30. Interview of Rev Hyung Jin Moon by Kyunghyang Newspaper (December 12, 2007)

December 12, 2007

Kyunghyang is a national daily South Korean newspaper

Hyung Jin Moon: I am called a main pastor, but now I focus on church services and also twice a week my wife and I visit families. But my primary concern is the content of church service.

Kyunghyang: During the service on December 1st you were installed as the pastor of this church, right?

Yes. And on the 9th we had another service.

Kyunghyang: What did you speak about?

Well, I talked about how important it is not to let go of the inner happiness, joy and confidence. In our life we should have a mentality of affluence and not a mentality of scarceness. We should learn how to come to win-win solutions with people. Simply speaking that's what the spirit of affluence is.

Kyunghyang: I know that you are interested in Oriental traditions, particularly in Buddhism. I am curious about that. I'd like to use this chance to ask you many questions particularly about this. As far as I know you studied various world religions including Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam and you visited holy sites of various religions. I also know that you practiced martial arts. Nevertheless, shouldn't the Unification Church be viewed as a religion based upon Christian foundation?

Yes, it was greatly influenced by Christianity, particularly by Protestantism.

Kyunghyang: But weren't you in the world too different from Christianity? What do you think about it?

I began to study Buddhism when I was in Harvard. At one point I lived together with Tibetan monk, Lama Wangdu.

Kyunghyang: With who?

Lama Wangdu. He belongs to Gelugpa, the same branch of Tibetan Buddhism as Dalai Lama. I'm also a close friend of Ven. Ilmi. Now he received his Ph.D. from Harvard.

We met every Wednesday, had tea together and even slept in the same room. At that time I felt strong interest in Buddhism and about oriental culture. Seven years ago, when my elder brother Young Jin passed away I started asking many questions about life. It was then that I got interested in religion. From the childhood I was raised in Christian culture, so I naturally wanted to understand oriental world too. I met many monks, meditated together with them. I am very friendly with many of them even now. Sometimes I go to visit them.

Kyunghyang: What Buddhist temple do you go to recently?

I'm very close to Ven. Misan, Buddhist leader who got his Doctorate Degree from Oxford University.

Kyunghyang: Did your father, teachers or people from your surroundings oppose to your involvement with Buddhism and your studies of Buddhism?

Since the culture in the Unification Church is pretty close to that of Christianity, back then, seven years ago I did struggle a bit, because Church members saw that I completely shaved my head, started wearing grey Buddhist monastic robes and using the Buddhist rosary, so I heard quite a bit of talking going on around me.

Kyunghyang: Do you mean disapproving talks?

Well, people were saying something like: :Did he go against his father?" Even I thought at that time, I'm going to be banished. I'm dead now. Interestingly enough Father never scolded me in any public setting.

Moreover he always encouraged me in front of church members. Through this I realized that he was protecting me. Through this experience I started seeing Father differently. When I thought, "Now I'm dead," he just supported me and continuously encouraged me to study and this is why I'm very grateful to him. So, I went on to study Buddhism and oriental philosophy. Honestly speaking, it is then when I became a Unification Church member. Before that, even though I was born in this tradition and heard a lot of Biblical stories I didn't have a clear identity as an Unificationist.

I can frankly say that. I was simply born in this tradition. However through the experience I have just described I realized that my father wasn't simply a pastor of one denomination. He truly respects various religions and it is in accord with his teachings.

When I saw that I really appreciated that. I'm still very close to many Buddhist monks. There is absolutely no discrimination. No one told me that since it is another religion, I shouldn't touch it. Actually I'm very grateful to Buddhism.

Kyunghyang: You are talking about religious faith, but aren't there many worries about leaving the church?

You mean about members leaving the church?

Kyunghyang: No.

About myself?

Kyunghyang: Yes, there must have been some worries that you might be converted to another religion.

Yes. Some people around me worried about it.

Kyunghyang: To me your statement that it was then that you became the Unification Church member sounds paradoxical.

Where, do you think that Buddhism and the Unification Church meet? What do they have in common?

My father for 50 years has been teaching about the necessity of mind and body unity. This is one of his core teachings. In the Unification Principle we have a concept of the Three Great Blessings. First of them is achievement of individual perfection, the second -- perfecting one's family and the third -- realizing dominion over all things.

I really pondered a lot about how to achieve that individual perfection. And our church members do too.

How to train one's personality? One particular reason why I got interested in Buddhism and Taoism is because of their practice of spiritual training, training of mind and body through meditation. My father really spent a great deal of time during the last 50 years teaching about this.

Kyunghyang: So, you mean this is part of teaching of the Unification Church; a big part?

Father always asks Church members, Raise hands those of you whose mind and body are united!

Kyunghyang: So, you said you had met Master Peopjeong, Dalai Lama, Ven. Misan and other Buddhists … Maybe I'm repeating myself, but what are the strong points of Buddhism from your viewpoint?

In my opinion it is a teaching about impermanence

Kyunghyang: Impermanence?

Yes, I think this is a very important wisdom. I realized it when my elder brother passed away. That's how I tell my story to my Buddhist friends. Jesus lived in poverty from his birth, right? His life was difficult, even finding daily bread was difficult.

However Buddha lived in a royal family, but he didn't feel any satisfaction, so finally he left his home.

When he went out he met a sick person and a funeral procession and so forth. So, he realized that even though previous 28 years of his life looked good to him, the reality was different.

Actually I understand this situation better and here's the reason why. From my childhood I have been living near New York and New York is a great city. The church there was in a central position. Frankly I couldn't go out so much. We always lived only in that little East Garden property. Because of security concerns we were always accompanied by bodyguards, so we couldn't simply ride a bicycle or go to visit our friends like other kids do.

So, I can understand Buddha's life more, because I also could not get out of my house, but once I did, I saw that there is suffering and distress; so I got this realization about impermanence. Particularly when my brother Young Jin passed away, I realized that our life can at one moment finish.

Kyunghyang: Impermanence is also a kind of realization?

Well, I don't know if it was a realization, but I felt that this understanding was very important. Once we frame our human life like that then we inevitably start to treasure things like human relationships or our family because we don't know when we are going to leave them. It's not that I focus on death, but this realization made life look beautiful in my eyes.

I don't have a negative outlook, rather I value each life's moment. I meditate every morning at 3:00 a.m. and then I make 100 full bows. After this I go out to clean the yard of local pediatric hospital. Our life is impermanent, so each its day is precious. If we forget about it, we can forget the value of our life and that of other people, so the training is very important. So, I go there every day to pray and remind myself about it.

Kyunghyang: Are these 100 full bows a ceremony of the Unification Church or is it a Buddhist ceremony?

My parents also did it.

Kyunghyang: Is there such ceremony in the Unification Church?

Yes.

Kyunghyang: You have studied several religions, so what, do you think, are the common points of their teachings, the common points of not only Buddhism, but also Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism and so forth?

We can see many common points particularly if we study religious ethics. Patience, mercy, a loving heart, compassion, a desire to understand others -- religious teachings on these virtues are amazingly similar.

Also, all religions teach that a person should change himself or herself to a certain degree, to get more mature. One should mature and change. We can say that this is a common point. Of course, Christianity teaches about Heaven and hell, while Buddhism says that there are several levels of heaven, it teaches about previous lives. There are many differences!

Kyunghyang: And yet teachings are similar?

Yes, core teachings have a lot in common.

Kyunghyang: You have many siblings, but you are the only one among your brothers and sisters who chose the path of a pastor. Did you decide on becoming a pastor after studying various religions and spiritual training?

What process did you come through to come to this decision?

My choice to study religion was quite natural. I have many Buddhist monks and Catholic priests among my friends, so since my friends were in this world, I naturally went in this direction. I don't feel that I became different because of my life as a pastor. My schedule changed a bit, I became busier. In this sense my life changed, but my morning training is still same as before. Well, another difference in my life is that now I have to speak to Unification family members much more.

Kyunghyang: Who do you have to speak to -- members?

I mean church members. In our church we call fellow church members family members.

Kyunghyang: Since now you are not just training alone, you don't have many quiet hours now, do you?

Yes, as a pastor I don't. In our church we have such thing as a 21-year course. Father told us that when we set our direction in life and make plan for the future, we should design a 21-year course. I heard these words a lot when I was a child. So, when my brother Young Jin passed away, I set up my 21-year course consisting of three 7-year courses.

Using our Divine Principle terms this corresponds to stages of formation, growth and completion. Speaking simply, in our doctrine there is a concept of a 21-year course. You can view it as a way to perfection consisting of formation, growth and completion stages -- 7 years for each stage. You can find it in our teaching. During the first 7 years I shaved my head bald, but not that 7-year period finished, so I started to let my hair grow again.

Kyunghyang: Do you sometimes get attacked as a member of heretical group? What is social perception of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification?

Well, I don't know exactly. If you look in the Internet, it is about half and half.

Kyunghyang: Do you mean positive and negative responses?

Yes, it looks like it's half and half. Some people consider Rev. Moon a patriot, while some think he is a heretic or Satan. It seems to me that opinions are quite mixed.

Kyunghyang: What do you think about it?

What do I think? Well, there are always many opinions, you know. Whenever there is a public figure, there is usually no single opinion about him or her. Everybody thinks differently, so people can have different views on any person.

Kyunghyang: Does that mean that you don't regard it seriously?

Simply there are different points of view. Each person has different view. Of course, we see that there is much negativity. It's quite possible. At the beginning of all religions there was a significant amount of negativity towards religious founders. It was true in case of Jesus and his disciples; Buddha was driven out of his village, Mohammed faced opposition and had to flee Mecca, didn't he? Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church was imprisoned. Bahaullah, the founder of Baha'i Faith which occurred in Iran was also jailed. So, founders of new religions or new teachings were always persecuted. So, judging by the history I see it as something usual.

Kyunghyang: In university you majored in religious studies. Will you please, as a religious scholar, evaluate Rev. Moon?

In the university we used the book on world religions. There was a textbook called Living Religions. And in the chapter on new religions significant attention was given to the Unification Church. Objectively speaking, there are not so many cases of religions which reached such a level of growth during their founder's lifetime.

Many religions built their foundation after the death of their founder, but there are very few which could do it within founder's lifetime. Christianity also was growing during 300 or 400 years following Jesus' crucifixion. So, even that textbook established the fact that my father built big foundation during his lifetime. Even the fact that he worked together with President Bush objectively testifies that he is quite successful as a religious leader.

Kyunghyang: Did you think about it when you decided to follow this religious teaching?

Well, it happened naturally.

Kyunghyang: And then later you realized that it was correct, right?

Yes, I didn't take this path because I had some plan. I naturally started to study religion. First I studied oriental religions and through this I began to appreciate Christianity. Then when I combined the two, I found some parts that were already there in the teachings of the Unification Church. Then I looked at my own tradition with new eyes. I firmly believe that we must study other religions and work together with them. Then we can understand our own tradition.

Kyunghyang: Can teachings or doctrines of the Family Federation change or are there unchangeable truths?

There are volumes of my father's speeches. As it happens with religions, the longer they exist the more differing interpretations of their teachings occur. Actually this is the reason behind the creation of various denominations. So, I think varying interpretations of the Unification Church's teaching may appear in the future.

This is my opinion as a student of religion. However some core teachings of my father -- even though they may change still depending on how we manage our life.

Kyunghyang: Do you mean to say that core teachings cannot change, but some "peripheral" teachings can?

Our core teachings may be interpreted differently, but their core is very solid - like teachings on God or family. Teachings on family, peace, Blessing …

Kyunghyang: I tell you the reason why I asked this question. Rev. Moon didn't study Buddhism or other religions before he founded the Unification Church. But since you studied them, maybe you will want to correct some parts of teachings of your church in the future?

Well, until now we didn't have a tradition of meditation, but I do use meditation and my father knows about it. He knows that I teach meditation. In this sense our church is changing. Even though we didn't use meditation so much, now many members want to try it.

Kyunghyang: Oh, you are talking about church members. I got a bit confused.

Hyung Jin means that main principles of Rev. Moon's teaching cannot be changed. The core will not change ... but style or culture of worship can change.

They are already changing. That's how you can understand his words.

