Human beings live for ten months in the womb, a hundred years in this physical world and for eternity in the spirit world.

Human beings live for ten months in the womb, a hundred years in this physical world and for eternity in the spirit world.

Sun Myung Moon

The Three Stages of Life

Theme: Life Beyond Death

Human beings live for ten months in the womb, a hundred years in this physical world and for eternity in the spirit world... Death is similar to coming out of the womb, where we lived in a world of water, and in the process destroying the umbilical chord and the amniotic sac. Death is our second birth. It is our departure from this limited world, where we breathe through our nose, and our arrival in the place where we can receive God’s love. That is what death is. This is why we have a first ancestor and a second ancestor. Our path of life is such that we leave this world where we received our parent’s love and we seek out the place of the love of God, our infinite and eternal Parent. Embraced in God’s bosom, we form bonds of infinite life and love and return to the original homeland where we can live eternally. There we breathe love, just as we breathe air now. We originated from God, and by achieving this real authority of love we incarnate God. In love our value is equal.

Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon (born January 6, 1920, in Jeongju, in what is now North Korea – died September 3, 2012, in Gapyeong, South Korea) was a Korean religious leader, entrepreneur, and founder of the Unification movement. Raised in a rural Confucian-Christian household during the Japanese occupation of Korea, Moon’s early life was shaped by hardship, devotion, and a strong sense of spiritual calling. As a teenager, he experienced a profound vision in which he believed Jesus commissioned him to complete the work of restoring humanity to unity with God. This revelation became the foundation of his lifelong ministry, devoted to the ideal of universal peace and the healing of the relationship between the divine and human families.

In 1954, after enduring persecution and periods of imprisonment under both Japanese and communist authorities, Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul. His teachings—later presented systematically in the Exposition of the Divine Principle—offered a reinterpretation of Christian theology emphasizing God’s parental love, human responsibility, and the sanctity of marriage and family. Central to his vision was the belief that love is the creative force of the universe and that humanity’s purpose is to build a world reflecting the oneness of God’s heart. Through international missions, interfaith dialogue, and mass wedding ceremonies symbolizing global reconciliation, Moon sought to transcend divisions of race, religion, and nationality.

Beyond his religious work, Moon established numerous organizations in education, media, culture, and humanitarian service, aiming to foster dialogue, moral renewal, and peace. He and his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, were regarded by followers as the “True Parents,” embodying the ideal of restored unity between men and women, heaven and earth. While his movement inspired both devoted commitment and significant controversy, Moon’s influence on global religion, culture, and peace initiatives remains substantial. His life reflected an unwavering pursuit of the vision of one human family under God—a vision he advanced with conviction, discipline, and enduring faith in the transformative power of divine love.

Reverend Moon's teachings went beyond the realm of the spiritual to touch on the universal human themes of love and family. He emphasized the importance of nurturing strong, loving families as the cornerstone for a harmonious and peaceful world. To this end, he conducted mass wedding ceremonies known as the 'Blessing', symbolizing the unity of all people under God, regardless of their cultural or religious backgrounds. Moon also stressed the value of community service and encouraged his followers to actively contribute to their local communities.

Sun Myung Moon's partner in both life and work was his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. As co-leader of the Unification Church, she is a pivotal figure in spreading their shared vision of a world unified by love and peace. Affectionately known as 'True Mother', she embodies the ideal of nurturing and unconditional love in their teachings. After Reverend Moon's passing in 2012, Hak Ja Han Moon assumed sole leadership of the Unification Church and changed the name to Heavenly Parent's Holy Community. In her leadership role, she has tirelessly carried forward their mission, upholding the church's emphasis on peace, interfaith dialogue, and strong, loving families. Under her guidance, the church has continued to flourish, spreading its message of unity and love to people around the globe.

(1920-2012) Heavenly Parent's Holy Community
Cheon Seong Gyeong

Moon, Sun Myung, and Hak Ja Han Moon. Cheon Seong Gyeong. Seonghwa Chulpansa, 2015, pp. 677-681 [Book 7, Chapter 1, Section 1, The Three Stages of Life].

Sun Myung Moon

Theme: Life Beyond Death

About This Sun Myung Moon Quotation [Commentary]

Sun Myung Moon presents a clear and ordered view of human life: “Human beings live for ten months in the womb, a hundred years in this physical world and for eternity in the spirit world.” This three-stage path reveals life as a continuum, not interrupted by death but expanded by it. Death, he explains, is “similar to coming out of the womb,” a transition that requires us to let go of the old—just as the umbilical cord and amniotic sac are left behind at birth. Our physical life, limited and shaped by time, prepares us for what he calls our “second birth,” a movement from “this limited world” to a realm where we “receive God’s love.”

