My good brother William wrote:
Bodhisattva awareness?
Brother Carlton, can you explain, in Your understanding, the
similarity, difference or relationship between Bodhisattva, The
Buddha, Nirvana, Jesus Christ, True Parents, and Cheonji In Chambumo?
William.
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Hello William.
Herein, I attempt to define and place all of these terms into some meaningful juxtaposition to one another. You ask me to do so, in my own words–i.e. according to my own understanding. So I hope you will bear with me and with the complexity of the exercise you have placed before me. Most of what I might relate is probably old news to you, so pardon me for where my redundancy might come across as patronizing.
Please understand first that the words above stretch across several different languages (and by necessity, cultures), requiring us to exercise “poetic license” when trying to feel and appreciate the fullness of the content carried by a string of Roman characters (alphabets) that are, themselves, imperfect vessels for conveying all connotative meanings fully:
Sanskrit/Pali (Buddha, Nirvana?); Aramaic/Hebrew (Jesus?); Greek (Christ?); English (True Parents?); and Korean/Chinese-Hanja (Cheonji and Chambumo?) …
1.) Bodhisattva:
Bodhi — awakened
Sattva — consciousness
Thus a Bodhisattva is someone who is awakened from the illusion of the false primacy of self-centered desire, into the realization of the true, higher purpose of life: To attain oneness with the Heart, Will, and Zeal of God (i.e. the fulfillment of the Family Pledge.) Would you count yourself among the awakened?
Family Pledge
https://homeostaticism.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/our-world-our-promise/
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A Bodhisattva, then is someone who is not only awakened but–like Jesus, like Shakyamuni Buddha–has little concern to enter into the peace and rest of Heaven (or into Nirvana) until all sentient beings are awakened to the same heart of commitment: The purpose of a Messiah, is to raise up Messiahs…
Romans 8:29 — For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
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A Truly Awakened Consciousness possesses a True Parental Love and is committed to raising all into that same manner of relationship with God
On the difference? an excerpt
http://climatization.wordpress.com/on-the-difference/
[25] Such a being, unprecedented, an excellent jewel, in whom there is born a concern for the welfare of others such as others have not even for themselves, how is he born?
[26] That jewel, the Mind [the Awakening, Original Mind], which is the seed of pure happiness in the world and the remedy for the suffering of the world, how at all can its merit be measured?
[27] Worship of the Buddha is surpassed merely by the desire for the welfare of others; how much more so by the persistent effort for the complete happiness of every being? …
[32] People honor someone who gives alms to a few people, saying, “He does good’, because he contemptuously supports their life for half a day with a moment’s gift of more food.
[32] What then of the one who offers to a limitless number of beings, throughout limitless time, the fulfillment of all desires, unending until the end of the sky and those beings?
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So my question back to you would be, “Is this potential not y/our own?”
Meditation on these ideas,
a will to write these ideas in our hearts–how different is that conviction from what Jesus, himself, asks of us… ? :
Matthew 5:48 — Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
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2.) Nirvana:
— to extinguish; as in, “extinguishing” self-centered desire (and igniting God-centered desire); thereby, entering into oneness with the True Love, True Compassion, True Parental Heart of God the Father who is the source and the ultimate returning. (bold, italics my own clarification)
Compare with Family Pledge number eight:
Family Pledge
https://homeostaticism.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/our-world-our-promise/
The Old, the New, and The Completed Testament aim at the oneness of Humanity and God, in love–centered on True Love, a quality of relationship that would make absolute faith, love, and obedience second nature (much easier than the struggle that characterizes the current fallen and rebellious state of humanity. Extinguished would be our misplaced accusation of God and one another; replaced by a reconciliation by virtue of the liberation and acquittal afforded by our understanding of the original ideal of creation and understanding of the fall from our First Estate (understanding the motivation, process, and fruits of the Fall of humanity).
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3.) Jesus Christ:
— In the context of this discussion… Jesus has all the makings of a Bodhisattva; but he also has some additional distinguishing characteristics:
— A) The Anointing; he comes as the Christ (Anointed); consecrated to accomplish a certain purpose, as a King, assuming a royal priesthood, in the lineage of David, fulfilling a prophesy by which the Holy One of Israel (the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) determined to bring to pass The Promise made to Abraham, and The Promise of God’s Original Ideal of Creation.
To fulfill this Promise, the people must be saved from the fruits of their sin, called from darkness into light, into an awakened consciousness (achieving the realm of the Bodhisattva); that they (with Jesus) might be the first born of many”
Matthew 1:21 — And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Romans 8:29 — For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
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— B) A New Adam: Jesus comes to fulfill what the first Adam failed to accomplish: The Original Ideal of Creation, wherein Adam, himself, would have been Anointed of God, would have become one with God–maturing into an awakened consciousness, perfect (in heart) as his Father is in heaven, inheriting the True Parent Heart and Love of God, the Father.
The Theory of Reincarnation viewed from the Standpoint of Resurrection through Second Coming http://www.unification.net/dp73/dp73-1-5.html#2.4
— C) The Blood of Christ: Christians sing and preach about the power in the blood of Christ. Some teach that the power comes from the sacrifice that Jesus was able to make on the Cross, and suggest that Jesus was predestined to make that sacrifice. We learn through a new understanding that, in fact, Jesus had power to forgive sin, even before he died.
