🔎 Introduction
✨ In this powerful dialogue, Master Woo Myung speaks with Joe Gattis, an American priest who shares his personal journey from depression and suffering to spiritual rebirth.
Joe describes how meditation led him from despair and suicidal thoughts to profound transformation — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 🌿
Through repentance and the elimination of the false self, he says he found Truth, freedom, and what he calls “heaven while living.”
This conversation explores eternal life, sin, heaven and hell, rebirth, the Soul and Spirit, and what it truly means to become one with the Universe.
ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
A Talk with Joe Gattis, an American Priest Who Has Achieved Completion
Woo Myung What changes did you experience in yourself after you did the meditation?
Joe Gattis Let me tell you about my experience with this meditation. I suffered from depression my whole life. I also suffered from intense back pain and migraines and I could only sleep 4-5 hours a night. And a few years before I began doing this meditation method, I developed asthma.
In the year that I started the meditation, my closest friend passed away and I was in a near suicidal state. On 30th December in 2002, I was driving home from work and I decided that I would kill myself when I got home by taking some pills. But when I got home, I forgot, and I only remembered when I got up the next morning.
That day at work, a Korean colleague at work told me about this meditation so I made an appointment to visit the meditation center in Atlanta. Not only did I want to go and find out what this was about, I was told that I would be given a free meal, and I was not about to pass that up!
I went at lunchtime and I talked with several people about spiritual matters, the Universe, and the false self. In the seminar that followed, I learned about the true mind versus the false mind, and about the infinite Universe.
By truly repenting, my life completely changed for the better. Around the end of the first meditation session, I could feel my hands begin to tremble. And that night, for the first time in a long time I slept deeply for ten whole hours and woke up, pain-free.
Miraculously, my ashen face was tinged with pink and my depression, asthma and migraines disappeared. I felt that this meditation was too great to keep to myself, and I wanted to learn it and teach it to others so that they too could reap its benefits.
After that, I completed all the levels and became a meditation instructor.
Thank you for bringing Truth to the world so that we can become free from our delusional worlds and become Truth.
Woo Myung Where do you think you would be if you had not done this meditation?
Joe Gattis I would have died. Even if I hadn’t killed myself, I would have spent my life dead inside my false mind, and unable to see the world as it is because of my conceptions.
Woo Myung Joe, what did you think of me when you first met me?
Joe Gattis When I first saw you, I felt a peace that I had not felt from anyone before. And you asked me if I thought that you were Truth.
I wondered who you were, that you would ask me such a question. I answered, and you laughed. Then we spent many hours talking just as we are doing now.
The next week, you asked me the same question and I answered then that I didn’t know. Again, you laughed and we spent another week talking.
You asked me again a third time if I thought that you were Truth and that time, I answered yes. You did not laugh but instead began to teach me about the mind in earnest.
Woo Myung What difference has doing this meditation made in your life?
Joe Gattis Before doing this meditation method, my life was full of darkness, pain and suffering from which I was unable to escape. Because I was evil and sinful, I would first make those around me like me and then treat them badly. But I was under the delusion that I was living my life as best as I could. I thought that I lived for others, but in fact I lived only for myself.
Now, I no longer suffer from mental and physical pain as I did before. Now that I have the Universe, I do not feel that I lack anything and I no longer worry. I feel that I can finally truly help others and now I only think about how I can save people. I no longer only think of myself. This is because if there is no “me”, then there is no “me” to feel suffering either.
The world is clearer, brighter and filled with peace and happiness. When meditation students talk to me about their woes and worries, what they say passes through me and it does not give me pain or suffering. At the same time, I can understand their suffering because I have also gone through what they are experiencing: the life inside a tomb. It makes me want to help them even more, so that they can be resurrected as Truth and live in heaven.
I have gained everything because I discarded everything. So I want to thank you again.
Woo Myung How has your life improved after doing the meditation?
Joe Gattis The first thing that changed was my health. Apart from what I told you earlier, I lost 60 pounds, and the scoliosis (curvature of the spine) miraculously straightened itself. My eye-sight got better, and my stamina increased. I also found that I stopped becoming attached to events that happened around me. But these external changes are trivial compared to the changes within. Now, I have a meaning and purpose for living. I want to work to save others selflessly. The continuous thoughts that ran through my head have stopped and my mind that has been emptied is able to see the Universe. I can see nature’s flow and I am growing wiser. I no longer see things through my delusions, instead I see them just as they are. I used to be attached to the forms, shapes and colors of things but I no longer see the Universe with my false mind.
