Self-development and self-realisation have become popular concepts these days – and with justification. Surely the purpose of life on earth is originally not meant to be a “valley of tears”, but to fully realise our human potential.
It is generally recognised that a fundamental need of all human beings is social ties. We can add two further fundamental needs: the need for a relationship of trust to God and the need for a loving and caring relationship to nature and material things, including money. There are thus three types of relationships which need continuous nurturing in order for a human being to find happiness – to God, to people and to material things.
A glance at the situation of humanity today reveals that these three relationships are urgently in need of repair. A deep and trusting relationship to God is the key to successful interpersonal relationships and the ability to use money well. The person who grasps his own value as a son or daughter of God feels completely secure in God’s love and cannot feel hatred or jealousy; she does not feel any need to be involved in power struggles or addicted to material comforts. When we deeply realise that God is a being who lives for the sake of humans, we would want to live for God and be like him.
What is God like? He possesses the same qualities as you and I, whom he created in his likeness. God feels emotions such as love, hope and happiness; but he can also feel sadness, indignance and disappointment. The highest purpose of human life is to free God from his misery – there is no more valuable existence than this. God will be liberated when humans realise their full potential and become his partners of love.
The human desires for beauty, truth and goodness, together with our extraordinary capacity to love, are what distinguish us from the rest of the animal world. We inherited these qualities from God and our purpose is to make beauty, truth, goodness and love a reality in our daily lives. God gave humans a medium for doing this: the family. Through the family, God intended us to grasp his heart by experiencing the true love of children for parents, the true love of brothers and sisters for each other, true couples’ love and true parents’ love. This is the key to our becoming fulfilled and mature human beings. Moneymaking, the exercise of power and the acquiring of intellectual knowledge are all subordinate to true love and exist only in order to enable us to love and serve others even more completely.
If there were an enemy of God, surely that enemy’s main purpose would be to infiltrate and destroy the institution of the family – the place where God’s hope for human beings is rooted. As we witness the collapse of the institution of marriage and the corruption of sex, it is painfully obvious that a spiritual revival is needed to give the existing religions new courage and direction.
Religion and spirituality are inspired by God and are originally instruments of peace. They are the root of civilisation. True religious believers do not fight among themselves, denouncing one another’s faith. True religious believers do not claim a monopoly of the truth; they realise that God never stops revealing new truth and that their revelation is not the last. When religions unite and work together to enlighten society, there will be no room for the false believers who misuse religion to justify “holy wars” and who defend greed, brutality and social injustice as “God’s will”.
Self-development and self-realisation mean to become a child of God. That is a truly mature person, a real human being. To become more human means to become more godly. To become more godly means to benefit others, endlessly pouring out our love and energy as God did in the creation of the Universe and human beings. Fortunately, God planted an indestructible conscience in the heart of every human being and that conscience, when touched, will be the key to realising the original society of happiness, justice and peace that God intended us to live in.