Sun Myung Moon
February 25, 1985
Excerpts
The Leaders Conference
East Garden
Translator: Bo Hi Pak
The message I have sent from Danbury is really most dramatic and shocking to the ministers who have received it. If the American Unification Church headquarters in New York City had sent out the books and videotapes to the ministers, they would have just put them on the bookshelf to collect dust. However, because the message is coming from prison, it has an entirely different impact.
Also the ministers have witnessed that Unification Church members are going after them, trying to turn them around even while their own leader is incarcerated. That's incredible spiritual boldness. The ministers compare our young people with those in their own churches, and they see that they are as different as heaven and earth.
My primary mission in coming to America is to re-ignite the Christian churches so that they can verve God's purpose. Now they are opening their doors and welcoming my message.
After leaving Egypt the Israelites endured 40 years in the wilderness before they settled in the land of Canaan. Similarly, after we pass through 40 years of the wilderness of the 20th century, our great movement will settle. Where are we going? Ultimately, God wants us to create and settle a new America. In order to revive America, I have to accomplish several momentous tasks together with you.
First, we must be victorious over communism. Second, we must put new energy into the Christian churches and awaken them. Finally, we must stop moral degradation. If we can do that, the American people will ultimately accept our teaching and create a new America. Then God's Will will be done, and my visit to the United States will be fulfilled.
Father and the American culture can be compared to two different pine trees. Father's pine tree has grown in a very cold weather zone. The American pine tree has grown in a tropical weather zone. The pine tree that grows in hot weather will bring forth a seed which is not sound and hard enough. The American seed has not yielded good fruit from generation to generation: all kinds of odd and perverted subcultures are blossoming in America, revolving around forms of moral decay, like homosexuality and free love. Such social ills are rampant now. What should we do? We should just chop this American pine tree and engraft it onto the heartier pine tree. The American people will protest, saying that the American pine tree is good and looks just the same as Father's, but the pine trees are different. Father's pine tree is hard and sound, and solid fruit will come from it. What kind of pine tree are you?
Life in Danbury prison holds many benefits for me. I have to live according to the American lifestyle and eat three American meals a day. Shut up in prison without any freedom, I am paying this indemnity gratefully. There is no rice or kimchi or kochichang -- just peas and butter and bread and meat. I don't like that kind of food, but by now I have grown accustomed to it and have totally indemnified my tastes. I am thinking that you should go to Korea and try living without any hamburgers, cheese or coffee, and pay the reverse indemnity. You can even try to change your pattern of life right here, without going to Korea.
Originally I wanted to eat very little food and survive on small portions, but then I realized what kind of impression the other inmates would get from that. They would think that Orientals eat much too little and are therefore small and weak. So, on the contrary, I decided to eat a lot, and I always take seconds, even if I don't finish. Faced with the leftovers, I think about how hungry the missionaries must be, and I pray that Heavenly Father will send such portions of food to those who are working so hard in far-off lands. At the garbage can I also pray this way, making even the trashcan a place of offering.
Normally the fiber of all the body systems change every six months. After six months on a diet of American food, I feel good. I have become much lighter, which is helpful.
Larry, who is sharing my cubicle and supporting me in place of Mr. Kamiyama, eats snacks all the time. He never goes to meals, but is always nibbling. However, I never eat snacks, but eat only at regular mealtimes: that is my discipline.
Good Health Management
I feel that the body is a good laboratory and I have tested out my own health in many different ways. I have come to the conclusion that snacks between meals are not good for health, and that the best pattern is to limit food intake to mealtimes. Three meals a day is adequate for maintaining good energy and body strength. Food intake should follow a certain formula and rhythm. American people have very undisciplined eating habits. Just eating and drinking, going about and then coming back again to the icebox for more has no rhythm, no discipline. Because of that you may sometimes get a stomach ache or fever. I particularly abhor seeing a person walking down the street and eating at the same time. People bring me fruit and biscuits and chocolate from the commissary, but I just excuse myself and invite the others to go ahead. I have explained my thinking to the inmates who are close to me and who are trying to be helpful. Now they know that I will never take a snack, so they don't ask me anymore. They just help themselves to all the food in my closet!
