Sun Myung Moon
June 23, 1989
Inaugural Address
Seoul, Korea
Father and Mother receive honorary crowns during the installation ceremony.
Respected President Seok Woo Sohn, eminent guests, and head and leaders of each clan representing the Korean people!
Today I thank you for your single-minded effort in preparing this meaningful ceremony to install me as the Chairman of the Korean Root-Finding Association.
As you might already know, I am founder of the Unification Church, the International Science Conference, the Assembly of World's Religions and the World Media Conference. While guiding the global Unification movement, I have been made chairman or honorary president of many important organizations. However, seen providentially, the significance of this ceremony is very remarkable.
Deeply hoping that this movement can bring the opportunity for finding and better attending God who is the Root of all beings and of life itself, I happily accepted this chairmanship.
From time immemorial, Koreans have put emphasis on clans, and have regarded ancestors and the root of their clan as most precious. Some say that such a tradition came from the fact that Korean history was the history of an agrarian society based on a collective, sedentary life-style with villages whose members had the same family names. Others feel the origin of such a tradition was the Confucianist teaching whose core was the familial ethic. But the ultimate origin is in a deeper place.
From early times, Koreans have respected Heaven and treated filial piety as the most fundamental virtue. This was Heaven's plan for specially raising this people. God has been raising this people to worship ancestors and to be filially pious to their parents in order to make them the people in the world who best attend Him, the Root and Parent of all humankind. Therefore, centering on matchless respect for Heaven, loyalty, filial piety and etiquette, Koreans have been taking care of their clans and lineages.
All of you as representatives of clans and lineages have been working to preserve our precious tradition by teaching it to our next generation. But, the Korean society is going through the process of rapid industrialization and urbanization, causing the communitarian spirit to disappear and the position of the family, challenged from many sides, is also changing. Recently we are faced with a crisis in which our traditional culture and good customs are totally shaken. Such an unhappy situation is worsened with the conflict between generations and the confrontation between labor and management.
In such a situation, the Root-Finding Association should develop not only into a movement for finding and attending the ancestors of each of us, but into a movement which confirms that all of us are descendants from the same root. Genealogies on the lineage-level should be unified into a genealogy of an entire people.
Clan-level root consciousness should be sublimated for a higher root consciousness as a centripetal force of all humanity. Originally we were not created in a relationship where one cannot survive without eliminating another. We are a community receiving resin from the same root. Our movement should not be restricted to the people-level. We should call everybody's attention to the fact that the root of various races is ultimately one, and should educate humankind to harmonize through one root and to live as a community on board the same boat called Earth.
True Parents join in a ceremony-closing mansei cheer.
All leaders should open their minds
With the development of science and technology, humankind has come to need international cooperation now more than at any time in the past. Global communication and joint projects for resource mobilization are urgently needed. The global environment and atmosphere should be preserved for the survival of our descendants. We in contemporary society cannot predict the future of the world and are uneasy with ideological confrontation between east and west, mass-production of modern weapons, international terrorism and crimes, prevalence of decadent trends, and so on.
All leaders should open their minds, cooperate internationally, harmonize for the purpose of the whole and solve urgent world problems. Now, more ever, we should understand all humanity as one organic community, demolish barriers between races, harmonize and unify cultures.
That being so, with what can we eliminate barriers between races and realize the ideal world? How can we fundamentally remove the obstacles to peace?
How varied are opinions even at the lineage meeting, and how difficult it is to make harmony and unity even in one family! If only the clue for a solution could be found somewhere. Where is the starting point for harmony of different cultures and traditions toward one world family without wars, and toward a world of happiness? The fundamental answer can be found only when humankind realizes that God, who is the root of all beings, is also the beginning and root of each of them and then follow the heavenly laws.
The purpose for me to have communicated with God and wandered in search of the heavenly laws, and gone through a course of spiritual discipline and practice throughout my 70-year life, was to provide the solution for this fundamental problem. Just as a man lives with his mind (not with his body), the end of humankind can come anytime if the fundamental problem in our relationship with God is not solved.
Respected leaders of clans and lineages! The origin of this universe is not simply material or based on spontaneous genesis. There is God the Creator who is the primary cause of the universe. He is the absolute, eternal, unchanging goodness.