Now I live in heaven, here, with the true mind.
Woo Myung Why do you think people should find their true selves?
Joe Gattis These things are not possible without finding one’s true self. However, they are incidental to the real reason people must do this meditation, which is that people must become one with Truth and return to the Universe. By doing so, they return to God and can live forever in heaven.
In the last year, many students have asked me questions about my meditation method. And I would like to ask you those questions. What is it like to live in heaven?
Woo Myung Heaven is the land where Truth lives. Therefore, it is the land where those whose minds are one with God, the Creator of the great Universe live; those who do not have individual minds live, in fact the individual does not exist; and where those who have been born again as the great Universe’s God himself live. It is a land where only Truth lives, so it is without worries, anxieties or suffering. It is the freedom of freedoms, and there are no conflicts or blockages because there is no self. There, one has no self although he exists. He exists but he does not have the mind that he exists. This mind does not exist, but the mind exists.
Because one is free from himself, it is liberation; because there is no self it is freedom. Heaven is living forever in the land of Truth without want.
Such a mind has nothing in it other than the mind of one, and this mind is the Creator itself. Therefore, one lives forever. In the land of the Energy and Light which created all things, one lives as an individual.
One lives according to nature’s flow, as the mind of nature does. In that mind, there is boundless joy, and it is without anger, enemies, sadness, death, birth, sickness and aging. It is the land where one just lives, without these minds.
Only he who has been born as Truth in the land of Truth while he is living can go there.
Only those who have become one, Truth, can live together forever in that heaven. Doesn’t it sound fantastic?
Joe Gattis Please explain to me about Adam and Eve’s original sin.
Woo Myung If you look in the Bible, it tells us that there were people – the origin of mankind – before Adam and Eve.
Theologians hypothesize that the Garden of Eden was located near the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. It seems mankind, one race, lived nomadically, moving from one place to another according to the conditions of their environment and settled in the Garden of Eden where there were good conditions for life.
Adam and Eve were sinners, so people, all mankind, are also sinners because we are the children of sinners. When a demon – a sinner – has a child, the child is the offspring of a demon; hence, we are the offspring of demons. That is why we have original sin. When it is said that a serpent tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of good and evil, it means that they had the cunning minds of vipers. As agricultural settlers, they began to decide what was sin and not sin by making rules. When someone broke the rules, they began to think they committed a sin and stored these thoughts in their minds. The storing of these thoughts is expressed as “eating”. The mind of “goodness” is storing inside one’s mind the good things that he has done. Storing one’s subjective conceptions of good and evil is what “eating” the fruit of good and evil is.
This mind is not one with God; it is a self-centered mind of an individual’s attachments, so therefore this mind itself is sin. A sinful mind and a sinful body are one so when we were born from the bodies of our sinful ancestors in a long line of sinful ancestors, we were born with original sin. We are all original sinners.
As we live, we commit actual sin so repenting our original and actual sin and becoming one with God is the absolution of sin.
One can only be saved when he is free from sin.
Joe Gattis Does everything come to an end when one dies? Or is there life after death?
Woo Myung When God created the world and all things in it, they were created to be complete and therefore, already saved. The expressions “the world is already enlightened” and “the world is already saved” have the same meaning. Among all the people there have been in the world, and everyone living in the world now, no one has ever known this. Even if they did know, no one has spoken clearly about it. In other words, there was no method for salvation.
In the infinite Universe, there is a Soul and Spirit, the original Creator. In modern scientific terms, it is called Energy and Light.
When the Creator, the Energy and Light, created all things in the world, they were created as Energy and Light, Truth, themselves. However, people are sinners because only they have self-centered minds that care only about themselves. They are dead and need to be saved, because they are trapped within themselves and are unable to become one with the Energy and Light, the Creator.
How people live reflects what they hold in their minds; they can truly live only when inside their minds they transform into the Energy and Light which is Truth.
A person who has transformed into Truth will live forever in the eternal and indestructible land of Energy and Light because such a world is life itself. The life that one has lived that is past is not Truth; so therefore a person who has not transformed into Truth only has the false mind of this life. Therefore, he dies because this mind is not Truth.