Matthew 9:6 — But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
This power came not merely on credit, by virtue of the cross that was to come, but because conditions were already fulfilled, thanks to God’s planning (95% of the sum total condition needed) and thanks how much Karma had been paid over the previous four hundred years (since Malachi)–by those called and chosen to be offerings (humanity’s 5% portion of responsibility, to answer and fulfill the call).
See
Change of Blood Lineage Tamar, Bathsheba, and Mary ? — http://www.unification.net/bif/bif-3-2.html
These qualifications (A, B, and C) are not the sum total of the characteristics that distinguish Jesus from other Bodhisattvas. But they are some of what comes to mind, readily.
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4.) True Parents (and Jesus) :
— As the chosen people did not understand the time of the visitation of Jesus–as in Jesus being the Christ (the Anointed), the fulfillment of long-awaited prophesy–then Jesus (the New Adam) was not able to find or meet his intended bride (the New Eve), that they might fulfill what the first Adam and the first Eve was supposed to but could not fulfill: A God-centered oneness from the individual level through, family, society, national, worldwide, and cosmic levels.
True Parent then is, on one hand, the standard that everyone (since Adam) has the potential to be, yet a standard that could not be brought to completion until someone (True Father) established the Foundation of Faith and the Foundation of Substance, by which a certain number of people could surrender themselves to become themselves acceptable offerings before God and Heaven, through faith, love, and obedience, on the foundation of Moon Sun-Myung’s faith, love, and obedience before Heaven–demonstrated at the risk of his life.
Both True Parents and Jesus come on the foundation of God’s Providence (God, himself, having provided the process by which a chosen people could create enough Karma beyond the realm of which satan could invade).
Therefore, 95% of God’s portion of responsibility was met by/with the required 5% of human responsibility–That meeting of joint responsibility allowing for the condition for a new lineage to be launched on the earth.
Moon Sun-Myung would have to champion that condition, as Jesus had to do. Both (coming as New Adam’s, to embody the fulfillment of prophesy, as Bodhisattvas) had the possibility of failing, but both (on the individual level) could eventually live up to the demands of the age–although the generations around them both have proven deficient (on the family, society, and national level): Both generations–in the time of Jesus, and in this generation–have been “found lacking.”
However, unlike in the time of Jesus, somehow Father could continue to amass enough people who could share the Karmic debts incurred by the repeated failures of the those called and chosen in this age. Somehow, through repeated “deaths” and Father’s willingness again and again to “march into hell for a Heavenly cause,” the providence of God’s will could be prolonged and the realm outside of satan’s accusation could be expanded.
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5.) Cheon-ji-In Chambumo?
— Cheon (heaven), Ji (earth), In (humanity); Cham (True) Bumo/Pumo (Parents)… suggests to me the concept that Moon Sun-Myung and wife (Han Hak-Ja), have fulfilled enough conditions to expand and champion the realm of God’s Ideal of Creation–relative to the “resurrection of humanity” from the depths of hell (1. form spirits) to adopted children of God (2. Life spirits) to restored “Children” of God (3. Divine Spirits)–in both Heaven (in the spiritual world) and on the Earth.
Jewish people tend not to believe that Jesus fulfilled the qualifications necessary to meet the conditions that would certify him to be the prophesied Messiah. They wait still for that fulfillment, and anticipate the second coming of Elijah before the great and terrible day of the lord (before the first coming of the Messiah).
Likewise, Unificationists can believe that True Parents are the fulfillment of the prophesy of the second coming of Jesus Christ: but faith and results of faith, only, will make that belief operable: Jesus claimed that the second coming of Elijah would not be from the sky literally–although Elijah went into the sky (according to the Bible)…
Jesus (The Second Adam) claimed that a man, born on the earth (John the Baptist) was the second coming of Elijah. John went forth in the Spirit and Power of Elijah (as the second coming of Elijah, long awaited by Israel).
Coming on the Clouds?
http://www.unification.net/dp73/dp73-2-6.html#2.3
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Likewise, if the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions of today cannot be convinced and convicted of the value and significance of the concept of “True Parents”–convinced by the faith of the cloud (crowd) of witnesses gathered around the Lord of the Second Advent (True Parents)–then this generation, too, will miss the time of “Christ’s” (the newly named Anointed) visitation, as the Third Adam.
Revelation 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
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Revelation 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
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Therefore, ours too is an awesome challenge and responsibility in this day and age.
The consequences of our failure will be catastrophic, as were the consequences upon that generation, 2000 years ago, when they failed to catch and ride the merit of the age then, to the long-awaited fulfillment of God’s original ideal of creation.
Like the 2nd Adam (Jesus) in his day, the 3rd Adam (True Father) in this day, then, is beholden to our absolute faith, love, and obedience if True Parents are to truly consummate God’s ideal of creation, God’s hope and will for these end times.
