Sun Myung Moon
October 5, 1969
Changdeok Palace in Seoul
Joint service of Yongsan Church and members of Korean Church Headquarters
I heard that you have come from around the country, representing the congregations of your respective churches; I would like to give a short message to you today. As you have all noticed, winter has come. Whenever winter is ushered in, people experience the blues. Spring has passed; summer has passed, and we are just about to welcome winter.
The natural atmosphere changes with every season. Let us take a tree for instance. The leaves of a tree change every season. Yet, its branches and trunk do not change. In autumn, the leaves fall off, but these same leaves while they lived had enabled the branches and the trunk of the tree to grow. Though I have used a tree as an example here, this logic remains true for a country too.
Let us look at Korea. Korea can be said to have sprouted from roots and grown to form a trunk with branches stretching out from it. Likewise, the numerous people born in Korea, whether they are those presently living here or those that have already died, can be compared to leaves. Hence, even if the leaves were to fall off, the branches and trunk, which can be likened to Korea, will continue to develop.
This is also true of God's will. It is applies, too, to the providence. While attending God, who may be likened to the root, the lives of numerous believers, who are like leaves, crossed the path of trunk-like religions. Those that came across them helped the providential course, which is like the trunk and branches, to grow. The seasons are spring, summer, autumn and winter; winter, which is right around the corner....
People cannot get away, cannot exist separate from connections. For people to be born, they must have root-like parents. One also has siblings through the parents. Siblings are like branches. The parents can gain either glory or misfortune through these siblings. Hence, one must understand that all beings come into existence through such root-like connections.
One's siblings are like branches stretching out from one trunk. Even among the branches, there are central branches and sub-branches.
Being linked to an unbreakable connection, siblings must regard each other as precious. A sibling connection cannot be established through simply the two, but is a connection that is established through the parents. Hence, no one can do anything about this connection. It is not something one can control. Linked through such a connection, siblings must therefore respect it. Thus, no matter how bad the relationship between siblings may become, they cannot break away from this bond because they are all connected to one root.
This is the same with countries. Many countries have sovereigns; yet all of them certainly work with a connection to the way history flows. These sovereigns not only have an unbreakable connection with one's national history but also with the flow of the world.
In addition, if there is an absolute entity, all countries will be formed based on their connection with that entity. Hence, all countries share an unbreakable connection centered on the historical direction by which the world flows. Not even national power can block such a connection. Since all countries are following this connection, these countries have no means by which to break away from this connection.
When we look at our members today, all of you present here are separate individuals, but a certain connection has made you all convene here. You are not the ones who made this connection however. It is a providential connection. A connection made you all come here. Having established relationships through this connection, we cannot live away from where we stand today.
Even in a family, a couple does not meet by accident. A connection that has undergone many historical processes and weaved many life courses on the way brought the couple together. Looking deep down within this connection, we can find the history of Korea and the world. Going even deeper, we will also find the history of God's providence.
Respect the connections and relationships between human beings. Through such wide and large connections, human beings have established relationships among themselves. This does not simply refer to humans but also to the natural world.
When we think of these relationships, you cannot lightly think of your parents, who made it possible for you to exist as an individual. If we were to scrutinize the parental connection, we would see a representative connection that combines heaven and earth.
On earth are 3.6 billion people; we could say 1.8 billion men and 1.8 billion women. A father -- mother relationship represents these 1.8 billion men and 1.8 billion women. Parents are representative people in a position that generally integrates the relationships of all men and women. Parents also appear by establishing a relationship with you.
Since we are all born from these parents, regarding the 3.6 billion people, we could say that interconnection makes all humanity siblings. In other words, we all become the same as brothers or sisters.
Looking at it as a whole, humanity is a combined substantial entity. This also implies that because humans all came from God, humanity can be connected all the way up to God.
I am saying this because I have observed a tendency to neglect relationships among people today. Limiting a relationship only to greetings in the morning is easy, but our relationships, even with our neighbors, must not be limited to just greetings, knowing each other's faces and knowing each other's fathers. When we look deeply, from the standpoint of God's will, relationships hold great significance; yet, the reality is that we do not treat relationships with much importance. That is why I am saying this.
