*INDEMNITY* by Heung Jin Nim Moon
"Ouch!..I cut myself!" "Oh! Your'e paying indemnity!" How many
times have you heard that physical suffering or misfortune equals
indemnity? Many times I bet. But does physical suffering REALLY
equal indemnity? Or is this someone's trick to make you endure
UNNECESSARY suffering? What does indemnity really mean? What
is true indemnity? How can you be SURE when an action is accepted
as true indemnity? How to distinguish false "indemnity" from true Tan
Gam indemnity? This essays tells you how. It gives you the power to
use Tan Gam to your advantage. It empowers you to take control of
your own life.
INDEMNITY
By Heung Jin Nim Moon
The first thing I want to say about indemnity is that it does not equate
to suffering. This thought comes to the minds of many brothers and sisters
when they think of indemnity. Indemnity does NOT equal suffering.
Another thing that indemnity is not is "punishment". God is not
really a "hellfire and brimstone" God. He does not have a desire to punish
His children. Satan wants you to believe God is punitive so that you will
think you won't ever be able to go back to Him.
What would you do if you were shown the door to a room and were
told that in that room was God Almighty and He was waiting to see you?
Many of you would be scared to death to go in that room, wouldn't you?
You would probably think, "Now I'm really going to get it".
THE HEART OF A PARENT
From the Principle you should realize that Heavenly Father is not like that.
You should not be afraid of Him. He's your father. He wants to help you.
So why are you afraid? Satan has made you afraid of God. You have
inherited Satan's fear since the fall.
The parent/child relationship is very different from the master/servant
relationship. Think about it. If the servant does something wrong, the
master will punish him in some way. Or in the case of something really
bad, the master will kick the servant out altogether. Now think about the
parent/child relationship. If the child does something wrong, the parent is
not going to kick the child out. The parent is going to try to restore the
original relationship and bring out the original good nature of the child. The
parent, in his heart, takes full responsibility of the mistakes of the child
because the parent raised the child. Since the parent is the cause and the
child is the result, the parent automatically has to take responsibility.
If your child does something wrong, what do you want to see happen?
You want to get back to the original relationship before the bad action
occurred. But you can't just ignore the bad action. You can't let it continue
to happen either. Something's got to change.
First, you would want your child to realize that he did something
wrong. Next, you would want him to apologize for the mistake he made
and then change his behavior. If he demonstrated thoroughly that he
understands what he did wrong and then acts in a good way from then on,
your trust and faith in the child will be reestablished.
You would not want just a shallow apology from your child and then
see him repeat the same mistake or in some way show that he doesn't
sincerely care or understand what he is doing.
As long as the child is making progress in his understanding of what
is right and in the sincerity of his heart, you can be satisfied with his
growth. I other words, you can forgive immaturity as long as it is growing
into maturity. You can also forgive ignorance or even wrong actions as long
as you can see that he is sincere and that his motivation is to do the right
thing.
GOD KNOWS YOU COMPLETELY
If that's what you would do for your own children, wouldn't you expect God
to have even greater love for you? God's understanding of your ancestors
and of the spiritual forces acting on you is complete, whereas yours is not.
God can understand why you do what you do better than anyone else. He
also knows the amount of effort you are making compared to your level of
capability at each stage of your growth.
God knows that he is putting a lot of pressure on you to do bigger
things than anyone in history has ever been able to do. He wants you--one
person at the culmination of thousands of generations of fallen humanity--to
be able to rise above all historical sins in only one generation, your own
lifetime. It's not easy to restore all of history in one generation! God knows
that. He knows it better than you!
So the real key to God and the secret to paying indemnity is your
sincerity. If you have pure motivation and you sincerely want to know the
truth and do the right thing, you never have to be afraid of God. He will
always want to embrace you and help you to understand the truth and do
the right thing. All things were made to grow to perfection over a certain
time period. Every one of your skills was developed with a lot of practice
and many mistakes on your part over a long time. Heavenly Father knows
this very well. He created it that way. He is aware that you are going to
make many, many mistakes.