Just as a dream is an illusion that does not exist although it may seem to exist, living inside an illusion is hell.
Heaven is the place where one who has become Truth lives, and hell is a non-existent illusionary world where one who has not become Truth lives.
Joe Gattis What happens after death for a person who has committed suicide?
Woo Myung A person commits suicide because he is narrow-minded; because of his selfish and self-centered mind. While a humble person can live under any circumstances, many people commit suicide when things do not go their way or when they cannot accept something in the world because of their strong pride.
They are people who are full of false minds due to their greed. They all receive the suffering of hell that is an illusion, and just as dreams are false, such things are dreams and are dead.
Joe Gattis Is it possible to discard the life that you have lived after physical death?
Woo Myung When a person dies, he cannot discard because only the hallucinations of his falseness remain. Namely, he is truly dead. Even if he could discard, it is not possible to teach him because Truth does not exist in a world of hallucinations, or in other words, in a false world.
Joe Gattis Many people ask if this is a religious organization.
Woo Myung Religions up to this point in time were organizations that believed in a particular person and read and listened to his words. However, here, we only discard and eliminate ourselves, in order to become the existence of Truth, the Creator. Only the Creator which is the absolute existence is Truth. As one discards and eliminates himself, only the existence of Truth remains and since this existence is one’s self, he becomes complete.
Isn’t there a Korean expression, that there is no one to believe in but yourself? A person who has discarded and eliminated all of his self, and is therefore self-less, is reborn as Truth and the Creator, so he therefore believes his own mind, his own self. Because he is complete, he does not need religion for he does not need to believe in anything; he is religion itself.
Although this is only a place where one discards and eliminates himself, many people wonder if it is a religious organization because many people come to practice here. However, one does not believe in anything here; by simply eliminating one’s self, the sinner, the individual can become Truth and complete, and so therefore, this place can be called a trans-religion – one that transcends religion.
Such a person is complete, and is beyond religion. He himself is religion itself – a complete person. He believes therefore, in himself.
Joe Gattis Is everything inside the Universe false minds?
Woo Myung Originally, the world is already complete. It is man that is not complete. He is dead inside a mind that is only as big as himself, so therefore man is false. None of the other creations in the Universe have a mind of “self ” and therefore, they are all alive. From the perspective of Truth that is one, everything is alive – it is man that is the problem, for it is his individual self that is dead.
Everything in the Universe is all real; that is to say, it is all real for a person who has become real but for a person who is false, it is all false.
Joe Gattis Buddha taught compassion, and Jesus taught love. You teach nature’s flow. What is nature’s flow?
Woo Myung The original mind, the mind of Truth, is compassion and love. Nature’s flow is the mind of nature: the Universe, Truth, gives us food to eat, water to drink, gives us heat and cold, and allows all things to live, but it never expects anything in return. It does not have the mind of having done something, despite all it does; the very thought of having done something does not exist. Such a mind is the mind of nature’s flow.
Even though it saves people, not having the thought, the mind, that it has done so is the mind of nature and great love, namely, it is nature’s flow.
The mind of nature’s flow is the mind of nature, one that is without “self”. Therefore, it is without conflict and hindrances, and though it exists, it is a big mind that is accepting of all things. The mind of God that accepts everything is what nature’s flow is.
Joe Gattis The people who are in the process of meditating ask what kind of benefits the method has for their family and friends.
Woo Myung When we are dreaming, we do not realize that we are in a dream but when we wake up from the dream, we realize that we were struggling inside a non-existent illusion. In the same way, people’s lives are the same as a dream; we are living inside a dream. Life is falseness itself, but when one wakes up from one’s life that is a dream and becomes real it is possible to know that the life one is living is an illusion and a dream.
My meditation method makes falseness become real. Heavy burdens and suffering, events of great pain, of physical sickness, enemies and loved ones, anger, joy, aging and death exist within the illusion, but when one becomes real these delusional hallucinations disappear. Death does not exist, and one lives born in heaven.
Joe Gattis What is the body and mind of the Universe?
Woo Myung The sky of the huge Universe where there is absolutely nothing is the Creator; it is the body of the Universe that creates all things and it is also the origin of all creations. It is the Soul. In the midst of absolute emptiness, only the one God exists, and this is the mind of the Universe’s Creator. This is also called Spirit. The Universe is this huge Soul and Spirit itself. This is the body and mind of the Universe, and in Buddhism it was named Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya. In Christianity, it was called Holy Spirit and Holy Father. In Korea which is rooted in the Haneol philosophy, it was called Jung and Shin. It is also called Energy and Light. Man’s body as well as the bodies of all creations came from the body of this Creator, and although each creation has its own form and shape, there exists the one God.
