Sunday Service on January 7, 2024

Triangle Family Church Sunday Service on January 7, 2024

Musical Offering

Sermon - Anyone Can Have a Mystical Experience

Blog

The sermon discusses mystical experiences and how anyone can have a direct encounter with God. The speaker shares personal experiences and techniques such as hands-on healing, guided meditations, and journaling with God. The goal is to help individuals develop a stronger relationship with God and experience transformation in their lives. Key Insights

• The speaker highlights the accessibility of mystical experiences, emphasizing that anyone can have a direct encounter with God. This challenges the notion that such experiences are reserved for a select few or require extensive spiritual practices.
• The testimonies shared demonstrate the profound impact of mystical experiences on individuals' lives. These experiences lead to a deeper sense of love, acceptance, and empowerment, which in turn affects their relationships with others and their ability to navigate challenges.
• Overcoming feelings of unworthiness is a common barrier to experiencing mystical encounters with God. The speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's inherent value as a child of God and the need to open oneself to receive the love and embrace of the divine.
• The techniques shared, such as hands-on healing, guided meditations, and journaling with God, serve as practical tools to facilitate mystical experiences. These techniques create the conditions for individuals to connect with the vibration of God's love and experience its transformative power.
• The speaker highlights the potential for creating a more peaceful and loving world through individual transformation. By nurturing peaceful individuals one at a time, the collective impact can contribute to the realization of the kingdom of God on Earth.
• The speaker's personal experiences and his son's spiritual guidance serve as inspiration and validation for the techniques shared. These experiences demonstrate the tangible and life-altering effects of mystical encounters with God.
• The importance of maintaining the vibration of God's love in daily life is acknowledged. While challenging in the physical world, efforts can be made to stay connected through spiritual practices, solitude, and mindfulness. This ongoing effort allows individuals to sustain the benefits of mystical experiences and cultivate a deeper relationship with God.

Sermon text Japanese translation

I'm here to give the talk today because I wrote this article that you can see on the screen. It's a blog post on the website of applied Unificationism, which is the blog of UTS, now known as HK International. A blog is a place where people write about their opinions and ideas. Bob saw it and asked me to share it with you.

The title is anyone can have a mystical experience. What does that mean? It's hard to define. Is it something that's not physical? That's correct. But air is also not physical and it's not mystical. Is it a spiritual experience with a spiritual realm? That's closer. A mystical experience is something that has no explanation. That's what people said. William James, the famous philosopher, said that mystical experiences are beyond words.

The true definition of a mystical experience is having a direct encounter with God or the divine. I never had such an experience when I was a young boy. I attended church every Sunday, but only because my parents made me go. Does that ring a bell? So I went to church every Sunday from age 4 to age 16, but I never felt God's presence.

When I was 16, I doubted that God existed because I hadn't seen him, felt him, or talked to him. So I became an agnostic. An agnostic is someone who is unsure about the existence of God and doesn't have a definite position on it. That's what I was at 16. But later, I had a direct experience with God, and that changed my belief. Now I believe in God, not because of what I learned but because I've experienced him personally and I know him.

I found that there are techniques that can trigger an experience with God. There's something you can actually do to have a direct experience with God.

This is what I saw on a plaque in the chapel at the seminary. It was the founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon's 1985 commencement speech to UTS. He said he wanted this campus to be a place where students can grow in their personal faith and also have authentic spiritual communication with God's spirit, direct encounter. That was his hope, that the UTS students could experience God directly at least once. I was very happy when I saw that, because that's my passion. The seminary has a mission statement, and part of it is to improve their relationship with God. So if you go to UTS, you should leave with a stronger relationship with God than you had before. But that doesn't always happen.

I started teaching others how to have a mystical experience with God after I had some myself. Besides writing, I also held classes, workshops and seminars around the world to show people how to use some methods that can help them reach a higher state of consciousness. The three main methods I teach in my workshops are hands-on healing, guided meditations and something I call journaling with God. There are more methods, but these are the ones I focus on. With hands-on healing technique, I split a group into two-person teams. One person sits in the chair and the other one stands behind and places their hands on them. Then I lead through a process and people have an immediate experience with God doing that. I want to share a couple of the experiences that people have.

If you want to experience God, you have to believe that it is possible. Many people don't believe that, and if you don't believe, it won't happen. Your mind will be closed to the possibility. I recall a female participant in one of my workshops in Milan, Italy, a few years ago. She was doing a guided meditation, and she was close to merging her light with God's light. But just before she and God embraced, she stopped the experience. She knew it was her choice, but she was upset and confused. She asked me, through a translator, why she did that. I told her to relax and close her eyes, and to put her hand on her heart. I told her to ask her heart why she ended the experience. She did that, and then she opened her eyes and said she knew. She said it was because she felt unworthy of having such an experience. She felt she was not good enough. Do you relate to that? That's the most common obstacle, and it saddens me that people don't feel they deserve to be embraced by their Heavenly Parent.