"If you make a mistake, you are going to have to pay indemnity."
You hear this a lot in the church. It is a threat of punishment to scare you
into doing something. There is actually truth in this statement, but the
understanding of "indemnity" as something to be feared comes from Satan,
not from God. If you think of indemnity as punishment, then every time
you make a mistake you will feel that still more punishment will be added
on to your total. After a while it may seem futile to you to do anything,
because however hard you try, you are bound to make mistakes. You
finally conclude that each mistake you make adds more punishment to your
pile of indemnity, which must already be a mountain, so the smartest thing
to do is to just do nothing. "Then at least my punishment won't get any
greater", you say. Satan likes you to think in this way.
INDEMNITY EQUALS LOVE
But indemnity is not like this. Indemnity is actually a gift from God.
Indemnity is grace from God. You can even think that indemnity equals
love from God. God is the source of love, not torture; therefore, indemnity
must be an expression of God's love. When you experience indemnity, you
should at the same time (or as a result of indemnity) experience God's love.
If all you experience is personal suffering, you are not "paying indemnity".
If you experience that your suffering is for God, then the result will be that
you will grow closer to God and feel more of His love.
The purpose of indemnity is restoration. Restoration of what?
Restoration of your relationship with God. Therefore, if true indemnity has
been paid, the net result will be that you feel closer to God. If you feel
farther away from God's love, then indemnity has not been paid. In fact,
Satan has gotten the victory. It is Satan's will to separate you from God.
Remember: If you feel closer to God, indemnity has been paid; if you feel
farther away from God, indemnity has not been paid.
Many times a person will get a physical injury and others will say,
"You're paying indemnity". But please don't think that physical suffering is
indemnity. It might be, but then again it might not be. Heartistic indemnity
is spiritual only. Unless you gain some spiritual benefit as a result of the
physical suffering, no indemnity has been paid. A small amount of
heartistic indemnity can be far, far superior to a great amount of physical
suffering. It is all decided by how much closer you are to God as a result.
Let me also clear up some confusion about "lesser, equal, and greater"
indemnity. Lesser indemnity is always the case in the Unification church.
You never have to pay the full amount. Because of the foundation of the
total sacrifice of Jesus and True Parents, our indemnity is always a lesser
amount. You never even have to pay equal indemnity. That is an Old
Testament concept from back before Jesus came and back before anyone
knew anything about the parental heart of God.
A SINCERE HEART
Greater indemnity will never have to be paid as long as you maintain a
sincere heart. When Abraham had to sacrifice his son Isaac, he was not
paying greater indemnity. Sure, it was greater than the sacrifice of the
animals, but it was not greater than all of his past sins and the sins of all his
ancestors, which he was paying for. Through it all, Abraham was sincere in
wanting to do God's will, so he was actually paying lesser indemnity. He
did not have to kill his son in the end. He only had to offer him, which in
itself was tremendous heartistic indemnity.
Greater indemnity only applies if a person remains insincere and
unrepentant. Greater indemnity should be thought of like this: If someone
hurts you or wrongs you, then you cannot feel love for him. As long as he
remains insincere or unrepentant, you cannot love him. You may be able to
love him only if you see him suffering. If you see that he is suffering more
than he has made you suffer, then you have a condition to forgive him and
begin loving him. This is an example in which that person has paid "greater
indemnity". Your heart wants to love him now because he has suffered.
You are just waiting for him to turn to you to seek a relationship again.
If a person has hurt you, your heart will become closed. But as soon
as a person expresses sincere repentance, your heart automatically wants to
open up to him. It could be a long time before you see a person's sincerity,
but when you finally see it, your heart begins to open. At such a point,
"lesser indemnity" is operating. The relationship is in the process of being
restored, and neither party wants to needlessly delay the reunion.