Kyunghyang: This church in Chungpa-dong used to be Rev. Moon's headquarters, right? So, there's even some talk going on about you being your Father's successor. What do you think about it?

You should ask this question to my father. No one else knows the answer to this. I just want to do my best and that's it.

Kyunghyang: Do you use quotations from Holy Scriptures of other religions during your sermons? For examples Buddhism has texts conveying sayings of its patriarchs. Do you use these sayings in your sermons?

Yes, I do. For example, once I shared the story of Angulimala from Theravada Buddhism.

The name of this person -- Angulimala -- means garland of fingers. This is famous story in Buddhism. When one child was born it was prophesied that he were to become a saint if he took a path of goodness, but if he took bad path, he were to become a murderer.

Unfortunately he became a murderer. Whenever he killed a person he would cut his or her finger and add it to his garland. When he saw Buddha he also wanted to kill him, but Buddha told him to stop. His words were so powerful, that Angulimala stopped and from that point on he started a new life.

So, I told this story during my sermon to show how powerful our words can be. If we keep scolding our children, these negative seeds are sown in their souls. Later these seeds can become a great burden for them. Our words have such power. That's how I used the story of Angulimala.

Kyunghyang: I heard you're using VIP as a catch phrase. Are you still doing this?

Yes.

Kyunghyang: Did it become some kind of personal philosophy?

In English VIP stands for Very Important Person, but we interpret it as Victory, Illumination and Peace.

Since I'm the last child in our family from my childhood I wasn't scolded so much by my father. The only things father gave me was love. Since I grew up feeding on that love, it became my goal to convey the love I received from my father to all church members.

Father says that God does not judge us. Each person becomes his or her own judge, so I just want to convey to people the love of my parents and do everything in positive way.

Kyunghyang: Rev. Moon is an old person and in the future the Unification Church will have to be led, transformed and developed by younger people. What do you think about the future of your church?

There's one point I'm impressed about. Compared to other religions our church is still in its baby stage.

If you compare the Unification Church with religions which have 2.500-year history, we are still very young. So, we need to respect other religions with longer history. I think it's very important. At the same time I feel that members of our church are getting more mature. Many of them are raising their families, training their mind and body and it seems that this culture is gradually spreading in our church now.

I feel the hope that we are going to become more mature as we go on. Also, I always tell our church members to look objectively at what we could achieve within the lifetime of our founder, then we can truly say we are successful. Therefore I feel even more hopeful. I'm telling this to church members and I sincerely feel so - we have hope!

I also feel that it's important to not just maintain our church, but also to build good relations with other religions. I personally made good friends with Buddhist monks and Catholic priests. We are friends for a lifetime. I can't separate myself from them, so isn't it better to live together in harmony?

29. Protect Your God-given Assets (December 8, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
December 8, 2007
Headquarters Church, Chungpadong, Seoul, Korea

Yeon Ah Nim's Message:

He believes that it is not tears that causes our poor church growth, but he believe that it is joy and happiness, the lack of joy and happiness in our sanctuary that comes from the very bottom of our heart, that cause the struggles in our church, that's what he believes.

Last Monday, my husband and I went to Cheon Jeong Gung. At that time True Father was having dinner with Shin Jun. As True Father fed Shin Jun, True Father is just so happy watching Shin Jun just eating and he had this nice warm smile on his face. And we all know how sweet and warm True Father's smile is.

After my husband, Hyung Jin Nim's, Inauguration Ceremony at the Headquarters Church, many people have commented that it was such a moving and inspiring event. Interestingly many people have commented also that they kind of finally realized the reason that our church is not growing. They said, according to them, they said the reason is because in our sanctuary our brother's and sister's tears had run dry.

They said that (that is) the reason for our poor church growth. They said if we bring those tears into our sanctuary back, then our church will be revived again. At home, as we drank tea, I asked my husband about that comment "What do you think about that?"...

And my husband said, that he believes that it is not (lack of) tears that causes our poor church growth, but he believes that it is joy and happiness, the lack of joy and happiness in our sanctuary (the lack of joy and happiness) that comes from the very bottom of our hearts, that causes the struggles in our church. That's what he believes.

At that moment, I remembered True Father's warm and happy smile that I experienced at Cheon Chun Gun and I realized, I truly realized that's what we need, that something we need to bring back into our sanctuary and into our family life and (into) each of our lives. Brothers and Sisters, let's never give up on each other and ourselves. We love you brothers and sisters and we believe in you... AJU!

Interesting Story (by Hyung Jin Nim):

I heard about a story of a young girl and she had an aged grandfather and the grandfather, he was now very old and he was in the 90's and was preparing to go to the next world. He was in a hospital, and he was everyday learning a new habit that she noticed and everyday she walked into the room, she visited him, she would open the door and there he would be, in front of a lamp, small lamp, reading his bible everyday.

And she saw this habit every time she came and visited. And once she said, "Grandpa, why is it that you're reading the bible everyday? You've never read it in your life. You've never really attended church so much, why all of a sudden you are reading the Bible?" And the grandfather, you know, he stayed quiet at first and she continued to ask "Grandpa, Grandpa, tell me why you're reading the Bible?" And a little annoyed he said to her, "Well, it's a little like this, it's a little like cramming for your final exam the night before." (Laugh)

Protect your God-given assets.

Today I'd like to talk to you about -- I'm going to actually do something a little different. I'm not going to use my notes so much, OK? So I'm going to try. I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and I'm trying to improve myself as well.

Let's talk about protecting what God has given us. You know, whenever we start living a more blessed life it's very often the case that we will be tempted and that we will be asked and there will be attempts to take away what it is we have gained. Those things will not necessarily be material things, but things such as things that we are cultivating, like inner strength, confidence in ourselves. Things like inner peace. Things like a can-do mentality.

These kinds of things we have to learn to protect. As you become more blessed, more successful, more victorious, more illuminated, more peaceful, we know at the same time, the archangel doesn't like that. So you know that is the worst thing that is happening to his kingdom. So as soon as he sees you becoming more blessed he'll want to steal from you, take away the things that you have been building, the things that you have been investing yourself in, the things that you have been creating.

Let's think about the story of Joseph. He was sold into slavery as a young boy, by his elder brothers, as you may know. And eventually, he got himself assigned as a helper to Potiphar and his wife. For a crime that he didn't even commit, he was imprisoned for 2 years. But yet, while Joseph was in that situation, in those 24 dark months, every day he had to live in the squalid conditions.

Every day he had to get up again and face the same dingy room. He could be so tempted to be depressed. He could be so tempted to say, "You know what? I can't go any further. I'm never going to be blessed. It's all over. I have to throw in my towel now."

But Joseph chose to keep protecting what God had given him. He chose to keep his faith alive in his heart, saying in his mind, "I'm going to keep a positive attitude in this. I'm going to learn through this circumstance, and I'm going to come out even more victorious." So Joseph learned that protecting what you are building is so important.

See, the archangel knows that it is our spirit power. If he's able to steal our spirit power as we are progressing, as we are having more small victories, if he's able to take that away from us or even hide it from our view, we will be losing the very things that we are building, that we are putting the foundation down for. OK? So it is very important.

When we look at the original etymology of the word, "steal", one of the meanings is to "hide," is to actually hide from our view. So it is not only the case that it will be taken away, but also, something that we may have, a talent that we may have, or a particular confidence that we may have, may be hidden from us. A potential that we have may be hidden from us.

It's very important as we live our lives, and as we reflect, and learn to see within ourselves, to start identifying what God has given to me as a particular strength, and a particular gift, as we start choosing to cultivate those things, that we learn how to also protect them. Not in a way that is hoarding, but in a way that is confident, that knows that this comes through investment. These things will be shared with others to bring light, encouragement, and help.

When we think about God, it's very interesting because when we look at the story of Adam and Eve, when we look at Lucifer in the story, he was an archangel. He was actually a being, created by God. He was one of the loved created beings, but he had what is known as a scarcity mentality. He looked around and he saw, "You know what? God's love is not vast. There's only a limited quantity. There's a limited resource of God's love, so I need to compete with Adam and Eve to get that." He had a scarcity mentality.

He looked at Adam and Eve and he said, "You know what? Because they are receiving so much love from God, and I am not, I'm going to choose to attack them. I'm going to choose to be jealous." And whether he knew it or not, he was thinking in the scarcity mentality. He was not looking at God as being able to provide great amounts of love. He was not looking at God as a God of abundance or a God of surplus. When we look at surplus, it means, "super plus." That's what it means. So God is not only a "check plus", He's a "super plus." We have to remember that.

Whenever we are tempted to say, "I need that thing more than he does." Or you know, "I can't learn that thing." Whenever we start thinking in a "can't" mind, we may be thinking in a 'scarcity' mind. Whenever we start trying to compete with another person, we are thinking in a scarcity mentality. We are thinking in a zero-sum game mentality. As you all remember, a zero-sum game is a game where one person wins and one person must lose. That's a zero-sum game.

See, life is not like that. We live our lives, it's very important that we learn how to make win-win synergies -- that we learn how not to 'compete' but to 'complete' the other. Its very important that while we are working, while we are making friendships, while we are at our work place, or while we are studying or making connections and building relationships, that we are in the mode of abundance in our mind. That we see that there's plenty, that we don't think that I have to win and he has to lose. But (that) we see the world and relationships in the sense that we have to be there to complete each other.

There's plenty. We have to win together. There's plenty to go around. Everybody must win. If we can learn how to have that mentality, then we can see people around us, even our children, as partners along this journey of life. (We can see) even our friends and co-workers, as partners that are helping us grow, helping us advance, helping the organization or the given educational institution to improve. When we start looking at each other not as 'compete' but as 'complete', we bring a lot more blessings into our lives and into the lives of those around us.

You know when we look at the story of Jesus, as you all recall, in the Principle, we recall the three temptations of Christ. In the three temptations of Christ, Lucifer comes to him and tempts him with turning stones into bread, the first one. The second was, to bring him to a high tower and to ask him to jump down, to throw himself down.

The third one of course, as you recall, was to offer him all the kingdoms. "I'll give you all the kingdoms if you bow down before me," as you recall. But Jesus was able to successfully overcome these temptations, these great challenges. It's very interesting because, in Korean, its not really called 'temptations', it's the three 'challenges', the 3 tests of Christ.

So when we look at these things, of course we know from a Principled perspective, the first one here, Lucifer, was tempting Jesus. "Turn your temple of God, turn your stone into bread. Turn your temple, which is strong and solid, which has an unshakable foundation, and change it into bread." Even rain can make the bread soggy. Birds of prey and animals can come and eat your bread. "Change your temple into bread."

He tempted Christ to do that. When Jesus overcame this temptation, he was able through the process of indemnity to restore the first blessing, as we remember. He restored that first blessing, individual perfection, completion. In the second one, when the Archangel tempted him, "Jump down from the tower. Jump down from the temple." And Jesus once again was able to overcome. He was able to maintain his position and not fall from grace. And again, that represented the second blessing, or family perfection.

As you recall, in the third one, he offered all his kingdoms to Jesus. He said, "Jesus, I give you all my kingdoms. Take them. They'll all be yours, if you bow down to me." And Jesus of course decided not to do that. He overcame this temptation. So he was able to stand as the substantial Lord of Creation. He was able to stand, with the process of restoration, was able to overcome this temptation and become the Lord of Creation. When we see this, we may see this in a very isolated fashion, in a particularly rational perspective, as delineated in the Principle.

But the principle is not only something that is abstract. It's not only a theological text. It's not an abstract thing. It has to apply in our daily lives. We have to find meaning in the text that applies to our very daily lives. When we see Jesus and the three temptations, we can apply that in our daily lives. When we start having doubts about ourselves, when we start thinking, "I can't do this. I'm not qualified to do that. The boss likes him more than me. I can't get that position. I'm never going to be able to be leading. I'm never going to be successful in what I do."

Whenever we start doubting ourselves, "What are we doing" we are doubting the temple that God has created. We are being tempted to turn the stones into bread, to change it into bread, have the animals devour it, change it into bread. One rain will make all the bread soggy. We are being tempted like that.

