The Holy Name

Hyung Jin Moon
November 14, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan Seoul Korea

Main Sermon:

Today we want to talk about the Holy, Holy Name! Yes!

Let's first look at the World Scriptures. We'll start with Islam and the Koran! This is the fortieth Sura, 65th verse. Let us read together!

"He is the living One; there is no God but He! Call upon Him, giving Him sincere devotion! Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds!"

Aju!

This is from the Kata Upanishad from Hinduism. Let's read together!

"This syllable indeed is imperishable Brahman; this syllable indeed is the end supreme. The One who knows this syllable will surely obtain whatever he desires".

Aju!

This is from Nichiren Buddhism, particularly from Nam Myoho Renge Kyo tradition, a Japanese form of Buddhism. Let us read together!

"All Buddhas in the universe throughout past, present and future invariably attain buddhahood with the seed of the five characters of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo"

Aju!

"Let's give praise to Thee"

Sadharma Bunderika Sutra in Sanskrit.

From Christianity, Psalms 145, verses 1 and 2. Let us read together:

"I will extol Thee, my God and my King and bless Thy Name forever and ever."

"Every day I will bless Thee and praise Thy Name forever and ever"

Aju!

Let us go to our core scripture which is John, Chapter 1 verses 1 through 5. Let us read together:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Aju!

Here we see the power of the Word!

First in John 1 verse 1, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God!" We see the power of the Word! We see that from the Word comes sound and sound is really invisible. We cannot see sound but we can hear it, we can experience it. It can pass through us, big sound waves can pass through you and you can feel it. You can't see it but we can experience it, feel it, and also hear it, etc…

In the same way, although God is invisible, we can still sense Him, feel His presence, particularly at important times in our life.

We can look at the nature of sound and how it is created, how sound emerges. You know when I am speaking here, from my lungs air is pushed out, and comes through my windpipe which then vibrates and that affects the atmosphere in the sanctuary. If I didn't have this microphone, only the people in the front could hear me well and the people in the back would not be able to hear me so well.

The air affects and moves this atmosphere and it enters into your ear drums, into your ears. In your ears are little hairs, cilia -- you remember from your science class- that vibrate. Electrical and chemical reactions are then sent to your brain and your consciousness is able to sense the sound. OK? So, from a scientific perspective this is how sound is created.

Sounds also have waves which are invisible to our eyes and these waves, the low frequency waves, can pass through us, pass through objects, can actually pass right through your body. So, sound is invisible, yet we can sense it, we can feel it; it can actually pass through us, it can move right through us and we can hear it, we can sense it with our perception but we can't see it.

In the same way God is also invisible. From the Principle perspective, let's look at the Word that was with God before creation. We know that the Principle existed before creation, that God already decided before He created the manifest world that there would be "Give and Receive Action" in the manifest world from the smallest atoms to the biggest galaxy and that there would be the "Four Position-Foundation" in His relationship with the created world and also with humankind. He also wanted to bequeath the essence of True Love to His creation, particularly to the ones that could become His object partners.

In essence all of this universe -- and many scientists also think that there are many universes; of course they all have a beginning -- is to give and receive with the true object partner which can reciprocate the essence of God, which is True Love. This was to be Adam and Eve -- what we call Adam and Eve -- and Adam and Eve were to become True Parents.

Adam and Eve were to become the ones that fully inherited the essence of God. God is the un-manifest True Parents; Adam and Eve would be the manifest True Parents where they could equally give and receive.

Now we can get confused here. That doesn't mean that the True Parents in the manifest world have the same powers as God in the un-manifest world; they can't create universes or things like that. But it is through the inheritance of God's true love, it is through the power of love, True Love, that they can reciprocate at an equal level and communicate beyond the manifest world. We get that? Yes? This is the amazing teaching of the Principle!

Thus, in short, the purpose of the creation of the universe, of millions and millions of universes, galaxies, etc… the purpose of all that creation, is then -- if we simplify it -- True Parents. The purpose of all that is to give and receive with that perfected object body; to give and receive and be in relationship with that perfected object being and to be able to fully reciprocate that kind of True Love. So this is the original purpose for which all the universe was created.

When I was young and growing up in East Garden in New York, because True Parents were around the world and travelling to different places, we had Onnis. It is not proper Korean actually; since we were boys, we should call them "Nunas" but we actually called them "Onnis". I don't know who taught us the wrong Korean but we get laughed at all the time till this day because of that.

We had Onnis that took care of us. There were Japanese sisters who took care of us sometimes but my Onni was a Korean Onni. Her name was Ye-il Onni and I remember when I was a young boy she always said, "Oppa, when you are scared or you have fear when you are walking on a dark street, then I want you to chant, I want you to call, recite the name of "True Parents", "Champumo nim, Champumo nim, Champumo nim", call it in your mind, in your heart, in your word.

And she said, "If you do that, then all the ghosts will fly away." (Hyung-jin nim laughs) She said that if you do that, then if Satan is in the room, then he has to make one of two choices. Number one, he has to bow before that name, or number two, when he hears that name, he has to run away or, maybe, he can fly away or whatever.

And so I remember when I was a young boy and when I was scared, maybe we were near the Holy Rock playing in the dark or in the woods and we'd feel fear then I remember chanting the name, "Champumo nim, Champumo nim, Champumo nim". Or maybe, because I was such a prankster when I was a kid, when I got in trouble they would throw me in a closet, a dark closet as a punishment or whatever and then when I was in there and I heard that the bogeyman man was in there, to defend myself against the bogeyman man I would chant the words, "Champumo nim, Champumo nim, Champumo nim", like this, and the bogeyman would never get me.

So when I was a young boy I remember Ye-Il Onni telling me this and also experiencing this, but then as I got into high school and college and started to study different sciences then I started thinking, "This is very superstitious, very suspiciously superstitious!"

In science we know of the Placebo effect. You know when the doctor comes in the room and he gives the patient the medicine and he says, "This will cure you!" -- he is wearing the white coat, he looks like a doctor, he could even be a doctor giving you the medicine -- and then you take the medicine and you are cured although it is not medicine, it is sugar pill, but you are cured because of the power of the mind. OK?

So, science says that the power of the mind can self-heal the body. So when I was thinking about the chanting of True Parents' name, I was thinking, "OK, maybe it's like the Placebo effect where I am healing my own fear; I am feeling dread or that kind of things and by this chanting, I can heal that with my own mental power".

So, at that time I believed, "You know this is not what Ye-Il Onni was saying. She is a good woman, very nice woman, I love her but what she was saying, the 'chase away the ghost and the bogeyman' or that kind of thing, this is not scientific".

I remember when I was at Harvard; I was thinking that people would consider you crazy if you believed in this kind of phenomena; if you believed that by chanting this name the ghosts would disappear. But I remember one time we were having a class on meditative practice; the teachers were there and also there was a discussion group. I absolutely thought that none of these kids, who were very smart, very accomplished, would believe in such things.

After all, they were Harvardians; they were going off to do whatever they wanted after Harvard. So, I was very shocked to discover their reactions. We were discussing about mantra meditation -- these are forms of meditation when one would chant a particular syllable or syllables, phrases that have spiritual power- and we would look at the different traditions that would have that.

And I remember that the students were all saying, "I believe that there is more to this world than what we can see." The overwhelming response was, "There is more than we can see. We cannot shoo-shoo this so quickly". They had the reflective ability to not just jump at it and to say, "There is something, it is possible, there is more than we know in science."

Let's continue that a little later, but let us look first at Genesis 1: 3 through 5, and let us read together:

"And God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light. God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day' and the darkness, He called 'night'. And there was evening and there was morning-the first day."

Aju!

Here we see that through the Word God creates light, then He separates it from darkness then, through the Word again, the day and the night appear and it says the first day appears which means that time begins, the dimension of time begins. The first day, the first second begins. So, it was through the Word, in the biblical scripture, it was through the Word that time begins, that the first day begins.

After Young-jin Hyung passed away, I started searching and training with different forms of meditation, different religions and I remember learning something in that period. That from a scientific perspective, when you look at anything things created in the manifest universe, from the chair to the plants, to whatever to you, to your body, to the universe then everything is built of the same fundamental building blocks. Everything is built from the atoms and beyond that from the sub-atomic particles and beyond that etc… until you reach the quantum level.

Scientists explain that this "quanta" comes from the Latin word which means packet or package, and that this energy packet makes up the entire universe. They explain that the universe is actually, at its fundamental level, all energy and it is not only energy just sitting there still; it is vibrating in and out of existence between the manifest and the un-manifest world. It is vibrating, it is moving energy.

So it is from this vibration of energy that the whole manifest world is manifest and this is why the meditative tradition has said that the experience of God in the manifest world is like sound. You can't see Him but you can feel Him, you can sense Him, you can experience Him, you can feel Him move through you etc…

And so the whole idea is that the sacred words have power because words in essence are also vibrations that come and manifest from the invisible to the visible. God separates night and day with the words.

Also I remember reading on a small group of indigenous peoples, who, when they wanted to take down a tree -- because they did not have modern equipment -- would surround the tree, hold their hands, do some rituals and they would also curse the tree. And over time, not just in a day but maybe after 20 or 40 days, the tree would die naturally because of the energy they had been sending through their voices, their intentions, etc.

This can also be seen in different experiments known in the West, where elderly people raised different types of plants in nursing homes. One group would speak very kind and loving words to the plants and the plants would survive and live healthily. Another group would curse the plants and complain all the time. In that group the plants would die much more rapidly than in the other group. So we see that the words, which we cannot see, can manifest; we can feel them, they have energy, they have power within them.

In Buddhism there are mantra meditations like Om Mani Padme Hum, you may have heard that, or Nam U Ami Thaba. They have six syllables. These kinds of mantra meditations came from the Buddhists tradition.

In Islam there are the recitations of the ninety nine names of Allah, which one would repeat in the form of mantra type of meditation. They would repeat the names and enter into a deep meditative trance in the recitation of the names of Allah. A more simple training would just be a recitation of the word Allah with each heartbeat of the practitioner's heart. So as the heart is beating, then Allah -- Allah -- Allah, etc. And this would continue.

And what is the tradition in Christianity? There is the twenty four hour recitation of the Jesus Prayer. This prayer is: Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, I am a sinner! Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, I am a sinner! They are supposed to be training this kind of mantra meditation twenty four hours a day.

The universe is vibrating energy, and all energy has a frequency that matches the fundamental nature of the universe. So the universe has a certain frequency.

In Buddhism, when you recite the Om Mani Padme Hum with the six syllables, you are coming into contact with that frequency of the universe. And the six syllables are not just sounds or words. Om Ma-ni-pad-me Hum are six syllables that come out of your mouth but that is not all. Six Buddhas come out of your mouth and protect you, with unseen energy and power!

Each Buddha is in charge of what is known as Buddha Chitra in Sanskrit, which is a Buddha world or a universe. So in the six syllables six Buddhas, and also six Mandalas or six universes appear; the powers of those universes appear. They protect those that chant these sutras or mantras, protect them from evil, calamity, suffering, sickness, old age and death, and bring the enlightened mind into awakening.

In the same way in the Islamic tradition when they chant the name of Allah with the heartbeat, repeatedly and without stopping, then there is no room for Satan to come in, to enter into the heart that is full of the names of God, of the glory of God. There is no place for Satan to come in.

So if we realize then that the purpose of creation of all the universe is to relate with the perfected object partner, which is True Parents or the perfected Adam and Eve, then we can start to become awakened as to the power that is in the name of True Parents, of Champumo nim.

From the Principle perspective, the purpose of creation, the purpose of the principle, the purpose of the creation of the manifest world is to be able to reciprocate with the True Parents. Then, that name, God had already envisioned, planned and sensed prior to the beginning of creation.

God had the give and receiving action, the four position foundation, and also the inheriting of true love. And the direction and focal energy of all his creation is leading to meet the True Parents, whom He can then reciprocate with and set the four position foundation with and bequeath his true love to. So, all the energy of the universe then moves towards those syllables: Champumo nim! When we are training with our Hoonsa nims in the morning -- we have a morning meditation training time and a 2:30 am training practice -- we also do the recitation of True Parents' name, Champumo nim Eok Mansei, the praising of that name. As we are breathing in we are also reciting and as we are breathing out we are also praising.

As the Bible says in Psalm 100, we enter into God's presence with praise and thanksgiving. Praise and thanksgiving are being given. We offer praise of the name of God the un-manifest True Parents, and of True Parents the perfected object partner as the manifest True Parents. We praise that name and enter into deeper and deeper one-point attention, one-point focus on that meditation, enter into deeper and deeper levels of presence in that training. It is not just reciting one time and saying: "Oh yes, my destiny has changed!" This is a constant repetition, thousands of times in a focused training.

And here the method is to fill the mind with the sound and frequency of Champumo nim Eok Mansei, praising the purpose of the universe and allowing the mind to descend into the heart and from the heart to emanate that frequency and vibration. All the cells of our body emanate all throughout, moving, connecting with the fundamental purpose, the fundamental goal of the creation of the entire cosmos.

We do this to open our spiritual eyes to see the power that is within the name, which we so easily just call; to see that these sound and syllables and the vibrations that come from this sound can connect us with God's first intention when He was planning the Principle.

When we can see and deeply go into this kind of training practice we can empty ourselves, take away our egoism, our ego mind, focus in on the praising of God and True Parents, let that completely saturate the mind and allow that to descend into the heart, penetrate the heart and expand into the cosmos.

Then we can start feeling the incredible un-manifest power that is within the name True Parents. We can start experiencing the value of that name. We can connect to the purpose of creation, which is the meeting or the substantiation of the giving and receiving with this True Parents. We can feel the essence of the universe that is yearning and moving towards True Parents.

When we say the name and we have a celebration and we come out at the end and we do, "Hana nim Eok Mansei! Champumo nim Eok Mansei!" everybody feels good at that time. It is the best time, especially if it was an eight hour speech or lecture. That is the best time. You stand up and you send this sound to the universe, and it connects with the purpose, the beginning before creation.

When we praise the name of the True Parents we can even imagine and visualize not only these syllables coming out of our mouth, not only seven Buddhas coming out, but True Parents presence; True Parents spiritually can come and reside.

Also, because they are the center of the spirit world, the spirit world can come and reside; the ancestors can come and reside, the saints in spirit world can come and reside and be with us, protect us.

Then all these things are not just from a young boy thinking of superstitious things. When we look at the manifest world there is an un-manifest reality that even now science can only hint at and barely come in touch with.

Within this mind that is full of praising True Parents, that allows no thought of selfishness or self-centered love to enter in, this Holy Name becomes our heart, and becomes our spiritual heartbeat, and that sound resonates into the universe and into the cosmos.

Then we can be the children that bring joy to God and True Parents. We can be the children that help heal the suffering around us and we can move with spiritual power that is beyond just our manifest self, spiritual power that is greater than even the beginning of time.

This is the time when we give it up for True Parents! Let's give it up for True Parents and God! I thought you guys were sleeping!(Laughter and applause)

So that is the preciousness of the name of True Parents, of Champumo nim, the preciousness and the power that resides in there when we know how to connect with that frequency.

Let's finish with True Parents' words, that are speaking exactly about this point. This is from True Parents' speech volume 129, p. 193. Let's read together:

"The words True Parents are magnificent. Only these words can be the basis for piercing through the fallen domain of the satanic world and going up. You should be grateful for the appearance of the words True Parents. You can be thankful for them even after hearing them tens of thousands of times!"

What an exact statement of what we can attain through such kind of training!

Hyung-jin nim's Final Prayer:

Let us all rise and offer our final prayer to God and True Parents. Please join me in prayer. Let us raise our holy hands as we face heaven!

Dearest most beloved Heavenly True Parents, the Cosmic True Parents of Heaven and Earth! Father, we want to praise You this day, we want to lift up your Holy Name, because it is through your Name and through glorifying your Holy Name that we find our purpose and our existence.