TREMENDOUS SPIRITUAL BENEFIT
Heavenly Father is always seeking a reunion with you. As soon as He sees
your sincerity and repentance, He will rush toward you. He will then give
you some physical act to do to symbolically restore the physical wrongs that
have been committed. The act can be relatively simple, but it represents all
your sincere desire to restore the past. The simple physical act is the key,
but the tremendous benefit is entirely spiritual. A small physical act can
represent an incredible spiritual breakthrough on your part.
Therefore, physical acts of indemnity that you perform are almost
insignificant compared to the spiritual and heartistic realities of what they
represent. Once our hearts have made certain conditions, then the grace of
God brings about tremendous restoration.
This misconception that greater indemnity equals greater punishment
has been hung over a lot of member's heads by Satan, causing many of them
intense spiritual anguish and even causing some of them to leave the church.
They lost all hope of being able to climb out of the big hole they were
digging for themselves and their descendants every day.
It is important for everyone to think about indemnity and other
concepts in the Principle [textbook] in terms of how they express God's love
for man. God has no other motivation but love. If for any reason you
cannot understand or feel God's love behind every concept and aspect of the
Principle, then please realize that your understanding is not yet big enough.
Pray to better understand God's point of view and how God's love is being
expressed through everything He does.
Thank you for reading all of this. It's a long comment, but Satan is
really trying to confuse our members; therefore, deeply understanding the
true meaning of indemnity is extremely important.
Love,
Heung Jin Nim
Note: The basis of Satan's power over humans is LIES. In order to get Eve
to fall, Satan FIRST had to confuse her thinking and her standard of right
and wrong. Therefore it is very important to have clear knowledge and
understanding.
* GLOSSARY *
GRACE: Unmerited favor. Something that benefits you, given as a gift.
CLOSER TO GOD: More in-tune with your original nature and true
identity. Fulfilling your purpose of existence.
FEELING CLOSER TO GOD: An intuitive sensation whose characteristics
are: enhanced capacity to care about others, heightened sensitivity to others,
feeling of freedom, clarity of mind and thinking, living spontaneously and in
sync with your environment.
GOD'S LOVE: Love of the original being which is mediated primarily
through your parents, spouse and children. Also mediated by nature
(plants, animals, natural environment) to a limited degree.
INDEMNITY: Some action done to repair lost status or a damaged
relationship. In principle terms, the ultimate purpose of indemnity is to
restore your original nature, you original attitude and character. For an
action to be considered "indemnity" (and thus contributing to restoration)
the action MUST BE ACCEPTABLE TO THE PERSON WHO WAS
WRONGED. Thus different people have different requirements as to what
is acceptable actions for them. For example, if you fast for 40 days because
you hit your wife, if all your wife wanted was for you to say "I'm sorry" and
you don't say "I'm sorry" then that 40 day fast means nothing to her and is
unacceptable.
TO "PAY" INDEMNITY: Means to actually offer something (action, word,
material, attitude etc.) to the person wronged so as to erase the "debt' of
resentment and hurt feelings.
HEARTISTIC INDEMNITY: Sincere emotional intent to correct a misdeed.
Does NOT have to involve physical action or physical pain. The intent must
be sincere and believable. Example: Abraham was fully willing to kill his
son. Based on his sincere intent he did not have to actually kill his son. His
sincerity of attitude was just as acceptable (even more so) than the actual
killing of his son.
LOVE: To care about, appreciate, value, see as important to you, to take
care of. To do what will be of benefit to that person's well being (in line
with the Principle).
CONDITION: Basis, foundation for something else. Some action which
has purpose, motivation and direction.
TO LEAVE THE CHURCH: 1. To no longer associate with members of the
Unification church. To no longer participate in the main-line activities of
the Unification Church as promulgated by New York or International Head
Quarters. To no longer accept the doctrines, ideas and rituals of the
Unification Church. 2. The natural and expected GRADUATION from a
religious life and to naturally follow your heart's desire. Thus all members
of the Unification Church are expected to leave. If they did not leave then
the principle is false.
<
need to have someone looking after you. If you know what you should be
doing, why do you need someone giving you direction?>>
(Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Home Church, p.130 1980)