Sun Myung Moon
April 8, 1985
Excerpts
Leaders' Conference
World Mission Center, New York
Translator: Bo Hi Pak
In our world there are 3.2 billion Asian people. As we concentrate more on ministering to those in Asian territory, we must come to know about the Asian world. Since it is the Asian custom to sit on the floor, you can now get some good training.
Those of you who are national leaders -- I want you to know that the era of concentrating on individual national level work is over. For example, we are no longer going to consider North and South America separately in God's providence, but rather together as one hemisphere. By the same token, we are not going to consider Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries separately, but as one territory. The providential point of view is global and holistic, not divided and compartmentalized.
I want you American people to feel that you are more than American. Go beyond your concepts of American identity and citizenship. If Americans had concentrated on America alone, they might have become good people for America, but not good people for the world.
The World Is Our Stage
Korean, Japanese, and European leaders have come to America in order to create an international movement here. You should all learn to organize in an international environment. I know that in doing this you are faced with great difficulties, but in the long run this is the only way we can become truly harmonized and unified, and move rapidly in the dispensational direction. Once you can create and work within an international frame of reference in your own minds, the world will become our stage. No matter where you go -- Japan, Africa, South America -- you will have no problem. This is why I got rid of the chairs at Belvedere service. Do you think I was right, or will you complain? It doesn't matter; I will still pursue the higher goal.
We are here to save the world; therefore, the world is our stage. I am already focusing on Moscow. The day will come when American people will go to Moscow. In the Soviet Union, if you have a loaf of bread, you can tear a piece off for dinner, and then use it as a pillow and sleep on it before you tear off a piece for breakfast the next day. The Russian people have this kind of tradition: they carry around a big bread bag, and they sleep on it. How handy that is! You don't have to go anywhere to get your meal. Also, many parts of the Soviet Union are very cold, and building a fire is not very easy. I would like to throw you into those kinds of circumstances and see you survive under them. Someone has to do it; someone has to target Moscow. What do you think?
I got rid of the chairs here so that you would not experience an ordinary, comfortable, American-style meeting. I know both the Western and the Oriental customs, and I want to train you to digest the two worlds into one and forge a unified way of life. It is not easy to make the two worlds into one, is it? I have been training you for over a decade, ever since I came here; so some Oriental habits have already become natural even to your biological body. No one grows pale, for example, when you have to sit on the floor.
Go Beyond Cultural Barriers
I have had to train myself in many diverse situations. Even in jail everything has become so natural for me because I know how to adjust to the circumstances, no matter how adverse, no matter how severe. I can even go to Africa and adjust to the way of life there. Unless you are like me in this respect, how can you embrace and lead the world? When I leave prison and return to Asia, will you want me to call you to come and join me there? You should want to shed your concepts and go beyond the cultural barrier. Then you can come to Asia and join me.
It's a common American concept that there should be a maximum of two people assigned to a hotel room. There is no such concept in Asia. Twenty people in one room is fine, even if everybody has to stand like bean sprouts in a small space. Since we want to train these two worlds and transform them into one heavenly domain, we should be able to cope with the task.
Even in American military training for example, troops absolutely have to be taken to the hot, tropical zones to prepare them for potential operations in such areas. So then don't you think I should also visit Europe and South America and other parts of the world? We have to mobilize money and manpower to help and train the people in these other areas, also. Don't ever think that you and I will be working in America all the time. Maybe I will ask you to go to Korea, or even India, tomorrow. Will you go reluctantly or willingly? The person who goes where he can take the most comfortable job will not make any headway. God wants a person who will go into the worst possible situation in order to advance. The first type of person will become a burden, while the second type will become a person who is good for and needed by his mission country.
There are so many barriers, so many evil forces opposing us out there. How can we penetrate such a world and make a breakthrough? It is not easy. Unless you take some extraordinary step, you just don't have a chance. That is why I don't want you to have ordinary, comfortable marriages. If a man can marry a girl from a remote country and begin to love her, he can begin to love that part of the world. That kind of effort will bring the world together. That is the revolutionary step we must take to transcend barriers of language, barriers of culture, barriers of skin-color.
Some people are afraid that I will destroy American traditions and lifestyles. On the contrary, I am bringing more unity and harmonious love to America, so that America will be more related to and less isolated from the rest of the world. To serve the ultimate purpose we must always be making ourselves bigger and greater. Without any hesitation I will push you down to harder and harder places, if that is what is required. What if I pushed you into a mission in the Soviet Union? Would you do it?
One in Heart with All Prisoners
As the leader of the Unification Church I had to go to prison. All of you were heartbroken and many of you shed tears. But it really brought a dramatic change. Right now in the United States there are about 500,000 people in prison, and every single one of them knows of me. They must be thinking that even Rev. Moon -- who stands for goodness and who is really trying to do something for America and the world -- is incarcerated just like them. They can feel that they are one in heart with Rev. Moon, that they are part of him. My incarceration can bring incredible comfort and strength to those 500,000 people.
At Danbury there are actually two prisons. Camp B is much larger, and it is always locked. I am in Camp A together with about two hundred other people. Just the other day I went to the medical dispensary in Camp B, and to my surprise, everyone in the waiting room knew me. They all jumped up, greeted me, and urged me to go ahead of them. They gave up their own places in line and let me go into the office first.
