My adolescence and youth has slipped quietly away,

Time has eaten it up.

Time, please give me back my youth,

That youth that went silently,

Without having done anything.

I do not ask for the fleeting pleasure of being young again,

Perhaps I ask because regret remains;

Regret that the world is wide

And the time life to save the people of the world too short.

My strength is running out and I am getting old

But I have yet to widely spread my message in the world.

People are immature –

They do not know where to go

Nor do they have any knowledge;

They lack the deep dedication in their hearts to fulfill Truth,

So they need time.

Without having etched the existence of Truth

Deeply into people’s hearts,

And without resurrecting them in the true world,

Growing old is the enemy.

I am trying to send these glad tidings

To those trapped inside their framework of minds,

But people are bound in their preconceptions and habits,

Which is all they know.

However, slowly with the passage of time,

My will that is true, will be known here and there.

When people do not achieve what they are trying to achieve,

When their greed to possess more suffers setback,

And their feelings of inferiority are not assuaged,

This message might be heard.

Those who have lost much in the illusionary human world,

Those who are poor in spirit and those who are ill,

May come into Truth earlier

While seeking something to benefit them.

When they think about what it is they have achieved

And what work they have done;

When their families, their fortune

Or they themselves break down,

They may come to their senses,

And begin to hear the words of Truth.

Just as the wealthy do not toil physically,

Those who have a lot of false scraps in their minds

Because of those false scraps,

Are not able to hear the words of Truth.

With all human matters, what is fulfilled

Depends on the amount of effort and dedication put in –

Such is the law of cause and effect.

Time, time, do not pass,

Do not pass.

Until the people of the world have shed their suffering,

And until people who die trapped inside their minds are saved,

Time, do not pass.

Although this is the only thing that must be done in this limited human life,

The world is wide and my mind is impatient.

 

-Woo Myung