Before the beginning of time and space, Father, you already imagined the give and receiving action, four position foundation and the inheritance of pure, selfless love, parental, sacrificial pure love. Father, it is through that that You had the purpose to meet the True Parents, to meet the Ones, to be with the Ones who could be your perfected object partner, that could be the perfected Adam and Eve, the creation that would be able to inherit your essence, to give and receive with You on the common plane as equal partners in love, with true love.

Father, your might is unsurpassable. Not one created being can come close to your might, your power. But through the inheritance of love and the world of true love the selfless love of the parent, True Parents fulfilled the role of your perfected object partner. Father, when we call out, praise and Eok Mansei to Champumo nim, we are praising You as the un-manifest True Parents of all things, and we are praising the names of the Ones who have fulfilled that role of your direct object partner, the manifest True Parents.

Father, we pray that we may open our spiritual eyes, that we may see the universe not just as manifest but understand the un-manifest world of pure energy that is moving and vibrating in and out of existence. We pray, Father, that through our prayers and through our extolling and praising of True Parents and Champumo nim that we can come into contact with that frequency and energy that permeates the entire universe.

Heavenly Father, You are great! Father, we pray, that we may come close to You today, and be in your presence. And we lift up the Name of Champumo nim and praise your Name. We thank You so much and we pray that through that You may work incredible histories and miracles through our lives, and that our wishes may come true not only for ourselves but also for all people of this world.

We pray that we may come back to the original source of the creation of all things. We can return back to You as the True Parents. Thank you so much!

We pray all these things in our own names, as central blessed families; we pray in the name of True Parents and before the name of True Parents, in our own names. Aju!

Notes:

John, chapter 1

1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2: He was in the beginning with God;

3: all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

4: In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

5: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7: He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.

8: He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.

9: The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

10: He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.

11: He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.

12: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God;

13: who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

15: (John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'")

16: And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.

17: For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

18: No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

19: And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"

20: He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ."

21: And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" And he answered, "No."

22: They said to him then, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

23: He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, `Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."

24: Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.

25: They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?"

26: John answered them, "I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know,

27: even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."

28: This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

29: The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

30: This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.'

31: I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel."

32: And John bore witness, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.

33: I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'

34: And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."

35: The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples;

36: and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!"

37: The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

38: Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

39: He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

40: One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

41: He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ).

42: He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).

43: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."

44: Now Philip was from Beth-sa'ida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

45: Philip found Nathan'a-el, and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

46: Nathan'a-el said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

47: Jesus saw Nathan'a-el coming to him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!"

48: Nathan'a-el said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

49: Nathan'a-el answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

50: Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these."

51: And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."

Genesis, chapter 1

1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

3: And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

4: And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

5: God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

6: And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."

7: And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so.

8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9: And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.

10: God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11: And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so.

12: The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

13: And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14: And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,

15: and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so.

16: And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.

17: And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth,

18: to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

19: And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20: And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens."

21: So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

22: And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

23: And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24: And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.

25: And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28: And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

29: And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

30: And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

31: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

Psalms, chapter 100

0: A Psalm for the thank offering.

1: Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the lands!

2: Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

3: Know that the LORD is God!
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4: Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him, bless his name!

5: For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever,
and his faithfulness to all generations. 

Staying Strong in Joy

Hyung Jin Moon
October 31, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan, Seoul, Korea

Main Sermon:

Brothers and sisters, today I would like to talk to you about staying strong in joy.

Let us begin first with our World Scriptures.

We begin with Mark 13.13, and this is representing Christianity. This is short but very powerful. Let us read together:

“He who endures to the end will be saved.”

Aju.

This is from Buddhism [Note: The Uttaradhyayana Sutra is a text of Jainism, not Buddhism], from the Uttaradhyayana Sutra 10.34:

“You have crossed the great ocean; why do you halt so near the shore? Make haste to get on the other side.”

Aju.

This is Confucianism, from Mencius VII.A.29:

“To try to achieve anything is like digging a well. You can dig a hole nine fathoms deep, but if you fail to reach the source of water, it is just an abandoned well.”

Aju. Perseverance!

Let us read True Parents’ word. This is from the Second Volume of Collection of Speeches 3.28:

“If you stand in a position that is not this, not that, not left, not right, it is not good. Such a position will cause confusion only and can lead to even worse situations. Thus, those who carry the word as someone representing heavenly ethics must take a clear position. If this is wrong, it is wrong. If this is right, it is right.. He has the responsibility to set the word as the center and protect it with his life.”

Aju.

Brothers and sisters, as you may know, this time is a tough time for our worldwide community. We have many wonderful celebrations in October, but also many different challenges around the world, our global community. It is important during these tough times to always stay strong, but also to stay in joy.

When things are emotionally and spiritually draining, we may quickly want to think of how far we have to go and quickly fall into despair. During those moments, it is important to also remember how far we have come because of the grace of God.

During these times, we can really see the substantial manifestation of the betrayal of God at the Garden of Eden, where his most trusted disciple does the four different fallen natures: not seeing from God’s perspective, leaving his proper position, taking dominion over God’s children, and also the multiplication of evil.

We can see these things physically happening around our world. When we think about these things, when we contemplate these things, we wonder, how can such people do these things, people who were proclaiming absolute faith and absolute obedience to True Parents for years and years, how can they do this?

When we think about our church worldwide really being hurt, our community trying to be split, against our True Parents’ commands and authority, things they have said not to do are being done, when we contemplate the defamation campaigns against members of the True Family that True Parents themselves have placed in positions of authority, we become so depressed and full of pain when we see these people being involved in these situations.

Never in the history of the Unification Church have we seen this type of organizational betrayal of what True Parents have done. People have always upheld the respect towards the authority of True Parents. At this time, we think about the incredible pain of True Parents.

When I think about this issue personally, I get very depressed about it, and it makes me lose any sense of hope. But it is in these depressing times when we are down and being challenged that we truly need the filial sons and daughters to come and protect True Parents, because as though it may be draining for us, we can imagine how draining it can be for our True Parents.

During these times, I personally try to look at how God has led me in my own life, how far we have come in the last three short years. We started ministry in Mapo Church, a small church of seventy families. The church was so down. It was at a point where we could not mention we were Unificationists. Nobody had confidence to say “I am a Unificationist” outside. We were not witnessing as a church, we were not sharing our faith, and we were not even teaching the Principle in the churches. This was the situation we encountered three years ago.

The church had been growing negatively for the last thirty years. Nobody felt that there was even a ray of hope for our future, but it was at Mapo that we met so many incredible families. Many of them, of course, were Japanese and Korean, international families that were matched by True Parents, so many amazing families that really showed us that there is hope in this movement.

I remember when we moved from Mapo, and then Father moved us to the headquarters church in Chungpadong. At the last service we had, we were crying so much with our brothers and sisters, shedding so many tears, thinking we were going to be separated now and not being able to see each other anymore. We were so happy to see them again at Chungpadong. To meet them again and walk with them again was an amazing gift.

It was during that time that we were able to bring the Korean church up from always receiving Japanese members’ blood, sweat and tears and their incredible dedication and support from Japan. We were able to stop that, so that the Korean church would stand strong as an independent church, stand on its own merit as a church that takes responsibility for its financial mission.

We were able to embark on that incredible journey. The church is now growing again nationwide. The church service attendance is up nationwide, and the church is also self-sufficient, meaning we now receive zero from the Japanese church. What an incredible three years! We had time to meet so many incredible families, to work with so many people of faith and people of talent, and able to do these kinds of incredible things.

I remember just a year and a half ago when we imagined that we would live to see the day when we could have a strong presence in Seoul, that it would not just be dilapidated churches as were commonplace in our church, but that we would see a representative world headquarters here, and that we would be able to see a sanctuary such as this.

Even one year ago, hardly anybody believed that this would be possible. In a very short time, within three years, with the blessing of True Parents, and of course, with the whole worldwide membership, we are able to now have a substantial presence in Seoul. Let’s give it up one time for our Cheon Bok Gung and the world headquarters (applause).

We can hold our heads up with pride. We are not a faith that requires hiding. We can be proud of our faith, proud of ourselves as Unificationists. If we don’t stand up for our own religious rights, nobody will. We saw that, with the issue of the kidnapping of the Japanese members. All together as a worldwide movement, we fought for their human rights and continue to do so.

During this time, we can only imagine how painful True Parents’ heart may be. It is a time when the image of the Unification Church is rising again, particularly here in Korea. It is changing and in a situation where people are respectful. Three years ago, people did not even call True Parents Moon Sun Myung choong jin nim, but they used to just call him Moon Sun Myung shee when they wrote in the newspaper. That is a very derogatory way to express, in Korean language.

In that kind of situation, we can see incredible things happening in the Unification Movement, but also at the same time, this kind of pain is occurring. How would True Parents feel?

This week, when I was researching for this sermon, I was able to find a beautiful interview that True Father did in 1972, when he first arrived in America. It was an interview with a famous personality, Al Capp. Some of you probably have seen that. Many things are incredible about this thirty-minute interview.

During the interview, Al Capp was sitting on Father’s left. That gentleman, who was prominent at that time, was interviewing True Father with a very sarcastic tone. He said at one point, “I know that there are twenty-seven working messiahs on this planet right now as we speak. Reverend Moon, how do you know that you are the only Messiah? And if you are the Messiah, are all the other ones false messiahs?” He was throwing this kind of sarcastic questions at Father.

What I found amazing was that for thirty minutes, Father was enduring this, answering so incredibly well. When he asked that question, Father said, “Well, I never said with my mouth that I am the Messiah. You are the one saying that I am the Messiah.” He gave incredible answers like this.

The real incredible climax of this interview was at the end. The thirty minutes was filled with sarcasm, laughing at Reverend Moon, but then something incredible happened, which he admits at the end. We don’t have time to watch the whole thing here in service, but you can check it out later. We have just a little portion, the last three minutes. Let us take a look at that on the video.

True Father’s translator [David S. C. Kim]: “He receives messages or revelations from God of what the content will be and he converses with Him.”

Al Capp: “Does God always speak through Mister Moon? Is God speaking through Mister Moon now or does He speak only on scheduled appearances?”

Translator: “He has been contacting him progressively, and gradually conveyed some of the messages at certain times, just like we have a gradual growing stage. Through his prayers, he is constantly and gradually receiving revelations from God.”

Al Capp: “God, of course, knows all. God knows when this advertisement appears: God speaks today. And at that moment, as Mister Moon is introduced, God begins to speak through him. I mean, no taking any chances on that. It would be terrible to advertise this and not have Him.”

Translator: “Through his prayers, beforehand, he knows. That’s why he already spoke here.”

Al Capp: “I myself take a rather light-hearted approach to Mister Moon, and I don’t know if it comes over your television camera, but out of him shines the most enormous good nature, the most enormous good will, the most enormous affection. I must tell you that during a break in the filming here, he sang the most charming song [Arirong]. I tell you, this is the Messiah I want. I want him something like this. I am delighted. We still have a few minutes to go.”

Translator: “For the first time since he came to America, he meets a nice person like you.”

Al Capp: “Aren’t you sweet!”

Let’s give it up one time for True Father in 1972 (applause). Did you see how amazing and striking that was? Somebody so sarcastically interviewing True Father turns around at the end and says, “If the Messiah comes, I want him to be like this.” He was mentioning that in the break, True Father sang a beautiful Korean song. True Father was able to melt him with his heart.

We have to remember that this is 1972. In the year of 1972, True Father was being vehemently attacked in Korea. The Presbyterian Movement, the Christian Movement had already labeled him as a Satan, a heretic, and were attacking him severely. Even though they were in that situation, True Parents remained strong in joy, exuding the happiness of God.

When I watch and observe True Father, I noticed it is when times are tough that he makes us get up and sing and dance and laugh and do those kinds of things with him, praise God as we are spending time with True Parents. It is in that practice that I have watched True Parents.

It is in that practice that they can chase away the sense of hopelessness, the sense of despair tough times can bring. By making people sing in front of True Parents, True Parents can once again remember, “I am walking with these people. This person is a good guy. This person is still walking with me. We are walking together on this path.” They can find a new sense of hope and energy and strength to have joy, and press on to the next day.

I always remember after observing True Parents that after dancing and singing praise to God and being with the members and spending that kind of incredible time together, True Father always then returns into the created realm, to nature. He goes out to see the love of God in the created world, to give and receive with nature.

When I feel a little down, when I feel bogged down and depressed, I also like to hear a song of praise and sing songs sometimes, but really I personally love going out into nature. From a very young age, when I was stressed out, bogged down in mind or with stress, I would go outside. I remember training outside in martial arts, always doing those kinds of things in the natural world, feeling the give and receive action.

I remember when I was at the Shaolin Temple; some person there explained to me that in the Tang Dynasty, when the monks were protecting one of the emperors they had just rescued, even though their bodies were tired, they would go and play in nature. They would go and play with praying mantises and different animals, mimicking their movements, not just for martial arts training, but also to develop compassion for the natural world, for the animals and the different species of the planet, and to give and receive with nature in a new way.

Personally, when I am bogged down and stressed out, going into nature and training in such a way also helps relieve my own heart. It allows me to give and receive with nature in a new, fresh way, to once again see all the wonderful animals and plants and bamboo leaves and receive new invigoration through that kind of life energy.

This week, I was really bogged down. In the morning, we were outside and training with the Hoonsa-nims. I think I did too much training and I ended up tweaking my neck a little bit. I ended up having to go and take an MRI this week. I remember sitting in the hospital and hearing the MRI and the doctors explain, “You have a ruptured disk in the neck, and it is not good. No traveling for you.”

I remember then calling True Parents in the hospital and explaining, “You know, True Parents, I was scheduled to go to Africa this time, but it is canceled now because I ruptured the disk in my neck.” True Parents, of course, encouraged me.

At the very end, I received a phone IM message from somebody I know. It was a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. The quote said, on that very timely occasion, “Every time you are angry for one minute, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” At that very timely moment when I was getting very frustrated and thinking, “Oh, my goodness! We can’t go visit the members in Africa, we can’t go to America,” all these kinds of things. In times like this, when you want to fall into despair, you must remember that every minute lost in anger or negative thinking is a minute that is lost of happiness and peace. It was a metaphor of the situation for me.

In this situation when things are very tough around the worldwide church and we are experiencing this kind of heart wrenching pain, it is also important for us to make the choice. As one person said, it takes just as much energy to become depressed or to have hope. It takes just as much energy to do either side. It is all up to the decision we make, whether we are falling into depression and despair or trying to find hope in the times that seem to be filled with despair.

In this situation, I choose to find hope because when I looked at True Father’s words in 1957, True Father already -- yes, let’s give it up one time for True Parents and hope (applause) -- but in 1957, True Father spoke about this very issue. He actually predicted this. He prophesied that in the last days, these things would happen; that the people he loves would betray him, that Satan would try to take away the foundation members and True Parents had made with blood, sweat and tears. He predicted this in 1957. These prophesies he was speaking fifty years earlier are now coming true. When we see this, we can say True Parents can truly see into the future. They can truly see and prophecy. They know what they are talking about when they are predicting the future.

We see these kinds of things are happening now. Father said it is in the end times that these things will happen. That is very hopeful too, because it is only after the end times that we see the new beginning.. If True Parents were not the Messiah, if they were the false Messiah, this would be a point of despair.

We can feel it is the end of times when all these things are happening. The betrayal to True Parents and all those kinds of pain and violation of their heart and their parental right would last forever if they were not the real Messiah. Because they are the real Messiah, because they prophesied this in the past, and because they prophesied that this time would not be eternal, that we would be victorious through this time, and that we would see the age of Cheon Il Guk, I find hope. I chose to find hope in this time with True Parents and walk forward. (Applauds)

The key is to remember that if God is indeed the parent of humanity, there is no parent on the Earth that understands God’s heart more than True Parents.

If we look at the providential history, we can see, of course, that God experiences the pain, the terror and the agony of the fall. His most trusted disciple dominates his own children, and throughout history, continues to try to block the providence. There is no providential figure -- when you look at Noah, Moses, Abraham and Jesus -- there is no figure that experiences the kind of pain that God experiences in the fall.

Noah experiences the laughter and the mocking he encountered when he was building the ark. That does not compare to the worldwide mockery and the mocking that True Parents had to experience in their lifetime.

