Sun Myung Moon
November 3, 1984
First Student Convention of the World Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles
Given on True Father’s behalf at the Little Angels Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
January 1, 1976 - location unknown
Distinguished guests, leaders of the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), and representatives from every nation:
I would like to welcome you to this World CARP Student Convention. I would have liked to see your fresh, hope-filled faces directly, and I regret that circumstances prevent me from doing so. Although I cannot be here physically, I will be with you in heart and spirit throughout this period, and let’s promise to have an even more moving meeting again in the future. Although my body is imprisoned at Danbury, my ideal and work for history and the world are progressing without faltering. Many famous people and great scholars have come to comfort me from around the world and have listened to God’s plan, and recently leaders from mainstream Christian chinches in America have been cooperating with and supporting us actively. These developments are enormously encouraging for us all.
The fact that this first World CARP Student Convention is being held in Korea is very meaningful. Korea is not merely the place where I was born and where the Divine Principle movement originated. It is the place where, from a young age, I led a life of deep prayer and, through incredible struggles and searching through unexplored parts of the spirit world, I organized God’s teachings into the Divine Principle, sacrificing my youth while planning for the future.
Dear CARP leaders and CARP representatives from every nation, I would like to show my appreciation for your hard work. Alongside your course of research, you are doing splendid work in a practical movement to fulfill God’s Will. I am well aware that on university campuses and on the streets, you have stood against and overcome forces of unrighteousness, injustice and corruption. Your honorable endeavors to bring down the Berlin Wall, as well as your unyielding efforts, with the heart of martyrs, to fight against and overcome the forces of evil in Japan and the United States, are monumental achievements in CARP history.
I view the CARP .movement with great hope. Throughout the course of many years it has put down roots in more than seventy nations. On this foundation it saddens our hearts that our CARP members who are working in various communist nations have been unable to attend this first World CARP Student Convention.
One of my motives for establishing CARP lies in the youth and passion of university students. You do not live dwelling on the past; you live with endless hope for the future. You respect righteousness and long for truth and beauty. The innocent heart of youth has within it the most appropriate foundation to receive God’s Will.
In obedience to the Will of God, I established the goal of reforming the chosen people. I want to educate young intellectuals and nurture them to become people who adopt the motto, “Love Heaven, Love Humankind, Love Your Country,” and have them take the leading role in the new history. God’s ultimate providence is not restricted to any particular race, culture, district, church or denomination. For this purpose, you have to become a young generation that is forward-looking, open-minded and futureoriented, and become the driving force of the world. That is another reason I am placing my hope in CARP.
It is God’s Will for all people to jump across theological and doctrinal fences. For His Will to be fulfilled in every aspect of culture, it needs to be introduced first to college students as the new inheritors of culture and spread from there academically, philosophically and in practice. I know especially well that the red movement of international communism, standing in opposition to God, plans to use university campuses as a strategic base. I therefore wish to ensure that the youth of the world no longer are seduced by its falsehoods.
Thus, to overcome communism, I established CARP as a movement with a new philosophy and practice. This movement already has been tested on university campuses in Japan. In various parts of the world CARP is currently leading young people in a confrontation with communist ideology, and it is setting a good example of living a life of practice and service based on God’s love.
Communism is not the only problem in today’s world. Having gone through the Industrial Revolution and two world wars, humankind has witnessed the collapse of its prevailing worldview. It has not been able to find a new worldview that can digest the rapid progress of modern science and technology, and it is drifting along, unable to check the confusion of our human values. God already has brought an answer today, and He wants to say many things to the world’s youth, as they easily can be sucked in and hurt by the whirlpools that arise from this confusion.
Both God and humankind hope to build a united, ideal world of peace. An ideal world of peace is a united world where there are no conflicts. However, before we seek a united world, we first have to seek a unified nation. Likewise, before there can be a unified nation, there has to be a united tribe, which in turn needs to be preceded by a united family. Furthermore, before there can be a united, ideal family, there need to be ideal individuals without any conflicts or contradictions within them.
