Sun Myung Moon
February 6, 2003
Commemoration of True Parents’ Birthday
Jamshil Indoor Gymnasium, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Respected current and former heads of state, leaders from the religious, political and academic worlds, representatives of one hundred and eighty-nine countries, family representatives, ladies and gentlemen:
I would like to truly thank all of you who have gathered here to congratulate me on my eighty-third birthday, and my wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, on her sixtieth birthday.
Above all else, I would like to return all this glory to God, who has protected and looked after me until this day. You cannot explain my life without God, and at this truly meaningful occasion I am speaking to all of you today with gratitude to God in my heart. The title of my talk today is, “God’s True Love and Restoring His Relationship to Heaven, Earth and Humankind.”
A new understanding about God
Throughout human history, all people have talked endlessly about God, the Absolute Being. They have praised Him and worshipped Him in many different ways. Others have felt free to evaluate Him. Some have even declared that there is no God or that God is dead. However, there has not been one instance in which God Himself appeared directly saying, “This is how I have lived.” There have been many people who have prophesied that, with the development of science, the population who believe in God would dwindle. However, the number of people who believe in God in contemporary society is not diminishing, for God is the living origin of all things, the Creator, the True Parent of humankind.
The God I have been teaching about is not just some vague or obscure God. Ever since the time I first truly experienced Him at the age of sixteen, when I was anguishing about the meaning of life and the universe, I have lived my whole life in communication with Him. The living God’s promise and my absolute faith in Him are the driving forces that have preserved my life during times of suffering, even when I was at the brink of death.
I searched every corner of the spirit world. There I met the five great religious founders and many other saints and sages, and I received their official recognition of my mission. Ladies and gentlemen, God is the most decent and modest being, and He is the True Parent of humankind. He is the origin of all our lives, and He is the Being with whom all people need to establish a relationship. Also, the one thing you all must know clearly is that the spirit world, the world where we will all go someday, does exist. Do not doubt the existence of the spirit world, and do not settle for merely a vague belief in God.
I have set a record in sponsoring many “God Conferences,” something with no parallel in history. The first three conferences that I held in the 1980s were attended by representatives from each religion and denomination as well as by outstanding theologians and scholars of religion. They caused a great sensation.
There were three main points I wanted to teach through these conferences. First, although each faith has its own special and unique character, religions actually have many more points in common than differences. Second, the conflict and disharmony that exist between religions is due to the narrowmindedness of believers, and it is definitely not the intention of the Absolute Being. Third, God desires the realization of true love rather than any emphasis on doctrine or ceremony.
The papers and discussions presented at these conferences are still being used today as a textbook in the top theological seminaries of each denomination. From that time forward, a spirit of sincere dialogue and cooperation among all denominations began. Before this time, the high walls erected between them had blocked such dialogue and cooperation. Since then I have invested a great deal of resources each year to expand the International Religious Foundation and the Interreligious Federation for World Peace in each country and throughout the world.
For three days, beginning on December 26 last year in Washington, DC, I held a God Conference on a different level. During that time, under the theme “God and a World of Peace,” 312 participants gathered, including religious leaders from all corners of the world and also representatives from politics, academia, the media, business, culture and the arts, and from various NGOs.
God is not just the God of believers. He is the God of all people. Especially at this time, we are living in an age in which God stands before the world not just as some vague and abstract Being, but as a God with a definite purpose and Will. It is an age of great change, when all people need to awaken to this God. All people need to awaken to the fact that the contemporary world is being sucked down into a maelstrom of individual, family, national and world-level problems, which we will never solve if we ignore God.
At this conference, the 312 participants adopted a resolution declaring the following: First, that they would recognize God and True Parents as the True Parents, True Teachers and True Owners, and establish them as the vertical axis of absolute value for the individual, the family, the nation and the world. Second, that they would cooperate with and follow the resolution of the five religious founders, and all the saints and sages in the spirit world, to join together and help people on earth bring about the completion of God’s Will. Third, that they would actively support and participate in the movement to realize true love, the movement to reform the United Nations, and with other initiatives of the True Parents to realize the ideal of world peace.
God’s Will is the completion of the ideal of creation
The ultimate purpose of religion is to recover the original Parent and the original homeland. The word “religion” does not have humankind as its prime object. Rather religion is the teaching in which God, the Parent, is established as the center. Then there is a certain course through which we establish a relationship with God and mature in a life of following God. Holy men and women have to support the Will of Heaven and proclaim what Heaven has preordained.
True religion has to teach people about God. True religion must not espouse vague ideas about God; it has to be able to give a clear picture of God so people can understand Him. Any religion that compromises the relationship between God and humankind cannot be called a high-level religion. Such a religion ultimately will decline.
True religion has to teach people how to know God clearly, how to become one with God, and how to build the original world of creation. The purpose of religion is to bring about a world without sin, the ideal world where we make original relationships with God.
God is not seeking a religious world. He is seeking His ideal world of creation. The purpose of religion is not for religion itself; but it is rather to realize the world of God’s ideal. So we have to think about the original purpose and ideal of creation. God created the world, so it is necessary to explain His ideal of creation.