When I first entered Danbury, everybody looked at me as a kind of villain. If I had gone to the dispensary at that time, everybody would have pushed me way to the back. Yet in a few months, the whole atmosphere among the prisoners has changed. If I had been lazy, argumentative, or complaining, that would not have happened. Nowadays, whenever an inmate finishes his sentence, he comes to me the night before he leaves to say, "Rev. Moon, I'm sorry, but I'm leaving tomorrow morning. I hope that God blesses you and I hope I will see you sometime in the future." They come to me as they might come to their own parents, asking me to think of them and remember them as they go on their way.
If I were in prison in Moscow, would the same thing happen? It would be ten times more difficult, but the principle would be the same. Whatever kind of satanic hell it may be, there is a way to conquer it. There is no such thing as giving up. You should know what kind of person I am by now. No matter what, as the True Parent I will bring about one united world. All the necessary processes of transformation will take place.
I know that many of you are experiencing great difficulty and adversity. Yet when you think of me, your heart does not permit you to complain -- because you know my heart. You cannot complain to me because I have suffered much more than any of you. Rather than blaming me, you feel like comforting me. Why? Because I am not exploiting anyone. I am calling you to sacrifice for the sake of America and for the sake of yourselves.
Some of our leaders like Reiner Vincenz and Paul Werner are not so young anymore. Sometimes when I look at them I feel pity, thinking that because they found me, they had to suffer for so many years of their lives. I think of how much I would like them to have good houses and let them settle down. Yet these men still have strength to go on a little further, to undergo more suffering. In a way I am cruel, because I think ahead so relentlessly. Yet in my heart there is love and sympathy for everybody. Reiner and Paul know that, so that even though they suffer, they do not feel like blaming me.
At Danbury I work in the dining room. I am the first person to come to work and the last person to leave. I remain so late that I end up helping the security officers check everything out. The dining room will really miss me when I leave! No one else has really ever taken care of it. It is not a fancy place, but I shed my sweat there, really thinking of everyone and working hard. So I feel a certain attachment to that place -- and everyone feels the same attachment to me. God knows. God thinks like a human being, and He feels emotions the same way human beings do.
Dramatic New Traditions
You all have much further to go in this kind of training. Would you even go to the Arctic to be a missionary to the Eskimos? You must think that such an endeavor is very dramatic -- romantic, even -- and be willing to go. It is because my thinking follows such a pattern, and has set new traditions, that I have become famous.
Christmas is a very important holiday in the Western world. It is an opportunity for people to go home and celebrate. I think exactly the opposite: Christmas is an extraordinary day to work. It would be a good day for someone to start a mission in Moscow. In every Soviet satellite country our members are working underground. No matter what mission is given to you, you must obey Father. If I tell you to walk on two hands instead of two feet, you must try your best. Otherwise, you will not remain until the end.
When we re-launched IOWC work and purchased mobile homes for IOWC and trucks for social action work, in some corner of his mind Dr. Durst thought these plans wouldn't work. On the contrary, many ministers have come and joined with me; the foundation was laid and we can now work with ministers in 250 locations. I have instructed all of you to read the Divine Principle book 50 times and prepare yourselves to teach VOC lectures. Now that our goal is materializing you can understand why that kind of preparation has been necessary.
I am preparing many different parts of our movement, and when the right time comes, I will assemble them. For example, our movement was not quite ready to create an educational institution like our seminary, but I had it created anyway. Because of that, we could bring forth graduates who could assume leadership in our movement. Since they are well educated in the history and doctrines of other religions, they have been able to open up dialogue with ministers, theologians, philosophers, and professors, and connect them to Unificationism. On your own you wouldn't move to visit ministers and professors, so I had to kick you out the door.
Last year you had only one week to organize a religious freedom rally in Washington DC. It was unthinkable! But after only one week, on May 30, 1984, it happened. It was the first time in American history that major leaders from different denominations assembled to speak out for religious freedom. They proclaimed that they would serve one week in prison with Father in Danbury. However, as soon as I get out of prison, the religious freedom movement will decline.
For that reason the call for religious freedom and the fight against communism must now move forward together as parallel issues. This is why we are inviting ministers to attend CAUSA conferences. Through this they are beginning to understand that true religious freedom can be upheld through the realization of the CAUSA message.
Heralding the Dawn
We are coming to the end of a forty-year period in the wilderness, closing finally between 1985 and 1988. You do not really realize the impact of this. I have always known that if a certain principled pattern develops, then certain goals have to be accomplished according to a certain schedule. That is why I have been pushing you so desperately. Now all of a sudden you come to see that what I have been telling you makes sense. We have hope now. The current results did not come about at random, but on the foundation of adequate preparation. I have the capacity to look ahead and map out the plan. It's like heralding the coming of the dawn, when no one else knows that the dawn is coming.
