comes about when we fulfill our own responsibility, freely. Our effort and faith aligned with these universal principles brings growth toward God’s ideal.

29 When people complete the growing period they will live in the direct dominion of God’s love.

30 Before that, however, we are not yet at a place of perfect love. In that state, we have the potential to misuse love and cause terrible pain and suffering. Because love has such power, God had a plan. Let’s look at this.

31 God’s plan was that man and woman, as individuals, fulfill the first blessing and come to resemble God. Only then were they to fulfill the second blessing; to engage in romantic-sexual love, and form a family. Therefore God commanded the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, not to engage in sexual love until maturity.

32 The Bible records this commandment in symbolic terms. We will unpack this in the next segment, but basically what we will discover is that God told His son and daughter to remain virgins until they matured in their relationship of love with God.

33 The formula for growth remains the same. It depends on 2 things: God fulfilling His responsibility and

34 us fulfilling our responsibility. God’s ideal of creation was not fulfilled because the first man and woman did not fulfill their responsibility. God gave man and woman responsibility for love, because He wanted us to be co-creators.

35 By giving the Commandment, God was saying, “If you follow the Principle, your love and my love together will fulfill the ideal. But if you do not, suffering and sadness will come.” The tragic reality is that we failed to do our part, and that mistake has been repeated throughout history. So what do we do now? How can we return to God? We first have to talk about

36 the human spirit and life after death. God created all things with an internal and an external aspect, and this includes the universe as a whole. There is a physical world and there is a spiritual world.

37 How do we know that a spiritual world exists? If you believe in God, it’s easy. God loves us and if our existence were to end, both our joy and God’s would end. Therefore God designed us to be eternal. For this reason we can be confident that there is a spiritual world in which we live eternally.

38 You can also know there is a spiritual world based on spiritual experiences. You might have had a spiritual experience or may know someone who has. People often report being visited by a loved one who has passed away.

39 Or, if you believe in the Bible, you know the Bible’s testimony about angels, or about Moses and Elijah meeting Jesus and his disciples. Many don’t believe because they can’t imagine where the spiritual world is. But with the advancement of science it is easy to understand that two worlds can exist in the same space.

40 We know about light waves and sound waves. Our wireless devices pick up countless energy waves. These waves of energy occupy the same space at the same time. Even though the room is filled with light, the sound of my voice can be heard. In the same way, the spirit world and physical world co-exist, because they are made of different types of energy.

41 Let’s describe these two worlds. We are familiar with the physical world. We each have a physical body and a physical mind with five senses that allow us to see, touch, smell, taste and hear the physical world. In just the same way, we each have a spirit body and a spirit mind. Our spirit body also has five senses that allow us to see, touch, smell, taste and hear the spirit world. These spiritual senses became mostly dormant after humanity became separated from God.

42 With these two dimensions, we mediate between the two worlds. We encapsulate the elements of both worlds. And we were meant to have a dominion of love in both worlds, representing God.

43 Because of the nature of spiritual energy, your spirit body and mind are eternal.

44 On the other hand, your physical body and mind are temporary. Our physical life is going to end. This means that your most important responsibility is the growth of your spirit. How then does your spirit grow?

45 Just as our physical body grows by taking in nourishment –such as air,

46 sunlight,

47 and food and water –

48 your spirit also takes in the nourishment of God’s love and truth, through your parents, teachers, pastors, books and so forth.

49 In addition to God’s love and truth, you need the “vitality” element that comes when you put love and truth into practice. This is where the physical world becomes critical.

50 The inspiration to love doesn’t change who we are until we actually put it into practice. We gain vitality elements when we “walk the talk.”

51 By the same token, if we live selfishly, based on such false ideals of money, power or fame, unhealthy vitality elements will sicken our spirit. We will isolate ourselves in a place far from God’s love.

52 It’s like a baby growing in the womb. While only a temporary residence, proper development of the physical body in the womb is critical to health in this world. Likewise, proper development of the spirit body in this temporary physical world is critical to health in the spiritual world.

53 In conclusion, the ideal of God’s creation is a world in which we receive God’s love and put it into practice. Each person grows freely to embody God’s heart and character. Men and women come together to form families in which God dwells. This has been called the kingdom of God; we call it one family under God. And this family is together forever.

Thank you for joining our study Thank you for joining our study. In the next segment, the fall, we will explain why the world is so far away from this ideal.