What do you think God’s Will is? It is to complete His ideal of creation. What do you think God wanted to achieve through creating our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden? God, who is the essence of love, created human beings because He needed a partner of love.
We were created as the true sons and daughters of God so that He could realize His ideal of true love through us. The original pair was created to grow into a true man and true woman, become husband and wife, create an ideal family, and then build an ideal nation and world. To repeat, centering on the true love of God, they had to perfect the ideal family and expand it to build the ideal world. However our human ancestors fell, and this destroyed God’s ideal of creation at that time.
Accordingly, the purpose of religion is to find a true person, a true family and a true nation, and build a true world where all people can live together in peace. This is the purpose of God’s providence for this world.
Religion is seeking a world of goodness. However, a world of goodness cannot be realized without first establishing a country of goodness. And for a country of goodness to appear there must first be a good society, and before there can be a good society there must first be a good tribe, and before there can be a good tribe there must first be a good family. And before there can be a good family there must first be a good man and a good woman.
After the Fall of Adam, there ensued the four-thousand-year history of Israel. What was its purpose? Regardless of the world’s external developments, internally the sole purpose of this time period was to find one true Adam and one true Eve. God’s deepest grief and resentment was that due to the Fall, there was not one son or daughter who could inherit life and blood lineage centering on His love.
Owner of love, life and lineage
The Savior whom God sent to this world is the person whom God made to be the owner of true love, true life and true lineage. According to different points of view, this person has been called the Savior, the Messiah, or the Lord. He comes as the Savior to rescue all people in this world from poverty, suffering, war and evil, and, centering on the Absolute Being, pursues God’s Will for salvation. He is the mediator who will connect all religious people to God’s way of life. He came to the First Israel as the Messiah. Now, he comes to the Second Israel as the Lord of the Second Advent to complete God’s providence of restoration. The terms Savior, Messiah and Lord of the Second Advent have all been used centering on the course of salvation and restoration.
Fallen men and women are born and live in conflict and sin because of their connection to the false parents, the false ancestors. To restore them to the position they were in before the Fall does not mean that everything is accomplished. The Will of God, the original hope of humankind, is for each human being to become the ideal person of God’s originally intended world of creation, and to complete the ideal world of creation. This means that after a man and woman achieve God’s ideal as individuals, they will then become a husband and wife of true love and then true parents.
In order for this to happen, God absolutely needs the True Parents as the source of His true love, true life and true lineage. So in order to complete God’s providence of salvation, it is not enough for one man to appear as the Savior, the Messiah, or the Lord of the Second Advent. The True Parents have to appear as husband and wife, who resemble God completely and who have completely realized His true love. In the same way that God first created Adam and took a rib from him to make his eternal partner, Eve, God’s son must first appear as the restored Adam, and then restore Eve. Then after recreating her, he has to realize the ideal of true love with her, so that they perfect together the role of True Parents. True Parents established the connection of humankind’s true love and true life to the Source. They are the model and ideal of all true husbands and wives and all true parents.
Humankinds sin and suffering originated from the false love of fallen ancestors, who themselves were born as the fruit of the first false parents and false ancestors. Therefore, people can only be liberated from their connection to the Fall and complete the ideal after the coming of the True Parents. People have sought eagerly for the original ideal of humankind through religion. That ideal is the True Parents, who come to fulfill God’s ideal of love.
The goal of religion is the re-creation of human beings
We can say that a religious life is a course for remaking people. If there had been no Fall, religion would have been unnecessary. A religious life transforms people whose minds and bodies are in conflict due to the Fall into peaceful people who live in harmony and who will be God’s substantial object partners for eternity. It is the course that enables fallen people to change into original people of true character, resembling God.
When we look at our mind and body, the body is largely the base of the evil spirit Satan, and the conscience is the base of God. Generally speaking, the body directs the mind. Religions provide ways to weaken the body’s control over the mind. Religions teach that we need to deny our body. Thus, religions urge us to fast, to serve, to sacrifice ourselves, to go the way of suffering and even to offer our lives for the sake of righteousness. This is the logic behind the seemingly paradoxical teaching of the Bible, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25) If you live only according to the desires of your body, you will go the way of death into hell; however if you deny your body and enter the realm of a liberated conscience, you will have eternal life and be welcomed in the kingdom of heaven.
The person who is unable to bring his or her mind and body into oneness, and who allows this struggle to continue, will be unable to adjust to God’s ideal world of love, where there are no boundaries. Usually people say that in order to go to heaven or paradise, you have to believe in their particular religion. I tell you that heaven is the place for God’s children whose mind and body have become one centered on His love.
The love of the fallen world is usually a love centered on the self, a love fixed not on the mind but on the body. The body is the devil’s nightclub. Originally, your mind is supposed to take the subject position, representing God, but instead your body has become a stronger subject and plays with your original mind as with a puppet. This is what you have to change. Religion is the repair shop that God made to fix this. It is the repair shop that remakes people into completed individuals of true character, whose mind and body are one for eternity.
Religion teaches us not to rest but to pray unceasingly. The devil doesn’t rest; he uses the body as his horizontal stage twenty-four hours a day. As God is in the vertical position, He can only work through the vertical mind.
