✨ INTRODUCTION
In this powerful writing, Master Woo Myung explains why people often misunderstand Truth and label what they do not understand as cults or false religions. He reveals that judgments based on outer appearance, fixed beliefs, and limited frameworks prevent people from recognizing Truth when it appears. 🌿
This teaching clarifies the meaning of faith, enlightenment, and what it truly means to become Truth.
ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
Cults and False Religions
There have always been cults and false religions. Jesus Christ was crucified because the Jewish people regarded him as being the leader of a cult and a false religion. In the early days of Christianity in Rome, people of the Christian faith were heavily persecuted. There are also similar cases in Korea – a Buddhist monk of the Shilla dynasty, Ichadon, died while spreading Buddhism and when Catholicism first entered the country, a Catholic priest, Kim Dae Gun, died while spreading Catholicism.
These kinds of things happened because the existing religions of the time which dominated over the area had fixed standards and beliefs about their religions. Anything that did not fit in with these standards and beliefs were condemned as being cults and false religions.
Two thousand years ago, people did not believe Jesus Christ when he said he was the Son of God. Due to the fact that he was Jewish and he also looked Jewish, he did not fit in their fantastical conceptions of what the Son of God should look like, and they told him that he could not be the Son of God because he was the son of a carpenter. Just as people did not recognize Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when Truth comes to the world no one will recognize him as being Truth.
The sort of Truth that fits one’s conceptions and habits will never come, no matter how long he waits. God who is Truth dwelled inside Jesus Christ, but no one was able to see this. People thought he was not the Son of God based on his outer appearance.
When we walk down the street, it is not possible to know the professions of the countless people passing by, nor is it possible to know their inner levels of consciousness. In the same way, even when a person spreads and teaches Truth, those who are bound within their existing framework of minds will not be able to know or recognize the person who has Truth in him.
Even the Bible tells us that people look at the outer shape and form while Jehovah looks at the inner heart. People judge others however they please based on outer appearances, so a person whose mind is false and has false religions in it will judge others to be cults or false religions even when they are not. A person with a bigger mind than this will not do so.
People think only what is theirs is right, and other people are wrong. The fact is only one’s self and what is one’s own is wrong, but people do not know this because they lack wisdom.
From the viewpoint of Truth, anything that is not Truth is a cult. A false religion is something that speaks of Truth and is similar to Truth, but is not Truth and where one cannot become Truth. Anything that falls into the above category is a cult and a false religion.
Cults and false religions use the concept of “faith” to tie people down to their set framework of rules and beliefs but this is not right.
Truth is something that is large and all-encompassing – and therefore, people will follow it even if they are not told to do so. Is it faith to often go to the temple, mosque or church? Or is it faith to sing hymns and religious songs, attend morning prayers and read the religious scriptures? What decides what faith is? The definition of faith is to become Truth when one meets someone who is Truth. In order to become Truth, one must discard his self that he believes to be right. He must first escape from his conceptions and habits of what cults and false religions are, and discard himself that is a sinner. When one does this, only the existence of Truth remains and this existence becomes his self. This is what true faith is.
For example, simply saying that you like someone does not mean that you truly like him. In the same way, faith does not exist in words; it is only true faith when one’s mind truly believes and when one’s mind acknowledges and accepts.
One comes to have faith when he receives enlightenment, and enlightenment is what one comes to know as his mind changes to that of Truth.
Therefore, it can be said that enlightenment is faith. What the mind believes is enlightenment. The enlightenment of one’s mind truly believing does not come from trying to take in “good” words.
Enlightenment comes only when one discards, and one receives as much enlightenment as he has discarded.
A person who has been completely enlightened is a person who has discarded everything, and a person who has been completely enlightened is a person who has completely achieved Truth.
Such a person is Truth so he truly believes in Truth. His actions are true and he lives a life of Truth because his mind is that of Truth.
From the first to the last level of our study, the only thing that people do is to discard their selves that are sinners in order to become Truth itself. Anyone who claims that it is a cult or a false religion is a person who has never discarded himself and he is not a person of Truth. Because the consciousness or minds of people are becoming bigger and they are becoming Truth, he may feel that this threatens the sustainability of his organization.
If a person, organization or religion was righteous, it would allow people to try different things and guide them to the right path. Anyone who claims that only that which is theirs is right and all others are cults and false religions is himself of a false religion and a cult. Someone with a big mind accepts all things and does not claim only one thing is right.
Our meditation does not claim that only our meditation is right. Not only does it not block its members from attending other organizations or religions; they do so freely. It is liberal. I think that there will be progress if religions that are restrictive became more liberal and they guided people toward the right path.
There is a Korean proverb which says that people like to throw ashes on a bowl of rice when they cannot eat it themselves. This means people like spoiling things for other people when they cannot take advantage of it. I write this in the hopes that in the world there are people with a conscience who will guide others to a place that can teach them properly if they cannot teach them themselves.
– Woo Myung
🌠 REFLECT AT SANTA CLARA MEDITATION
At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners learn to go beyond fixed concepts and appearances, discard the false self, and experience Truth directly through meditation and self-reflection.