Moses had to walk through the forty days of wilderness, but he had to nowhere near walk through the ninety-year course that True Parents had to walk..

Abraham had to offer one of his children with the heart of offering his children and put Isaac on the altar. True Parents have already had to offer four of their children to the spirit world.

Jesus was not able to fulfill the four-position foundation because of the cross, and so could not experience the incredible love of the parent-child relationship and the incredible pain that can occur in that relationship, the pain that God endured at the fall of man.

As a central figure in the providential history, only True Parents are experiencing the incredible pain of God when God was in the original creation, when He was right in the Garden of Eden.

In the end, True Parents are not only the victorious ones that come to take the sins from humanity, the Lord of the Second Coming like Jesus was, but they are the ones to take the pain off, take the crosses off of God’s heart and to hold them for God, as a filial son, to walk that path of suffering for the sake of God.

Nobody experienced that kind of violation of their parental right and the pain they had to endure, that God had to endure at the fall, and that True Parents are experiencing right now.

Last week, we met King Hezekiah from the biblical stories and we encountered the Assyrians that were attacking into Jerusalem and conquering all the cities of Judah. They were moving up to Jerusalem. We heard that God came down and destroyed the Assyrian armies led by King Sennacherib.

There is an after story. The scriptures go on to say that God gave Hezekiah the blessing of the great victories because he had to continue to fight small victories. He was very stressed by that, and he became ill. It is not only a physical illness, but the Bible also intimates that it is a combination of both physical and mental duress and stress.. It is during that time the famous story of Hezekiah and the wall occurs. Hezekiah is told by the prophet Isaiah that he has no more time to live, that he quickly has to organize all his things that God would take him very soon. That is the message God had sent through the prophet Isaiah.

Hezekiah does not take that prophesy at face value and he faces the wall. He doesn’t turn to any other person any other human being, but he faces the wall. He focuses solely on the greatness of God and he offers his prayer and his faith. He reminds God of the course that he walked in trying to glorify God, in walking the path of faith. It is in that moment that God uses the prophet Isaiah to come to him again and tell him that God will bless him with another fifteen years of longevity and also victory for Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Israel [Judah].

In the same way, in this time of difficulty when we are experiencing betrayal as a church and True Parents not really being obeyed, and we see this kind of things that are occurring that are tremendously painful for us as a community, we must remember the path that Hezekiah chose. In that time of difficulty, Hezekiah chose to face the wall, to focus solely on God, to focus solely on God’s goodness. We take a hint from that and focus our attention on God and True Parents, on hope, and on our ability to move forward.

If we are able to move with that kind of faith and that kind of power we chose to take, as God blessed Hezekiah with health, prosperity and victory of being able to return back to God, I believe God will also bless Unification movement with renewed health, renewed blessing and renewed glory for God and True Parents worldwide.

During this time, brothers and sisters, although it is tough and it is a time of great challenge for us as a community, it is important for us to always remember that we can choose to continually have hope in God.

Let us finish with our final words from True Parents. This is from the 66th volume, the 43rd page. Let us read together.

“Therefore, in order to be a true person with a steadfastness of unchanging truth, you have to be beyond death. To be beyond death, you first have to conquer death. This means there will be a collision at some point between your changeability and unchangeability. When they collide, your changeable elements will shatter, and only your unchanging elements will remain. It will be a collision between life and death. At that time, you must overcome death. Then you will have life. It is reasonable that you must pass through this stage on the path to making a relationship with God.”

Aju.

Let us all rise and offer our final prayer to God and True Parents. Let us raise up our hands as if we were wiping the tears from God’s heart and lifting our hands toward the heavens, and let’s pray, gather all of our hearts up towards heaven.

Closing Prayer:

Dearest most beloved Heavenly Father, our most beloved True Parents, we thank you this day. Father, we want to glorify your name this day. We want to offer you all the glory and victory, because we know and remember that you are great, that you are in control of the situation, and that through the situation, you are making us see that True Parents are truly the ones who have inherited, who have fully understood your providential pain and suffering, that they are experiencing all the pain and the loneliness, the heart-wrenching betrayal and all the life shattering scorn that you had received.

Father, we pray that True Parents may be vindicated, and that as they take the crosses from your heart, we, as their filial children, can take the crosses from their heart and liberate them, free them from that type of pain.

Father, it is something we wish to do as children of True Parents. We pray that we may walk the path of that kind of filial piety. We are truly grateful this day, and we pray that you can remind us of the incredible hope we have as a Unification movement.

Father, things that have been prophesied before are coming to pass, but as the prophesy says, this stage would not last forever but that, with the victory of True Parents and walking together with them, we would see the Kingdom of God on Earth unleashed before our very eyes.

Father, we are so grateful and we are so thankful. We believe in you and we believe in our community worldwide. We believe in our faith and we believe in the filial piety we have to our True Parents of Heaven and Earth.

We thank you so much. We want to uplift you today. We want to stay strong in joy and give you joy this day. Father, we pray these things with a grateful heart and with all victory and glory returned unto thee. We pray these things in our own names, as central blessed families here together in our sanctuary, we pray in our own names.

Aju.

Notes:

2 Kings, chapter 20

1: In those days Hezeki'ah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, `Set your house in order; for you shall die, you shall not recover.'"

2: Then Hezeki'ah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying,

3: "Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in thy sight." And Hezeki'ah wept bitterly.

4: And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him:

5: "Turn back, and say to Hezeki'ah the prince of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD.

6: And I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."

7: And Isaiah said, "Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that he may recover."

8: And Hezeki'ah said to Isaiah, "What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the LORD on the third day?"

9: And Isaiah said, "This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?"

10: And Hezeki'ah answered, "It is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps; rather let the shadow go back ten steps."

11: And Isaiah the prophet cried to the LORD; and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which the sun had declined on the dial of Ahaz.

12: At that time Mero'dach-bal'adan the son of Bal'adan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezeki'ah; for he heard that Hezeki'ah had been sick.

13: And Hezeki'ah welcomed them, and he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses; there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezeki'ah did not show them.

14: Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezeki'ah, and said to him, "What did these men say? And whence did they come to you?" And Hezeki'ah said, "They have come from a far country, from Babylon."

15: He said, "What have they seen in your house?" And Hezeki'ah answered, "They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them."

16: Then Isaiah said to Hezeki'ah, "Hear the word of the LORD:

17: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the LORD.

18: And some of your own sons, who are born to you, shall be taken away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."

19: Then said Hezeki'ah to Isaiah, "The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good." For he thought, "Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?"

20: The rest of the deeds of Hezeki'ah, and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

21: And Hezeki'ah slept with his fathers; and Manas'seh his son reigned in his stead. 

Standing on the Side of Truth

Hyung Jin Moon
October 24, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan Seoul Korea

Main Sermon:

Let’s first start with True Parents’ words. These are True Parents’ words in 1971 and this is from the collection of speeches volume 40, 77th page. Let us read this together and dwell and meditate on the meaning of the reading. So we read in English. Please follow along in English.

“After receiving the call to walk the way of God’s will, you should always search with sincerity for the objective you are meant to fulfill. I am moving forward with the entire problem of the providence of restoration; that path is not peaceful. I have to surmount many disturbing and ever-changing situations, beyond anything I could have imagined when I started. As you walk this way, purge your mind of greed and rid your heart of pride. It is impossible to succeed with the mind of ‘I am going to try this; I am going to attempt that’. Even if your plan succeeds, it may contradict the Providence since it was planned from a human perspective.”

Aju.

There are times in our faith, because we are one community and one world community and we are one family that serves True Parents that seeks to glorify True Parents, has faith in True Parents; we, through our faith transcend national boundaries and backgrounds, etc. You all are from Japan, I am from America, and many brothers and sisters are from Korea. But we transcend those boundaries because of our faith in True Parents. That is what binds us together, the faith, the love that we receive from True Parents and the lineage we have received from True Parents. But there are times I cannot think we face challenges and we are compelled, we are asked to rise up and stand on the side of truth, to stand for God and for what is right.

In the modern era we have heard, most everybody has heard of the famous peace activist, Gandhi, who fought against colonial Britain from trying to exploit the Indian people. His movement was founded, the Satyagraha Movement; that is, in Sanskrit “satya” means truth and “agraha” is translated like as force or power, or force. So the truth-force, the force of the truth is what the Satyagraha Movement moved with. And as you know, the movement challenged the colonial rulers extremely strongly. When in their faces, demonstrators were beaten, were threatened, and even killed, but until the end, Gandhi emphasized that the fight against evil and oppression must be done forcefully but non-violently. This later influenced people like Nelson Mandela and people like Martin Luther King Jr. who also fought for human rights.

We as Unificationists in the modern recent times have also had to stand up for our brothers and sisters in Japan recently, in the fight against injustice and the violation of our members’ human rights and your religious freedom. When this project first began, Kook-jin nim was sent into Japan. As you all know in the Japanese church it was an extremely difficult time last year where the government and many different situations were happening. They were raiding our churches as if we were criminals and they were almost entering even into the Head Quarters building, as you all remember. That was a very terrible time.

At the beginning everybody believes that this project would not succeed. We would not succeed with this project, it would fail and that we should wait, maybe we should wait until this problem resolves itself and not make such a big stir about such an issue. But see, what we realized is that there are forces that were purposely and organizationally moving with a mission orientation to destroy our movement, trying to take away our legal religious status. And if that was to happen, then our Unificationists would not be recognized, in their faith as people believing in a viable and real tradition. If we were to wait for the issue to resolve itself and had done nothing and just allowed the government to come in, for the different forces to come in, our Japanese congregation would be completely at risk and losing their religious freedom and human rights.

As you all know, as you are all visiting here from Japan. So we started to fight, we started standing up for each other, for our church, for our religion, and for True Parents. At first “this was dangerous”, people said. “This would never succeed, it’s going to create more problems,” is what people said. But Kook-jin nim came across very clearly, “We will fight for our human rights and our religious freedom. We will fight against religious persecution, systematic organizational religious persecution, criminal kidnapping, criminal confinement, even rape and murder of our brothers and sisters. We will fight this. We will not wait and stand idle as these cases continue to mount and our human rights are stripped before our very eyes. We will fight.”

Of course this fight is not over yet. But we have many huge strides that have been made. We have received news coverage around the world about this issue of human rights violations in Japan against Unificationists. We have succeeded in the United Nations acknowledging Goto Toru San’s case and other Japanese brothers and sisters’ cases as authentic cases of violation of human rights. Through international pressure and particularly the work that In-jin nim is doing in America, with the Congressmen. We were able to give international pressure here in Korea as well, demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy. Also in Japan I know you have been doing demonstrations, peaceful demonstrations, bringing light to this issue. The government in Japan has been challenged internationally for its obvious lack of living up to its constitution and reputation as a legitimate democracy with freedom of religion as a protected constitutional right.

Just last month on the 6th of October, we had a full one hour documentary on SBS about the issue of our human rights in Japan. Nobody ever imagined that we could get a one hour nationwide documentary done by one of the three big media groups in Korea KBS, NBC and SBS. They are all nationwide broadcast channels and SBS covered for one hour the issue of confinement and kidnapping of our brothers and sisters in Japan. With this particular program, we were expecting maybe a 5% viewing rate. That is normal for documentaries at this hour, at 11pm at night. This would be very good, this would be average. We were hoping maybe for 7% which would be great, that would beat the average. That would be fantastic success and we were praying for 10% which would be absolutely phenomenal; almost unthinkable, 10% of the population.

The next day there was the many, many on internet, the viewing rates for that program. They came under many different numbers but these are the numbers that SBS uses themselves for their viewing rating ok? The numbers that SBS uses to view its own program was not 5%, was not 7%, was not 10%, it was 11.7% of the nation! (Applause) Over the entire nation. That was almost 12% of the entire Korean nation. That is over 4.5 million viewers, million viewers, who watched that program that night! We don’t have 4.5 million Unificationists in Korea (laughter) but we had 4.5 million viewers that night. That night we watched the broadcast with Kook-jin hyung at Cheon Jeong Gung with True Parents, yes and I remember while we were watching the coverage, we can see the heart wrenching stories of our brothers and sisters who are suffering because of this human rights violation. Their families are being torn. Their religious freedom, their constitutional right is being taken away because nothing is being done. Not even one case of prosecution over 4,300 kidnappings. Not even one case of prosecution. This is outrageous. We could see brothers and sisters there in their real life story. We could see that these are real people. Unificationists are not some kind of ugly demons but real people who are having their human rights stripped from them. They can’t even return to Japan.

I remember when True Parents were watching the program, especially when one of the Christian ministers in Japan who also admitted that he would help in the kidnappings in the program. Also at one point got up, stood up and said “I don’t want this interview to continue,” and left. If you all saw the program you saw that point. During that point I could remember True Parents saying

“Now, it’s been now, the world will know. Now the world would truly know the situation of the victims that have been Unification Church members. That we have silently waited and suffered and been stripped of our human rights. But now the world will know.”

True Father was so happy as the broadcast ended. He was so happy and said “Good job! Korean members, all members, good job!” Like this. He was so very happy that day. Let’s give a moment of applause (Applause).

I remembered that night we were so excited and so proud of our brothers and sisters who stood up and fought, especially the ones who were in the program. There were very difficult situations they had been, to gather a lot of courage and stand up and be on T.V. to share their story which is very personal. It is very painful. But they had the courage to do it. Everyone was so grateful because True Parents acknowledged that courage and invited even those families that were in the program, invited them to Cheon Jeong Gung. They came and had the lunch and evening banquet. All those brothers and sisters, the Japanese and the Korean husbands were invited to celebrate with True Parents. Let’s give a big round of applause for our brothers and sisters. (Applause)

But I remember that night so grateful and we were walking around, me and Kook-jin hyung walking around at night around Cheon Jeong Gung outside and looking at the sky and walking. I remember this feeling so grateful that we can stand up for our brothers and sisters. We’re telling each other, “We’re so grateful we can stand up for the real saints of our movement.” When really everybody doesn’t want to touch this issue that really I’m so thankful to Kook-jin because he had the courage to step forward and say “No, we’re going to fight, fight for our brothers and sisters’ rights. Because of that we’re able to come this far, which is incredible. Really it’s a miracle that we were able to be on SBS for one hour. As you saw on that program they even revealed the Principle, our principled interpretation of the Fall. They revealed that we believe, as Unificationists, that True Parents are the Messiah and the Lord of the Second Advent which we’re very proud of. They announced that to the whole nation, so nobody has any doubts what we believe because we believe what we believe, that it’s true. So that day was a real miracle.

But the day after, SBS was in a very difficult situation. It began getting criticized, very strongly. Usually there are only about 200 comments after a program is done. The very next day there were over 1000 comment, saying to SBS “What are you? Are you a Unification Church broadcasting channel? What are you? Do you have Unificationists in your managerial staff? What are you? Who is that reporter? Is he an Unificationist?” Like this. We could see that the people that were writing like that, many of them were very close-minded, fundamentalist Christians attacking. “Why are you doing that for Unification Church? We tuned in, we saw the program because it was called the ‘Kidnapping Issue of Unification Church’ so we tuned in, and we watched the program because we thought Unificationists were kidnapping Christians or other people or we watched the program and it was the other way around. Unificationists are being kidnapped. Why are you reporting that?” Very ridiculous statements.

But within a very few days, within a few days, good Christians, conscientious Christians started sending in and writing and they said, “No, if Christian ministers are engaged in this kind of activity, this is wrong! I am a Christian. This is not Christ-like. You can’t illegally kidnap and confine people and steal their human rights. I don’t care if they’re a minister or not, they don’t have the right to do that, to steal people’s human rights. If you want to do something, do something through the law but don’t do illegal activities.” Like this they started writing in. Then at the self same time, we had more people writing in like that. More people writing in saying “I am from a small minority religion and also we have been victims of kidnappings by fundamentalist Christians or by this or that group.” So, people started creating more and more issues and actually praising us. “Good job! Good investigative reporting!”

