Liberation

The spiritual freedom experienced by people who are released from the fetters of desires and attachments to worldly things is called Liberation (moksha). It is an inner experience of freedom that can arise regardless of the person’s external circumstances: The saint is free even in prison, while people living in comfort and affluence may be caught in dire bondage to runaway desires, addictions, and bad relationships. The Christian scriptures speak of a comparable experience of Christian liberty.

Yet liberation goes beyond the individual. Jesus spoke about liberating the prisoners and a Kingdom of freedom. When people live in the spirit of love and self-giving, they can be very free with one another. If everyone in a family or society enjoyed the inner freedom of a God-centered life, they then could live and act in freedom. Therefore, Father Moon teaches, liberating others also expands our own realm of liberation. That liberation should expand to encompass societies, nations, the entire world, and beyond to the realm of God.

Jewish Kabbalistic doctrine describes the task of liberating of the “divine sparks” residing in each thing, that they may rise up and rejoin the divine unity. God’s liberation is contingent upon human liberation, teaches Father Moon, because human suffering and oppression binds God in fetters of grief and pain. Liberating humanity also liberates God, and when God is liberated, humanity can be truly free.