It's so important that we have the internal strength in ourselves. We know that God has blessed us. We know that we have the capabilities. We know that he has given us a particular gift, strength. Maybe not the same as everybody else, but we have a particular unique talent. We can cultivate that. We can have more success than we ever dreamed.

We have to know in our minds that we have to protect this temple that God has made, not to change it into bread. You know, when we look at the second temptation again, at the family temptation, if we do throw ourselves down from the tower, if we learn or get into the habit of falling into defeat, if we learn to get into the habit of giving up on ourselves or others around us, or our children, when somebody doesn't do right, we just give up on them, and say, "Oh you are never going to change," whenever we see ourselves saying such things, let us always remember that this is like the second temptation.

It's like we are being tempted to jump down. Why? Because if the archangel can tempt us to jump down, if he can tempt us to fall into that defeat mentality, we will not be able to substantiate a true family. We will constantly be judging too heavily. We will not be able to make the space for people to grow in an environment that is conducive to improvement and also learning through setbacks and obstacles.

It's so important that we guard and protect these gifts that we have inside because they not only impact us and our lives of blessing, but they have a direct impact on our children and their lives of blessing. When we look at the 3rd blessing, we see again, the offering of all the kingdoms of the world. What is he saying here? He's saying, "Think in a 'scarcity' mode'. I want you to think 'scarce.' Don't think you can be happy. Don't think you can learn. Don't think you can improve." He's saying, "I'll offer you all these things and only you can have them. You take them."

But when we start thinking in that way, we begin to isolate others from ourselves. We begin to see everything as, "If I don't have it, if I don't take that piece of the pie, somebody else will." We start thinking in a scarcity mentality. We start thinking, 'compete' and not 'complete'.

You see? It's very important in this 3rd challenge that we are able in our hearts, to make sure that we are guarding and protecting that gift inside, (that) we are protecting the fact that we will not consume our energies by living in a 'scarcity' mode, (that) we will actively seek to think, 'complete', to think, 'abundance', to think, "He or see may have a talent that I don't have, and if we work together, we can syncretize. We can become even stronger. We can become even more successful." See? If I don't know something, I'm not going sit there in defeat.

We don't want to sit there and say, "I'm never going to learn. I'm not qualified. I'm inferior in mental capacity. I can't really learn." No. We want to immediately go out and learn. Right? We want to think, "There's plenty of information. There's plenty of opportunity to learn."

When we start thinking in that abundance mentality as opposed to the scarcity mentality, we start learning how to view relationships more healthily. We start seeing relationships as win-wins. As relationships need to be completing each other. They need to be strengthening each other; giving each other solid foundations for the family to be built upon and also for the creation to be built upon.

You know, when we look at such things, let us always remember that in our lives it is such an important thing to learn how to protect what it is that we are building. Whenever we are thinking in a negative fashion, we may get down on ourselves and we may think, "I can't do it." We may think we do not have the appropriate talents. We have to isolate those kinds of thoughts.

We have to learn how to cultivate a new attitude in our lives. We have to, like Joseph, start seeing, even despite his circumstances, despite the fact that he was imprisoned for two years for a crime that he did not even commit, he kept a positive attitude. He said, "You know what? I'm going to keep interpreting the dreams of the baker and the chef."

You remember, right? Joseph said, "You know what? I'm going to continue to ask people to talk on my behalf to the Pharaoh. I'm not going to get angry. I'm not going to yell at somebody else. I'm going to continue to work on myself." Just like Joseph, we have to know how to protect that faith that we have in our future.

We have to know how to protect the God given gifts that we are given, that we are endowed with. In the same way, just like Adam and Eve in the beginning, let's not get into the habit, lets remember to stay away from that scarcity mentality. Let's stay away from that mentality to compete with others -- to compete against our peers, to compete against our brothers and sisters, to compete against members. Instead, whenever we are working, in a work environment or on a team, let's think 'complete.' I will not compete with them I will 'complete' them.

When we do that, when we start learning to see others, identify their strengths, we can see also the sides that they may be less endowed with than us, then we can start learning how to fit ourselves with people that can help our general trajectory, not only in our lives, but the trajectory of that particular work environment, or that particular institute, that particular church environment, etc. When we start learning to see each other not in a competing fashion, but in a 'completing' fashion, we start opening new possibilities. We start asking the question, "How can I complete this person? How will this person complete me?" We can start seeing more of an 'abundance' mentality.

Just like Jesus, whenever we are tempted to have doubt in ourselves, whenever we are tempted to say, "You know what? I can't do that. I'm not qualified to do that. I'm too young to do that. I'm too young to take a leadership role. I'm not talented; I don't have the ability to do so. Even I can't see my lack of confidence. I don't have any confidence. I doubt myself all the time."

Whenever we see ourselves saying that, we have to speak back, we have to talk back to those words, those voices. We have to say, "You know what? I can do it. You know what? True Parents believe in me. You know what? I'm going to continue, even though my children may not be perfect. And neither am I. But I'm going to continue to have faith in them anyway. My circumstances may not be that great, but I'm going to be happy anyway. I'm going to continue to believe that my future is going to get better, and I'm going to work every day to improve myself."

Let's stay in that mode every day. Then we will be able to overcome the temptations, like Jesus. We will be able to overcome and set the foundation for individual completion, family completion. We'll be there as a strong bedrock to our families. We'll be there as a stronger building stone for the temple to be created and erected upon.

Then we will also stand, if we continue to do that and expand that, thinking more in an abundance mentality, how to complete others. We will make connections with others that will improve our environments. Whether it be a church environment, a work environment, a business environment, whether it be a school environment, we will start improving that creation.

And in the same way, we will start setting stones, a foundation, in the individual life, the family life, and in our creation, in our world. You see? It's so important that we learn, when we become more and more blessed, that we learn to protect the blessings that we learn to protect the God given gifts and not let the archangel take them away.

Don't let people steal your joy. Maybe somebody made you upset this week. Just let it go. There's no need to hang onto it, no need to be bitter about it. Just let it go and just don't let them steal your joy. Just be happy anyway. Just move on. You see? When we act in that attitude of positivity, when we can look forward and say, "You know what? I'm not going to let anything get in my way. I'm going to keep moving forward. I'm not going to forget everybody. I'm going to bring everybody with me." So let's be in that mode.

If we do that, I do believe, not only will we become more like Joseph, not only will we become less like the jealous archangel in Eden, but we will become more like the Christ figure. We will become more like the messiah that Father has called us to be in our lives. He's asked us to be messiahs of our tribes, of our hometowns, of our nations, etc. And I believe that if we do that, we will live the life of blessing that True Parents have blessed us to live.

Brothers and sisters, if you can receive this offering, could you shout "AJU!" please?

Thank you so much.

28. Lets be Miracle to Somebody (December 1, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
December 1, 2007
HQ Church, Seoul, Korea

Today's sermon is about being a miracle to somebody.

You know, in 1954, Maslow, a very famous psychologist, talked about the different levels, a hierarchy of meanings, what people need. And as you may recall, he talked about the physiological needs; that people need food, and that they need homeostasis, or breathing, then he talked about safety, love, and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

There was something very interesting that happened with Maslow. In 1970 he redrew this entire hierarchy. He actually added another level to this hierarchy. And that level that he added, he called, Self-Transcendence. And that was to pursue self-realization as well as help others achieve self-realization.

Now he talked about these individuals experiencing ecstatic joy and simultaneous cosmic sadness at the ability for human beings to foil their chances for transcendence in their lives and in the world at large.

When I think about my own life, and even when I think about maybe, today's event, the person that comes to mind is my brother that passed about 8 years ago.

Young-jin hyung, I remember one time very clearly, You know from a young age, I was not really the greatest student. My brother, he was always getting A's. He was a 4.0 student. I was closer to a 1.2. So I was not doing the greatest. So I was, you know, struggling constantly. I would hear people saying to me, "Oh that guy? He's an idiot! He's got the worst, lowest part of True Parent's genes! He's got the worst genes."

You know, so I ended up slowly starting to believe such words. I remember after graduating from high school and barely getting into college, I remember Young jin hyung, my brother called me one day. It was after a service on Sunday. Remember how we did the kyung-bae services back then?

He called me and he challenged me. He called me and he said, "You know what? You may be hearing from many people that you are a failure, that you cannot succeed, that you can only get C's and D's, that you are not capable of getting an A. You may hear from other people that you are dumb that you are not gifted, or that you are inferior to your brothers and sisters." And he said to me, "Don't you ever believe them."

He said to me, I remember so clearly that day, he said, "You have to believe in yourself. And make sure you show that that is not true; that those words of negativity are not true." And he asked me that day, he challenged me, he said, "I'm not only challenging you to start changing your thinking. I want to take a year off from school to work with you." That year, he took a year off,.he actually began to train me every day. The taught me all the tips that he learned; all the stuff that he developed.

How to read texts quickly or taking tests, training me in SATs; he spent and invested his time every day. It was 3 to 5 hours of his time every day that he gave to me. And of course he wasn't being paid for this, he wasn't getting anything else. I was just his younger brother. He was in Boston and I was in New York. And during that year he was taking care of me, spending every moment of his time, trying to build my confidence, trying to lift my self-esteem, trying to help me redirect my future.

I remember so clearly, that after the time that we spent, after a year, I returned back to school and for the first time in my life, the very first time, I got straight A's. I got a 4.0. And I can only say I made the Deans list and received honors, but I only can say I was able to do such things because of Young Jin hyung. Because he believed in something in me. Because he was a miracle to me.

We call him an angel now. And when I think about him, when I think about what he has done for me, how he directed my life, how he helped me, I believe from the spirit world, that he is continuing to give me good habits, and study habits, and that he eventually helped my going to Harvard. I believe that he was that catalyst, that miracle that changed the direction of my life.

I heard a story about one of our ministers and during the time of hometown messiahship, this Korean minister particularly went back to his hometown. It was a very countryside rural area. And he was very tired all day, he was working, sweating day and night just to try to witness, just trying to spread True Parents word.

I remember him telling me that he came back one day, he had chills in his body. He was getting a cold, he was out from 5 in the morning and late until 11 at night he was returning home. In this rural area where he resided, he was raising chickens and two dogs and such animals. And he recalled that on the night that he came back with chills, almost sick, so sick from the day that he had gone through, so tired and beaten from the entire day, he came back and he saw his two dogs running towards him.

And those dogs, in Korea, dogs are mixed breeds, and these are not like -- they're called dung-eating dogs in Korea. So he recalled seeing those dogs running towards him and he told me that he fell to his knees and he hugged his dogs, and you know, they kissed him and he kissed the dogs, and he was so grateful that he just started crying, because he couldn't witness to anybody.

There was nobody who would listen to him. But that his dogs came to him. They simply appreciated his presence. And he told me that he felt the presence, the concern of God working through those dogs. And he told me that really for him that became a real miracle.

When I had a dog, a Shetland sheepdog, Soon-do --for our western viewers, you know the connection in the west that people have their dogs -- I had this dog for 16 years. I got him when I was 11 and he stayed with me until I was 27. For part of his life, for about 2 years, he was on the other side of East Garden. I remember I was really busy. I was in college, etc.

I didn't get to see him so much. And I remember one day, I was exercising, doing some jogging, and I passed by his cage. And I remember he was just so delighted to see me. He could hear my voice. He knew exactly who I was. And it was almost as if he didn't care that I hadn't seen him for two years. He just was so thankful that I was there.

I remember that day, like a crazy man, I went to that dog and started crying. And just hugged him and said, Soon-do, I am so sorry. I am so terribly sorry. I didn't see you for two years, but you not only forgave me, but you accepted me so heartistically. I remember, I came to Korea, and Soon-do was now at a very advanced age. In dog years, he was way over 100. And I remember I was in Korea and I went back to the States just briefly.

And Soon-do, at the time, for about a month he was not moving. He was not eating so well. He was very old and he was always lying down, I can see him even now. And I remember, I came back, getting out of the car and seeing him laying down there. I went over to him. I petted Soon-do, and I put my hand in front of his nose. It was very interesting because it was almost like he smelled his owner and said, "Now is my time to go. Now I can go."

Literally there right before my eyes, he took his last breath. I saw him breathe his last breath. He waited for me to get back from Korea. When I saw that, I really was so grateful for creation. God has created this beautiful world for us to have stewardship with, to walk with, and to have friendship with.