All beings and phenomena in the universe are created according to God's basic design -- the purpose of creation. The purpose of creation is to feel joy. Joy, however, cannot be felt by oneself. In order for a certain subject to feel joy, its object is needed. The best kind of joy is felt when subject and object have give and take of love reciprocally.
Humans are God's sons and daughters whom He created in order to feel joy eternally through loving them infinitely. They are the closest objects to God. In this way, God created a son and a daughter as ancestors of humankind. They are called Adam and Eve in the Bible.
Humans are God's sons and daughters
God, who is absolute, cannot make another strand of true love except this first son and daughter who are His objects of True Love. No matter what they are called, humankind, the objects of God's True Love, originated from one ancestral couple.
What kind of world would have been realized if our ancestors, Adam and Eve, had completed God's love, had give and take of true love with each other and multiplied good descendants? They were supposed to build an ideal family to attend God as their vertical, incorporate Parent, coupled in love, and then become horizontal parents. If, originating from that true family, a prosperous clan (that is, Adam clan) had been formed and developed into a people, nation, and finally a world population, that world would have been happily filled with God's love and goodness.
Such a world is none other than the Kingdom of Heaven: through this kingdom God's purpose of creation would have definitely been realized on earth. All humanity was to live in the earthly Kingdom of Heaven and then later go to the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven. In this way, God's purpose of creation was to realize a great family centering on God, making all of humankind one family.
The good family laws of Adam centering on God would have immediately become a tradition handed down from generation to generation. There would have been a unified world where there was only one language coming from one root, one culture and one heavenly sovereignty. Can we imagine evil, injustice, ideological conflict or wars in such a world?
But, what is today's reality like? We ended up with a world which is the opposite of God's Ideal. In an individual, mind and body are in conflict with each other. And in families, lineages, clans, societies, and nations which such individuals form, contradiction, disunity and struggles continue.
This world is a perpetuation of the misery derived from immorality, decadence, inequity, violence, wars and massacres, confusion of values, conflicts between cultures and traditions resulting in ideological confrontations.
I don't have enough time for a detailed explanation. However, in order to restore this world to its original state, Heaven has brought saints to light the heavenly way and educated mankind through various religions. It is not easy to practice goodness in an evil world. That is why so many righteous people have been sacrificed and why the true way should be that of self-sacrifice and unconditional offering.
By trying to find our "real root" through the root-finding movement, we reach our ancestors' predecessors who were the ancestors of humankind. The way to find the root of goodness is to overcome evil and injustice of a million different kinds. But we cannot find the true root without knowing God and the Heart that faced our human ancestors.
Father delivers his Chairman's address to the general audience at the Little Angels Performing Arts Center's main concert hall.
Through this people and this land God intends to realize a new heaven and new earth
Seen externally, a tree changes its appearance and color. But, after eliminating all the changing elements one by one, we see that there remains seeds and life which are fundamental to the root.
Similarly, the true root-finding movement which will return humankind to its origin by following the direction of restoration has to digest and solve all elements of evil. We should be engrafted to God's Life and True Love to become purified sons and daughters of God.
It is not accidental that Korea is proud of its time-honored wonderful genealogical records and has become a center for genealogical research. To be modernized, become rich, and live well externally should not be the only goal for Koreans.
Through this people and this land God intends to realize a new heaven and new earth of true love and to make a foundation for happiness for mankind.
It is a miraculous blessing I have brought to this people. Based on a revelation from God, I have shed light for the first time throughout human history on God's Heart and the Purpose of Creation. The Unification Movement of True Love which I am guiding, centered on a religious ideology I created, has already been confirmed as a movement that can save the life of the world beyond East and West, cultural spheres, nations and peoples.
Giving rise to spiritual and moral revolutions, it is being spread like a prairie fire in 137 countries. I am not preaching the theory of true love here. I am talking to you on the foundation of globally practicing true love through the suffering way -- risking my physical life because of global misunderstanding, extreme persecution and religious prejudice. I accomplished this motivated by God's True Love and Life Force.
Respected representatives of clans and lineages! This root-finding movement should become a true love movement based on God. In our lives we should inherit the teachings of saints, particularly Jesus -- who is the embodiment of true love. All of us should become heroes who face each other through God who is our Root. We should extend our love relationships to overcome the conflicts of this age, demolish barriers of age-long disharmony and realize a harmonious world. Especially, I understand that unification of South and North Korea should be accomplished on the foundation of homogeneity as one people through activating the Root- finding movement of true love.