In order for your horizontal body not to be controlled by the devil, you need prayer and devotion to make your mind stand in the vertical position. By doing this you can receive power from God three or four times greater than the power of your body. And if you live a life of sincere prayer and devotion for three to five years, you can liberate your mind from the body’s horizontal and habitual influence. .
Religion is the means to fulfill the providence of restoration
Respected leaders, ladies and gentlemen, leading a religious life is not something you can prefer to do or not to do. Fallen men and women were born with a connection to fallen parents through fallen love that is centered on Satan. Therefore, without exception all people absolutely need to pass through the repair shop of religion, meet the True Parents and establish a connection of true love and true life with them.
There is one important point you need to know. When you go to the repair shop, you cannot stay there forever. You need to come out reborn. While the religious life is the required course for all humankind, it is not the basic purpose or whole purpose of life. The ultimate purpose of human life is to graduate from the religious life, a life of restoration, and live as a men and women of the original world of creation.
Religion came about only because of the Fall. Hence, does it make sense to say that the sole purpose of life is to live buried in a religion? If there had been no Fall, how would men and women originally have lived? Human beings are originally the children of God. Thus we are destined to live with true love, realize a true family and establish one world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness. We are supposed to live in the kingdom of heaven on earth.
God did not originally create men and women to have them break down so that He could repair them as His children reborn through religion. Do any parents want to see their children suffer in conflict, while endlessly repenting of their sins? Do you think the original Will of God the Father, the omniscient and omnipotent Lord of creation, was that His children suffer in sin?
This fallen world is not the world God originally planned. The first ancestors’ disobedience prevented God from realizing the world He had originally planned. However, God is absolute, and His Will is also absolute. Thus God will realize His Will as He had intended in the beginning. This Will is for complete recovery to the original state. This is why God’s providence of salvation is the providence of restoration, the providence of re-creation. Religion is the central means for the providence of restoration, however people are not just supposed to meet True Parents and go through the course of a religious life. They are supposed to become God’s children, establish a Parent-child relationship with Him, attend God, and build a world where the values of faith are inherent in their daily life. No one in history revealed this precious truth, namely, that people must graduate from religious life. Knowing this truth from an early age, I did not want to create another sect or denomination.
Background of the founding of the Family Federation
It was because Christianity, which was the central religion of God’s providence, did not accept my teaching of Heaven’s way that I had to create the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Although it was an association, not a sect or denomination, the Christian world continued to deny, to persecute, to label us heretical, and to turn its face away from us. As our movement grew, the world began to call us the Unification Church rather than use the long official title. That is how we became the Unification Church. For many, many years I have lived in hope of seeing the day we could take down the church sign. I even prophesied about that day. Finally in 1996 we took down that sign and started the Family Federation for World Peace.
This was a very important event in the history of humankind. It was the beginning of a new world. It marked a change from the old world, where people lived with the burden of sin inherited from false parents. They were living in suffering and conflict, practicing a life of faith in which the only way to find God was through prayer and repentance. But with this event, the world changed. From then on, people could be reborn by receiving the Blessing from the True Parents, and go forward reporting to God about what they were doing.
No one who knows the course I had to take to follow the command of Heaven and fulfill my mission as the True Parent. In order to give the grace of the Blessing freely on earth and in heaven, I had to break down walls in this world and in the spirit world. I had to contend with Satan, the being who throughout history has been acting as the false master, controlling people and disobeying God. Do you think it was easy for me to bring him to complete surrender?
I could not establish the position of True Parents without first gaining Satan’s formal surrender. But now that it is done, the privilege of the Blessing can reach all the people in Satan’s realm of death, including everyone in the spirit world, according to the will of the True Parents. Now all people on earth are able to cross over into true love’s realm of life. This miraculous age has begun.
We should live as true children of God
Ladies and gentlemen, let us unite with Heaven’s blessing that has come to us. I call upon humankind to graduate from the religious life, receive the Blessing of true love, establish a true family, and keep the standard of a true child throughout their lives. Those who receive the Blessing on this earth and live a life of true love can enter the eternal homeland of the ideal world, namely, God’s nation, the kingdom of heaven.
What do you take with you when you go to the spirit world? Is it money? Power? Do you take your knowledge or reputation with you? These things belong to this world, and you must leave them all behind when you enter the higher realm. They have absolutely no value in the eternal, original world, and you cannot take them with you.
The spirit world is the world of love. The true love you experience and share on the earth, having received grace through the Blessing from the Parents of Heaven and Earth, is the most precious thing and the only thing that counts in the spirit world. Please study more deeply about the spirit world, and, through your life as a blessed couple, become children of God who perfect true love.
What I teach is not based on any human teachings. And I do not educate by giving moral lessons, or in any conventional way. I am instructing you by speaking frankly, with words of life based on God and the heavenly way.
If God has given the mission of True Parents to me, you have to understand that the relationship you have established with me today is most precious and meaningful. Please keep my words today deep in your heart.
May God’s blessing be with you and your families, and may He be with you in your public life.
Thank you very much.