I was so grateful and I remember at that time really recalling in my own mind, thinking again, returning to my breath, returning back to my meditation practice and realizing how precious our lives are. And even I can say that even to this day, even in one small way, that Soon-do was a miracle on that day for me. Because it really made me think once again, how precious our lives are.

Today we had the inauguration ceremony and my brother came out. Kook Jin hyung came out. He has now for many years been working in the re-construction of the Tongil Group companies in Korea. And he's been doing so much work here in Korea and I can't say enough how grateful I am to him. He's been supporting me from day one.

He and I were very close to Young jin hyung, my brother who passed away. And even today when he came out, he was encouraging me the whole time. He's been encouraging me for many, many months behind the scenes. He's been encouraging -- you know to keep your hopes up. He's been encouraging me to just really kind of focus on loving members.

Try to give them your love. He's been always encouraging me, and trying to guide me, and talking to me. You know he always comes by and I make him tea. I practice the tea ceremony. And I really realized that each day I get to spend with him, each day I get to spend with each one of my family members, I got to spend time with True Parents when they came out today for the inauguration, that we really have to capture those moments of miracles.

That although for us they may be passing moments in our lives, when we look closely and if we can capture them and if we can incorporate them into our being, if we can see the treasure that is in that experience, we can see a miraculous moment that God is giving to us.

I heard a story about a young orphan named John. He was in an orphanage and he had a very interesting dream, a dream that many young kids have at that age. He was maybe 7 or 8 years old. And he had a dream that he wanted to fly. He said why can't I fly? I want to fly.

One day he was going through the orphanage and he met a guest that was just touring the orphanage. It was a young boy named Tom in a wheelchair. He had no legs. They ended up talking to each other and with Tom's father. And he asked Tom, "Do you have a dream? Do you have something that you wish you could do?" and Tom, the boy with no legs, said to John, "Yeah, I wish that I could walk and run like you guys. I wish I could simply walk and go around the park like all the other boys and girls."

John took that into his heart. He was outside the orphanage one day and he ended up stumbling across a little playground that Tom played in, and he saw Tom the young boy without any legs in the sandbox. And he went over to Tom and said, "Hey, remember me, the boy from the orphanage?" And they ended up talking and ended up playing together and making sand castles and making funny noises that kids make.

They just had a great time, a great laugh. And then about 2 hours later Tom's dad came and said, "Tom, we have to go home." And John leaned over to Tom's father and said, "Could I ask you something?" and whispered something into that father's ear. And the father said, "Sure, you can do that."

John went over to Tom and said, Tom, you know, I can't give you your dream. I can't fulfill your dream for you. You want to walk. You want to run like the other boys and girls. I can't give you that. But I can give you something else. And he asked Tom to jump on his back. And John started running around the playground. And he ran harder and he ran harder. And Tom's father saw that scene playing out and he started to cry, he started to weep. Because he saw his little boy Tom with no legs, flapping his wings in the wind, saying, "Look Daddy! I'm flying! I'm flying!"

When we are in a time of crisis, when we need to have something in our lives, when we need a miracle in our lives, just like Tom received a miracle from John, we can learn from that story. We can learn that when we need something, that we have to first be the one to give, to help another person; that when we want our dream to be fulfilled, we first have to help another.

We have to make a conditional sacrifice, so to speak, an offering. We have to help somebody else fulfill their dream. It doesn't mean that you have to give up on your dreams that you have to throw away and cast aside the vision that you have for your future. But you incorporate that part to help another achieve their vision and their dream.

When I think about True Parents, I remember so many little miracles, when we were growing up. I remember having a very nice time fishing with Father and that kind of activity -- I think everybody knows. I remember one time we were in the playground and Father was shooting basketball. That's not a scene you see too much of Father.

I remember that and I can remember how, he never played basket ball so he didn't really know how to dribble the ball, and he was shooting and it was so cute. And I could recall that scene and just remember being in that miraculous moment. Just something that I imbibed into my being: a snapshot of a memory that has a place in my heart.

It's so important in our lives that we become mindful and aware of these kinds of snapshots. You know we have all this kind of rich experiences during our life. Even in the course of a day, we have so many rich experiences. If we are able to open our eyes, to expand our awareness, we will be able to notice that each of those experiences is miraculous in some way. The fact that our lives, in and of itself, is a complete miracle.

So if we can learn anything today, if we can learn just a small thing, let us learn to be a miracle to somebody else. If we want a miracle in our lives, and need help in our lives, it's very important first, to be that miracle to somebody else. Young Jin hyung was that miracle for me. My older brother Kook Jin hyung, he is a real miracle for me.

People who believe in you, who encourage you, who instill faith in you, who say, "You know, you're not who people tell you who you are. You are somebody that will be great. You are somebody that's a champion in life. God believes in you." When we have that kind of encouragement, when we have that kind of miraculous person in our lives, that changes our destiny forever.

Now it's important in our lives. I truly believe that if we are able to do that for somebody else, that will change the course of your life. It will change your destiny. You can reach out to somebody who needs a miracle. It doesn't have to be somebody in an extreme circumstance. Sometimes people in extreme circumstances need a certain type of care, or even professional care. But I'm talking about somebody who may not have self-esteem, somebody who may not believe that God loves them. Somebody who may not believe that they can pass the next test, or who believes that they will never succeed at their work.

If we can be a miracle to them in a small way, I believe that God can make a big miracle, and create a great blessing in our midst. So if we can learn something today, lets try to become somebody's miracle. Let's also be our best, at the same time. Remember if we want to receive a smile, it's a very simple principle, the same principle as receiving a miracle: if you want to receive something from others, it has to be given first. That's what the principle teaches us.

It teaches us that in give and take action, the subject has to give first in order to receive. And in fact the subject cannot demand from the object to give, that he or she has to be the bigger person. Let's be that subject person, let's be that larger person, OK? We can do that in small ways, with a smile, with a thank you, with an encouragement, helping someone believe in themselves. If we do that, I do believe that each one of our days can be more enriching. That each one of our days will be more miraculous and that we will, I truly believe, become somebody's miracle. So brothers and sisters, if you can accept my offering today, what could you say to me? Aju?

As I remind you every week, let's remember, you are VIPs. We are not only Very Important People, we are Victorious. We are Illuminating. We are filled with Peace in our hearts. Let's always create that kind of image of ourselves. Let's not create the image of mediocrity, or the image of not being able to make it, and the image of failing.

I'm a failure. I don't see myself well. I have low self-esteem. Let's not see ourselves that way. Let's see ourselves how True Parents view us. They see us as more than important people. We are truly in their eyes the real VIPs. So if we can do that, I believe that we will truly live that life of blessing that True Parents give us the blessing and expect us to live the blessed life. I believe that we will if we can do such small things.

Let us join our hearts for the final prayer?

27. Inaugural Address (December 1, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
December 1, 2007
HQ Church, Chungpadong
Seoul, Korea

Induction Ceremony as Senior Pastor of the Headquarter Church

Dear members, Good morning I do not know what I can say to you who have worked hard for church. In 1 999 my elder brother Young Jin Nim passed in to the spirit world, His Ascension was a great shocks to our family. Since then, however, I can feel that our family has grown and matured. It was from Young Jin Nim's passing that I began my 21 years course.

That was about the time when I shaved my head and began wearing the long robes. There was a lot of talk about me. Actually I was afraid of what Father would say about my appearance. Honestly speaking I was actually waiting for Father's judgment wondering "When is he going to scold me?" Yet strangely during the six years I spent with that shaved head not once did Father scold me about that.

It was also quite, shocked when I looked at the pictures of myself from that time. I was completely bald and I completely looked like a Buddhist monk. Yet, Father supported me and encouraged me. At that time I had many doubts about myself. I struggled deeply wondering "What is the meaning of life?" and "What kind of path I should take from now?"

Curiously, Father never reprimanded me but always supported and encouraged me, telling me "Continue your studies, study the world religions. Learn from all religions; once you penetrate their teachings you will become God's most beloved son." These are the things he said as he encouraged me. That was when I became a genuine Unification Church Member.

A group of Buddhist monks from the Joogye Order once visited Harvard University when I was a student. With the professors I met those monks. Along with these monks there were reporters from the Joongang Ilbo and Gonga Ilbo (Korean newspapers). They knew I was the son of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and seeing my shaved head they interviewed me.

They asked, "Didn't your father kick you out of the house? "(Laughter from audience) I told them candidly, "I honestly thought my father would kick me out. But instead he supported and encouraged me telling me to continue with my studies. He enveloped me in his love. That's the only father I know."

I was the youngest in my family and thus grew up in my father's love. While living in Chung Pyung with True Parents, I would see Father loving Shin Joon and Shin Deuk. I would tell Father, "Father, we grew up in your love. Your grandchildren are also being raised in your love."

My wife and I are together in this ministry. We have one goal. It is to convey the love we receive from True Parents to you. Unlike my brothers I haven't actually experienced the fearful side of Father, nor do I wish to find out. The most important part in my life was True Parent's love. Likewise, I believe True Parent's love is what is most important to our members.

Father has said in the Peace Messages that "God is not our judge, we are our own judge." I do not believe in a god who judges. I do not serve such a god. The True Parents that I know were the ones who unconditionally loved me, encouraged me and supported me. That is the only God I serve. (Continues, crying)

Other people can probably tell you about True Parent's fearful side. I'm sure that True Parents do have kind of side. When I was in doubt of myself the only experience that I went through was that of receiving boundless love, encouragement and strength -- not judgment -- from True Parents. I believe that all the members of the world need this love from True Parents.

I believe that Korea could have been True Parent's nation. If in the 1960's all the religious foundation; especially the Christian foundation prepared by God in Korea had born fruit and attended True Parents. The year 2007 ushered in the age of the Complete Settlement of Cheon Il Guk, the Era of Liberation and Complete Freedom and True Father's misoo celebration.

In this year, declared a providential jubilee by True Parents, my elder brother Kook Jin Nim and I were assigned a great mission. True Father instructed us to create within three years a church where 20,000 can gather. When he first told me this I had doubts as to what had to be done. Father explained the reasons to us, as you know there are many prominent church organizations in the vicinity of the Headquarter Church.

There is the Chulrigyo Building nearby and right next to our building there is a convent. If you walk a bit further you will see a Samil Church. As you might know nearly 20,000 Christians gather every Sunday to that Samil Church.

Among our churches we have churches where about hundred people gather each week. Some of the larger churches have 200. You can not compare a church with 200 with that of 20,000. Honestly speaking Christians will not come to Father. About a month and half ago, Father gave us this great mission to create a 20,000 member church.

If we truly wish to move the Christian foundation we have to be on the same levels as the Christian churches. That way they will not be able to ignore us. All the religions in Korea, the father nation, in the other words, Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and all other religions should all speak in high praise of True Parents.

They should extol and attend True Parents while True Parents are here in flesh. A certain promise can be found in the Divine Principle. It says that when the messiah comes all the religions will come together under the messiah who will stand on the foundation prepared by God, and that all religious people will serve and attend the messiah as the king of peace in heaven and earth.

Although all our members have read those words in the Principle, they still doubt whether the world would truly come to serve and attend True Parents. In reality many members might have already given up on that promise elucidated in the Principles. Yet, Father is joining their strength and making the Christian and religious foundations serve and attend True Parents. This should be done before 2010.

The Full Gospel Church has about 100,000 people gather for their services each week. Samil church has about 20,000 each week. The Church of Love has 30,000-40,000 each week. Father has told us that if we wish to have the Christians from reputable churches come and serve True Parents, we have to be on the same level as them.

Although I was assigned to this position our goal is the same as before. "In the field of ministry, let us convey True Parent's love to the members. Let us convey True Parent's love to the world. Let us create a loveable church, a church that is filled and overflowing with True Love." That is the goal I cherish in my heart. I have conviction in my heart. My older brother Kook Jin also has that same goal.