They are to be distinguished from us, though, insomuch as they represent the opening of the restored First Estate (the lineage meant to be multiplied before the Fall, outside of the realm of satan’s accusation). By virtue of God’s providence, and on the foundation of certain victories of some percentage of those who were called, chosen, and eventually justified by God, The 3rd Adam could accomplish the conditions necessary to become the first True Parents:
By God’s grace and on the foundation of the victory of Jesus, and on the merit of so many saints and sages throughout history, then True Parents are the first couple to stand firmly on the merit of the age; and when that merit crumbled under the faithlessness of those called and chosen for this age, True Parents had the foresight and the wherewithal to reconstitute the conditions (Karma) necessary to prolong and advance God’s providence and expand the realm of God’s blessing out far enough for there still to be time (in their life-times) for the establishment of the New Heaven and the New earth.
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In conclusion:
We return the original question: What is the
similarity, difference or relationship between Bodhisattva, The
Buddha, Nirvana, Jesus Christ, True Parents, and Cheonji In Chambumo?
The True Parents of Heaven Earth and Humanity (“Cheon-ji-in Champumo Nim”) are Bodhisattvas (Championing the realm of Awakenened Consciousness). The key difference between them, the Buddha, and other Bodhisattvas has to do with their relationship with God, and their relationship to God’s Providence:
Like Jesus, True Parents are the Fruit of a certain Dispensation (a Providence of God) to raise up a New Adam, a New Eve worthy to receive a New Anointing originally meant for the Original Adam and Eve (when the original children of God were in their First Estate, before the Fall of Humanity). Jesus could not gain the faith, love, and obedience of the people chosen to receive him. Therefore, although he is a Bodhisattva and could multiply a realm of spiritual salvation, Jesus could not consummate the physical salvation, the physical Kingdom of Heaven of Heaven on Earth.
The Promise of the New Heaven and the New Earth is yet to be consummated and substantiated by the multiplication of that lineage which is outside of the realm of satan’s accusation. Through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us all to be perfect as our Father is in Heaven–to be like him, Bodhisattvas endowed with True Parental Hearts.
The Similarity, Difference or Relationship between Jesus and True Parents
While Jesus could establish the ideal of a True Man, and a True Son, the merit of the age 2000 years ago was not sufficient for Jesus to go on and establish the New Heaven and the New Earth in his own day, 2000 years ago. Therefore, he aborted that possibility, and promised to come again–when the merit of the age (The Karma on a national and global level) might allow the Marriage of the Lamb:
At that time, at the Second Coming of Christ (the Third Coming of Adam), not only should a standard of a True Man and a True Son be established; rather, the stand of a True Woman, and a True Daughter should be established with a Trinity formed between an Anointed Adam consummating God’s ideal of conjugal love with an Anointed Eve. As a function of the Marriage of the Lamb, the standard of a True Husband and a True Wife, a True Couple, A True Father and a True Mother will be established.
Rev.19:7-9 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready… And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
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Thereby, the standard of the original lineage of God, intended before (and without) the Fall, will be consummated, allowing for the propagation of the Original lineage of God. Consequently, with the consummation of True Conjugal and True Parental love of God through a “perfected” Adam and a “perfected” Eve, the New Heaven and the New Earth can be fulfilled:
A True Family, True Society, True Nation can expand the realm of True Love, outside the realm of satan’s accusation, establishing a New True Earth and a new True History. Humanity, restored through “in-grafting” will multiply a people characterized by physical as well as spiritual salvation. When such people of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth die, they will awaken into the realm of the New Heaven: A spiritual world outside of the realm of satan’s accusation.
Isaiah 11:9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
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Isaiah 65:17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
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Isaiah 66:22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
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2nd Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
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Revelation 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
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Buddha came 500 years before Jesus Christ. The concept of being a Bodhisattva is helpful towards propagating the mission that Jesus came to fulfill–and that we are charged to fulfill by the Sermon on the Mount left for us by Jesus. But there is a qualitative difference between Jesus and ourselves, owing to the merit of the age upon which he was born, and for which he was conceived to wield. Likewise, there is a qualitative difference between Course and the Anointing prepared for True Parents, should they fulfill their portion of responsibility, upon the foundation of the merit of this age.
That difference can best be understood by comparing the conviction we have, ourselves, with that shown by Jesus (at the risk of his life), and the conviction of True Parents (at the risk of their lives): Namely, the conviction to stand on the word that the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand–to be accomplished in my life time, based on my fulfilling my own portion of the responsibility that Heaven has give to me to fulfill.
How many sons or daughters of God have lived with the conviction that “I” must establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (and in Heaven), together with God, and in my life time… ? Jesus had such conviction, such faith and self-definition. So does True Father. Because of True Parents, then, we have the example and standard whereby we, too, might chose such conviction.
Only we, then, can answer the question as to what is the similarity, difference or relationship between the Bodhisattva, that “I” am, and the Buddha, Jesus Christ, True Parents, and Cheonji In Chambumo? If I were perfected enough, as my Father in Heaven, would I chose Nirvana (extinguishing my ego and merging with God) or would I chose to remained convicted towards the enlightenment and restoration of every single sentient being, until all are Bodhisattvas, until all are mature enough to enter the New Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world?
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The Anthropology of Perfection
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