Divine Nature – Heart, Logos and Creativity

Closeness

The Divine Principle from a Unification Thought perspective: The Purpose of Creation

In previous articles, I focused on different phrases that explain the First Great Blessing in the Divine Principle. They’re important because these blessings are our keys to lead a fulfilling life. So we’d looked at the significance of our unique individuality:

The key to God’s first blessing is the perfection of individual character.…
Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 38

And we’d looked more closely at how to achieve unity between mind and body:

 …In order for an individual to perfect his character, he must form a four position foundation within himself whereby his mind and body become one… with God as their center.
Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 38

And this time, we’ll look more deeply into an idea that immediately follows the one mentioned above. That idea is that our original nature is actually divine:

“…Such individuals become the temples of God, achieve complete oneness with Him, and acquire a divine nature. They experience the Heart of God as if it were their own.…”
Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 38

Divine Nature

The words “divine nature” clearly imply a God-like nature, and this is confirmed by the assertion that such a person would experience God’s heart “as if it were their own”. We could leave it at that, and accept that the meaning of “divine nature” is fairly clear. After all, Christianity has painted a picture of what divinity might be — it’s powerful, it’s kind, it’s loving, it’s sacrificial, infinitely wise, merciful, omniscient, and so on. And the other Abrahamic faiths also have offered a similar picture — at least when God is not angered. But as the Divine Principle states, there are times when new expressions of truth are not only appropriate but necessary:

“…Scriptures…were given at various times in history as humankind developed both spiritually and intellectually. The depth and extent of teaching and the method of expressing the truth naturally varied according to each age.”
Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 7

What the Divine Principle explains is that divine nature doesn’t only belong to God, but that it belongs to us — that we have divinity within us. That’s important because it’s not just an intellectual idea, but it suggests a completely different way of doing our life.

Let’s start here: in the Unification Thought theory of the Original Image, a major section of the chapter is devoted to the explanation of God’s Happy couple racing on bikesDivine Character. It proposes that the attributes of Divine Character — which both God and humans share — are Heart, Logos, and Creativity. Of these, the most essential one is Heart, so let’s look at it first, because it’s the most critical divine attribute of all.

Unification Thought defines heart as “the emotional impulse to seek joy through love”. And an impulse is an “irrepressible desire that wells up from within us”; it’s not something that can be prevented from being expressed by an intellectual understanding or by an act of stern self-discipline. Rather, it’s something that impels us, and even compels us, to actively pursue an inner desire. And the most fundamental desire, the one that is able to provide true joy, is the desire for true love. And so, divine nature is driven by the irrepressible impulse to be fully immersed in giving and receiving love.

Heart

This is a picture of divine nature that is different from familiar traditions and orthodox understandings. In those, divine nature is far above and far removed from such mortal feelings; there’s a kind of supreme regal remoteness that’s attributed to God. But Unification Thought offers the view that the powerful, irresistible attribute which drives us — our Heart — is in fact a divine attribute which is not a human weakness that separates us from God, but rather it is the most fundamental divine trait that we inherit from our Divine Parent. This deep-seated longing within us is a direct reflection of the nature of the parent who desired, imagined and bore us.

Logos

Which naturally leads to the next aspect of divine character: Logos. Logos is the result of imagination that is activated by the heart.  Why so? The Principle explains that, since heart contains an irrepressible desire for relationship, the mind is compelled to procure or create an object which can receive and return love. And so mental activity goes into overdrive, until the mind conceives of something that can stimulate and fulfill the heart’s desire. To conceive of something, to imagine or design it, involves thought and logic. And so Logos appears as a direct result of the heart driving the mind to imagine, design and dream. The final result of this focused and deliberate intellectual activity is that we arrive at an actual “plan” for something within our mind.

Creativity

But once Logos is formed — once we have a plan that excites us — we can’t be fully satisfied until we’re able to actually realize this plan, until this dream, this vision stands complete before us as an actual object that we can see, feel, touch, taste, smell and be moved by. And so the third divine characteristic comes into play, and that’s Creativity. Driven by our Heart’s desire, stimulated by the idea within our mind (Logos), we then muster our skills and gather our materials to actually create. It can be anything — a painting, a garment, a banquet, a business, a marriage, whatever! The point is that there’s a natural outflow that begins in the Heart, then moves the mind (Logos), so that a real object of love is made (Creativity). This resulting object would naturally be the beautiful expression of divine character.

nikita-shalenny-84372_1280A related idea is that the beauty of anything is related to the character of the artist. Without getting into the details of it, the various Oriental dō (arts) are influenced by Buddhist ideas of individual perfection. The direct goal of any dō is not perfect artwork, but rather a perfected artist. If that’s achieved, or even if it’s approached, the inner beauty of the artist will manifest in the beauty of what’s created. But that’s a whole other discussion.

A Divine Parent has Divine Children

Getting back to the point, the First Great Blessing — unity of mind and body centered on heart — ideally leads to attainment of the divine nature that is our potential as the human children of the Divine Parent.

So the idea that we have a divine nature isn’t just a matter of intellectually grasping an intriguing concept about ourselves. Instead, when we understand the very core of ourselves as divine (inheriting God’s Heart, Logos, and Creativity), a special door opens to living life in a very different way — an “authentic” way — where we can intentionally approach each day with a loving heart, which leads to caring thought and which culminates in generous action. Expressing that nature would be a joy to those who love us, to God, and so to ourselves.

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