I am one year younger that Young Jin, my elder brother. Young Jin and Kook Jin are quite similar in character. Both of them good at studies and excel in whatever they do. When they were young my elder brothers Young Jin and Kook Jin grew up in a field of "A's" and awards I grew up in a corn field. (Laugh)

I actually did not excel in my studies. I enjoyed playing outdoors in nature. Yet, I was very close to my brother Young Jin. Kook Jin and Young Jin hyung were also very close. Whenever I walked passed Kook Jin hyung's room, Young Jin hyung was always there. I have many good memories of spending time with him, talking and playing games with him.

When Young Jin hyung passed away (starts crying), it was s great shocks to me. There was another person who was even more shocked than me. It was Kook Jin hyung. Kook Jin hyung was not a scary elder brother to us, he always loved his younger siblings. He was a reliable elder brother. He had a strong sense of ethics and was an absolute model elder brother.

I remember right after Young Jin hyung passed away going to True Parents room, there I found True Father and True Mother sitting in their seats but Kook Jin hyung was on the floor crying out loud for Young Jin. That was the first time I saw that confident brother of mine being vulnerable. The sight of him crying still remains in my heart to this day.

I would like to reiterate that we all have the same goal. We all want to return eternal glory to True Parents; we want to return glory to our members who have worked so hard; our brothers wish to show you how much we have grown and matured. I will put my life on the line to fulfill that goal. We have to make that kind of determination.

We will bury our bones in this land of Korea. I will go through to the end if not for this world then for my brother Young Jin. We will not stop until the day this nation can serve and attend True Parents while they are in the earth, people praise them as the True Parents, and great Christian ministers support True Parents and glorify them.

Still, honestly speaking, I believe that no matter how determined we Moon brothers maybe, that day will never come unless we are walking with you, Unificationist brothers and sisters. I am not here today to preach you; rather I am here to ask you for a favor. Please help us. Please guide us. We are still young and have so much to learn.

We all need to put our strength together in order for this church to can be filled with True Parent's love instead of fear or power. It can be a church where we yearn for True Parents as if they were truly our parents, a church where we can run to them, embrace them and kiss them. If we can become that kind of church of love, I'm confident that 20,000 and even 100,000 will come to this church and that we can become a church larger that the Full Gospel Church and return greater glory to heaven.

This is my request to you. Please help us. This church is our church. It is our tradition. Our children should grow within this church. As the days pass by let us elevate True Parents to heaven and in history by created the greatest church in this world. We should never give up. We will not give up on our members. So we ask that you not give up upon us. We will do our best. Don't we all serve and attend the same True Parents? Let us walk forth together so that True Parents can receive the greatest glory from the world while they are on the earth.

Thank you very much.

26. Overflowing Together With God (November 10, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
November 10, 2007
Mapo Church, Seoul

Yeon Ah Nim’s Message:

Good evening brothers and sisters. We are truly blessed and honored to have you all here in Mapo Church this evening. Many people have commented that they are truly inspired by my husband’s book, A Bald Head and a Strawberry. My husband always tells me how grateful he is to hear that many people, brothers and sisters, got help from that book.

I remember several days after he completed that book, at that time True Father was in Korea, and my husband was planning to go to Korea to get approval from Father to publish this book. In fact, my husband was very nervous and worried that True Father and members might feel insulted to see True Father in such a personal and human manner. As you might remember, there is even a scene of True Father yanking his nose hair out in that book.

So he even told me that before he left for Korea, if True Father says "No, you can’t publish this book", then he will just simply say, "OK," and he will just keep it as his personal memory. Several days later, he left for Korea. I got a phone call from my husband. He said that True Father was truly happy about the book, and he even read it several times at Hoon Dok Hae. He told me, "When True Father told me that he really liked that book, I truly felt that God’s love and blessing is flowing through True Father." So, in the same way, I truly hope God’s love and blessing may always fill your heart with joy, laughter and peace. Aju!!

If we really want to live that life of blessing, wherever we go and whoever we meet, even during the day, try to leave some goodness with them. Try to leave them better than when you first met.

Interesting Story (Hyung Jin Moon):

Before I start, I always like to start with something kind of enjoyable. At the Divinity School we always used to like looking at the funny stuff. You know, I came across this one. I don’t know exactly how it is, but I’ll share it with you. I heard a nice little story about an old man. He was wheelchair ridden, and one day he went to the church and there, and at the front door of the church was a beautiful bowl of holy water.

So he wheeled right in front of that and he took some of the water and began to sprinkle it on his legs. All of a sudden he jumped up out of his seat and threw his wheelchair, cast it away. And at that moment a young boy saw that and ran to the minister, the priest. He said, Father, this is what happened… and the priest said, "Oh my goodness, it’s a miracle! Where is that man? Bring me to him immediately." And the young boy said, well he’s flat on his derriere near the holy water.

Main Sermon

Today I’d like to talk to you about overflowing together with God. It’s so important that in our lives if we are going to live a life of blessing, to overflow with goodness. It’s a very important thing. If we really want to live that life of blessing, wherever we go and whoever we meet, even during the day, try to leave some goodness on them. Try to leave them better than when you first met.

It doesn’t matter who they are, it could be the shop clerk; it could be the person who helps you with the gas. But every person you meet, let’s make it a habit of giving them goodness. When we do that, when we try to focus less on our problems and we make God’s goodness our priority, and we wake up in, abide in what is known as an attitude of gratitude.

What that means simply is that during the day, we try to find one thing that we can be thankful for. It can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something huge or grand. It can just be something like, "I walked into church on my two feet", "I have air to breathe today", or "I saw a flower on the way to church". It can be something as simple as that.

The second thing is to try to learn something from your experiences every day. There are miracles abound in your life. Try to find something new you can learn from every day. If we keep ourselves improving and growing and maturing and overflowing like this, we will be a great blessing. You know, it’s very interesting. The word affluence and influence are connected to the word ‘to flow’.

So, the etymology of affluence is ‘to flow towards’ and influence is ‘to flow into’. So when we overflow, when we learn to overflow with God’s goodness, when we do this with consistency, and not just one time or twice, but constantly in our lives as a habit, when we do this, it’s kind of like an ebb and flow on the waves, you know on the beach, where it comes up and it comes back. As we overflow, more affluence and even influence can come towards us.

Many economists, when they look at money or cash, they see that as just paper, but economically speaking, it is the agreed upon energy or fuel of an economy. So it’s kind of like fuel, when you learn to overflow with goodness, you will gain influence and in many cases, you’ll gain affluence. And these are simply energies. But the question there is, if I’m selfless, if I really overflow with God’s goodness, and really am selfless, and sort of empty myself, won’t I be a doormat to the world? Won’t people step on me?

I heard a story about a young lady and she was always told to be good and selfless from a young age. She really was timid and indecisive, and she thought that in order to be selfless, she needed to let everyone step on her, and she had to let go of her dreams and ambitions. We have to remember that there is a big difference between selflessness and self-annihilation.

We don’t want to annihilate ourselves. The really important thing in living for the sake of others is not to exclude you from the equation. If we do that we will be missing a big part. When we look at God, when He lives for the sake of others, like in today’s Hoon Dok Hae passage, when God lives for the sake of others, we find that God is always that kind of being. However, he does not annihilate himself. He does not disappear. He does not talk negatively to himself.

So that he sort of disappears and fades away. He still desires to be happy. He still has that in his heart. Even though he is selfless and living for others, he still wants to be happy. He still wants to share love. In the same way, us too, when were living for the sake of others, selflessly, it’s important also that we keep the desire to be happy in our hearts too, to be able to give and to receive, and to share love in our lives as well.

I remember one time I was talking and one sister asked me a question. She said, "You know the words you are saying seem to be contradicting Father, because Father says that you have to just keep giving and giving." So I asked her, not sarcastically, the serious question, "Did you have breakfast this morning?" and she answered me, saying, "Yes, I had breakfast." And I said, "Do you feel selfish, that you didn’t give your breakfast away?" and of course she said, "No. I don’t".

In the same manner, it is such a blessing for us to have True Parents here on this earth, because we have a physical model. We have a physical representation of what it means to perfect living for the sake of others, to be selfless. But we also can see and this is from our own first hand experiences as True Parents’ children, how Father tries to balance his life.

Of course he continues to wake up early and to push himself to push the providence forward. However, he also takes time to invest in the family. He goes out of his way to take care of Mother. And believe it or not, Father has clothes and he also eats sometimes, too. So we should too. You have to eat OK?

Everybody, when you are living for the sake of others, we have to remember, this doesn’t mean that we diminish or destroy the self. It doesn’t mean we throw away the desire to be happy, to want to share and give and receive love. Those are very central aspects to our life of blessing. So let’s remember that being selfless doesn’t mean that we beat ourselves until we disappear. It doesn’t mean that we are doormats to the world.

It means that we empty ourselves of our ego power, and fill ourselves up and overflow with God’s power. See, when you do that, you lessen yourself and you make God greater in your life. When you do that you become a greater blessing to everybody and a greater goodness to everybody. So it’s important in our lives to fill ourselves up with what we need to give.

If we want to share happiness, we have to also cultivate that inside. If we want to share peace, we have to cultivate that inside. If we want to share gratitude, and receive gratitude from others, we also have to cultivate in our lives. Empathy, compassion, encouragement -- it’s the same thing; we also have to cultivate these things in our lives.

Try to learn something from your experiences every day. There are miracles abound in your life. Try to find something new you can learn from every day. If we keep ourselves improving and growing and maturing and overflowing like this, we will be a great blessing.

I heard about a concept. It’s called 360 degree leadership. It’s a whole concept in leadership training. In this concept there is the idea that somebody in the middle of an organization can be the leader. And how do they do that? They have a 360 degree leadership mentality. So there are 3 aspects to this. They lead up, they lead across, and they lead down. But it’s very interesting because the common theme behind all these types of activities, leading up, across, and down is very common.

There’s a central principle. That principle is really, helping others succeed. See, the key in leading up, for example, or having influence on those above you in an organization, your job, your workplace, your school, etc, is making that person’s life, your boss’ life for example, easier. Its helping them succeed. Get their work done for them.

When they need help, you are reliable. You make no excuses. You’re a go-to guy. See, when you do that, no matter how busy you are, you don’t make excuses. You do the work, you help them succeed. When you do this, you become indispensable to the people above you. You earn your merit and have tremendous value, and you have influence, and thus it’s easier to be promoted. And what happens after that? Affluence comes your way.

These are connected, these kinds of things. When we overflow with goodness, when we can help others succeed, we get benefits as well. The key to leading across is also the desire to help your peers succeed, and raise the work environment, maybe. At first, they may be suspicious of your activities, they may not trust you, but over time, if you’re consistent, they build trust, support, and naturally you become the peer leader in that leading across leadership activity.

Leading down is also the desire to see and help your people succeed and get the glory. People are working hard for you and you work hard for them in return. You help them get the glory. You help them succeed. You make good decisions for them so that they all succeed. You see when we talk about 360 degree leadership, it’s also that same key, helping, overflowing with goodness; helping those people around you to have more success and blessing.

So how do I really practice overflowing in a very simple manner?

Number one, you have to first be good to yourself. Don’t think negatively about yourself. The first thing that can block God’s blessing into our lives is starting thinking negatively all the time about ourselves. If we’re constantly beating ourselves up. If were constantly thinking that we’re not able or capable, or worthy, then these are going to be great impediments in our lives. So the first thing we have to do is attend to that.

We have to stop the negative thinking about ourselves and then also about our lives. You know, it’s too short to live life like that. So instead, every moment you have, every day you wake up, it’s important to start your day with just, "thanks." "I’m thankful that I’m alive, that I can breathe today. I have oxygen today. I’m not breathing in carbon dioxide or nitrogen. I have legs that I can walk on. My hands are listening to me when I tell them to move." OK? We can start with small things.

Number two; let’s recognize that helping others is part of our own success. When we focus not only on our success, but also include another person’s success in that goal, then we become more successful. At the same time, when we focus on our own health, if we help another person get healthier, it inspires you to keep being healthier.

You all may know that if you exercise with other people. And we don’t want to only focus on our dream, but include other people’s dreams too. I’m not saying everybody’s in the world, but it could be even one person that you include as your team, into your dream. So it doesn’t mean you throw away your dreams, but you include others into them.