In this second stage, Moon says we “breathe through our nose,” relying on material elements like water, air, and light. But in the spirit world, “we breathe love, just as we breathe air now.” He describes this transition as our return to the origin, where we are “embraced in God’s bosom,” no longer separated by material needs or finite understanding. There, we “form bonds of infinite life and love” and enter “the original homeland where we can live eternally.” Death becomes the passage into a dimension not of despair but of fulfillment—where the spirit no longer depends on the physical and is nourished entirely by divine love.

This journey is not only personal but shared. “We originated from God,” Moon writes, and by attaining “this real authority of love,” we “incarnate God.” Love becomes the measure of our growth and the condition of our eternal belonging. Life on earth, with all its striving and impermanence, finds its meaning in this movement toward the eternal. For Moon, the value of each person is equal in love, and death is the gateway into that equality. It is the beginning of a life that no longer ends—a life with God as “our infinite and eternal Parent.”

The Law of the Universe

When the time comes, we must all end our life in our mother’s womb and begin our life on earth. Regardless of whether we desire it or not, the law of the universe operates this way. Then a new, vast and boundless world unfolds before us, one which we had never dreamed of or imagined. Our life in water ends and our life on earth begins. A span of ten months in the womb transitions into a span of one hundred years of life on earth. People lead diverse lives and go through changes as they prepare for the spirit world, the world we go to after we die. That is why I tell you not to worry about dying. You are simply moving to a better place.

—Sun Myung Moon [Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 7, Chapter 1, Section 1 The Three Stages of Life] pp. 677-681.

Additional Sun Myung Moon Quotes

Just as we never imagined life in the world during our time in the womb, while we are living in the flesh we cannot imagine the very different, eternal and infinite world that is waiting for us. It is not a world of despair. Our life of one hundred years in this limited earthly realm transitions into life in the eternal realm transcendent of time and space. While living in the womb, we are supplied with nutrients from our mother through the umbilical cord, and our earthly life depends on the three basic elements of the universe–water, air and light–as well as nutritive elements. Once we enter the spirit world, however, we no longer need material nutrients; we live breathing love for all eternity. In the eternal world, we eat if we want to and we do not eat if we would rather not. No matter who we are, we live our life in three stages: ten months in water, one hundred years on earth, and eternity in the spirit world.

—Sun Myung Moon [Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 7, Chapter 1, Section 1 The Three Stages of Life] pp. 677-681.

“Someday I too, will die. When we are young, we don’t think much about death. But we become increasingly serious about death as we grow older. This is because death is a gate through which we are inevitably destined to pass. But what happens to us after we die? Do you know why I am talking about death? I talk about death in order to teach the meaning of life. Who really knows the value of life? It is not the person who is going all out to preserve his life. The only person who really knows about life is the one who goes into the valley of death. He confirms the meaning of life as he desperately cries out to Heaven at the crossroads of life and death. Why do people fear death? It is because they do not know the purpose for which we are born.
Those who do not know why we are born do not know why we die. Therefore the first questions philosophers ask are “What is life? Why are we born?” If we think about it, we realize that when we die we are reborn into the midst of God’s love. But in the human world, people cry out, “Oh no, I’m going to die! What am I to do?” They make a big fuss. Do you think that God laughs, “Ho ho ho!” when we die? Or do you think God cries out, “Oh no!” and is overwhelmed with sorrow? The truth is, He is happy. This is because the moment of the physical body’s death is the moment we experience the joy of leaving the finite realm of love in order enter the infinite realm of love. It is the moment of our second birth. Then is God happier on the day we are born into the physical world, or at that moment we leave our physical body behind? At that moment, we are born a second time into the realm of the infinite expansion of love. We become His new children through death. Of course, God is happier at the second birth. I am telling you this because you need to know that you cannot have a relationship with God unless you are released from the fear of death.”

—Sun Myung Moon [Understanding Life and Death (Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, “Realizing the Interfaith Ideal: Action Beyond Dialogue,” Founder’s Address, Washington, DC – December 18, 1998].

Resources

Family Federation for World Peace and Unification - USA

The Three Stages of Life

Resources

Related Quotes