Joe Gattis How can we know when Jesus has returned?
Woo Myung Jesus means the existence of Truth, the Creator, but just as people cannot see the Soul and Spirit of the Universe, no one can recognize Jesus. That is why it was said that he will come as a thief in the night, and that no one will know. It is said that only God would know. The reason man cannot know is because man only sees with his eyes, and therefore only sees the outward appearance of things. Just as no one knows the professions of those he passes in the street, or the consciousness that they have within, man cannot see or know the person who has the Soul and Spirit of the Universe, the Creator, within him. If one is to know when Jesus has returned, he must become Jesus himself.
Falseness cannot see or know the existence that is real, but that which is real knows both that which is real as well as that which is false. Therefore, one must be real in order to know. A person whose sins are relatively light will hear the words of Truth more easily, and so it will be easier for him to repent. We must focus on making people become real. In other words, when one becomes real he will be able to recognize the new Messiah.
Joe Gattis Must one discard both good and bad memories when he meditates?
Woo Myung What man believes to be good and bad all exists within his false mind. We are asked to discard both because good and bad exist inside the false mind.
Joe Gattis What is sin? Does it mean the same as karma?
Woo Myung There is only one sin in the world, and that is not being one with Truth. Man’s self-centered individual mind of attachments is sin, and it is because of this sin that he is unable to become one with Truth. Since he is not Truth, he is falseness. This is sin and death.
Sin and karma are different in name, but they are the same. Karma is one’s self that he has acquired. This self is not able to become one with Truth that is God, so therefore it is falseness and sin.
Joe Gattis Where do people go after they die?
Woo Myung People live their lives exactly according to what they have in their minds, no more and no less. And in the same way, a person who has illusions inside his mind lives in an illusion, the world of hell, whereas a person who has Truth inside his mind is Truth and thus lives forever in the world of Truth, the world of the Universe’s Energy and Light.
Joe Gattis Is there a quick way, a short-cut, to becoming Truth?
Woo Myung All people have many sins, so there are no short-cuts. However it can be said that a person who has relatively less sins is more easily able to accept. Such a person listens and does what he is asked. This can be called the short-cut. Along the path to the absolution of one’s sins, everyone believes himself to be great and shows his true colors. He is expressing the form of his sins. Basically the demon that believes it is great is showing itself. A person who knows his wrongdoings will repent, while a person who is ignorant of his wrongdoings will not repent, and eventually die by his sins. If one does the first level (of the meditation) and felt that it was good, the shortcut is to do the next level with gratitude. If he found the second level to be good, then again doing the next level with a thankful heart, and then the next, and the next again is the short-cut. A person who has thankfulness has the short-cut, and such a person can be absolved of all his sins.
Joe Gattis Where is God?
Woo Myung There is nowhere in the world that God does not exist, and God is an immortal existence that exists in all creations, of and by himself. God exists within one who has become this existence, and for such a person he has God. God exists everywhere within the infinite Universe, which is the mind of one who has become Truth.
Joe Gattis Can one really become Truth? Can anyone really become Truth?
Woo Myung Anyone can become Truth.
By repenting one’s sins, when the existence that is one’s self, and the delusional Universe that one’s delusions created is gone, only Truth remains. This existence of Truth becomes one’s self. Anyone who has the will to achieve can do so. The Bible tells us that the door will open for all who knock – the door will not open for those who do not knock, but it will open for all those who do.
– Woo Myung
🌿 Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation
At Santa Clara Meditation, many people begin their journey searching for relief from suffering — anxiety, depression, physical illness, or spiritual emptiness. 🌅
This dialogue highlights a central teaching:
Transformation does not come from belief alone, but from discarding the false self and being reborn as Truth.
The testimony shared here emphasizes several core themes:
- True repentance transforms consciousness
- Heaven is entered while living
- Sin is separation from Truth
- Eternal life is living as the Energy and Light of the Universe
- Gratitude is the “shortcut” to spiritual growth
The message is simple yet profound:
When the self dissolves, only Truth remains.