My imprisonment at Danbury has created a miracle. Don't feel sad that I had to go to Danbury; what is most important is what will happen as a result of my being there. I have told you this before; what do you think? Don't worry about me suffering there, but rather have hope that some incredible plan of God will unfold. I entered Danbury prison with this kind of hope, because I knew it would be a turning point. The United States Justice Department has succeeded in incarcerating me once. If they try to do it a second time, there will be no way they can succeed, and they will just get themselves into hot water.
In the past 13 years I have brought two hundred years of American history to the point of culmination, so that we can rescue the country from the brink of disaster. We can restore it to its original God-given founding spirit. I will probably stay here two to three more years, and then I will say goodbye. America will protest, saying, "Oh no, Rev. Moon, we need you," but I will just say thank you; and as soon as I have finished the final segment of the dispensational program here, I will go.
However, I will leave you with a warning that unless the American people get rid of their American habits, their thinking will be limited to America alone. I do not want that. All the American members should be committed to Japan, and all the Japanese members should be committed to America. So while the Japanese are eating bread and cheese, the Americans should want to eat rice and miso soup. Even without the same language, you can marry internationally and live happily. Then what kind of barriers can possibly remain? I want to leave you with that kind of tradition.
Nothing Just Simply Happened
I have been preparing to open the door to Red China for seven years, and now the time has come. The door did not open automatically. Even in America I was unwelcome initially. Yet Americans have witnessed my work and my accomplishments, so now they cannot just move me out of American culture; they have to accept me. I created this atmosphere. You must realize that nothing simply happened by itself.
There are always only two basic directions for people to go: down or up. People usually just want to go up, but the road of indemnity leads downward. If a person denies the indemnity course and is reluctant to go, he is not really ready to tackle his God-given job. Now many ministers are defending me and prestigious people are coming to see me in Danbury. That didn't just happen out of the blue_ I went a course of indemnity in order to make it happen.
Many famous people in Washington come to see me in Danbury. Even at our very first meeting, I go on the offensive and give them a hard time_ I don't even consider that we might have a chance to meet a second or a third time, so I create a showdown right in the first meeting, and pull them into the task force. Important people m the political and economic fields in America understand that Rev_ Moon is a giant to be reckoned with.
I will ask you to go an even harder way than you have before. Will you say, "Yes, Father"? We are not starting at the beginning of the race; we are already at the eleventh hour, the final stage. The goal is in sight. Who will touch the finish line first and set the record time? Rev. Moon is conducting this race in America, and the entire spirit world is watching and cheering, encouraging us to run even faster in the final segment. They are shouting, "Only a few meters left! Run, run! You can win! Win!" We cannot afford to fall back at the last moment. It would be better to falter and drop dead than to hang back; at least you would get some sympathy!
Therefore I am pushing you into the final segment. This is the destiny of the Unification Church; you cannot take this course for granted, you cannot take it easy, because you never know at what second the finish line will appear. There may be no time for breakfast -- you just have to run. Even if you encounter a brick wall, the goal may be right behind it. If you lunge forward and break through, you will win.
God is a God of wisdom, and God must outwit Satan. His strategy will be smarter than Satan's. For the Israelites in the time of the Exodus, Jericho was their goal. The city of Jericho was so huge, so imposing, and seemingly so impenetrable. Everybody thought that to seize the city would be impossible. It never occurred to anyone that the walls of Jericho could fall down to the ground in one moment. All the Israelites needed was the faith and obedience exemplified by Joshua and Caleb. This is that kind of moment in history. So do not ever think that anything you do is ordinary or routine. Everything we are doing is extraordinary, and each situation is a potential emergency.
I feel the next forty to fifty days will parallel the period after Jesus' crucifixion leading up to the Pentecost. On the fiftieth day after the crucifixion an incredible spirit came down from Heaven to where the disciples were gathered and began to work in an amazing way.
The Time for Adventure
Yesterday I conducted a special ceremony to open up the entire spirit world. All the kings, queens, and heads of state of the past who are now in spirit world and united under Heung Jin Nim and Jesus can now come down and link their energy to the heads of state of 120 countries and inspire them to prepare the way for me. This is the time for adventure! This is the time for miracles! Don't think, "Oh, that's impossible; that will never happen." Get rid of that kind of thinking.
After Jesus' crucifixion, he lost everything. He had to reassemble all God's forces after the Pentecost to bring Christianity into existence. By the same token, now is the time for me to harvest and restore everything while I am in Danbury. Also, at the time of the Exodus, notification was sent out to all the Israelites to prepare to depart. Through the CAUSA seminars, my notification has gone out to the ministers that our next goal will be Moscow.
I am also preparing a veterans' organization. Veterans are very patriotic and anti-communist, and like the ministers, they comprise another important segment of American society. When these veterans come into unity with the Christian ministers, then we will be on the right track.
When American Christianity begins to move in the right direction, don't you think that the rest of America will follow? When I leave Danbury, I would like to see 30,000 ministers come together to welcome me at a place like Madison Square Garden. I will invite all the media people, who are really anxious to see and interview me.
The economic system functions like the blood vessels in the body of human society. Similarly, the religious hierarchy represents society's nervous system. It can also serve as a source of white blood cells which can engulf and kill all the evil forces within the body of society. We should create such a force for goodness that it can cleanse and purify the whole body.