As we saw this situation occur, we could see that the national broadcast one hour program (of course this has never been done in our church history, this kind of program) but one hour program had huge impact, huge discussion started happening within Korea, especially within the Christian community. And that because now a national broadcast carry this documentary about the Unification Church and as the victims of human rights violation then it is so much more possible to now, international media outlets to carry this story. Because a nationwide broadcast which has credibility and a nation’s standard carried this, reported this as an investigative report, real human rights violation. Now in terms of other news media around the world it has become much easier for them to carry this story, to think about carrying this story and to feel credible in offering this as a real investigative report.

But still brothers and sisters we will have many challenges in this issue. There are many close-minded people who want to attack the Unification Church, anti-Unificationist. They will try to attack True Parents in many different ways, trying to discredit and dishonor True Parents in any way possible. At the time of the providence is moving towards 2013 the beginning of the Cheon Il Guk era. Then it is said that before the greatest victory, Satan attacks the hardest because he’s scared, he’s afraid that it’s going to happen. Something victory is going to happen, so he attacks from all sides.

From the outside, we see that the forces against Unification Church continue to try to slander our theology, slander the church, slander True Parents and our faith and also try to stand up for violation of Unificationists’ human rights, saying “that’s not a real issue” and try and to blame us for other things.

And even from the inside, we see things that are really wrenching at our hearts, especially as you all know particularly in Japan but all around the world now. We all know with the Rev. Kwak and UCI issue that has occurred. Last week all of you received the report of it. Many people when they hear that, we all feel scared because this is an internal issue. This is very sudden. Why, all of a sudden, are we taking a strong stance on this issue? Why, all of a sudden, are we taking a strong stance? “Isn’t it a little sudden? I mean isn’t it kind of out of the blue?” But honestly, for two years True Parents have waited, they have told us so many times to quickly solve this issue.

For two years as you may or you may not know, we have been waiting and waiting trying to solve this issue without it going to the membership, or going to the public as you know. But for two years straight, although members on the ground may not have felt it every single month, we, as the mission department have to manage and work with the different churches of the world every month. Literally every month, events that were against True Parents’ wishes were happening all over the world; different nations at different times. You may or may not know those details. Issues continue even to this day that go against True Parents’ command; that go against True Parents’ wishes.

Personally, I have struggled with this issue for over two years now because for obvious reasons, I have struggled with this issue. Personally, I have had many days when I’m thinking “You know, I’m really in the position of Abel. That I have to… maybe it’s better for me just to love and embrace them and just forgive. Just to love and just wait, just let the issue sort of solve itself, that’s the best way. Or another principle perspective and Jacob and Esau… maybe I should just, like Jacob, give all. What Jacob had to give Esau, this is what he did and that’s what happened. Maybe I should just give international president, this title or whatever other titles that True Parents may have asked me to do, we just give it to our brother. And that will solve the issue, just quickly resolve this issue.

But I realized that this is not a Cain and Abel struggle, this is not a Jacob and Esau story because when Jacob and Esau were alive and they were in that situation, their father was not on the earth. Isaac had already passed. But in the case of this situation, True Parents are here. So it is essential that unity does not just come through the siblings, but only through the central figures who are the True Parents does unity come. When we lower our heads in humility and serve the One Parent, then we are united. And so I realized this is not a Jacob and Esau issue.

This is more of an issue of Abraham and Isaac. When Abraham asked Isaac, “Will you die for me? Will you have faith and obedience in my prayer and command? Will you go on the altar for me? Do you believe in me? Will you go on the altar?” Would Isaac respond as the son? Would he say, “Yes, I will do so.” Or would he say, “I am sorry I cannot do that. I will go my own way.”

And really this is the issue that we have been seeing for the last few years and that have been really bringing so much pain to many family members around the world personally and also collectively. What I realized about the Jacob and Esau story is that Jacob made his own kingdom for 20 years. He made his own foundation and success. He made his kingdom which he offered to Esau, which was his own. All the riches and all the wealth and the entire kingdom that he created, he gave to Esau.

But when I look at myself, I have no foundation that I made myself, like Jacob who went out and made his huge foundation. I did not make the World Unification Church, the movement. I did not create this global foundation. The only reason why I am here in this position is because of True Parents. And it is True Parents and the members’ blood, sweat and tears that have created that global foundation. And that is not mine as the International President. That is not my kingdom. If I have something that I have created in the last ten years of my own training and my own faith life, then it is my Jeong Seong, my training, it is my practice, and it is my daily trainings -- Jeong Seong. This is something that I can call mine. But it is also something that I could not give to anybody else. It is the nature of Jeong Seong that it always remains, if you do it with your heart, remains Jeong Seong.

So, what we have to realize is that the international president’s title is just a name. I am an employee. I am True Parents’ servant. True Parents are here. Every decision we make must go through True Parents. Any big decision we make, True Parents has to sign it to give the approval. As the international president, people may think that I can just do whatever I think because I am the international president. It is simply not the case. Without obedience to True Parents, without working with True Parents, the international president’s title is worthless. It means nothing. It is just a name.

And so what I have noticed is that just like the situation in Japan, there were forces that were organizationally and systematically moving to harm our unification community. In the same way, for two years, we have waited event after event, situation after situation, this nation and that nation, again, this nation and that nation, that nation, this nation, just endless, non-stop. We witnessed a systematic movement to disobey True Parents, to go against their wishes, to discredit them; to defame True Parents’ children that they placed in positions of responsibility, they received organizational, systematic motions to do that around our world movement to create schisms.

For two years we were silent on this issue. Every month, True Parents have to see this situations occur. So I realized, just like with the problem of our kidnappings in Japan, which would not solve itself. If we waited to solve itself, we would no longer have religious freedom. In the same way, in this end phase before Cheon Il Guk, when True Parents hearts are being violated, their authorities are being violated, their command are being violated, which have never happened like this at this level in the Unification church history, then this situation will not resolve itself, by itself.

But only when the true filial sons and daughters of True Parents, the members of faith who call themselves real sons and daughters of True Parents, stand up, just like when we stood up and fought against human rights violation, to stand up and raise our voice. Do not just be silent and idle while True Parents are being slandered. This is a violation of True Parents’ parental right and authority, of their divine position. And this is the age of Unification Tong-Il Gyo, wherein “hyo ja”, the character “hyo” means, there is a character of filial piety next to the father. It is the age where the filial sons and daughters must stand up, go before True Parents and protect them from attack, protect them from dishonor and raise their name, and try to give them hope to uplift them.

We can see that there is a repeat of what God had to encounter. When God created the Garden of Eden, He had created everything -- all the plants, the mountains, the planets, the oceans and the fishes -- even Adam and Eve He had created. And they were doing fine. They were growing up in the growth stage. In three to five years, they would have reached the perfection stage and could become one as husband and wife, and start Cheon Il Guk from the family, tribe, society, nation, world and cosmos. God almost had Cheon Il Guk. Almost, almost had it! But at the very last stage, about three to five years before they almost had Cheon Il Guk, that is when Lucifer came in, the archangel.

Remember, Lucifer the name is a very good name. It means the bringer of light. It is a very positive name. God trusted him, loved him. God believed in Lucifer. Lucifer is a good name by the way. He gave His children for Lucifer to raise so that they would be obedient to Him. But at the last phase, it was where the fall occurred. We know this from the Principle. Lucifer took God’s sovereignty, took God’s children, and created the fall. We inherited false love. “I love me more than God”. We inherited this from Adam and Eve, and this is the beginning of our fallen history.

As True Parents are in the substantial representative position of God, they represent God here on earth, what we are seeing is that True Parents are going through all the heartache, all the pain, all the violations, betrayals, all the suffering and tortures that God Himself had to endure. True Parents themselves are again at this stage right before Cheon Il Guk, about three to five years right before; where if we were all just one and centered on True Parents, Cheon Il Guk would be fast approaching. But in this stage, True Parents are feeling the very heart of God, the very anxiety and pain that they have labored and encountered, God has encountered in the Garden of Eden.

Their most trusted disciple, most loved, most praised, most foundations given and most titles given to Rev. Kwak, given all to him, most trusted, most loved disciple of True Parents; but now the situation, just like in the Garden of Eden, saying, “I will go my own way now.” And even working to take away True Parents’ own children, trying to make people believe, and believe that they are their own brothers and sisters not their opponents, continues to take True Parents’ sovereignty, continuing to try to create confusion in the world church, almost young people all around the world in the Unification Church; non-stop, still going on at this moment, and at the same time, while True Parents are holding the Blessing Ceremony in Korea, the same time holding competing events, telling people to attend those events over True Parents’ events.

This kind of continual disobedience we see and we realized that this will not resolve itself by itself. But only when as a community we stand up for True Parents and say, “This is wrong! We love you but this is wrong. What you are doing is wrong. We do not support that. We stand for True Parents. We can decipher between right and wrong. And in this stage where we are tested, we take the position to stand for our beloved True Parents of Heaven and Earth. Let us give them a big round of applause.

In the Bible, there is a story of King Hezekiah. He was the King of Judah. Judah was the land that had united the northern region of Judah, that is where Jerusalem was, and the southern kingdom of Israel. Hezekiah took the helm. He would become king when he was 25 years old. In the 14th year of his reign, the Assyrian kings began to invade. They started to invade because the people started disbelieving in God. And the Assyrian king Sennacherib laid siege to all the fortified cities of Judah. And he was moving in Jerusalem. Sennacherib demanded all the riches of Judah. So he demanded 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold, etc. And Hezekiah had to give all the fortunes that Israel had muster to Sennacherib. He had to go into God’s temple and scrape off the gold from the pillars and doors to give to Sennacherib.

And in that incredible situation where everybody would have lost their fortune and everyone was losing hope and saying it was over, Hezekiah remained faithful to God. He did not waiver in despair. He said, “I worship you alone God.” And he prayed to God, and he did not doubt God but he praised Him in that time of trouble. When everything was collapsing, when the Assyrians were coming in and right about to destroy the center city of Jerusalem Hezekiah with nothing offered prayers of praise to God, thanking God, remembering that God is great. So the Lord heard his prayers. And at night, the Bible said He sent the angel of the Lord. And the angel went and destroyed the army of Sennacherib, the Assyrian army, in one night.

So in the end God did not let the Assyrians take over Jerusalem which was the center of the Land of Judah. And because Sennacherib’s desire was for his own promotion and was against God, as he prayed to his god Nisroch in his temple, his own sons came, and since they wanted his throne, they murdered him in the temple. They took him and cut him down. In the end, evil multiplied evil, unethical behavior multiplied unethical behavior; falsehood multiplied falsehood, and eventually destroyed itself. And this was the great genius of God.

In the same way, even though there are many archangels that are rising up, on the outside they are trying to attack us from different angles using different central figures, also on the inside, archangels are rising up trying to discredit and dishonor True Parents, to try to defame their children, standing up, creating anti-Unification Church movements. As these things are happening, as the Unification Church is becoming more mainstream, as the Unification Church is moving into much more acceptance than it has ever done, as True Parents are becoming more and more accepted and seen as doing incredible things, then there are these attacks that come from both inside and out.

But at this time, we must remember just like Hezekiah did to stay true to our faith. We are here because of True Parents. We are here because we believe in True Parents. We are here because we stand as filial sons and daughters of True Parents in this stage of Tong-Il Gyo where we will protect True Parents; where we will stand up for them, where we will lift up their names and where we will glorify them as their filial sons and daughters. Let us give it up for God and True Parents!

If we do that, we will see God is in control. He will use the attack that is meant to harm True Parents, harm our community. And in the temporary period for short term, God in His greatness will turn it around. He will use it against itself to show that True Parents truly walked the course that God walked. And that out of anybody in the world, True Parents truly understand the pain of God that they have walked through, that they liberate God and that they bring Him glory in their final stage.

Brothers and sisters, it is so important that we come together at this time as a community of faith, as a community that believes in True Parents, that believes in their authority, that believes in their mission, we come together and stand up for them. To stand up for what is right, just like what we did for brothers and sisters in Japan with our human rights, now standing up for True Parents’ rights as filial sons and daughters.

Let us end with our final words from True Parents. It is their prayer from March 29, 1959. Let us read it together:

“Father, Thou knowest the direction that we, Thy sons and daughters should go. Thou knowest the path we shall have to walk. Our minds do not begin from within ourselves for we have been chosen as Thy helpers, not for ourselves. Since it is for others and for Thee, Father we pray, Thou wilt take dominion over our hearts and not let them change to the very end.”

Aju!

Prayer to True Father:

“Glory be unto the Holy True Father, liberator of God’s heart, the King of Kings, the returning Christ. May we fully inherit your God’s true love. We bow before you, your sacrifice for us. For our trespasses, You suffered and died, descending into hell seven times to indemnify our sins from the individual to the cosmic level. We bow before you in utmost gratitude and give you glory.” Aju!

Prayer to True Mother:

“Glory be unto the Holy True Mother, Perfected Eve and Mother, mover of the Holy Spirit. Bless us with your sacred womb from which we are born again of the Holy Spirit. Pray for us your children and permit us to come closer to God and our Holy True Father now and when you ascend to the Spirit World.” Aju!

Closing Prayer:

“Dearest Most Heavenly Father, we thank you God this day. Father we thank True Parents this day for God, You are great. The first thing we must remember at this time is that God, You are in control. And Father, You have dominion over all things for You now live in the age of liberation and complete release. True Parents have taken on all the burdens and sufferings and betrayal and pain that You have endured throughout history and taken it as their own cross. They have walked the path of the filial son to You. And they have succeeded as the True Parents of Heaven and Earth, becoming your substantial representative here on earth.

Father, at this time, there will be many who will try to say, “How can you talk of unity, how can the Unification Church talk about unification when it itself inside is not united?” But what we must realize is that True Parents are walking the exact path that You walked. That not only can they empathize with Your heart-wrenching pain, but Father through the experience of betrayal, and pain and suffering, and through the experience of what You had to encounter with Your most trusted individual truth incarnations turned against You, Father, True Parents stand as the ones who succeed in understanding Your heart. Father, these situations, external and internal, these criticisms and attacks that will be thrown against the Unification family.

Father, we know that in the end, in Your great wisdom, You will use them, turn them around, and use them as evidence and proof that True Parents are Your direct representative here on earth and that they are the successful True Parents of Heaven and Earth. Praise God. Thank you so much Father for this day, for today Father we want to stand in clarity. We want to stand Father with understanding the difference between right and wrong. We want to stand for True Parents rights now. We want to stand for True Parents authority now. We want to no longer wait and be idle. And Father we in the shadows, we want to come forth and stand with our True Parents, protect them, lift their names, and glorify them.

We thank You so much Father because we trust You and we believe in You. And we know that You are in control. We thank You so much and we pray that You may inspire courage in our hearts, that we may more and more come forward and speak out against this issue. And to quickly resolve it so that Father we can become one and serve You and True Parents, and glorify Cheon Il Guk with our lives. We thank you so much. We pray all these things as one community, with one faith, with one heart, with one body and with one mind. We pray and offer thanks and bow to you and True Parents, in our Own Names as Central Blessed families.” Aju!

Notes:

2 Kings, chapter 18

1: In the third year of Hoshe'a son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezeki'ah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.

2: He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechari'ah.

3: And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.

4: He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Ashe'rah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had burned incense to it; it was called Nehush'tan.

5: He trusted in the LORD the God of Israel; so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.

6: For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses.

7: And the LORD was with him; wherever he went forth, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and would not serve him.

8: He smote the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.

9: In the fourth year of King Hezeki'ah, which was the seventh year of Hoshe'a son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmane'ser king of Assyria came up against Sama'ria and besieged it

10: and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezeki'ah, which was the ninth year of Hoshe'a king of Israel, Sama'ria was taken.

11: The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,

12: because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded; they neither listened nor obeyed.

13: In the fourteenth year of King Hezeki'ah Sennach'erib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

14: And Hezeki'ah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "I have done wrong; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear." And the king of Assyria required of Hezeki'ah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

15: And Hezeki'ah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasuries of the king's house.

16: At that time Hezeki'ah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the doorposts which Hezeki'ah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.