In this manner, the solution to the problem, from the individual level to the worldwide level, is possible only when the conflict between the incompatible forces of good and evil is overcome. The historical teaching to achieve this goal has come through religion, and the Messiah is the central figure and model for this providence. When the true world of peace is realized, that world will last for eternity and inevitably will transcend nations, races and religions. It will become a society of one family under God as our common Parent, a society in which all people are linked as brothers and sisters.
Although this is the burning desire of God and humankind, what is the world’s situation today? We talk about the global village and one world. However, individualism plays the dominant role in diversification and specialization. The trend of individualism is fanning the flames and has reached its peak, greatly damaging the order of existence in the world. Environmental pollution and the destruction of nature have brought about an ecological crisis for the whole world, and the manufacture of computer-controlled weapons of mass destruction has forced the people who created them to be like slaves trembling in fear.
What is the reason for the collapse of the basic value systems that have been guided by religions at their core? The reason is that religions have cast off their original responsibility and have lost their ability to lead because of perpetual disputes and divisions. Religions have not been able to explain clearly about God, life and the universe, and are unable to distinguish clearly between good and evil or righteousness and unrighteousness. They especially have been unable to give lucid answers to questions about the existence of God. As religions lost their traditional authority, material things ceased to be the means and became the goal, and pleasure seeking became our life’s ideal. Human nature became animal-like, captivated by physical and worldly desires. In this type of situation, the basic values of true love, service, righteousness and rebirth cannot continue.
Furthermore, the systematic expansion of machine-controlled operations into human relationships is accelerating the phenomena of dehumanization and human alienation, and is increasing the tendency toward human insignificance and compartmentalization. All of us ardently seek a new value system that can liberate us from this situation, which is suffocating our original human nature.
The new value system must originate from a new religion that has the power to convince people in the modern world and offer solutions to modern-day problems. It must teach people that God is the Parent of humankind and establish that the universe does not originate from matter. Regarding human spirituality and character, it has to reveal that human beings, as God’s heirs, have the authority to rule over the universe. In addition, it must teach about the ideal love that was part of the original creation and about the dual purpose of everything in the universe. It must reveal that within the great order of the universe, the original ideal was for everything to exist in harmony. The new value system has to encompass all these areas.
The Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles is a movement to spread the Divine Principle. It is the practical movement of university students testifying to God. If we do not reveal the truth, we cannot unite the will of people in society, and without a movement that can actualize God’s Will, there can be no fruit of His Will in the world. The Divine Principle movement we are advancing is not for the purpose of curing parts of the old, sick established culture. This movement intends to make a new beginning, starting from the origin.
Each of you, as individual truth bodies created by God, needs to cultivate your own character through applying the Principle and, with a fervent, passionate and pure mind, clear up and overthrow unrighteousness and evil. Although your body may be living in this fallen world, don’t allow Satan to influence you. Transcending the sorrows of the past, you have to become a model of hope. Don’t be depressed when you experience hardships; instead, look toward the future with a vision of hope. God does not need your particular skills or knowledge. God needs you; your mind, your will and your devotion.
From a young age I did not lose hope, even when faced with death, because I could feel God’s Will and heart at every moment. There was not a single instant when I was not aware of the world, the universe, humankind and history. That was because I didn’t have time even to feel my body’s fatigue. At every major turning point in history the power responsible for a new culture originated with young people. I do not need to mention the well-known examples of the young Buddha or the young Jesus. I too started my public life by founding the Unification movement in my mid-twenties.
CARP leaders and CARP members, who have gathered here today representing the youth of the world, we, the people of the Divine Principle movement, have to stand at the vanguard on the road toward the new world for which all people are longing. We have to take the leading role to bring about God’s ideal world of peace. You have to inherit my tradition and move ever forward, preparing the external foundation and also inheriting the internal world of God’s heart and tradition of faith. You are now at the steering wheel of a ship that more than four billion people have boarded.
Through our proper attitude, service and sacrifice, let us give hope to all people and be the flag-bearers in creating a new culture at the dawn of the new age of the twenty-first century. May the blessings and grace of the living God be upon the worldwide CARP movement.
Thank you.