Number three, start small. Let’s start small every day. We can’t save the world by tomorrow, but we can help someone today. I received an email from a good friend of mine, she was a peer at the Divinity School, and she writes me, and at the bottom of her email she always has the statement, "Happy people make others happy. Sad people can’t make others happy."

And it’s the same way. When we’re happy, we can help others be happy. When we are realistically optimistic about our future, we can help others be realistically optimistic about their future. See, negative people can’t help you live a positive life, so you want to make sure that you’re not being a negative influence on yourself or even those around you, because you want be able to give people abundance and bring goodness into their lives.

So let’s keep improving ourselves. Because the key here is that we can only help as much as we are. You know the story in Galatians, Chapter 2, where Paul was in Antioch with Peter, and Peter was eating with the Jews, and when the Gentiles came he said, "I’m not going to eat with these people." And Paul called him out, and said, "You are a hypocrite. You are talking about Jesus’ love but you are not eating with the Gentiles. You are not eating with normal Greeks. How can you do that? That’s not Jesus’ love."

And Paul said in Galatians 2:20, "for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing."

You see, Paul was overflowing with God’s love for all God’s children. Not only for the Jews. He had love for all the Gentiles who were not within that law tradition. He was less. God was more. He emptied himself of his ego power and let God’s power come out. You see, he let that flow out of him and guide his conscience. And when we look at the history of Christianity, scholars tell us, because of Paul, because he reached out to the Gentiles, the non-Jews, Christianity was a phenomenal success, and reaching out to non-Jews became a permanent part of their history.

One of my favorite texts in the East Asian tradition is the Tao Te Ching. That’s a very ancient text from the Taoist tradition and that text is the second most-read text after the Bible. There is a beautiful section in it: section 16. And it says,

Who accepts nature’s flow becomes all-cherishing.
Being all-cherishing, he becomes unbiased.
Being unbiased, he becomes magnanimous.
Being magnanimous, he becomes natural.
Being natural, he becomes one with the Way.
Being one with the way, he becomes immortal.
Though his body will decay, the Way will not.

You see, when you are empty of ego-self, and you are overflowing with God’s goodness, you get peace, you get true peace. See, people want to be good to you because you are truly happy when they succeed. People go out of their way to try to help you get breaks that you may not even deserve.

Maybe doors open for you that you couldn’t even plan to see. And at the same time you start creating a legacy. You start getting into the cycle of immortality. You tap into your connection with God’s divinity. And you let His eternal love and grace and goodness and courage and faith and strength overflow into others…

What can we learn today? Well, the first thing we can learn is, let’s be awesome today. Let’s work on being our best today. If we do less self, more God, we will ironically, gain more. So don’t forget. Let’s remind ourselves that selflessness is not self-annihilation. It’s important for you to take care of your bodies, of your health. You have to respect the temple that God gave you.

Take care of your mind. Have happiness and faith in your heart. Have faith in your future. Take care of your spirit. Be sincere and practice your faith. Practice what you teach. See, when you fill yourself with what you wish to give -- happiness, joy, strength, overcoming power, encouragement  --  when you fill yourself, you are able to give it. So, if you do this with sincerity, you will overflow with God’s goodness and be a blessing. The other energies like influence and affluence; they will come chasing you down. If we practice overflowing, that natural flow, that ebb and flow, will come back to us.

Brothers and sisters, I believe that you will live the life of blessing that True Parents have blessed you to live.

So until next week, let’s practice a little more VIP. When God sees all of you, he sees VIPs. He doesn’t see anybody else. He doesn’t see the failure, immature people, people who can’t do things, who aren’t capable. He doesn’t see that. We can’t look at ourselves with those eyes. Those are OUR eyes.

When we look at ourselves with God’s eyes, even the principled perspective tells us, we have divine value, unique value, eternal value, cosmic value. So let’s remember those today. Until next week, have a little more victory, a little more illumination, and a little more peace. Brothers and sisters can you receive this today?

All right.

Thank you so much.

25. Having God's Strength and Letting Go (November 3, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
November 3, 2007
Mapo Church, Seoul
Edited by: Bruno Klotz

Yeon Ah Nim's Message:

When we are in a public setting, we sometimes hear about True Children's suffering and painful past. (They say) it is because True Parents had to save the world and True Parents had to love Cain children first, that they could not take care of True Children. And it is also said that that caused all the suffering and hardship in True Family.

Whenever my husband hears such a statement, he says that he feels very down and sad. He says he's totally grateful for when members worry about true family members, but repeating the negative and painful past over and over in a public setting, he thinks, in the end it doesn't help anybody. It causes pain in True Children because it constantly reminds them that True Parents often were not there for them. Also it blanket blames all members.

Ultimately it causes great suffering for True Parents because they also are constantly reminded that they were not there, they could not be there for their children. So, as my husband thinks, in the end nobody wins with that kind of blame. One day True Mother told my husband, "Lovey, I'm so sorry for not being there while you were growing up." At that time my husband told True Mother, "Mother, please don't say that. The fact that you persevered beside True Father (means) you've done the greatest work, and we True Children are really grateful for what you have done for our family."

Let's not focus on negative and painful thinking of the past or on blaming somebody for this and that, let's focus on our hopeful and mature future. I believe we've learned from the past, and we will not want to repeat the same mistakes. We are the blessed families that True Parents blessed. Aju.

Interesting Story by Hyung Jin Nim:

I always like to start with something kind of fun. I don't know if this is fun, but I'll try it. I heard of a story of a young man named John. And John wasn't the best student. He eventually got his job working in a company. And he came to his boss one day and said, "Sir, I'm really sorry. My grandmother just passed and we have the funeral tomorrow, so I need to attend that. So if I could have a leave of absence on Tuesday that would be great." And the president said, "Oh! Of course, John. Please, take time. Take a day off. Take a couple days off. No problem at all."

So John was not at the office on Tuesday. And then of course on Wednesday he returned. The boss saw him and said, "John, can I have a tiny word with you?" And said, "John, are you a spiritual man?" and John said, "Not really. I don't attend church so much." And the boss said, "Well, do you believe in spirit world?" And John said, "I guess I do". "Well it's very interesting, because on Tuesday, when you were at your grandmother's funeral, she came and dropped these cookies off for you. And by the way, you're fired."

Main Sermon by Hyung Jin Nim:

Today I'd like to discuss with you: Having God's strength and letting go. In our lives, as we traverse the journey of life, as we work through many difficulties in our lives, one of the great powers that we will need is the power of letting go. And what does this mean? This can be, for example -- when you lose a loved one -- coming to grips with that and learning how to let go in a healthy manner. It can mean also a letting go of negative thinking or maybe self-condemning thinking.

We're going to get into that. Let's just remember that letting go is not weakness. Letting go is power. It is very difficult to do. Not so many people can let go fully.

So let's see it as a kind of muscle or a skill. This takes practice. It takes training. It's very important that we first notice our thoughts, our mind, that we understand the inner workings of the mind, of our thoughts. Those are the things that we have to learn to let go of many times.

We must learn how to let go of unhelpful thoughts. There are thoughts in our mind that many times are unhealthy. Those are not YOUR thoughts. Those are not Who You Are. That's what the archangel wants you to believe that you are.

You may be hearing things like, "Oh why are you so slow at learning", or, "How come you can't get it, like the other kids do." Or you may hear things in your mind that say, "You know, nothing good is ever going to happen to you. You're not special." You may hear things like, "You're not going to amount to anything." You may hear such things. Don't believe them.

It's very important that we have the power to push away or to move gently away from these thoughts. The more we have give and take with them the more they take root in our minds and the more then our life will be moving in that direction. So it's important (to understand) that letting go can save us from curses and even can allow us to find freedom and to live that life of blessing, that True Parents have given us the blessing for.

Let's remember that the negative thoughts are not YOU. That's what the archangels want you to believe. Again, let's not believe those things. Really, let's learn to let go of those and develop a principled self image. What does the principle say about you? Well, it says that you are an individual truth body. It says that you are completely unique; that you have divine and cosmic value. It tells us that you are the only one who can activate a distinctive aspect of God's dual characteristics. It tells us that we have so much power and meaning and value. It tells us that we are central figures and are chosen to attend the Messiah. And now, as we are past the age of indemnity, now that we are in the age of complete liberation and release, (it is) now that we are able to reap the great benefits and the blessings that our fathers and grandfathers have worked and toiled so hard for.

Remember that when God sees you, He sees VIPs. Let's not get into the pattern of holding on to those thoughts that are bringing us down, the thoughts that are condemning us, the thoughts that are attacking us. Let's learn to let go of those things. It becomes a very important practice. In the meditative traditions this is known as an analytical practice of meditation. There is a certain practice.

So it's important for us to be victorious against such archangels. We may have past disappointments that really are still nagging at us. Maybe we have an archangel that's kind of attached to us and it really condemns you. It maybe says, "You mean nothing. You are a big failure. You messed up. You totally blew it that time." You may hear such things. It's very important that you don't let those thoughts come into your heart. Don't let them in. Let them just pass, OK?

So we have to have the power to break free from the grip of these past mistakes, our past failures and disappointments. Maybe you failed a big exam and you are trying to muster the courage to get to the next one. Well, you gotta let go of that and let's move forward. Just focus on preparing. Maybe we had to let go of our work place, which is always tough. But at that time, let's think about what God has in store for our future. Maybe we want to get into thinking, "Oh I was terrible," or maybe, "That person attacked me," or maybe, "It's his fault." It's better just to let that go and move on.

But that takes strength, it's not easy to do that. So let's not let our past determine the trajectory of our future. Let go of condemning ourselves. We have to stop the habit of replaying those incidents in our mind. Maybe we have something that we regret. We said something the wrong way to somebody that really hurt them. We have to stop replaying that in our mind. We have to stop the tape. Press the stop button. Don't let it play over and over and remind you how terrible you are. Because you are NOT. It's very important that we stop that, that we recognize it in our hearts, that we make amends and that we move forward. OK?

So it's very important that we practice this self-honesty, that we can analyze our past mistakes, that we can learn from them, that we don't have to repeat them, and that we can move forward in more maturity every day.

In middle school (some of our brothers and sisters here are in middle school) I was maybe 11, 12. Is that right? Is that the right age? I remember. This is kind of embarrassing but I'll tell it anyway. I remember that when I was at school, I made eye contact with a female student, a peer. I could hear in my mind, "You're Satan! You're going to fall! You're a sinner!" So, oh my gosh I was really condemning myself, and what I found was that this was actually hurting my ability to simply talk and discuss things with women.

Of course, there is always a certain line here. But when I started seeing my peers as my sisters (I always had a good relationship with my sisters) -- when I started seeing them as my sisters, I stopped demonizing them so much. I started to learn to see them simply as people that I'm talking to, just like my sister. "I'm talking to my sister." I had to let go of this self-condemning mind.

This happened when I was 13, or 12, around that age, but I had to learn to trust and respect myself. I had to learn that I had more than plenty of strength to overcome. (I had to learn) that I had plenty of strength and plenty of power that God gave me to remain pure for my blessing. I knew I could do it, and I did. So it's very important that we have that kind of confidence and faith in ourselves.

At that time, I remember, I could not even just simply look at a peer without this kind of condemning mind. But I realized that that was preventing me from simply seeing and respecting my female peers. It's very important in our lives, to get over some issues, maybe anger.

There may be some kind of resentment towards somebody or a certain experience. But it's important for us, if we are going to live a life of blessing, to start learning to let go of anger. Anger is like fire. If it touches another fire it becomes bigger. And it really doesn't help us to hold on to anger. It only drains us in the end.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, "He, who holds anger, will be the only one with hands burned." So when we hold onto anger, when we don't learn to release its power over us, then we will be the ones who get burned in our lives. So it's important that we free ourselves from this grip -- the grip of anger.

We may have had some experience; it may be some person who we feel kind of angry towards. It's important that we don't worry about the payback or the revenge. "Oh, that guy! He said something really bad about me, so I wish upon him terrible calamity and curses!" We don't want to get into that. Just like Luke said, "Those who judge will be judged." If we get into the habit of cursing those who anger and irritate us or don't make us happy, or are kind of annoying -- if we get into the habit of cursing them, we will only get more curses in our lives.