17: And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab'saris, and the Rab'shakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezeki'ah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Fuller's Field.

18: And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eli'akim the son of Hilki'ah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Jo'ah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

19: And the Rab'shakeh said to them, "Say to Hezeki'ah, `Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this confidence of yours?

20: Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me?

21: Behold, you are relying now on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

22: But if you say to me, "We rely on the LORD our God," is it not he whose high places and altars Hezeki'ah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, "You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem"?

23: Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders upon them.

24: How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25: Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.'"

26: Then Eli'akim the son of Hilki'ah, and Shebnah, and Jo'ah, said to the Rab'shakeh, "Pray, speak to your servants in the Aramaic language, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall."

27: But the Rab'shakeh said to them, "Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?"

28: Then the Rab'shakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!

29: Thus says the king: `Do not let Hezeki'ah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand.

30: Do not let Hezeki'ah make you to rely on the LORD by saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'

31: Do not listen to Hezeki'ah; for thus says the king of Assyria: `Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat of his own vine, and every one of his own fig tree, and every one of you will drink the water of his own cistern;

32: until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezeki'ah when he misleads you by saying, The LORD will deliver us.

33: Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

34: Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharva'im, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Sama'ria out of my hand?

35: Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?'"

36: But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, "Do not answer him."

37: Then Eli'akim the son of Hilki'ah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Jo'ah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezeki'ah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of the Rab'shakeh.

2 Kings, chapter 19

1: When King Hezeki'ah heard it, he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.

2: And he sent Eli'akim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.

3: They said to him, "Thus says Hezeki'ah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.

4: It may be that the LORD your God heard all the words of the Rab'shakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left."

5: When the servants of King Hezeki'ah came to Isaiah,

6: Isaiah said to them, "Say to your master, `Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me.

7: Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.'"

8: The Rab'shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah; for he heard that the king had left Lachish.

9: And when the king heard concerning Tirha'kah king of Ethiopia, "Behold, he has set out to fight against you," he sent messengers again to Hezeki'ah, saying,

10: "Thus shall you speak to Hezeki'ah king of Judah: `Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

11: Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. And shall you be delivered?

12: Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations which my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar?

13: Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharva'im, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?'"

14: Hezeki'ah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezeki'ah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

15: And Hezeki'ah prayed before the LORD, and said: "O LORD the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, thou art the God, thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

16: Incline thy ear, O LORD, and hear; open thy eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennach'erib, which he has sent to mock the living God.

17: Of a truth, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands,

18: and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore they were destroyed.

19: So now, O LORD our God, save us, I beseech thee, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou, O LORD, art God alone."

20: Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezeki'ah, saying, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennach'erib king of Assyria I have heard.

21: This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: "She despises you, she scorns you --

the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you --
the daughter of Jerusalem.

22: "Whom have you mocked and reviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and haughtily lifted your eyes?Against the Holy One of Israel!

23: By your messengers you have mocked the LORD,
and you have said, `With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest retreat,
its densest forest.

24: I dug wells
and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
all the streams of Egypt.'

25: "Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into heaps of ruins,

26: while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field,
and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops;
blighted before it is grown?

27: "But I know your sitting down
and your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.

28: Because you have raged against me
and your arrogance has come into my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
by which you came.

29: "And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same; then in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

30: And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward;

31: for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.

32: "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it.

33: By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, says the LORD.

34: For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David."

35: And that night the angel of the LORD went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

36: Then Sennach'erib king of Assyria departed, and went home, and dwelt at Nin'eveh.

37: And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adram'melech and Share'zer, his sons, slew him with the sword, and escaped into the land of Ar'arat. And Esarhad'don his son reigned in his stead.

Also see2 Chronicles, chapters 29 -- 32 

10.14 Blessing Ceremony Based on the Completion of the Settlement of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind

Hyung Jin Moon
October 10, 2010
Excerpt from Blessing Address
Sun Moon University
Asan, Korea

Through this holy ceremony, all of you are here today, as good men and women, pledging anew, receiving the grace of True Parents' special blessing amidst the joy of heaven and fervent wish of countless ancestors in the spirit world, to create families that practice true love.... Please understand that the reason you can take part today in this blessed occasion is because of True Parents' life-long commitment, and enduring true love and parental heart that has brought them through trials and ordeals, and through inexpressible sacrifices....

On their path, as they were investing themselves for the salvation of humankind, True Parents encountered Satan's indescribable temptations and innumerable obstructions. In that prison camp environment, where people were tortured and forced into labor that exhausted their body completely, and where people starved to death each day, Rev. Moon did not focus on his own well-being. Instead, he shared the meager food that he had with others, and conveyed Heaven's teachings. As a result he raised twelve disciples. Worse than the physical misery was the spiritual struggle against Satan. This was similar to the spiritual pain that Jesus suffered on the cross at his untimely death. True Father put his physical and spiritual life on the line to go to the bottom of hell not once but numerous times in order to bring Satan to submission and to guide humanity to the path of salvation....

Therefore, the ceremony today is not simply one of celebrating the marriage of good men and women. It is a serious ritual of conveying the heart of a parent through the true family ideal which God wanted to realize through all people since the beginning of time. Please remember, that True Parents who are here with us today for this ceremony, have walked the path of death countless of times and safe-guarded God's altar. 

Interfaith Assembly Keynote Address

Hyung Jin Moon
October 9, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Seoul Korea

UPF [Universal Peace Federation] International Chairman's Keynote address given on the occasion of the Interfaith Assembly: The Significance of Interfaith for Peace and Development on October 9, 2010. Seoul, South Korea.

Dear distinguished spiritual leaders from around the world! I was moved by the recitation of sacred words from the scriptures of your traditions, and your prayers, bringing God's blessing to our endeavors.

Thank you for gracing this occasion with your presence, and for your lifelong commitment in service to God, humanity and global peace.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here to the Cheon Bok Gung. This sanctuary is dedicated to the vision and wisdom of Almighty God, who leads us toward peace according to divine providence. This providence has been served through all the world's great religions and faith traditions and can only be consummated or realized by all of them working in concert.

Our meeting here in this holy place is an expression of our mutual commitment to discover the path to lasting peace, and I am sure that God's blessings are upon all of us.

This is also my spiritual home, the place where I come to give glory to God every day. This is a place where we share the good news of God's providence and the vision of his Peace Kingdom. I am very pleased that you are all here today. So, once again, welcome to Korea and welcome to the Cheon Bok Gung!

This morning, it is my distinct honor and privilege to share with you a few words on behalf of my parents, Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, Father and Mother Moon. This morning, because it is a primary focus for our Interfaith Assembly, and because it is so central to the mission of the Universal Peace Federation, I want to share with you my Father's vision for the establishment of an inter-religious council at the United Nations, for this represents an urgent and necessary step towards world peace.

My Father has great respect for the United Nations. Had it not been for the United Nations Peace Force, comprised of 16 nations, not only would this nation of South Korea not exist today as a free and democratic society where religion has flourished, but neither would my Father have survived to carry out his providential mission. Nor, needless to say, would I be here today.

Almost exactly 60 years ago, on October 14, 1950, my Father was about to be executed in the North Korean prison camp at Hungnam. He had been imprisoned there for almost three years by the communist authorities, who viewed his bold ministry and strong faith as a threat to their atheistic regime.

On that very day, miraculously, the United Nations forces liberated my Father from Hungnam concentration camp. The late Gen. Alexander Haig, former United States Secretary of State and NATO commander, and later in life a long-time friend of my Father, was a close friend of Douglas MacArthur, and a leader among the allied forces conducting the bombing raid that liberated my Father and spared him and other prisoners from certain death.

It was just over ten years ago, August 2000, that my Father outlined his vision for the inter-religious council, in a speech he delivered at the United Nations, just prior to the Millennium General Assembly. He explained that the UN would not be able to fulfill its mission without creating a council that would uphold the spiritual wisdom and heritage of humanity, representing God's guidance for all of us, in a way functioning as a spiritual compass and 'conscience.' Toward this end, he recommended that there be a senate or upper house of spiritual leaders within the UN system. This council would include exemplary and mature representatives and learned advocates of the world's spiritual traditions.

All around the world, there are people of faith working together for peace. For example, last month, in honor of the 10th anniversary of my Father's speech at the United Nations, I delivered a speech at the House of Commons in London. At that time, I was encouraged to learn that in Great Britain, where Sikhs and Jains, Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, Protestants and Catholics all live in close proximity, there are already interfaith councils in many cities. Many of you may already participate in peace councils in your own nations.

Just before arriving in London, I had been in Jerusalem, where I had the opportunity to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and representative leaders of Judaism, Islam, Christianity and the Druze tradition. Everyone expressed a strong desire for peace and explained that peace is an ideal that stands at the center of their sacred scriptures. At our UPF Consultation in Jerusalem, all the delegates affirmed wholeheartedly the importance of Father Moon's vision for the interfaith council, and for a UN centered on God. Father Moon sometimes calls this ideal a "Parent UN" or an "Abel UN." The United Nations should function like a wise and loving parent. Or, like Abel in biblical history, it should seek God's guidance.

A few weeks before that, I met with Hindu leaders in Nepal, and Buddhist leaders in Lumbini, [Nepal] birthplace of Lord Buddha. Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains fully appreciate and understand that lasting solutions to our global problems and a comprehensive peace cannot be realized without a spiritual awakening, and the full participation of those who affirm and practice spiritual principles.

I believe all of you can appreciate the value of my Father's proposal for the world's foremost political body. It is an idea whose time has come.

We all realize that peace is not simply the cessation of conflict. Rather, as we have learned from the great teachers and prophets of the ages, peace is much more than a political, economic or military accomplishment. Peace is rooted in our relationship with God.

Hence, for example, Muslims say, salaam alekhem, Jews say shalom, Hindus say shanti, and Christians call Jesus the prince of peace.

When we are lacking in spiritual discipline and wisdom, peace is not possible. Peace arises when we are in a right relationship with God, when our mind and body are united. If we are people of internal struggle, selfishness and sin, then all our efforts in this world will bear no good fruit, and will only lead to struggle and conflict.

Father Moon teaches us that the root of peace is the family. For this reason, he has championed the international and inter-religious World Peace Holy Blessing ceremonies, bringing together couples from every corner of the world, calling each to dedicate their marriage and family to God's ideal of true love and universal peace. There is no better way to create a world of peace than by strengthening marriages and building God-centered families. Father Moon teaches us that peace is rooted in the family; and the family is rooted in God; and God's essence is true love.

In this way, on the foundation of the individual and family centered on God, we can expand the realm of peace to other levels, to the tribe, society, nation and world.

Tomorrow we will all have the opportunity to attend the Holy Blessing Ceremony officiated by True Parents. The Kingdom of God is a world of peace, a world that fulfills the hope of all ages and all religions for a unified world of peace. Jesus instructed his disciples to pray centering not on "man's kingdom" but "God's kingdom."

Jesus also called his disciples to repent and to forgive their enemies, and to work to deliver humanity from the bondage of sin. This is a formula for peace.

As important as political and secular social movements have been, God's central providence throughout history has been led by the founders of the great religions. That process continues today. We ignore the essential and necessary importance of religion only at our peril. Those who advocate atheism, moral relativism, and selfish materialism are leading humanity down a wrong path that leads only to destruction.

Likewise, only leaders and nations who center on God's true love should stand in central positions in the world today. For God calls us away from selfishness and self-serving behaviors, and toward a life lived for the sake of others.

Hence my Father has called the UN to include the great faith traditions in its noble mission, and establish a council within the UN system. Otherwise, the efforts of the UN will fall short of their objective, and humanity will suffer. We cannot disregard the truths of God that religion brings. Father Moon was called to his great messianic mission by God, in a direct encounter with Jesus Christ, when he was only 16 years old. In 1960, he established the position of True Parents, together with my Mother, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon. They stand in the position of True Parents with the mission to fulfill the mission of Jesus and complete God's providence at this time in history, working hand in hand with God-centered people of all faiths.

At the Assembly of the World's Religions, convened in 1985, my Father gathered leaders from all faiths, and he called for the production of an anthology of sacred texts, showing the common values shared by all religions. This resulted in the publication of World Scripture. My Father considers World Scripture as one of the essential texts in the canon of Unificationism. Recently, my Father also published his autobiography, entitled, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen. It has been at the top of the best seller charts in Korea for almost 2 years. It has now been published in English. I encourage you all to read this fascinating and inspiring book.

Through it, you will learn more about my Father's vision, his character, and his mission at this time in history. Indeed, through his autobiography, I invite each one of you to seek to understand the heart with which he has so fervently/ardently pursued his mission to bring about lasting world peace. Please read it and take its message to heart, as it provides many insights into the way to build a deeper relationship with God.

In conclusion, I want to thank each one of you, who represent the people of this great nation and the world's great faith traditions. May your experience and your deliberations over the next few days be enriching and enlightening.

I hope that each of you will make a determined effort to promote my Father's vision for an inter-religious council at the UN. More importantly I hope you will support him in his wider mission to establish God's Kingdom on this earth.

Let us work together to build one family under God, and a world of universal peace. We are all called to play a central role in God's providence at this time. I know that True Parents pray about this each and every day.

Thank you for your attendance here today. God bless you, your families, your communities and your nations. 

Starting Point of Heaven

Hyung Jin Moon
October 3, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan Seoul Korea

Main Sermon:

Today I want to talk to you about the starting point of Heaven. Usually when we start, we begin by going to the World Scriptures, and also our Biblical Scriptures; but today, because the Blessing is next week, we are going to focus on the central text, or the primary text, True Parents words. So today we are going to go to True Parents' collection of words and speeches, Volume 26. Let's read together.

"Man and woman are God's masterpieces; when they love each other centered on God, it is supreme transcendental love, not worldly love."

Aju.

The second one comes from the selection of speeches 279, and let's read together.

"Marriage joins the life of a woman and the life of a man. In time, through children, it joins the lineage of the man, and the lineage of the woman. It thus begins a history, a nation, the world, and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth."

Aju.

And the third one comes to us from Volume 97. Let's read together.

"We marry for the sake of our partner. Therefore the man should have the attitude that even [if] he finds some aspects of his wife unattractive, he will love her even more than if she were beautiful."

This is the Principled way. This is not only for men, okay? This is also for both spouses. In society there is a common phrase, or common notion that love really can last three years at the maximum. So there is a particular hormone that is released that gives you the predicted newly wed, honeymoon stage, etc., and you feel infatuated and in love for three years, maybe max.

In Korea there is the playful joking that after three years it becomes all about "Chung," and you just become used to the person, and you just stay married because you are used to them now. And they even say that it is "mew in Chung". I don't know how to translate that in English. I don't know how to translate it, but it means something like, "even though you can't find everything attractive about this person, you basically stick with it." I don't know if that is a great translation, you are going to have to look it up; study your Korean, and do the Mew in Chung, okay? But this is NOT a Principled perspective. Father speaks of this relationship, the couple true love relationship, as the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven.

So this is why we are going to focus in on this realm of love, because one week later we have the blessing. So in this week, looking over Father's many, many incredible words about a couple's true love relationship in my own mind, I delineated it into eight different stages, or levels. Now there are many, many profound statements from True Father, but in order to digest this a little easier, I organized this into eight stages…what I call "The Couples True Love Stages." Okay, we'll go over these briefly, and then we'll go through them very briefly. You could write a book on this; I may even write a book about this. We'll go through them briefly today.

The first stage is ATTRACTION. There is an attraction.

The second stage is GIVE AND RECEIVE ACTION, which is the beginning of giving and receiving action.

The third stage is EVOLUTION. There is growth and development.

The fourth stage is UNITY OF PURPOSE AND MISSION, or external oneness.

The fifth level would be INTIMACY, deeper intimacy. This is how it is translated in Korean, as the INTERNAL ONENESS. In English you have this sense, but in Korean we didn't have this sense of language; and so number four is external oneness, and number five is internal oneness.

Number six is SURRENDERING TO LOVE.

Number seven is TRANSENDANCE.