Now is the time when everyone should humbly return to the root and through love become one with each other. We should not sacrifice the whole to benefit the individual. The global situation is such that we cannot hesitate any longer. We should, through the practice of love, materialize the blessing which God gave to our people. Let us all stand up and connect all peoples to our movement to realize, at any cost, the ideal of harmony of mankind through the True Root, the Lighthouse of True Love.
May God's Blessing be with you and your families! Thank you.
Report on the ceremony installing Father as the Chairman of the Korean Family-Clan Chairmen's Association
David Hose
Dr. Sohn Seok Woo
The Korean Family-Clan Chairmen's Association is called the Korean Root-Finding Association in Korean (KRFA). It is a national organization made up of the leadership of literally all (about 275) of the Korean traditional family, or clan, names. Literally embracing the entire Korean population, the KRFA was organized to stand for traditional Korean values, culture, and the unity of the Korean people. Guided by a deep inspiration, the President of the KRFA, Dr. Sohn Seok Woo, made contact with our True Father and asked him to become the Chairman of this significant organization. In personal conversation, Dr. Sohn gave testimony that he was guided in spirit that if the Korean clans came together in unity, then a great figure would be sent to lead them. His conviction has been that Father is that figure.
The morning of Friday, June 23rd, dawned clear and hot here in Seoul. At the Little Angels Performing Arts Center, activity had been going on since the previous day to prepare for the ceremony and program installing our True Father as the Chairman of the KRFA. While the public installation was to take place at 12 noon, a very significant and smaller private ceremony, the Il Shim Shik (One Heart Ceremony), took place at 10 a.m. in True Parents' quarters on the Center's third floor. This ceremony was participated in by our True Parents, 12 elder blessed leaders from the Korean Unification Church, and 12 leaders chosen from among the KRFA leadership. The participants, all dressed in white gowns, were guided by the Master of Ceremony, Rev. Kwak, in offering three full Korean bows to True Parents. This was followed by the presentation of two beautiful traditional Korean crowns. From a restorational perspective, the ceremony signified the unity, in one heart, of the Cain and Abel brothers centered on their common root from Hananim and True Adam and Eve. This quiet but rich internal event was certainly the core of the later, more public installation in the main performance hall at noon.
Well before noon, the main hall of the Performing Arts Center was crowded with KRFA representatives and much of the leadership of the Korean Unification Church. Panning across the auditorium, one could see a whole cross-section of Korean society: prosperous looking urban couples dressed in Western clothing, as well as traditionally clad old gentlemen with Korean straw hats and long chin whiskers. There was a distinct sense of historical Korea in the hall.
On the stage to the left of the podium sat various representatives of the KRFA including President Sohn; just to the right of the podium sat Father and Mother, joined by Hyo Jin Nim, Hoon Sook Nim, Dr. Bo Hi Pak, Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak, President Young Whi Kim and several other Unification leaders from Korea, Japan and America.
President Sohn started the ceremony with an introductory welcome and speech about the KRFA, and the privilege of having Father as its new Chairman. Father was introduced and gave a speech which really put the vertical historical perspective on the day's events and the KRFA.
After Father's speech, interrupted a number of times by warm applause, Father and Mother were each presented incredibly ornate and beautiful Korean traditional crowns. Given along with floral bouquets, the crowns were particularly noteworthy and gave one the feeling that an important moment of recognition was taking place.
Congratulatory speeches followed. Dr. Ahn Ho Sang, modern Korea's first national Minister of Education, led the addresses. He was followed by Dr. Pak, Dr. Osami Kuboki and Dr. Mose Durst. These last three speeches were especially important for helping the KRFA membership, generally not Unificationist, get a better grasp of Father and his worldwide activities.
After the closing of the public ceremony, the performance hall quickly emptied of the 1800 person capacity crowd, as everyone scurried toward cars and buses for the short trip to the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel, for a luncheon banquet provided and hosted by the "new Chairman." Another special moment took place during the lunch, when Father announced the creation of a new scholarship fund for the sons and daughters of the KRFA membership. In making his presentation, Father stressed the importance of the future and the young people as the nation's future leaders.
After lunch, the scene switched back to the Little Angels Performance Center for a congratulatory dance program by the Little Angels. This was the capper for a memorable day. There is little doubt that the KRFA membership will soon find their new Chairman to be a man who will take the organization deeper, wider and higher than its own founding goals.