So it's very important that we get into the habit of simply letting that go, to return back to the present, return back to a pure heart, a pure mind. You can even do a meditation.

Many times, when I'm angry, I feel myself wanting to do that. Then I would just return into a basic meditation. I'll just simply sit down, return back to my breath. I may even, if I'm outside, do a movement that helps me focus on mind, body and breath, and to simply release the anger. I just return to the presence of the moment, the breath. If I'm walking down a cement street... and I have had some really negative experience -- I remember one time I had a very frustrating experience -- and then, when I was walking down the street I could not release this from my mind. It just wouldn't go. It continued to fester in my mind.

So, one of the practices is simply to become mindful of what you are doing. If you are walking, you simply notice that you are walking. You simply notice your feet on the concrete, etc, in order to release yourself from such things.

When we look at the story of Joseph, he was sold into slavery. Now think about that. If your family members got together and sold you into slavery, that would not be pleasant. Not only that, but he served in prison for 13 years for something that he didn't even do. OK? And yet, he stayed positive in his life. He eventually became the 2nd most powerful person under the Pharaoh. And you can imagine -- you all know the story -- when his brothers, remember, because of the famine, were coming up, they were starving, the nation was starving. But he was now the person responsible for distributing the food and here they are. They appear before him, and he says, "Hey! I'm Joseph! I'm the one that you sold into slavery, remember?"

Now remember, at that moment, how angry he could be. How much he could want to get revenge. Actually he had the power and authority to execute them on the spot if he wanted to. But instead Joseph chose to just let it go. Even in spite of the prison experience, 13 years, he kept a positive attitude. He kept the attitude, "God is preparing me for something…"

When we look at this story we can see that in his forgiveness his brothers and also his family were really redeemed. When we look at the principle and see the story of Jacob and Esau, we know that God worked through and moved from Abraham's to Isaac's family. Isaac restored the foundation of faith, as you all recall. And as you remember, Jacob stole the birthright from Esau. Not only that, he stole his blessing as well.

From a principled perspective we know that the three things were restored, Isaac's blessing was the first blessing to be restored, to be fruitful. And remember, when he is victorious under Laban and he inherits the family and wealth, then the second blessing, to multiply, is restored. Then he defeats the angel, remember, and his name becomes Israel and the 3rd blessing is restored, dominion over creation.

Now Jacob returns to Canaan, and he returns to his brother. Now think about how angry his brother must have been. Now remember those times. These guys are out in the desert. They are rough and tough. They are not just like sweeties, you know? They are really rough, OK? So you can imagine Esau. He's got his fur. He's got his hair all over. He's a big guy. He's a hunter, you know? And here's Jacob sending all these gifts. But how fearful Jacob must have felt? How much anger Esau must have felt? He could have thought, "I'm gonna kill this guy. This guy betrayed me. He deceived me. He stole what was mine."

But we know the story. Esau embraces him. He forgives him. He lets go of that. Because of that, he's able to succeed in the foundation of substance. And for the first time, on the family level, we see that the foundation for the Messiah is substantiated.

So this is important in our lives. Maybe we have certain stubborn fixations, maybe certain attachments that we have in our lives. It's important that we learn that sometimes we have to reassess whether or not this is the right way that we are going.

I know about a person who became a doctor eventually, but all his life his mother wanted him to be a doctor. When he was a baby, she used to call him, "Oh my little doctor, come on in the room." "Oh my little doctor, did you have breakfast today?" She just called him "doctor, doctor" all the time.

Eventually he became a doctor, but he was a little bit dissatisfied with his choice. Let's put it this way: He wanted to retire quickly. If we see ourselves as a doctor, maybe our parents always told us, "Oh, you're going to be a doctor, doctor, doctor." Maybe we're trying and maybe its working out or maybe it's not working out.

It's really important that we start seeing and asking, "Is this really my divine calling? Am I holding on to this attachment too much? Am I holding on to this fixation? Is this actually where God does NOT want me to be? Maybe God wants me to be doing something else that will have impact on my society."

So Its important in our lives, when we come up to that, to reassess whether or not your conscience is telling you: "It's right. It's important." -- And in the end, remember, even Father says, "God does not judge you, we judge ourselves." So, even our parents don't judge us. We are the ones, in the end, who judge ourselves. So it's very important that we live the life that God has called us to live, that we are going in that direction. When we are called in that direction we have to really work with our conscience, our internal compass, our intuition, to find exactly what God is calling us to do.

Let's also learn to let go of anxiety or excessive worry. Remember, there's a statement that says, "Worrying excessively is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere." That's what worrying excessively is.

It's very important that we learn not to excessively worry about our lives, and especially as parents, not to excessively worry about our children. It's very important that in our lives as parents we trust that we are raising good kids, that we know that we will do our best and that we tell them frequently that they are blessings, that they are going to have a great life, that they are going to have abundance and prosperity, that they will be blessed in their lives. And let's have faith that they can overcome obstacles alone. It's very important for us as parents to allow our kids to overcome obstacles alone. They have the courage and they have the talent to do it.

But many times we come in and do it FOR them. Maybe they didn't do their homework, and then we do it for them. Maybe they didn't pack their bag, and we do it for them. Maybe they have a project to make a weird hat like we had a couple days ago, and we do it for them.

Alright? So, we have to let them work through the obstacles alone. The reason why is because that becomes a skill that they earn in their life. They learn to do things alone. They learn to do things without the help, without other people doing it for them. They become more trustworthy and responsible in their actions. They organize their own schedules.

So, it's very important to allow our children (to do things by themselves), to let go ourselves of that excessive worry and allow them to have faith that they can handle some obstacles. Of course you want to start with small obstacles. If we are in a really worrisome situation then of course you don't want to just drop them off and say, "OK it's up to you now!" We don't want to do that. We want to be compassionate and see where they are at.

But if we are in the process where we just had a child, then it's important for us to think about that along the way, as the child is growing, and to work with the child and allow the child to overcome obstacles, and become victorious in small ways.

Let's also learn how to let go of negativity. Let's choose to have God's hope instead, while letting go of negative rhetoric -- my wife talked about it today -- such negative rhetoric and such things in our lives, even sarcasm. Those things will hold us back; they will prevent us from receiving God's blessing. If we live in constant negativity or constant sarcasm, we can not be blessed. It is so important that we learn to have the power to let go, to choose to not engage in the negativity, but to focus instead on realistic optimism.

Remember, when we create negative environments, children can't succeed in those environments. When we create negative environments, it becomes harder for people who come out of those environments to work well with people, to be responsive, to not condemn themselves so heavily. OK? So it's very important that we learn how to let go of negativity and choose to look towards the future with realism and optimism.

It is important to practice empathetic joy in our lives. This is important because this is a part of learning to let go. When we practice happiness when other people succeed, when we're happy for them, then we are learning to let go of our overly competitive spirit. We are learning how to complete with them, instead of competing. So when you are working with somebody, then instead of seeing them as a competitor, someone you have to compete with, see them as somebody you have to complete the mission with, the task, the project, the homework, whatever. See them as a win-win partner, not in a "I win, you lose" situation.

This is very important because the world is as you see it. If you see in a negative way, every experience will be more negative than it is. Every frustration will become an impending doom. So it's very important where our minds are. Our lives will follow our minds. Remember, where our minds go, our words go, our actions go, our habits go, our character goes, and our life goes.

So what can we learn today? We can learn that letting go is power, it's not weakness. Letting go is power. It frees us and others to grow and improve. We can also regain control and subjectivity in our lives.

Remember, brothers and sisters, YOU are the subject in your life, not the archangel who wants to attack you, not the self-condemning voice. Don't let that become the subject. You are the subject. You are in control of your mind. So make sure you keep it strong and hopeful for God's future. Then I am sure and confident that you will receive more blessing than you can even imagine.

Let's live free from self-condemnation, free from anger, resentment, anxiety, excessive worry, stubborn attachments and negativity. Letting go of such things is really, really important to living the blessed life. If you are going to succeed at whatever you do, it's very important that you are able to work with these things, letting them go, letting these things pass. Even if they come again, let them pass. So let's choose to see God's new hope for us.

Brothers and sisters, I like to say it all the time: We are not in the age of indemnity any more. We are not in the age of sacrifice. Right now we are finally in the age of liberation and release. The 6,000 years of God's resentment and pain is gone. True Parents made that foundation. They have the victory. That's why we celebrate them with praise and worship. That's why, in this age, we can celebrate with them. We can praise each other. We can wish blessings upon each other. We can wish you to be happy. We can wish him or her to be happy. We can wish for their marriage to work out well. And when we see that, we can be inspired by that.

It's very important that in this age, when we are in the land of Canaan, that we are able to create a very successful land, a land that has much blessing, not only externally, but also internally. So let's remember, when you hear those words in your mind, "You're a failure!" Brothers and sisters, you're not failures! You are prevailers!

Whenever you hear the word failure, you say, "No! I am a prevailer! I overcome anything." When you say, "Oh I'm gonna give up. I feel like giving up," don't believe that! We don't give up. We GET up for God. And remember, we are not going to be without victory, we're going to be victorious in our lives.

It's very important that we have that confidence in ourselves. Remember, you have the skills. You have what it takes to become victorious in whatever God has called you to do. OK, brothers and sisters?

So what I always say to brothers and sisters, what I try to remind you of every week, is this: Remember, when God sees you, He sees VIPs. Let's get that into our hearts. We're not failures. We're not making True Parents unhappy. We're not making a more heavy heart for people. You are a blessing to people. Think that you are the unique person that is stimulating God's heart in a distinct way. Let's remember that we are VIPs. Let's remember that VIP stands for Victory, Illumination and Peace.

Until next week, let's have a little more Victory, a little more Illumination and a little more Peace.

Brothers and sisters, can you accept these words today?

Thank you.

24. A Sanctuary Welcoming All Faiths (October 29, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
October 29, 2008

Hyung-jin nim's speech at the regional presidents meeting on True Children's Day, October 29

Father has instructed us to build a temple to be used by two hundred and ten thousand members in Korea as the beginning point of the establishment of Cheon Il Guk. On October 12, he gave it the name Cheon Bok Gung. Situated in the center of Seoul, it will become the foundation of the Unificationist Community that no one can refute, as well as the substantial foundation capable of moving the nation spiritually and bringing all religions into unity. That site will become the New Jerusalem...

At that temple serving two hundred and ten thousand members, the temple for world peace and unification -- Cheon Bok Gung -- we will work with True Parents to establish all religions' vertical relationship with True Parents.

We are making preparations even now. There will be a place for all religions to hold services. In this way, those religions will be able to come into a relationship with our Unification Family and with True Parents, vertically, and through the temple, we will be able to show the world a historic accomplishment.

The former president of Costa Rica visited us at our Headquarters Church, which at present has about five thousand members. We have plans to continue to invite prominent people. We will have them come to our Sunday service. In the future, dignitaries from around the world will come not only to attend our events, such as inter-religious conferences, but to attend our services. We need to bring them to recognize True Parents.

Although we are a small church now, when our temple serving two hundred and ten thousand is built in a central location in Seoul, we can meet prominent leaders there. Based on our already having laid a foundation, we will be able to present things in such a way that people will come to attend our service and later become Unification Church members.

I believe we will even get Elder Lee Myung-bak to come to attend our service! [Aju!]

The crux of this is that though True Parents are able to influence Korea, socially and culturally most important is that they can influence the nation spiritually. Through the temple, we will bring all religions to recognize True Parents' position. We have already established a Protestant-style Unification Church service and a Catholic-style service at the Headquarters Church, and we are initiating a Buddhist-style service. Now we will work with these religions and bring them into a relationship with True Parents. Religions will not connect to us horizontally but their followers will come to know True Father as the Messiah, the Maitreya and the True Man. This will be the substantiation of the content of the Resurrection chapter.

Cheon Bok Gung will be the headquarters and center of the Unificationist Community, and when people think of the Unification Church, what will come to mind is the image of representatives of the religions working with True Parents. That will be a scene representing the world.