Think of a child who has been away from their parents for 10 years and is finally reunited with them. The parents want to embrace the child, but the child says he/she doesn't deserve their hug. How do the parents feel? Their hearts are shattered. That's how God feels. We are all acting like we are so sinful, so bad, so unworthy, and because of that, we are shutting God out.

I would like to tell you about some examples where this actually occurred because it makes me very enthusiastic. This is a case of a Japanese sister living in Italy. She was blessed to an Italian brother. She started to do the guided meditation. She sensed a gentle light in the meditation that grew more and more intense, like a pulsing wave. She heard God express gratitude to her. God thanked her and said He had been looking for her. She experienced a profound love and a powerful warmth, like a mother who holds her tight from the start and who will never abandon her. She felt that God was like her mother. She had spent more than 40 years in the unification church and this was a new experience for her. She was touched to find out that God was aware of her as an individual. She said to me He knew my name, meaning God addressed her by her name.

She is a 15-year-old girl from a Mormon background. She tried the guided meditation technique. She had been struggling with depression and practicing self-injury. We were concerned she might be suicidal. At one of my workshops, I had a spiritual vision of a spinning energy vortex in front of her face during the guided meditation activity. She was crying as she felt the full impact of this energy and when the meditation ended her face was wet with tears.

Her parents introduced me to her. They came to my program and told me about her and they read my first book, which features Joshua, my son who works with me from the spirit world. He visited her and he told me to reassure the parents that he was looking after her. He said she would be fine and he had her. So she had already had some spiritual experience with Joshua before this workshop. She encountered the being of white light and believes it's God. She has a Mormon family but she skipped their church on Sunday. God said I regret that you've suffered so much in your childhood, I regret what you've endured. It was never my plan that it would be like that. Then God embraces her. God said I've put some people in your life to assist you. Joshua is one of them but there are others on earth. They're there only for you because I care for you deeply. I'm here for you. Whenever you ask for me I also want to motivate you have so much love in your heart. I hope you will spread it to others and offer it because if you do this it will benefit you. Notice God doesn't say you must do that. he says if you do it'll help you.

She said that before, she might have made a snide or sarcastic comment to a nerdy boy who wore a silly shirt to school. But she doesn't do that anymore. She is more kind and patient with people. That's true spiritual growth.

I believe that the way to create a perfect society or what religion calls the kingdom of God on Earth is to change individuals one by one. Because of her experience with God, especially the unconditional love of God, this young woman now knows her invaluable worth as a daughter of God. When one accepts this deep in the heart, it becomes very hard to hurt someone else. So she stopped bullying other students at school. I like the model “peace begins with me” because I think we can't have a peaceful world without making peaceful individuals one by one.

This event took place more than 10 years ago. The young lady’s transformative effect of her mystical experience ended her practice of self-injury. She stopped cutting herself and no more suicidal thoughts and she's still with us. She's married and has a couple kids now.

Many people who have participated in my programs have shared similar stories with me. I believe that anyone can have these kinds of experiences and they can be life-changing. When people have a personal connection with God, they feel how much they are loved and valued. They also feel more empowered and in my opinion, this helps the kingdom of God come closer to completion. There's this woman I want to talk to you about. During the previous election, it was between Hillary Clinton and Trump. I chose one and she chose the other. She was so angry with me that she thought the other candidate was evil. She stopped talking to me and sent me some very painful emails. But I didn't reply. I just continued to love her. A few years later, she reached out to me and said sorry.

She wrote; “I met Ron many years ago when he was holding workshops at his home. He taught me how to do guided meditation and journaling, which I practice every day. His lessons and journaling helped me write my first book, "Dear Lord, I'm listening". It was a remarkable experience and I discovered the gifts of the holy spirit, which led to inspirational messages for people from different backgrounds. I'm grateful for everything Ron has done to teach me to develop my gifts as a psychic medium. I've used these gifts to help many people who are grieving their loved ones. I do this to serve God and those who are left behind. I credit this wonderful spiritual experience to Ron Papalardo and his teachings. Thank you Ron for this amazing gift.”

You only need to open your heart. God is present and God is within us and surrounding us constantly 24/7. We just need to align ourselves with the vibration that God has and then he's there right away.