For one to think of a person that left a bad impression or that caused one to suffer some damage would be unpleasant. One might even consider the person an enemy and might seek revenge, but when we dig deeper into the connection linking the two people, a larger connection exists than the present antagonistic relationship that the two perceive. This larger connection is higher and of deeper value than the present antagonistic connection. Despite this larger connection binding the two, if one person hits the other out of enmity, do not even think that this could lead to a solution? Easily the more likely outcome is that the other will hit back. Such a complicated dimension exists in relationships among mankind.
That is why people that have undergone spiritual training all advocate doing good deeds and donating to the poor. This is said because beneath the surface such connections certainly bind all people and because everything that has appeared in history is connected. The connections binding us are more precious and nobler than the standard by which we feel and criticize things. Hence, if someone ends up hitting someone, the hitter is in a position by which he or she may end up receiving half of the blow back. That is why one must think of one's relationships with people as precious and treat others with devotion. The kingdom of heaven is a place where people that love each other live together.
What should a person do in order to love from the point of been woven together throughout history, what were they all striving to achieve? They have been striving to connect humanity to a position that can bring abundant happiness to all people.
What, then, is the purpose of that connection? It is for people to love one another and amidst that love for God to participate in it and form a society and form a nation. That is why we, in this age, have been born.
From this standpoint, we must be able to love humanity with a heart that can represent God. By doing so, all connections that appeared in history will combine and one can stand on the result of this combination. Looking at all of nature or the nature around us from this perspective, we find that it all has this same relationship with humankind.
Hence, a person has either a direct or an indirect relationship. You must clearly understand this. According to the Divine Principle, creation is a symbol-type; man is a form- type, while God is the substantial form. Hence, when it comes to relationships, there exists only direct and indirect relationships; when it comes to connections, we can only classify them into direct and indirect connections.
Something indirect, however, does not refer to anything bad. For the term "indirect" to be established, one must pass the direct connection. It is established where this has been acknowledged. In addition, the term "direct" is mentioned only after indirect elements have been acknowledged. Hence, we are connected with elements that make us inseparable.
Even when we look at human connections today, we can divide them into direct and indirect connections. Even when it comes to loving people, direct and indirect love are different. However, they are inseparable.
Let us take an example of a Korean citizen. It would be direct love for this citizen to love a fellow Korean while it would be indirect to love a foreigner. However, that does not mean that this indirect love can be separated from the direct love. They are not two separate loves, but are certainly connected to one another.
Whether one can assess this relationship as more than just a mere indirect relationship will decide whether one country can establish a direct relationship with another country. If we can digest indirect relationships, transforming them into direct relationships, a new time and world of hope that man has been looking forward to will begin.
Today, Unification Church members call each other members. You also call those in your family, members.' What is the basis of our calling each other members? We call each other members based on God's love, the noble connection and relationship through which God desires to love humanity and the ideal that God had originally wanted to establish at the time of the Creation.
The Value of the Term "Member"
Hence, our connection here today is one that humanity has been hoping for all throughout history. A connection of this type exists within the term "our members."
Having appeared with this key connection, from a direct standpoint, we must be able to love people more closely than anyone else does through a love connection. In the same manner, even from an indirect standpoint, we must be able to love from a position higher than anybody else in the world.
What is higher between the love through a direct relationship in the fallen world and the love through an indirect relationships with God at the center? Our standard, which is based on indirect love with God at the center, must not be lower than the direct love experienced in the world. If it is lower, we must elevate it. Once such a connection takes place, everyone will yearn for this position and respect this connection and relationship.
What must we do and learn from this? We must learn methods of loving humanity. From a secular standpoint, it may seem as though we have no connection or relationship whatsoever with heaven; yet, as people who have established connections and relationships centered on God, we must be able to substantiate the love with which God wants to love humanity.
In order to do that, your love for each other under the name "members" must be higher than the love toward one's people and the world. In other words, you must love from a position in which the basis and environment of global love has been achieved. Hence, the problem lies in how much you respect the life of each member. In other words, the problem is the degree to which you treat every single member as precious.
Even among families in the secular world, they would invest everything to help another member in difficulty. If we fail to develop a connection or relationship higher than the secular one, the fallen world will end up absorbing our groups. We would be unable to become stepping stones through which God can spread the connection with people that he has dearly hoped for until now.
Hence, responsible members of our church must have clear views. Otherwise, the effect on everyone will be great. All church and business leaders must always have a public mind or a heart of love through which they must love in the context of the connection established by God. The leader must live for the sake of his members in the same way as he lives for himself, in accordance with public laws. In addition, the leader must be able to love everyone affiliated with him more than he acknowledges himself. This standard must be higher than any connections within the satanic world. If it is not, the kingdom of heaven that we have hoped for cannot be realized.