This will not be just a one-off event: every week, Unification Church members -- among them Buddhist Unification Church members, Protestant Unification Church members and Catholic Unification Church members -- will come to attend services, practice and express their faith. Of course, a worldwide church such as the Yoido Full Gospel Church is big and many Christians attend service there, but when the world sees us, they will see something of a totally different nature. Ours will not be services only for Christians but for all types of believers, coming together to attend True Parents. We need to offer this up to True Parents.

Thus, this temple will not be merely a symbol, but the actual point from which Cheon Il Guk, the substantial fulfillment of what is foretold in Divine Principle, is established. The temple will be the basis upon which we can move nations...

It will be the third temple of God, the perfection stage of the temple that was last seen two thousand years ago. In other words, this temple will not be one in which we look for the Messiah; it will actually be run by the Messiah! It will belong to True Parents.

We must dedicate this temple of substantial resurrection to True Parents. True Father has said that this should be the top priority in all nations, so we should certainly do our best to focus and work hard to build this temple of God.

In saying this, we will not omit to build the temple as Joshua and Caleb did after they entered the Promised Land. We will enter and enable this temple to take deep root so that our tradition and our religion can grow forever. You may already know -- and I have spoken of it several times in my sermons -- that the second generation made that mistake. After they entered the Promised Land, the second generation forgot what they had promised to do. A temple should have succeeded the Tabernacle. They omitted to fulfill that, however, so they had no place in which to worship God. For that reason, their nation easily and quickly fell into secular ways, and the providence was prolonged.

This could also happen to us, and so we must certainly to strengthen our church, our faith and our membership. True Father has said that our church is the root. If there were no church, there could be no root. We would neither have the Divine Principle from True Father nor be able to explain about True Father. Father would just be some peace-lover, or the big leader of an organization, or the founder of a big company.

Our work must have religious significance, and through it, we need to maintain our tradition and deeply implant it. This temple is the eternal, irrefutable and substantial expression of that process, and the amazing work of resurrection that will be revealed to the world while True Parents are still on earth. It will become the central place that protects our root. The temple will become the eternal place where the eternal word of God and the Divine Principle and word given by True Father can last forever, and where people can attend service, offer kyung-bae, and develop their life of faith.

Father has said this task is not only the responsibility of Korea, or of Japan, but that of the whole world.

I pray in the name of True Parents that we will become devoted sons and daughters who will bring to realization this perfection-stage providence in the form of Cheon Bok Gung and dedicate it to True Parents. [Aju! Applause]

Brothers and sisters, we must inherit this goal and this task. With a sense of ownership, let us lead the providence of Cheon Bok Gung and bring it to fruition for True Parents.

Thank you. 

23. Let Your Divine Character Shine (October 27, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
October 27, 2007
Mapo Church, Korea

I'd like to talk to you today about letting your divine character shine. We can look at the word, "character" and then contrastingly we can look at the word 'reputation'. Many times we may have difficulty distinguishing the difference between character and reputation.

When we look at the original etymology or the meaning of the word, we see that in Greek, "character" means something like an engraved mark, something that's engraved. Metaphorically this is extended to mean some defining quality of a person.

Reputation originally meant consideration, more specifically, how other people consider you. What is the real difference between character and reputation? Reputation is the word which refers to what other people think of me, the opinion of others upon me, in respect to integrity and attainment… a reputation for honesty for example. Character is not necessarily what other people may think of me, but who I actually am.

That's the difference. When we look at the principle, there's the story of Noah. Noah had character. God asked him to do something quite large for his age, to build the ark. For his peers, it was kind of insane, for lack of a better word. In Genesis, you recall the scene where Noah is laying there in his birthday suit, and Noah rebukes Ham for making Shem and Japheth shameful.

As you recall from the Principle, they focused on reputation, on what other people were thinking of them, instead of what God was intending for that time. So Ham was unable to restore through indemnity that offering and could not fulfill the foundation of substance. So God had to move on. In the end, we have to live our lives with the imagination that there are no secrets in this world.

Eventually, people get through our reputations, what other people think of us, and our character begins to show. So it's very important, if we want to live a life of blessing that we try our best in what we are doing, and that we assume or imagine that there are really no secrets in our lives.

Everyone has made mistakes in the past. Maybe we said something to hurt someone. Maybe there is a situation in our past that we are not so proud of. So how do you get over this? How do I deal with such an issue?

Firstly, we have to ask the question, "Who is it that we hurt, that still pulls at our conscience, that we know in our hearts I have to heal with this person?" I have to come to peace with this person.

It's important that we go out of our way to come to peace with that person. Of course, we can't come to peace with every single person. We may have insulted someone without even knowing it, but with those that we KNOW we hurt, because of something we said that we regret, or some situation we regret -- it's important that if we are going to build character that we go to that person and come to peace with that person.

Two, from now focus on not repeating mistakes, and focus on building character. I heard an interesting story about a young Korean celebrity. She had a long series of dramas. She had one soap opera drama that was very famous. And she was portrayed as the perfect daughter in law. So she had a really great reputation.

Everyone viewed her as the daughter in law that everyone wants to marry and bring home and show to the family. She's that perfect daughter-in-law. But a couple of years later, even with that reputation in her own life, she was eventually found out to have been committing adultery with another man who had children.

That wife sued her, and when the police came to the celebrity, she was found to be taking narcotics. So her career plummeted. Five years later, she tried to build up her career again, but she could not reach the same level of celebrity that she had. Often celebrities focus on reputation, but it's really important that we learn to focus on character building, because that's where we become deeper, where we make life more worthwhile.

In the Confucian tradition, in the analects scroll 5, it says, "The superior man does not even for the space of a single meal act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger he cleaves to it." The Master later says, "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He, who practices it, will have neighbors."

Notice that people who practice character become easy to live with. They are good husbands and wives and children and dads and moms to live with. But what if we have not such a good reputation? Maybe that's that case for some of us today. Maybe we are motivated to make a change in our lives. Maybe we want to improve our reputation. Can a negative reputation change?

The answer is yes, it can change. It takes effort and focus. Focus on character building. If we have a negative reputation, the tendency will be to try to build a better reputation, and not focus on building better character traits. Over time the character behind your reputation will come out.

We have to learn how to focus on building that character. How do we do that? There are certain ways we can do that. We can learn to meditate, to cultivate patience, internal peace, reflecting on ourselves and our weaknesses, (not beating ourselves up), growing beyond those.

I saw a little helpful model or formula. Focus + Daily Improvement + Time = Genius.

Whether you are trying to build character or be a great astronaut, we need to learn how to focus our mind, focus our energies. We need to learn to improve on a daily basis and given those two factors, it is just a matter of time before we become a genius at it, before we become recognizably good at the particular task.

It is important when we are building character, to give yourself credit. Don't forget that. Give yourself credit for things you have done right. Give yourself that credit. You deserve it. And let's continue to do them with sincerity. Even though we may be fixing portions that we need to fix, let's remember the things that we are doing well and continue to do them.

If we stay consistent with character building, your reputation will follow. It will take time, it may even take a year or more for your character to have a big impact on your reputation, but it does make a change.

I remember one time in my own life when Young-jin hyung confronted me and he said to me, "You know, the worst thing you can be in life is a hypocrite." And at that point, he was telling me, "You're being a hypocrite." It was at a time when I was very arrogant and entitled and had a huge ego, but I didn't have the character and confidence.

I had a strong outside but a weak and fragile inside. And he called me on that. And he told me, "You are being hypocritical." I remember when we were at camp, I would wait for him to start eating before I would start, to show respect. But when we were alone together, I wasn't waiting for him. I was like, "Give me that food! I want to eat it!" So he was calling me on it and saying I was hypocritical.

In front of people I was listening to him, but behind I was arguing with him, "What are you crazy?!" So he was calling me on it saying, "You're being hypocritical here." Interestingly, when he passed, those words continued to ring in my ears. When I started taking up ascetical practices in my 21 year course, the first stage, the foundation stage -- one of my central practices (of course there was meditation and prayer) was identifying places where I am hypocritical, trying to end hypocrisy within myself and trying to improve that.

Everybody has some level of hypocrisy in their life. To realize and change and improve that is central to training our character. I am grateful to Young-jin hyung for teaching me that. One of the things I try to do with my kids is to reinforce certain character traits. I tell my children, when they are down on themselves, beating themselves up, being negative,

"You know what? You guys have the four Cs: Character, Confidence, Compassion and a Can-do attitude. You guys have the 3Ps, Perseverance Persistence and Patience. You have the 3 I's Initiative, Imagination, and Immunity to insult."

I love that one, "I'm immune to insult!" I repeated this maybe a dozen times or so to my kids when they are feeling negative toward themselves and not believing in themselves. It is very striking. My kids told me a story. When they were at the play ground doing their thing enjoying themselves, some other kids gathered around them and were making fun of them, saying this and that. And my boys said, "Appa! You know what we did? We said to them, "we have armor! I am immune to insult! Your insults bounce off of me! I will not be conquered by your negativity!"

When I heard that, I said, "My God! This is making some kind of impact on them." They told me that they kept a positive attitude. They didn't fight or do any of that, and they did not let those boys sour their day. They didn't let them steal their fun and enjoyment, the play ground and the good times they were having. I told them, "You go boys! You keep it up! You guys are doing it!" I was so very proud of them.

A group of ethicists in 1992 came together and this is a famous declaration called the "Aspen Declaration." I'd like to show you this today. It's really about certain things of character. Here we can see how do we improve our character? These are some examples of what we can do in our lives, on a day to day basis.

In the Aspen Declaration, we have things like Trustworthiness: don't deceive or steal, be reliable, be loyal to your family and friends and country. Under Respect we have: treat others with respect, don't use bad language, deal peacefully with anger, insults or disagreements. Another character trait would be Responsibility: persevere, keep trying, think before you act, be accountable for your choices.

Fairness: play by the rules, don't take advantage of others, and don't blame others carelessly. Caring: be compassionate and show your care, forgive others and help people in need. Citizenship: do your share to make your school or community better, cooperate, get involved in community affairs, respect the authorities, and protect the environment.

Those would be examples of what we can do on a daily basis. I also came across this very interesting piece that contrasted reputation and character: Reputation is what you are supposed to be. Character is what you are. Reputation is the photograph. Character is the face.

Reputation comes over one from without. Character grows up from within. Reputation is what you have when you come into a new community. Character is what you have when you go away. Reputation is made in a moment. Character is built in a life time. Your reputation is learned in one hour. Your character does not come to light for over a year.

Reputation grows like a mushroom. Character grows like the oak. A single newspaper report gives you your reputation. A life of toil gives you your character. Reputation makes you rich or makes you poor. Character makes you happy or makes you miserable. Reputation is what people say about you on your tombstone. Character is what angels say about you before the throne of God.

I thought that was quite telling for this day. What can we learn today?

Wherever we focus, that is what we will build up. So it's very important that as we're practicing and walking together, and this goes mostly for myself, it is important that we focus on developing the character strengths that will give us longevity, strength, and a life worth living. And if we've had mistakes then it's important for us to apologize to those people. And it's important not to beat ourselves up or live in fear for the rest of our lives, but to really try our best. We want to focus on building character and not only reputation.

But if we have a negative reputation, let's not lose hope; we can change it. But we have to focus on character, not on building the reputation. So let's not give up. The really important part about walking, practicing, about living a life of blessing, is that it's every day. We want to be a blessing to people every day. So let's not give up. Nobody's totally perfect, nobody is without flaw.

Everybody has someone who is not supportive of them. But if we do our part, if we practice building character vs. only building reputation, not only will a good reputation follow, but we can live with peace in our minds. We can live with more knowledge and wisdom, and we can live the blessed life that True Parents have blessed us to live.

Till next week I hope to encourage you, when you see yourself, to see yourself with the eyes of God. When God and True Parents see you, they see you as a VIP. He doesn't see you as a negative person, as somebody who is not able to succeed, without talents, unattractive. No.

You have the opposite of those things. You have attractiveness, capability, and you have what it takes to succeed. You are victorious. You will be victorious in the things that you do. It's important that we see ourselves like that and envision our life in such a manner.

So let's do that. VIP, as I try to remind brothers and sisters every week, stands for Victory, Illumination, and Peace. Let's have a little more of each in our lives. Brothers and sisters, can you receive this today?

Thank you so much.