Number eight is THE KINGDOM OF GOD; okay, the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

So, let's go briefly through this, as we prepare ourselves for the blessing.

Number one; we go through the first stage, the ATTRACTION stage. This is not simply physical attraction, "Oh he is handsome, she is beautiful." Not just this kind of physical attraction. Here we are attracted to each other as newly blessed husband and wife. There is something mysterious, unknown, and undiscovered about this person. There is a desire to connect with this person; and so it is not just a physical attraction. It is this different mysterious attraction that also exists at the first level. There are also expectations that we already have, and notions that are strongly at play at this level of attraction.

Then we move to the second stage, which is the beginning of GIVE AND TAKE ACTION. In this stage, we begin to be with our spouse; and so we begin to give and receive. We begin to move the give and receive action. Here we start learning about the different habits, and the different notions of our spouse. We start giving and receiving, and in this give and receive action we find that there are points that we are completely one on, and then some points that we completely disagree on. And at this stage it is very easy to begin judging your spouse, because of their different expectations.

One spouse thinks having a career is very important for his wife. Another remembers his mom always being home and taking care of the children. So again transfer of conflict. One spouse thinks making money is the most important thing, while the other thinks that donating to higher causes is the most important thing. One spouse thinks they should focus on personal happiness, the other spouse thinks, no, God's happiness. So here at the give and receive action stage, there is the learning of similarities, but also the differences.

At this give and receive beginning stage, the differences start to become noticed, and many give up here at this stage, saying "Well we don't match so well. I think I'll break up and get blessed next time". This is the stage where many blessings fail. Many people get stuck here, even for 30 years. They can get stuck at this level, the second level where you are just starting the give and receive action.

But we have to remember that the marriage is never stagnant. It does not stay the same. It is always evolving and moving in the direction in which it is led. So here it is important to be open hearted, be patient, and empathizing with the other person's perspective. In essence, this is to keep the give and receive action moving, not just giving up and saying, "Oh, it's over." When we got blessed, my sister gave me wonderful advice. She said, "When you get blessed, and you have an argument with your wife, you must never let it go on to the next day; you must resolve it that day. And you must have a situation where you can WIN/WIN." So that is the place where we are training in those levels.

The third stage is EVOLUTION -- growth and evolution, or growth and development. And at this stage, the couples are now mature. Many people don't even reach this stage of the stages of love. Many people cannot even reach this stage. At this stage the couples are mature. This means that they understand that the differences are not an excuse for breaking the blessing. They are now mature enough to understand that even though they have those differences; it is not enough to destroy this blessing. They begin to evolve and open themselves up to considering and adjusting to the other one's wants and expectations. And just by the fact of trying to empathize with the other, their upbringing, or their life style, or their perspective, how they grew up, etc.; then there is a move towards accommodating, and beginning to attempt to change oneself in small ways, beginning in small ways, and then allowing the give and receive to flow more naturally.

I remember when I first got married, I was in the bathroom and preparing for sleep, and brushing my teeth, and the toothpaste ran out. So I threw it away. Then I went in a couple of minutes later, and the toothpaste was out. It jumped out of the garbage can, and it was on the sink, but it was cut in half. As I investigated this mysterious phenomenon, I realized that my wife had cut the tube of toothpaste and was brushing her teeth, and digging out the remaining toothpaste inside. There was still a lot of toothpaste near the top, the cap, and so she was digging it out. When I saw this, then I realized as she explained to me that her father was a minister, and her mother taught her to always have respect, be frugal, not stingy, but be frugal; because, many times as a minister you would have to move in difficult situations. So you learned to be frugal.

And at this stage, if I were just to judge her and to say, "This is terrible," then from this small thing can come a misunderstanding. But in understanding that is her upbringing, that is a good heart; that is a good practice to be frugal in that realm; that's good. So in understanding that, I could grow, and also this kind of give and receive we could see in our own relationship. Here we evolve and are becoming more and more united, from small things first, to greater and bigger things.

Now stage four is the unity, or what we call the external unity of purpose and mission. Here in this stage we are now moving into the stage of unity. Both have been evolving and growing and developing and now are becoming more accommodating to one another. You are now more pleasing to be around. You are not so annoying to be around anymore. You are now more pleasing to be around, and both are making effort continuously for unity. Now both are investing real effort, putting in purposeful effort. Here the unity comes in the form of the common purpose, and the common direction. You have come this far, and have evolved, and invested energy and time, and grown the marriage to this level, so now this marriage is much more precious to you. It is not as easy to break. It is now very precious to you. You are both more deeply invested in the external unity, the mission and the purpose of the blessing, and emotionally and spiritually attached to the success of that. So here in the fourth stage of unity we are now finding those elements.

You realize that it is not all about your mission, and your purpose anymore. True happiness in the marriage taught you that peace and happiness comes in now living for the other. This is the stage where you can really understand that, not just in intellect; you can really start to embody that. This extends in your marriage not only about you both, but now it is about raising children. It is about the mission of raising good children, or the mission about serving your parent, or the mission of being a good example as a blessed couple to the community. It is the common mission and purpose that exists at the fourth stage.

Now many people don't progress beyond this stage. Many blessed families have good marriages, but they stop at this stage of life. This is still a very good accomplishment, but this is only the fourth stage. In a principled perspective, when Adam and Eve reached maturity, they were able to receive the blessing, and then within the spousal relationship with give and receive action; then God's love could be manifested. This is the start of the Kingdom of Heaven. From this love comes the manifestation of the family and the nation, the cosmos, etc.

At the fifth stage, we enter at the stage of INTIMACY or INTERNAL ONENESS, which is a nicer translation. It is here our purposes and life direction have become united, not the small things, but the big things. The purpose of life becomes united; now you share this fundamental purpose -- to fall in love again with your spouse. This is the stage of internal oneness.

You have the chance to fall in love with your spouse again, to find a deeper level of all levels physically, mentally and spiritually. You can see that both of you have grown, not only more accommodating to each other, but that your purpose of life has become united. But further than that, you start to develop an admiration for the other, a great respect for the other, a profound trust for the other and the freedom arises in this internal form of oneness.

You feel intimately connected as a blessed couple. Your sense of creating an intimate marriage as a example for others, becomes a practice, becoming more deeply and more intimate. Whereas in the previous stage, of external oneness, this is being an example as a united purpose or mission, in the internal stage of oneness; this is a practice that brings us closer to God, and closer to each other than you have ever been. Give it up for God and True Parents.

But that's only the fifth stage.

The sixth stage is the stage of SURRENDER. Here, you no longer worry about your future, or your spouse's at a fundamental level. Your intimacy, your internal oneness has grown to such a profound level. Now, you don't care [about] the previous level. You're like a train on the tracks, the tracks on the rail road. You're moving in parallel, in the same direction. You can move happily, joyfully, playfully on this rail road.

Now at the stage of surrender, you don't care where the train is going; you don't care where it will lead. If it is with her, if it is with my wife, I am going! You surrender, your life is no longer yours; you surrender your life. Now it is in God's hands. This marriage is no longer mine. It is God's. You surrender it up. Now you always give the benefit of the doubt to your spouse. You surrender to the power of God that flows through them. Your love is so strong here, that you can easily surrender your desires to bring joy to your spouse.

At the earlier levels, sacrificing your desires, accommodating to your spouse, was somehow difficult, you were complaining about it internally. You were grumbling about it. At the stage of surrender, sacrificing your desires for your spouse is easy! No problem! It is a joy! You can begin to feel the entire cosmos in your spouse; you can feel the sense of unworthiness to be with such a person. And the product of this is that you feel profound gratitude towards God and True Parents for being able to bring you together with your spouse. Let's give it up for our spouse! Praise God! Let's give it up for God and True Parents that bring us together with our spouse. Then that's only the sixth level.

We're entering now in the seventh level of TRANSCENDENCE that True Parents were talking about during Hoon Dok Hae that we just read; the transcendental love. At this stage, we are in transcendental oneness, completely inseparable; you're no longer two entities with the same purpose, you're now one inseparable foundation of love, investment, effort, overcoming victories, etc. At this stage, you can feel the entire presence of the entire value of the cosmos. Even you can feel the presence of God in your spouse. You can see the cosmos in her eyes; you can feel the whole world in her voice, feel eternity in your destinies together. You're completely one, inseparable at this stage. You feel constant gratitude for being together.

And at this stage, you no longer feel fear or dread of being separated by time, space or death. You transcend time and space and even death. No longer do you fear being separated even by death. No matter where you are, you're always with each other, transcending time and space through this power of love. You now can sense each other so profoundly that every moment together is an experience with God's love and grace and glory, and there are no blockages that can break your spouse or give and receive action at this stage. Your marriage transcends all. You exist for the sake of the other, and the other is YOU! You not only exist for the sake of the other, now, at this level, the other is YOU! You are totally transcendentally one. I want to give it up to my wife, my love! Praise God! I don't know if we reached this level yet, we're training though.

God can dwell here now. Each day is the Kingdom of Heaven. God dwells here, gives and receives in profound joy with you and your spouse. Peace, freedom, unification and happiness are already here. Anyone who comes near your couple, or even sees your couple, can not only see a good example of a good relationship, but could feel the divine love of God flowing from your spouse over the relationship. You experience the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, at the spousal level, and this is the start of the Kingdom of Heaven where your family, nation, world is in God. You can feel completely free to love without reservation, hesitation. You're in complete peace, no conflict to destroy this oneness now. You're in complete unification; you're not only the happiest spouses, but now you return divine joy to God and True Parents as a blessed family member.

Your blessing does not only impact your life and the life of others, it impacts almighty God, and it impacts True Parents with profound joy and happiness. This is a Kingdom of God where you can exist as husband and wife for eternity. As True father explains, it is absolute, unique, eternal and unchanging and now God, not only dwells with your couple, He is filled with the give and receive action of your True Love. It is not only Heaven for your couple, it is Heaven for God. That is a wonder of the Kingdom of Heaven.

In conclusion, this is the power of the Blessing. We have the opportunity to move throughout all these incredible stages of experiencing God's love. When we center our marriage on God's purpose, we can set out on the right direction and eventually experience all these levels of love. At times, we'll find ourselves moving up and down, and jumping between levels, but you need really to master the level you're at. You have to train, you have to practice. It doesn't come by wishful thinking. It comes by investing and training. When we hear and see this, many of you will be asking: "What level am I at?" Some will say:" I've been married for 30 years, I'm still at level 2!" But the point here is that you keep training; the training is really important.

We're training our mind and body all the time. But now we're training with our spouse, so we do the training together, we engage in the 8 day prayers, we can do the 8 day prayers together per day. We can join in the morning prayers, we can go witnessing together with our spouse. We found incredible spouses that found tremendous level of love practicing together. Help the community more, serve God more. In that realm, as long as we keep training, we keep being grateful, not only as an individual, but as a spouse; in training, keep positive and living for others. God will bless you and you do bless others in ways that you cannot imagine. Give it up for almighty God and for our central blessed families! So this is where we're going.

Brothers and sisters, it's very important to remember that True Parents desire is for us to create this kind of Kingdom of Heaven in our spousal training. But as we remember, as we have one more week to the 10.10 Blessing, as we prepare for that, as many of you prepare for that, remember the value of the Blessing and the profoundness of the spousal relationship. It is just, as Father said in the Hoon Dok Hae in the CSG, the start of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let's end with our True Parents final words. This is very amazing. This is from the collection of speeches from 96th volume, let's read this together: What is the Kingdom of Heaven as a couple? It is the state of matrimony where a man and a woman are totally united as one. A Heavenly couple is inseparable; they could lose their legs by exploding dynamite but still keep embracing with their upper bodies! Amazing! That is possible only with True Love. Then you can attain the Kingdom of Heaven as a couple.

Let's all stand and return our beautiful prayers and love to True Parents and God, let's raise our hands as we pray:

Dearest most beloved Heavenly Father, dearest True Parents of Heaven and Earth. Father we thank You for this day. Father we want You to receive all the glory, we want You to receive all the success we have. We have our existence because of You. Father, as Jesus spoke in Matthew 23, the greatest commandment is to love You, with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and our strength. Father, let us be the kind of people that can train, that can cultivate our love in profound ways towards You. Father we pray that You can receive all the glory this day for You are the root of love, the root of compassion, the root of goodness, the root of peace.

We want to praise You; we want to praise True Parents, who have walked the path of crosses, who have gone the path of hell. True Parents saved their children with parental love. This love has given us the resurrection, the eternal life that we have prepared for, as we move towards our Seunghwa ascension ceremony. Father, we thank You and thank True Parents for the life they have lived, and we are offering our thanks and glory today.

Father, we pray for all the Spirit World that is being mobilized, all the great Saints and Sages of the past, our four Great Sages who are returning in resurrection, and for the entire world to be united. Father, we pray for the nations, especially for the nation of Korea, to have North and South unification. As Unificationists, we pray for this Fatherland to be united, we pray for all the communities and the tribes, and also for all the families of this world; that we may be families that become the Kingdom of Heaven for You.

Thank you Father for all that You have done, and as we prepare for next week, for attending True Parents at the Cosmic Blessing Ceremony, let's reflect back into our spousal relationship, our spousal True Love. If we're just at the first or second level, let us make the determination to move and to progress forward.

Father, we've been stagnating and hurting each other; Let us forgive as You forgive us and then let us move forward again. Father, we thank You so much and we pray that You may receive this small offering of prayer and lifting up Your name. We thank You so much in our own names, we want to thank You for the incredible chance to be Blessed. We pray all these things in our names, the blessed central families, before You and True Parents. Aju. 

Rooting Our Faith in Prayer and Spiritual Practice -- Interview with Hyung Jin Moon

October 2010

Hyung-jin nim wants religious faiths to connect to True Parents, and he has been working toward that end. In this interview, he looked at this issue and at the reinvigoration of our life of faith. He also described plans for True Parents' 2011 birthday as if they are set but later clarified that these are tentative ideas in the discussion stage. Nevertheless, readers may gain a sense of what is being striven for and the effort that goes into this significant holiday still four months away.

Question: I'd like to ask you about your visits to religious leaders' birthplaces.

Answer: Initially, we went on the world tour -- which Father sent us on -- so that we could meet the members and clarify True Parents' position, so that everyone can be united with True Parents. That, of course, is the central reason. But we've also been visiting religious sites, and sites connected with our four great saints) We have been to the birthplace of the Buddha,'- and to Bethlehem; we also prayed there, and set conditions. And we actually brought back stones, holy rocks, from the area.

We are planning to go to the Arab world, to Mecca, in November, and to visit the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, and to Qufu, in December, to the birthplace of Confucius. We'll bring soil from all the sacred sites to the holy land [Korea].

On True Parents' birthday we'll have seven days of festivals. Father instructed this to be done from last year.... We'll have seven days with many activities. We really want to highlight True Parents' Birthday to the world this coming February.

We'll hold the first ceremony in the morning at the Cheon Jeong Peace Palace with True Parents. In the afternoon, True Parents may come to Seoul, in which case the main event will be held at Cheon Bok Gung. And this is where the peace ambassadors and others will come and participate in a ceremony of the "land" of all the religions becoming one -- in Cheon Bok Gung.

Buddhist monks will come and bring soil from Lumbini, Buddha's birthplace, in a sacred chalice. Archbishop Milingo and other people representing the Catholic faith will come in their sacred robes holding a beautiful urn containing soil from Jesus' birthplace. Muslims will come and bring sacred earth from the Arabian Desert. And Confucius' descendants will come in Confucian robes and offer earth from Confucius' hometown.

The earth from these lands will be mixed in a large container with holy salt, with which we can purify the world. It will all become white. We will prepare this at Cheon Bok Gung.

It will be a grand ceremony. We're going to create a big stage -- not the stage that we have now in the temple, but a much larger one that takes up the whole front of the sanctuary. We expect that religious leaders will come out and offer representative rituals or prayers -- for example, Buddhist chanting and Muslim saint.' They would do Middle East all these rituals to pray for three things. The first would be world peace, the second, unification -- for North Korea and South Korea particularly, the unification of our fatherland. Some may pray for Middle East unity. The third would be prayers for heavenly blessing -- not offered selfishly, just wanting to receive them, but offering thanks that we are receiving blessings.