When Mr. Kamiyama was at Danbury, he had a foot ache which was very inconvenient. I taught him a special exercise, and after Mr. Kamiyama practiced it for a while, the foot ache disappeared. Even now as I am talking to you, I am not just idly standing; I am always exercising, everywhere I go -- even in the bathroom. Also, at Danbury there is one special, very uneven rock that I use to exercise and massage every part of my body.
When I finish serving in Danbury, the accumulated amount of time that I will have spent in prisons will be five years. How could I survive prison life for five years? It is because I have developed special methods of breathing and exercise, and practice them regularly. I am probably the eldest here among you, but in terms of physical strength, none of you can keep up with me. I can walk for miles, no problem.
There is always give and take action in the body. Whenever any of those give and take actions stop, you become sick. Circulation must be correct. Even when you have a bad cold with a stuffy nose, certain exercises will bring relief. We have a lot to revolutionize in our way of life. Have you ever thought about how many times you go to the bathroom? By studying the statistics in my own situation, I could derive some estimate about how long I will live. Even the frequency of urination has something to do with the state of your health.
Follow my way of life. The time will come when I will teach you all my secret techniques of good health management. You should always be learning and preparing for something greater in the future.
Studying American Way of Life
The prison is also a good laboratory for me to study the American way of life. Because there is so much time, the inmates are continuously talking -- and complaining.
Talking is the only freedom they enjoy, and from their conversations I can learn all about American life.
I can clearly perceive the behavioral cycles of the inmates. I have watched one prisoner who always fights periodically, without fail. I have observed how much the inmates love to win at Ping- Pong, and how much they show their unhappiness when they are defeated.
God is still keeping me in prison because I still have more lessons to learn about the American people, so that I can lead them in the best possible way. From God's point of view, I need a little more workshop. The more I can understand American culture and character, the more I can develop certain techniques for relating to American people. When I come out of prison, I will know exactly how to push you and motivate you so that you can become much tougher.
You are very lucky to meet Father; it is the greatest fortune of your life. I am now training and teaching you so that you will be able to move people whose personalities are already set and established, and mobilize and inspire them to do something much greater and nobler. That's the kind of leadership quality that I would like to implant in you.
Different Quality of Leadership
In Danbury I have met with many famous and interesting personalities. Ordinarily, they come initially to pay respect or express sympathy to me. Yet inevitably, within an hour or so, they become a kind of disciple! I can completely turn the tables on them. They are amazed at how dynamic I am -- that I never even feel I'm in prison -- and they leave with willingness to carry out the mission I have given them.
If the leadership in America were sound in this way, then America would not be sinking. Everybody said the Unification Church would not last long; Rev. Moon, however, has prospered, because the quality of his leadership is different. Like a living thing, it moves and continuously grows upward. Once you become still you go down without being able to stop. If everything were left to Rev. Moon, it would probably only take him half a year to turn the country around.
So you have a sacred and patriotic responsibility to create new leadership for the future of this country. You have to create the substantial foundation. Words cheat; deeds are what count. Today, your responsibility is to educate the ministers. How can you do that? The ministers are experts in talking, in giving sermons, but they don't know how to produce the results. For example, if there is a fight going on, they don't know how to stop that fight. The ministers' way of life is a one-way street, but the Moonies' way of life is four-directional. For God's purpose, we can even visit a bar or a house of prostitution, and learn to understand and win the heart of the people there.
The inmates have learned that I will never go against my own word. Sometimes they try to extract a certain promise or commitment from me; instead, I say that I will think about it, or that the future is really up to them. In this way, I inspire them. Even when they gang up to play a joke on me, they end up realizing that the joke was played on them. Although some of them, like Larry, love Father, they have come to know that I am not an easy man.
With quick wit, I can also make people laugh until they have a bellyache. When I am talking to important people, I can get to the crucial core of any matter in a short time, and force a showdown. I use so many techniques and methods. I can assess each person's strengths and weaknesses, hit the vulnerable point, and undermine all resistance. I would not teach you these techniques now, because you would become a swindler instead of a good Divine Principle member. Yet if each one of you were like Rev. Moon, America would have been saved a long time ago. Now while I am in prison and you are free, you must become more serious than the desperate situation of America, and determine to grasp and to solve all the problems of this country.
