Teacher Woo Myung Teaching – Only a Sage Can Recognize a Sage; A Divine Being Cannot Be Seen by Man; Only a Person Who Has Become Truth Can Know Truth; A Living Person Can Distinguish the Living from the Dead but a Dead Person Cannot
The expressions in the title above mean one must become the very existence of what he desires to know in order to truly know it.
No one in the world knows the possessions of the people who pass him on the street, what belongings they have or their states of mind. Similarly, one must first become a sage in order to recognize a sage.
Man cannot see divine beings because divine beings are also human-beings. In order for man to recognize that a person is a divine being, he must be a divine being himself. One can only know Truth when he has become Truth, and a living person is a person who has become Truth. A person who has become Truth, that is, a person who is alive, will recognize who has become Truth and is therefore, alive. It is because his consciousness is alive that he is also able to know and recognize who is dead.
A person who is dead does not know what life and death is; his consciousness is dead so he is unable to tell who is living and who is dead. What this means is that a person of Truth knows both who has become Truth and who has not, while a person who has not become Truth does not know who is Truth. Because he is not Truth, he does not know that he is dead, nor can he recognize anyone else who is dead.
-Woo Myung-