Members as well as all the peace ambassadors would be able to come during that seven-day period. On each of these days there would be different festivals. There might be lotus lanterns or doves -- all kinds of things. There will be music, and we hope the Little Angels will come. Members, non-members and peace ambassadors will all be able to come. They might have the opportunity to make a small [monetary] offering. Once a year for peace ambassadors wouldn't be so hard.

Each participant will receive a little container. We will take a small portion of the holy salt with all world's sacred earth mixed in and we'll spread it in our homes for the blessing of our home, the sacredness of the home. It will become holy land. It will protect it and also be a blessing for the children and all the people dwelling there in that sacred space.

There might be some holy ceremony to which everyone would come down after they receive the holy salt. They would come downstairs to the prayer room, where the four great saints are already present, and offer their prayers for the ensuing year -- whatever they are really wishing for, not with a selfish heart but with a grateful heart.

We are also working on statues of the four great saints, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and Confucius embracing, or holding hands. We will he creating these. If this can be completed by February, it will be one of the real highlights.

Hyung-jin nim went on to share his idea that members and guests alike would participate in a ceremony to connect with the great religious leaders in a personal way so that we can have a living spiritual relationship with them. Hyung-jin nim goes on to explain on what basis these blessings come to us.

The real point, however, is for everyone to understand that all this is because of one man and one woman, whom we call True Parents. It's their life accomplishment. Their lives have been dedicated to world peace, the unification of the world and North Korea and South Korea, and bringing the blessing of Heaven to the world.

This will be an opportunity for the peace ambassadors not just to come and receive from us. They will learn how to give, to offer to True Parents. This is a very good way even for our guests. It's so easy because everybody wants a big blessing. It's also great because everybody agrees with praying for world peace and for those who've died in war, and for North and South unification.

The real highlight is to come pay our respects to True Parents who are bringing the world's blessings -- all the sacred soil -- to Korea, creating Korea as the sacred land of the world. No other Korean person in history has ever done such a thing. So we're going to glorify and honor True Parents on their birthday, not just internally but also in the external expression.

Every year this is going to be strengthened. When December arrives, everybody thinks of Christmas, Jesus' birthday. Come April, everyone recalls it's the month for celebrating Buddha's birthday. And every year when February comes, everybody in the nation will know that's True Parents' birthday is coming. This will happen more and more throughout the world each year. Everyone in the world will know that in February people make a pilgrimage to Korea and receive heavenly fortune.

Father personally sent me out on a world tour, to go to the sacred sites specifically. So we are making the effort to go to those lands to bring back blessings for everyone. Essentially, we're going out for the sake of the people, for anyone who will come to receive the blessing. That's not just members. We want to take that next step of bringing all the peace ambassadors.

All of them should contribute, nationwide and worldwide. The other people in the nation as well.

Many Buddhists I know are already happy, delighted and excited to come. This really highlights our inter-religious work and what Father has done for the world, what he's done for the spirit world -- for all those who fought as patriots for Korea in the past and highlights what he has done for the fatherland, bringing all the blessings down to Korea. The people of Korea should all come.

Question: Has any member of the True Family been to Mecca before?

Answer: No. I don't think anyone's been to Lumbini, either. From my point of view, it is very important to go, because I've had a relationship with the saints for ten years.

Also because I have a relationship with these saints, it's very meaningful within that relationship. We've brought them into our temple and if you come to my room -- my personal office -- they're always there. For me, they're very close. And they are all blessed.

Question: Do you receive something personally from them?

Answer: Well, yes, their spiritual presence. A couple of weeks ago, Jesus came. He was crying, because Christians have not accepted True Parents. He was very sad, very frustrated that Christians have been unable to get beyond their narrow concept. They can't accept that the True Parents are Korean. Jesus has given his mission to a Korean....

I've had spiritual experiences with the Buddha and other saints. They're very close.

Question: On your tour of churches in Korea, what developments have you seen that emerged as a result of the efforts to revamp the church over the last two years?

Answer: We have stronger churches now because more people are attending. That's more recent; it will take three years to get the culture right. But the culture has developed so quickly and that's very inspiring to see.

Some regions are far behind in terms of the general membership talking about witnessing, giving testimony. But other regions are all very openly talking about witnessing, as proud Unificationists. That's made a big impact. Some of the regions are faster and some are slower, but as the church gets stronger... Of course we have been investing in and rebuilding the headquarters in each region.

I'm going around calling everyone back to prayer and spiritual practice. We've got to get back to training; it's all about spiritual life.

When Muslims see us, for example, they're not going to see just whether or not we know the Principle, they're going to see how we're living, how we're praying, how our spiritual life is. I go around and speak about prayer, how we are praying. There's a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray. And most of us are praying in the wrong way. So we need to get back to prayer, to reflect on the words of Jesus about prayer and also refer to the even greater words of True Parents and how we actually should pray.

Once we do that, we see Heaven's blessing moving through our lives. We want to get back to the strong level of prayer that existed in our church.

We have been doing eight-times-a-day prayer training, and members can join. Many members at Cheon Bok Gung are praying at least three or four times a day. This is not just a prayer like, Oh God, I love you. This is a formalized prayer. You quieten everything else, put everything away and stop what you're doing. You bow to the ground... You actually do a prayer ritual. We do Eog Mansei, we pray for each of the eight stages and we say the Family Pledge.

This is stopping everything and centering again, eight times a day. The Hoonsa nims and some European leaders and many Cheon Bok Gung members have been participating with us.

It's very good because the spiritual power of the church, prayer and spiritual practices are increasing. As they increase, God's blessing flows much more powerfully. As we surrender ourselves, we open ourselves to God's presence, and then he is more powerfully present. Everything -- the whole day -- is constantly re-centering on serving God.

This is excellent training and it's having a good impact. I'm teaching this when I go to the different areas and everybody's returning back to prayer, back to spiritual life, back to the root. People are getting back to moving with the flow of the providence, moving with God's power, His grace, connecting with these. This is what the tour is about -- getting everyone to focus on the spiritual. And from that, once you surrender yourself to God in you, accept that God is your entire life focus...

When people refer to Jesus' teaching they usually recall "Love thy neighbor," but that's the second greatest teaching of Jesus. The first teaching of Jesus is to love your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength. That means every single moment, every single thought, every single heartbeat and every single feeling must be about God. This is the first, and (as he said) the greatest teaching, the greatest commandment. And it's from this that any compassionate action comes. Really loving your neighbor at a fundamental level, not at a superficial level, can only come when you love God with all your strength, all your heart and all your mind.

We're getting everyone back to prayer, creating a culture of prayer, and reinvigorating our life of spiritual training and spiritual practices in our movement. It's not just about education and lectures -- that is not enough. You've got to get back to the training.

To be able to do this with the members around the world and to have the members participate is wonderful. We all know how to do it. We all know how to do eog mansei; we all know how to say the Family Pledge, and we all know how to pray. So we just incorporate those into a formal prayer ritual, where we combine those with bows and different types of prayer offering. This is not just once a week, like Sunday churchgoers, and it becomes such a wonderful offering of fragrant joy to God. 

Dr. Joon Ho Seuk’s Sermon and Testimony: “Going the Way of Loyalty and Filial Piety”

Hyung Jin Moon
September 26, 2010
Cheon Bok Gung, Yongsan Seoul Korea
Transcriber/Proofreader: Beatrice Clyburn

Welcoming remarks:
Yeon-ah nim

Good afternoon brothers and sisters! (Good afternoon!) Welcome to the headquarters’s of the Unification Church! It is really, really nice to see you here today in this sanctuary! Today let us all go back to our prayer life and let us all return glory and our gratitude to our Heavenly Father and True Parents! Aju!

Hyung-jin nim

Good afternoon brothers and sisters!

We’ll start by manifesting the Principle: give and receive action, four position foundation, may I inherit the true love of God! Aju!

Today we read from Cheong Seong Gyung p.763. Father says

”The spirit world is the homeland of our original mind. The world we are to enter after this one is the world of heart, the spirit world. Hence if we train ourselves for our future entry into the spirit world we will have no problems once we get there.”

Brothers and sisters, it is such a precious time that we have on this earth plane, very short time but precious time! And it is during this time that we have the ability to train and practice so that we are ready for our entrance into the eternal world.

Hyung-jin nim’s introduction of Dr. Seuk:

Brothers and sisters, today we are going to hear from a very wonderful guest, very wonderful guest! We have the pleasure of hearing Dr. Seuk speak to us today. Many in the West of course will know Dr. Seuk. He spent over 21 years in America. He worked there as the CARP leader. He also has an illustrious career, an incredible career; he has an incredible testimony!

I personally saw Dr. Seuk when I was very young. We used to see him because he used to be around the New York area, and I thought he looked like a gentleman. He was also a martial artist, so we really looked up to him then, “Oh! He is so cool; he knows judo and all that stuff!” In working with him I came to understand what a great man this is, such an incredible man with such an amazing testimony!

He has pioneered some of the largest countries, the Soviet Union, Mongolia, China. It was under his leadership that the missionaries and pioneers began doing work and activities there, bringing people to True Parents and to the teachings of True Parents.

But Dr. Seuk is just an amazing man! We were here yesterday and I asked him if he could speak on the 10/10 blessing coming up in about fourteen days, and we were here practicing last night, and I asked him,”You know Dr. Seuk, can you tell us a little bit about your testimony too? You have such an amazing story!” As you know if we really live out our testimony till our Seunghwa ceremony, till our dying day, in glorifying heaven, then that testimony becomes a true beacon and example of hope. Within a testimony there are always tests– always a test that makes up your testimony and Dr. Seuk, through the many years pioneering many nations, has been through many tests.

Today he’s going to share some of those incredible experiences and how he was able to overcome those things. He is actually very bashful about his testimony. I had to really squeeze him! He is a judo black belt, 9th degree. 9th degree black belt! There are not too many in the world that are 9th degree! But I won, I won, I won! And he is going to talk about his testimony today.

Just an amazing gentleman! An amazing leader, and truly one that I am very proud to be able to work with, here in Korea.

As I mentioned in 1990 he went to the Soviet Union upon Father’s order to start pioneering work there. It was in the heart of the Cold War. In 1994 he started to pioneer in Mongolia, and he was the North Eastern region continental director until 2008. That’s when Father asked him to come to Korea and that’s when I actually began to work with him and I’ve had a great pleasure of working with him until this day.

He is currently the leader of the Unification Church here in Korea; he is also the Vice Headquarters’s Director of the World Mission Department. He is also the chairman of Sun Moon Educational Foundation which is the organization that holds all the different academic institutions that we have as the Unification movement. He is also recognized in outside organizations, Segye Pyunghwa Moodo Yana which is a martial arts’ federation; he is also recognized as the chair of the Korean police association. So he is not only recognized within our church but also in society.

A great leader, a great man, a humble servant of our Unification family and our True Parents! When he comes up let’s give him a warm round of applause because this man deserves it! When Dr. Seuk comes up, let’s give him a big round of applause! Let’s welcome him up to the stage! (Long applause)

Dr. Seuk’s testimony:

I feel very unworthy to receive such praise given by Dr. Hyung-jin Moon.

Back to 1954, I was around 10 years old, and my mother Mrs. Won Bok Choi, joined our movement. At that time she was a professor of Ewha women’s university; because of her faith she was dismissed from the university. At that time the whole nation persecuted our movement and our True Father. Actually our family was a very happy family that many people envied. But because of the Unification Church, because my mother joined our family then my family was broken. Because of that I had a lot of animosity against our movement, against our church. One day my mother did not even say one word of goodbye but she disappeared. So I had a great deal of animosity against our church.

Since then ten years passed.

As Dr. Hyung-jin Moon mentioned I was a martial artist, very healthy, very strong person but all of a sudden without any reason, I got a physical attack and lost my health. I got a very serious lung infection (pleurisy or tuberculosis) and I was struggling because of my health. I did not feel any hope in my life and I was struggling to find the true meaning of my life. So I searched around, reading books and visiting many churches and Buddhist temples, but I could not find the true meaning of my life.

I had been struggling for almost three years and all of a sudden I heard a heavenly voice,”You’d better find what the Unification Church is all about!” I had no idea where our church was located. I asked one of my neighbors,”Where is the Unification Church?” and actually he did not know. He said,”You just go to Myung Dong Street.” At that time we had a lecture hall there; many members were witnessing. So if you visited Myung Dong in front of the national theater, you would find the Unification Church.

So I visited there; I was caught by one of our witnessers and was guided to the lecture hall. Then I started to study the Divine Principle very seriously. For me to join our movement would mean betrayal of my father, my family, my brothers, and my friends, because they all were against our movement, our church. For me it was a very serious decision to be a family member; so I studied the Divine Principle very seriously more than three months, and finally I got the conclusion: Father is truly the Messiah, the Lord of the Second Advent, True Parents of all mankind… and I joined our family. It was 1965.

Later I heard the story that at that time Father was traveling around the world setting up Holy Grounds, and one day in Manilla, in the Philippines, all of a sudden True Father asked my physical mother, Mrs Won Bok Choi,”What about your children? I heard you have three sons; how are they?”

Mrs Choi answered back to True Father,”Frankly speaking, ever since I left my family it has been ten years but I never met my sons, or never heard about them, never even phoned them.” Actually that was true! We were completely separated. I never made any effort to find or see my mother and my mother also never made that effort.

At that time Father answered,”Time has come when one of your children will join.” Exactly around that time I began to study the Divine Principle. So I voluntarily joined our movement. Nobody witnessed to me but I feel that True Father is my spiritual father, as well as Messiah, Lord of the Second Advent and True Parent. So I am eternally grateful to True Parents.

My physical father was actually a highly educated person; he graduated from Law school in Kyoto, Japan. Also he was a very respected person by his disciples. Actually he loved my mother so much! Ever since my mother left her own family, my father had a lot of animosity against our movement, of course. So for me joining our family created a big struggle for my physical father, and whenever he saw me, his blood pressure increased. He could not bear it. Always he was watching me, checking whether I was attending the church. Early mornings I tried to go to the prayer meeting, and kyungbae service; I got up very early but I could not even attend the service freely.

My dream, my hope and desire was to freely attend the church and freely witness. Around that time the Vietnam war had seriously started. There was an announcement, “Army recruits martial artists to go to Vietnam!” One could wear civilian clothes because, in Vietnam, there was no frontline and wearing a uniform would be very dangerous. I would be free from psychological warfare. I could teach civilians martial arts plus I could win their heart and bring them to our side.

Then I felt,”I can witness very freely in Vietnam!” So I volunteered to a become martial arts’ instructor as Korean soldier. Actually at that time tens of thousands of Korean or American soldiers were killed -- it was a very intense part of the Vietnam war so there was no guarantee that I could come back alive.

I had to actually determine to die.”If you are willing to die you will gain your life; if you are willing to lose your life, you will gain it!” Believing in such a teaching, I volunteered to go to Vietnam, wearing a civilian uniform, and teaching martial arts. Then whenever I had time, I witnessed, using the English language. I contacted highly educated people who could understand good English.

I could witness to several people. Two people joined, the president of an international school and also the general secretary of the WMCA. They came to Korea to see Father, and Father offered them a meal. But later on, Vietnam was communized, so I could not find out where or how they were.

After coming back from Vietnam, I was discharged from army service, and was ready to do public mission; then again, I was stopped by my father. Whenever my father saw me his blood pressure increased. So some people told me,”You’d better leave your family otherwise your father’s health will be greatly damaged. For the sake of your father’s health, you’d better leave your family!” So I determine to leave my family. I reported to my father and he just cried and cried. The day I left my family, my father prepared a very good meal and he just cried and cried. Then also he gave me his blessing,”Please be successful in your new effort and in the rest of your life.”

At the time I had a serious determination,”Now humanistically speaking,in the secular sense I am betraying my father. How can I justify my action? What is the meaning of my betrayal of my physical father who loves me so much?” My father said,”I love your mother and you so much! Your mother betrayed me and ten years later you also. I love you so much! Son you betray me!” He was just crying and crying.