I have heard that members are going for therapy and psychiatric counseling. If you have faith and pray, you will have the solution, won't you? God is the solution for everything. What I learned did not come from a classroom, or a psychiatrist, but from faith and from understanding of God Himself. Do you understand?
You should be able to move between emotional extremes freely and easily. If someone gets very mad at you, you should react calmly and naturally. When you meet the person the next day, you can just act as if you don't even remember what happened. This will give you power, for the other person doesn't expect that kind of reaction and will be at a total loss to know how to deal with you. Then grab him and tell him that you understand his heart, his thinking, very well, and that he shouldn't worry about it at all. From that point on, that person will be faithful and obedient to you, and you will have conquered him with love. American people, however, are impulsive; they just act and react. This is a very difficult aspect of Western mentality.
Sometimes I would even secretly help a suffering family that was opposing me and our movement. I would help in such a remote way that they never knew what was really happening. Many years later the truth would come out, and then that whole family would just break down in repentance. I would be a kind of savior to them, even while they opposed me.
I am always looking at you: evaluating, testing, hoping. When you met me, did you become a new person, with new direction, new motivation and a new way of life? You must continue to advance. There's no better way than to learn from each other, serve each other, help and be helped by each other.
Perhaps you thought Rev. Moon is so fortunate and comfortable, living in a mansion, using an expensive car and so forth. But now I am in prison, living in the smallest cubicle, and I am doing better there. Did you know that aspect of Father? I am doing more and doing better in prison than I did at East Garden, and God cherishes the tears I shed in prison even more than the tears I shed at East Garden.
When Mr. Kamiyama was in Danbury, I asked him to read aloud all of my speeches which had been published in Japanese. At one point, Mr. Kamiyama completely broke down in tears, and was so touched by the Spirit of God that he could not continue. I saw that man and it was an unforgettable memory. It was probably the highest point of Mr. Kamiyama's life in the Unification Church. It was a priceless gift. I enjoy such deep, soul-searching experiences. I always looks forward to dramatic encounters, even those with suffering.
Such encounters never come while driving in an expensive car. They always come in a shabby, cheap place, in the circumstances of a pitiful ordeal. Prison is that kind of testing ground. Also, in prison you cannot help but become close friends with nature. I come out at night to observe the position of the stars and galaxies. They are so mystic, telling some kind of story, conveying mysterious messages. Happiness has nothing to do with opulence.
Of course, before going to prison, I had many telephone conversations with Mother -- but none like the telephone conversations from Danbury. They have a special, totally different kind of feeling; you can't imagine. Now I have been thinking how much more I would like to talk to the underground missionaries in the Soviet satellite countries. How about calling God, speaking God's heart over the wire? Maybe I would break down in tears, but then God would break down in tears too.
In that case, how could I comfort God? With one word -- what could that one word be? It would be a very serious word. When you have only happy times with your friend, that friendship will not last; but when you become a friend with someone under adverse conditions, such a friendship will indeed last. When I met the early pioneer members of the church, in such a difficult situation even one piece of bread was precious. When a member had a piece of bread, he could not eat it by himself, but would come to me and share it. Even that piece of bread would trigger tears and make for an eternal relationship.
Do that now with your ministers. Among all the congregation, be the one to serve a minister and his church the most loyally and the most lovingly. How many people are going to give up everything to try to follow you, as people have done for me?
At our meetings I always see five colors of people, all with tears in their eyes. How real are those tears? How long will those tears last? How unchanging are you? The relationship I am seeking is eternal.
It is my philosophy that, in the Unification Church, I would rather let you suffer and go through incredible ordeals before the age of thirty. By doing so, you dig the well, build the dam and harden yourself so that you will never retreat, but always go forward. The strength built when you are young will remain forever. God wants that kind of person. When you discover the truth, you must go for eternity without changing.
Throughout my life I have shed tears. When I pray aloud, my prayer never ends without tears. I am a strong man, but when I go into the heart of God, I become so vulnerable. The tears flowing down cleanse the relationship and the heart.
I would like you to be with me all the time, for eternity, but you must have the same vibration of spirit. Our goal is still far away, our training is still long; but we will not get tired -- we will move on. Win the battle, and reach my spiritual vibration. Look at me, follow my example, learn from my experiences, and become like me. There is nothing more that I can ask. Thank you.
Father returns to Danbury in the evening.