Yet, when we look at the thirty-six and seventy-two couples, a great heavenly connection bonded them. Still, have they been able to love the members, the country and the world in the true sense? If you asked them, they would answer they that have not been able to do that. Everyone seems only to want to play around self-centeredly. If this continues, doom will befall them.
Let Us Not Become Leaves That Fall In Autumn
Even people, who stand in public positions in the satanic world, consider living a life transcending oneself as ethical and moral. What about those of us that live in accordance with God's will? If we do worse than they do, we will not be able to survive. You must bear this in mind.
You have all been called based on God's will within a historical providential context. Yet, when I look at your hearts or your hearts in relation to loving God, they seem like leaves that are about to fall in autumn. No matter how much dedication our church may exhibit, if we only try to fulfill a leaves-like mission, we will end up falling. If we become leaves instead of becoming the branches or trunk of a tree, we will fall in autumn. In order to become the branches or the trunk and in order to remain in the world, we must not stand in a position where we can easily fall as a result of some worldly wind. We must set a vertical relationship based on a love connection higher than any worldly love in order to remain in the world. Otherwise, we will not be able to remain in the world; we will become like a tree's leaves that fall in the autumn wind.
When I look at older members from this standpoint, they seem to have lost hope. Even if I wanted to welcome them with a happy heart and talk with them sincerely, many people are in such a state that I cannot do that. I have found many people like that.
Whenever I look at members in that position, I feel that either it is you or I who is in the wrong. Whoever it is the situation must be corrected. If you and I are recorded within the Book of Life and have a universal connection, we \yin certainly become one and will have to set up and be moved by one purpose; however, if we cannot do that, one will falter and the other remain.
Therefore, you must not brag about becoming members. Do not brag about your present circumstance or position. What we need to focus on is how one's connection can become an embodiment of love based on the foundation of God's will.
In order to resolve this problem, we must always have a public or subjective stance that can become one with God's will with a heart stronger than the heart with which one lived in the world. Otherwise, we won't be able to be in the position of branches and trunks but will become leaves that fall in autumn.
If a person were to falter, the results that particular person achieved after joining the church would melt within the church and become nutrients. A tree grows through the exuberant foliage.
Hence, for you to become people who inherit the eternal destiny and survive, you must follow a life of faith based on God's love. If you were to do so, where would you yield fruit? You would yield fruit in front of people, in front of humanity.
That is why you must love people. You must be stronger than any group in loving people and yearning for people. This meeting must be based on God's will and not human will; only by doing that can we certainly deposit the fruit of love globally. It would remain as fruit.
When trees grow thickly on a hillock, differentiating between a pine tree and a spindle tree is difficult. However, when autumn and winter comes, the different trees become easily recognizable. Winter arouses hopes; it symbolizes meeting a new destiny or connection. In the same way, no matter how difficult an environment may be or whether one is stabbed in the world of death, if a person loves humanity without wavering, that person can represent heaven.
Father holding Hyo Jin nim in the early 1960s
One Must Love Everyone Evenly
When I say that you must love people, I do not mean that young people should only share love among themselves. When it comes to loving, you must be able to love people of all ages, including aged people and children. Young people these days do not have time for older people; yet, this must change. You must be able to love older people and young people alike.
When it comes to loving, older people are the ones we must love, respect and revere more. For young people, meeting them alone is all right; however, for the elderly, one must love them and sympathize with them even more in that they need the help of another person because of their weakened strength and difficulties moving. Yet, we do not see that trend in today's society.
Looking at those people who accepted God's will in history, many of those close to Heaven in the beginning of the providence were quite old. Among them, we have Noah, Abraham, Moses and many others. In other words, older people received God's love and came forward. After this phase, came the era of people in their prime. The turning point that began this age was Jesus' era. Jesus was a young man. After Jesus, all those who accepted God's will were people in the prime of adulthood.
In the beginning, older people moved the world. Then people in their prime did. These days, university students and younger people are raising the social issues.
In other words, that history has developed amidst God's providence indicates that those who receive love from being closest to God can rule the world. In other words, older people first governed the world and then adults in their prime ruled the world. Now, young people around the world are raising the issues. This is how history has developed. However, it has developed in the opposite way, from governance under older people to that of younger people.