So how could I justify this action of betraying my physical father who loved me so much? So I had a very serious determination, “In order to justify my action and give it meaning, the only way I can live is to be a true filial son of True Parents, so that one day, when my physical father understands the true value of True Parents he will shed tears of joy. This time I make him shed tears of agony, but some day I will make him shed tears of joy!” That was my determination!

Then I started my public mission. So I became local church leader, then CARP leader for a few months. Then Father called me to come to America. In February 1972 I arrived in America. I stayed in America twenty-one years. Then I had a public mission in the former Soviet Union, China, Mongolia for eighteen years; altogether thirty-six years because for three years I had mission both in America and in Russia. So altogether for thirty-six years I had a public mission in foreign countries, leaving my home country and hometown, and two years ago because of True Parents’ graceful calling, I came back to my mother country.

I will omit to talk about my life in America and I’ll give you two testimonies from Russia and Mongolia.

As you know on April 11th 1990, True Parents visited Moscow. April 11th was the day of True Parents’ holy wedding, so they celebrated their holy wedding ceremony in Moscow. Then True Parents met Mr. Gorbachev. They completed the Moscow rally very victoriously, then Father came back to Korea, and later went to America.

At the time I was president of American CARP, and Father told me,”You must bring three hundred Soviet students to America and educate them.” We fulfilled actually more than three hundred fifty people. Father was very happy, then Father gave me direction, “You must bring three thousand people, so all together three thousand five hundred people, to America within one year.”

At that time the number of students exchanged between Russia and America was seven or eight. One year the University of Wisconsin located in Madison, a Communist hotbed, sent twenty students to Russia. Including that figure, the average number of students exchanged between America and Russia was seven or eight!! A severe cold war was still going on.

Father says,”Three thousand five hundred!” You can easily say,”Father, it’s impossible, slow down! Why not slow down? Three thousand five hundred, maybe in ten years!” We can say, “Slow down!”

When Father gives us such a direction, there is some meaning. We don’t know it; only Father knows. In order to educate three thousand five hundred people, we invited Soviet students to America twenty-seven times; minimum one hundred people, maximum two hundred and ten people twenty-seven different times! Many difficulties!

One time, we invited two hundred and ten students from the Institute of International Relations which produced many foreign ambassadors from the Soviet Union. They came to the airport but we could not get a visa for them. They were very disappointed. They were murmuring,”It’s impossible! How can we go now? We completely lost our chance!” But we told them,”Don’t worry! You will get a visa next Monday.” It was Thursday; Monday was only three or four days away, and excluding weekend, we had only two days to work on the visas.

We called each individual in their home.” You must come to the airport next Monday morning!” Meanwhile we found a secret window of the department of state, mobilizing senators and congressmen, Father’s good friends, True Parents’ foundation. The visa problem was immediately solved. Then we told Finn Air that we would charter another flight; they could not believe it!

Early morning on Monday, we went to the American consulate, and they said that putting the stamp on two hundred and ten people’s passports would take all day. We had only a few hours left before the departure of the flight. So we told them,”We, ourselves, will help you put the stamps; the KGB will guarantee!” After stamping all the passports, we had only forty minutes left before the flight departure. We needed to drive to the airport full speed; so we told all the police through the KGB,”Such a car with such a number will go full speed. Never bother them!”

We arrived barely on time, and we had no time to give all the passports, so we just distributed them randomly,”you get any passport, any passport!” The KGB already gave direction to the immigration office that the situation was taken care of. The students rushed inside the airplane and then the passports were given to the proper persons. Everybody was very shocked to see this kind of result and confessed, “Now we realize the power of Rev. Moon!” Give a big hand to True Parents! (Applause) This is one small example of the power of True Parents!

After suffering and overcoming many difficulties, we finally finished educating three thousand five hundred people. Then what happened? On August 17th 1991 there was a coup d’etat, a military coup d’etat with tanks in the heart of Moscow. The leaders of the KGB, of the military, of the department of foreign affairs, and the interior department all opposed Gorbachev’s glastnost and perestroika. At the time Gorbachev and his wife were on vacation in Yalta, in Crimea. They arrested Gorbachev and his wife and forced them to come to Moscow.

This was a coup d’etat, because Gorbachev’s right hand, left hand and all the leaders of the different departments were the main force behind it, and according to common sense this coup d’etat could not fail. But, miraculously, this coup d’etat failed in three days. If this coup d’etat had been successful, what could have happened? We may still have cold war now; history would have gone back to the cold war-time.

Father knew this would happen but could not reveal it. That was the reason Father said, “You must educate three thousand five hundred Soviet students within one year!” Father knew this day would happen, this coup would take place. Father knew! That’s why Father asked us to educate Soviet students.

So a miraculous thing happened. For the first time in Soviet history, civilian students opposed the government and stopped the coup d’etat. University students mobilized other young people, civilians. Then ten thousand people came to Moscow and with bare hands stopped the advancement of military tanks.

Who were the main persons? Those who were educated by True Parents in America. They got new vision, new courage, new hope for their country. They realized that if the coup was successful, history would go back to the cold war time and it would be eternal misery for mankind.

Mr. Gouliav, vice-chairman of the department of education, and of the national educational committee, was held in jail during the coup. Later he testified with these words, “Those who were educated by Rev. Moon saved the Soviet Union, saved the world.”

So Father knew those things would happen. Only Father knows -- we don’t know right?- but Father cannot reveal this kind of things because Satan would invade.

So what should we do? Have absolute faith in True Parents, absolute obedience to True Parents, because True Parents know everything and we don’t know anything.

Another story: after the coup was put down, the same year on December 24th, Yeltsin from Russia, Shushkevich from Bielarus and Kravchuk from Ukraine signed the papers and the Soviet Union was dissolved. Mr. Shushkevich, former Bielarus president and his wife are now a blessed couple!

From that time on we educated Soviet students from all the countries on a large-scale; in the winter time in Crimea, Black Sea area, and in the summer time in the Baltic area.

At that time I told our members and the missionaries, “From now we should prepare to pioneer Mongolia and China!” Nobody could believe it! The Soviet Union was a vast territory, one of the six largest lands in the world. In the Soviet Union, we had so many places to pioneer within 15 different republics! Russia alone had twenty-one autonomous republics. So many places to pioneer! But I told them,”From now, we must prepare to pioneer Mongolia and China!” Then everybody said,”It’s impossible!”

In 1994 Father gave me a special direction,”You must visit and pioneer Mongolia!” I was shocked to receive such a direction. I woke up; it was a dream! At the time in the former Soviet Union the telephone communication was so poor; calling people far away took sometimes two, three or four hours. So Father could not give me direction by telephone. I was moving around and Father did not know where I was. What was a sure way to give me direction? Through a dream! I could not escape, right?

So Father gave me direction through dream,”You must go to Mongolia!” When Father gives us a direction, Father always paved the way; it is not just at random or without any foundation.

Russia is a very vast country and by spiritual world guidance -- I can only interpret it that way we went to pioneer the Republic of Kalmykia where Mongolian descendants stayed after Genghis Khan attacked Russia. We pioneered the Republic of Kalmykia; we met the president, explained our goal, and the reason why we came to his country. And he welcomed us, surprisingly enough!

Then he gave me his testimony. He said that when he was a student in the Institute of International Relations in Moscow, one day a professor called all the students of the institute; he had a copy of Father’s message and gave it to everybody with these words,”This person, Rev. Moon, is the arch-enemy of the Soviet Union. You must know his thought so that you can destroy him.” So everybody studied Father’s words very seriously -- maybe more than us! They studied Father’s words very seriously.

Then Mr. Ilyumzhinov gave me testimony that by reading Father’s words he was inspired, and changed his view of life; he was very interested in Father’s life and Father’s words, so he got a book from Japan because he understands Japanese language very well. He studied Father’s words very seriously, reading many books, and he totally changed his view of life; he got a new vision for his future. He said to me, “Now I became the president of this country because of Rev. Moon!”

In 1994 Father gave me direction to go to Mongolia, so I consulted again with Mr. Ilyumzhinov. He is still the president and also the president of the international chess association.

So I told him,”Now I got direction from Rev. Moon to go to Mongolia” -- I could not say I got direction in a dream, he may not understand! -- Then he said,”Don’t worry the president of Mongolia is my friend, the prime minister is my friend, the chairman of Congress is my friend, I will introduce you to my friends”. He wrote letters of recommendation and called Mongolia to get appointments for me with the president, the prime minister, the chairman of Congress, everybody.

So we arrived in Mongolia one evening in the middle of May, and the very next day, early morning, at nine o’clock I met President Ochirbat, the first president after the liberation from the Soviet dominion.

So the first person to whom I taught Father’s message in Mongolia was the president; the second person was the prime minister, the third person was the chairman of Congress, the fourth person was the minister of education, then university presidents. (Applause)

I told them, “Now that Mongolia is liberated from being a Soviet Union’s satellite country, you will get confusion of values for young people, so we must educate young people quickly.” They agreed that in the summer time, in June, July and August, we could educate them in Baikal Lake- not inside the Baikal Lake, where there are several sanatoriums!- Straight up from Ulaanbaatar is the beautiful Baikal lake. Have you ever been to Baikal Lake? It is beautiful!

So we educated university professors, university students and junior and senior high schools’ teachers. And everybody agreed,”Young people need this kind of content.” So we quickly translated our textbooks from russian into Mongolian, then printed them in Mongolia and China. And then we moved to Mongolia, and spread Father’s message through textbooks in all different high schools.

Later in 2003 Mr. Ochirbat came to Seoul, Korea, gave testimony to all the ILC conference participants. He said, “Ever since Mongolia was liberated from being a Soviet Union satellite country, there was a great deal of confusion of values; then Rev. Moon’s thoughts gave new direction and new vision to my country. Mongolia is eternally indebted to True Parents, eternally grateful to True Parents!” That was Mr. Ochirbat’s testimony. (Applause)

What is the meaning of this story? Heavenly Father and True Parents arrange all the spiritual world for us if we make certain conditions. Even with me such a poor person, not so good with not enough Cheong Seong conditions, still Heavenly Father and True Parents arranged the spiritual world to be mobilized to help us.

Now I’ll give you my conclusion. Is it OK Dr. Hyung-jin Moon? May I speak one more minute?

Father fulfilled his mission completely right? So why should he be in the frontline mission suffering so much? Because we don’t fulfill our responsibility. What is our responsibility? It is to fulfill our tribal messiah mission.

To fulfill our tribal messiah mission, Father gave us big tools. One is Father’s autobiography. Mrs. Eun Ju Park, the president of Gym Young Publishers is an ardent Buddhist. One day Buddha appeared to her and gave her the direction to publish Father’s book. The spiritual world helped.

Also on April 19th in Hawaii Father proclaimed that he had mobilized all the ancestors since Adam and Eve; that they were all liberated and mobilized. So we must mobilize the spiritual world. In order to mobilize the spiritual world, we must set Jeong Seong conditions.

For that reason we must follow the example of Sae Gye Hae Jang nim, Chook-sa-jang nim (International President Hyung Jin Moon and Rev. Yeon Ah Nim). For more than ten years, without even missing one day, they have been doing Jeong Seong conditions from three o’clock in the morning! Now they are giving Jeong Seong conditions eight different times. The whole day!

After Hyung-jin nim came back from visiting Nepal, Thailand, and the Philippines, Father said that is was a great accomplishment. Father received one report and made one comment in Yeosu

”My son Hyung-jin always feels sorry to me and feels unworthy and inadequate. He always has such a feeling, then always feels grateful to True Parents”.

Even though he made a great accomplishment, this is his attitude towards True Parents, unworthy, sorry, inadequate! What about us, including myself? Even though we don’t fulfill our responsibility we never feel sorry to True Parents.

This time Hyung-jin nim and Chook-sa-jang nim (It is the title that Yeon Ah Nim is called in Korean) went to Israel right? He made such a great declaration in front of religious leaders from Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Father was so happy, so joyful, so moved by Hyung-jin nim for standing on behalf of True Parents with a great deal of conviction and confidence.(Applause)

When Hyung-jin nim and Chook-sa-jang nim came back to Korea, Father was so moved and touched that he gave a deep embrace to Hyung-jin nim and shed tears of gratitude.

When we reflect upon ourselves, we know that we are not such a person, right? Always we are someone that gives Father worry, concern, and headache; sometimes we even put burden on True Parents. So I think that we should really reflect upon our sin, and repent trying to resemble Hyung-jin nim and Chook-sa-jang nim.

Also, many times, whenever Hyung-jin nim came together with True Father, as he was entering and leaving the Hoon Dok Hae room, he was holding onto True Father’s arm tightly. Then one day True Father told him,”You don’t have to hold my arm so tightly.” And Hyung-jin nim’s answer was,”Aboji, if I leave your arm I will die!” Father was very happy to hear that.

So we must hold onto True Parents’ arm tightly, tightly! Never lose hold of True Father’s arm! Of course we cannot hold onto True Father’s arm substantially but at least spiritually. Tightly hold onto True Father’s arm then you can advance to the day of Ki Won Jeol, January 13 2013, with deep conviction and confidence, investing your total heart and effort! Utmost sincere heart moves heaven!

So today is the day of Il Gung Il Sa Chuk Pok Chik. (10.14 Blessing) Il Gung Il Sa (10.14) has a special meaning; it is the day of Father’s liberation from Hungnam prison. Until Ki Won Jeol how many days are left? 880 days!

What kind of day is today? Today is the birthday of Hyung-jin nim. You know that? Let’s give a big congratulatory applause to Hyung-jin nim. (Applause)

So on this very precious day we must have a new determination and conviction. We’ll be true loyal and filial sons and daughters to God and True Parents. If you agree let’s give a big warm applause to our True Parents with conviction and determination.

God bless you and your family! Thank you very much! (Applause)

Hyung-jin nim’s final remarks and prayer:

Let’s give it up one more time for Dr. Seuk, an incredible man of faith, an amazing man! Thank you so much for your beautiful testimony!

Brothers and sisters, let’s all rise, and let’s end with a final prayer. Let’s raise our hands towards the heavens and pray.

Dear most beloved Heavenly Father, we thank you so much! Father we want You to receive all the glory and praise today, because anything we do, Father, is because of You. We thank You so much that You were able to speak through your son today, and Father, through his words we were able to realize that You are overseeing the entire works of creation. You are overseeing our lives, and Father, when we believe and have faith, or when we move forward without fear into uncertainty, You will use that faith as a condition to bring about a substantial victory for heaven.

We thank you so much this day and we want to offer our glory to True Parents who lead us into the path of salvation, and bring us into the dimension of union with You. Father, we thank You so much that today we are able to remember that we are more than just this individual; that our purpose and mission is much greater than just our own personal desires and wants.

Father, lead us! And this day we also pray that You may move the spiritual world as Dr. Seuk mentioned, that You may use our Jeong Seong and acts of sincerity as spiritual conditions, Father, so that new realities and new victories on earth can be manifested.

We thank You so much. We pray also for the world, that we may have unity, unification; that we may become one and return back to You, and Father, find our true identity. We pray for the nations, and in particular for the nation of Korea, our Fatherland, which is still divided between democracy and communism. And Father, we pray that the thirty-eighth parallel will dissolve, that this nation can become one as the condition for the unity of the world. Bless this Fatherland, Father, that we are in today, and use us for that tremendous task.

Father, we pray for the communities, and all the tribes and all the families of this world, that we may bring glory to You and to heaven. We thank You so much and we pray that You may use us, and that we may lead our lives for the sake of your purpose and for the sake of your will. And Father when we move in that direction, we know that our life will be one that is unforgettable.

We thank you so much and pray all these things with a grateful heart, returning all the glory to You and True Parents this day as central blessed families. As Father said, the filial sons and daughters need to rise up and surround True Parents, protect them, be with them and move with them; and that is when Tong Il Gyo, real unification, will occur. We pray for that, we believe in that and Father we move towards that with our lives and our purposes.

We pray these things in our own names as central blessed families. Aju!