NEW VISION

After he rescued his father's companies, the board of the HANOL religious foundation continuously requested that he take on the financial liability and the leadership of HANOL-GYO, regardless of his sincere refusals.¹⁾
However, he eventually accepted the leadership of HANOL-GYO which was on the verge of serious financial crisis.²⁾

He resigned as CEO & Deputy Chairman of Hanon Group and took the subsequent leadership of HANOL-GYO³⁾ in order to stop its disintegration, and to preserve, reform and consolidate the foundation.⁴⁾

After Sewon Shin⁵⁾ assumed the leadership of HANOL-GYO, he concentrated on the core elements of the founder’s teachings on the Hanol Spirit⁶⁾ and tried to avoid the formality of extrinsic tradition. He emphasized the essence of the Hanol Principles⁷⁾ and refrained from applying the traditional concepts of ritual and worship. Sewon transformed Hanol-gyo into a more flexible, liberal and decentralized organization.¹⁾

He tried to realize the founder’s last will to overcome religious separation.

"HANOL-GYO is the religious re-establishment of the Korean national founding principle based on the philosophy of Spiritual Transcendence, which laid the spiritual foundation for the establishment of old Korean empire GOJEOSUN 5000 years ago. The founding father of Korea, DANGUN’s famous dictum is to ‘unite and benefit all in existence’. HANOL-GYO honors all religious founders and awakened beings as the teachers of enlightenment, and respects their ways of pursuing Truth. HANOL-GYO aims to overcome all forms of segregations including religion, race, ideology and so on". - from A Guidance to Hanol-gyo

Therefore, Sewon convinced the Board and Hanol spiritual committee to make religious conversion unnecessary and constitutionalized the allowance of the multiplicity in religion.¹⁾

The participants and adherents of Hanol-gyo are free to participate in other religions as well.

Accordingly, there is no need to give up one’s religion to believe in Hanol-gyo.⁸⁾

Furthermore, he introduced the transformational religious approach by integrating art with the teachings of spiritual transcendence. He expressed the quintessence of Hanol Spirit in the 'Art of Enlightenment and Awakening': the self-liberation of consciousness.⁹⁾

He constitutionalized the admission for the Art of Enlightenment to replace the function of regional chapels and churches of Hanol.¹⁰⁾ Furthermore, he permitted the formal ceremony and rituals to be substituted by simple contemplation on the Enlightenment Art or the meditation on self-awarness.¹¹⁾

He stated that "illuminating the lights of Enlightenment Art can represent the quintessence of the Hanol Principle better than a thousand books analyzing or explaining them", and that "the uncontaminated pure lights of Enlightening Art can more accurately speak for the Hanol Spirit" than a thousand words he could use to explain it.¹¹⁾

Sewon also tried to express his spiritual insights through ‘the art & architecture of Enlightenment & Awakening'.¹¹⁾

Sewon's new insight on enlightenment and awakening was that "as society reaches the point of intellectual evolution and technological singularity, people will experience the gradual process of enlightenment and the consecutive stages of awakening in consciousness, instead of the legendary transcendental quantum leap or super-natural phenomenon of awakenings."¹⁾

On spirituality, he suggested that seeking spirituality may not be a special task or fateful mission for the spiritual minority in the future, but simply a new way of life with a new state of consciousness applied in everyday life here and now.

Sewon showed a sophisticated approach and an extraordinary way of pursuing the Truth: he integrated Art as an instrument to the enlightenment and awakening.

Through the new way of creating and perceiving art, he proposed new methods to open up an alternative state of consciousness (other than the state of Ego mind), which is a new way to find the profound Truth and bliss of life here and now.

New Insights on Spiritual Enlightenment and Awakening

1. Not to few, To all - Most of humanity will experience enlightenment and awakening in the future
As we evolve, not only a small number of spiritually gifted or the religiously committed minority, but the majority of people are likely to experience the enlightenment and awakening process.

2. No Super-Natural rare phenomena - Natural process in the future
In the future, the Awakening may not be a rare phenomenon of super-natural transcendence, but simply a new way of life with a new state of consciousness to be attained here and now.

3. No Quantum Leap - Gradual process
Instead of the quantum leap of legendary awakenings, a gradual process of enlightenment and the stages of awakening in human consciousness may prevail: the future generations will then naturally adopt an evolved state of consciousness.

* As soon as he assumed the leadership, he published the book 'Intellectual revolution', introducing a revolutionary insight on ‘spiritual democracy’ in the face of a critical threshold in the era of intellectual singularity.

Before his resignation, he practically abolished the concept of followers in the Hanol-gyo organization and only the selected number of remaining followers were promoted as the foundation fellows; instead of a conventional notion of religious followers, he introduced the ‘concept of spiritual audience’.