God's providence has gradually developed. Our members encompass elderly people, people in their prime and young people; divisions must not occur between members in the different age groups. We must respect the destiny and value binding us together, consider each other to be within the same house and fence, feel the necessity of each other's existence and love each other. Only by doing this, can the connection of the heavenly nation sprout from here.
Those who have been in the church for a long time are the problems in our church. Older members experienced deep grace and evidence of Heaven's intervention. In the early days, every single member treated others as having infinite value.
Unfortunately, this has become habitual. If it had become habitual based on Heaven's tradition, that would have been fine; the problem, however, is that they made it conventional based on their past secular lives.
This is something Satan understands best. Among the incidents Satan maneuvers for and aims at, this is what Satan most covets. This is the type of environment. Satan intends.
Hence, you must understand that you have the responsibility to offer all types of spiritual conditions in order to abolish that environment. Otherwise, you will also end up falling like autumn leaves without realizing it. If that happens, you will not be able to recover anymore, no matter how hard someone may try to guide you. Therefore, before ushering in autumn days, one must have a set direction and must be able to resolve the problem as to how to find a summer-like connection.
Let Us Take the Lead in Loving People
Today, people are indifferent toward others. When it comes to horizontal relationships, we do not see respect any more between people based on a horizontal connection. Regardless of sex, everyone seems to consider other people irritating. If one considers people a bother, that person cannot become someone that can follow the path of the way.
God does not need only South Korea in conducting his providence of restoration. He needs all the world's three billion people. That is why God conducts his providence with deep interest in people. This has been the most important goal in God's providence until now. We may consider ourselves a group that gathered to achieve this goal; hence, you must be able to treat all people with God's heart.
You must not do this superficially. As I mentioned before, only when we obtain a heart surging from one's original mind can one yield the best connection. Bearing this in mind, no matter what difficulties, environmental obstacles or suffering you may face in the future, please sympathize with each other as though you were suffering from that yourselves.
When taking the lead in loving people more than anyone else, you will obtain a life force with which you can break through the approaching autumn-like and winter-like suffering and pain. I hope that you all experience how this life force moves and survives until spring with all its might and then becomes the parent of life in the new world.
Father's Prayer
Father, enable us to realize once again that mankind has infinite value and connections. Though inadequate in your eyes, your children are stepping forward and calling you. We must not forget that our connection with our numerous ancestors and your tears enabled each one of us to live in this age.
Though we may seem to be no one and may look miserable on the outside, please enable each individual here to realize how great he or she is as a person representing all of history and this age, taking into consideration that we have been called by you based on this connection from amidst the three billion people on earth.
We now understand that Heaven exists in order to love humanity, earth exists in order to love humanity, and that you have created humanity in order to love too. Your highest goal, therefore, is a realm of love that can encompass anyone, a free heaven and earth and a free environment where you can embrace the entire human race without any restrictions.
Your children have come here for this. We were called through this connection and we have all come here with the connection of members; hence, Father, I sincerely pray that you may allow your love in its original state to reveal itself among us today.
A position of love is not a self-centered one but is a position where one forgets oneself. We understand that the position in which one receives love is also a position where one forgets one's existence. Please enable us to inherit everything related to your providence and to move on to a direct position where we can sincerely cry and convey what we have inherited to all humanity. Please allow us to understand clearly that we are the ones that must provide the motive that will spread heaven's history from this point to the entire world.
Today, our church is achieving a new relationship and global development based on this new historic connection. All of this is not bragging about the past or about practical social organizations and structures. Please enable us to realize that we are following this path to love people in history, people of this time and future people. We must be able to resolve the resentment, within our generation, of the martyrs and ancestors in history, who could not experience love in its true sense. Please enable us to be in a position where we can love people of this age that could not be loved until now and to become the one center all people are seeking. As a conclusive connection that can join the newly beginning connection in the future to here, I sincerely pray that you may allow us to start, equipped with the fundamental basis of loving people.
Today, our church is crying out the word "members." Please enable us to understand that this sibling connection is not a connection that can be severed. Please enable us to also understand that parents are essential to becoming siblings and fellow members. Parents are the center of all of our connections, the embodiment and root of life, hence, please enable us to understand that they are the fundamental embodiments that we do not have control over....
[The recording ceased before Father ended his prayer.]