Sun Myung Moon
January 12, 1992
Belvedere, New York
Translator - Sang Kil Han
As you see, the title of my sermon is written in Korean. Those who can read it, raise your hands. Getting close to 100%. Who knows the meaning?
The motto for this new year is "The Unification of the New Nation." This is the second Sunday of 1992, and we are talking about New Families. Today is the 12th day of January, right? History has seen many nations, including nations made up of only one race. Through wars, nations have been formed which have been thrust into the world scale. This is the direction of history; through war this has been going on. So history has been molded by wars at various times. The question is, will this pattern continue even now? Will the future history be formed through wars?
So far, it is unmistakable looking back at history: there were wars at all different times. As a result of those wars, nations were formed in higher and higher degrees. But will this pattern continue? If so, then when can peace be experienced? It is impossible that history continue to be shaped through war.
We see this pattern also in other areas. Even in the family, there is the father-centered faction, the mother-centered faction. Some division is very visible. In the small nation of Korea it has always been that way-division between one province and another. Furthermore, there has been division between the Western and Eastern worlds, trying to compete and even fighting. When our goal is about to be realized, when heaven and earth are about to become one, then these things cannot continue.
We can explain the world of peace. The world of peace is where we can go back and forth from the smallest unit to the largest unit. You can travel freely without being stopped. There are no borders or passports and such. Isn't it natural to want to travel wherever our imagination can stretch? We want to be able to go deep down in the ocean. We want to fly to the end of the universe. Nothing stops our mind or our ambition to go anywhere and everywhere.
There is no Unification Church member who does not believe in spirit world, is there? Do you just believe that the spirit world exists, or do you know it does? We know about and we also have experiences of it. There is no way of denying it after that. We are so accustomed to living in this world where borders and boundaries are everywhere. When someone from this world goes to spirit world, he finds that there are absolutely no borders. How are people treated, since everybody goes to the same place?
What if we go to the spirit world and we find the most beautiful woman, the most handsome man? Since they represent the highest level of beauty and handsomeness, everybody would try to follow him or her, wouldn't they? Just as it is here, we compete. And if we cannot compete fairly, then we use our power to achieve what we want, to get the object we want. Everybody seeks the most beautiful woman. Suppose some man who has the most power gains control over her and occupies her, yet she does not like him at all. Will she be happy? No matter how strongly that man asserts, "You are mine! I have power over you!" she will not be happy. This makes us realize that borderlines are not necessarily all bad. Somebody has to be able to put up defenses against lawlessness. Somebody has to stop that man and say, "No, you can't do that."
So now we come to some confusion. It is bad to have a borderline but sometimes it is good to have a borderline. This is a problem. It is the borderline that most beautiful woman should like, her mouth should like, her ears should like, her eyes should like, her face should like, must like that. So all things must like that before she can be happy. Well, that is understandable. But what if there is a man and another man likes him so much, like the homosexuals and lesbians. Is that the world of peace?
In the beginning of the Creation, God installed a certain order. We recognize orderliness, don't we? What if the eye claims his freedom and tries to occupy the place of the mouth? Why should the eyes be placed right in front of the face and not on the side, since they could cover more area, having a wider angle of vision? What about the nose? Why don't the nostrils have more space between them? Why shouldn't the ears be turned around and facing the back instead of the front of the head? At least one ought to be turned around, don't you think?
Look at the hands and the arms in their natural position. Do they face each other, or are they facing away from each other? Is this the way we walk, or is this the way we walk? (Shows different ways of walking.) Everything is coordinated. Have you ever seen anybody who is mechanically straight? No, everybody is slightly curved inward. Isn't that true? Everything has an order and must function in compliance with that order.
What if the hair decided to grow on all different parts of the face? It cannot go against order. All creation is directed by a certain orderliness. What about the fingers and the hand? Wouldn't it be more convenient if the hand was just one big device, without the separated fingers? Also you wouldn't have to cut so many fingernails. What if the middle finger was shorter than all the others? That middle finger is in the center, as an extension of the center of the arm, just like a bud in the tree should be longer than the rest of the branch. So we have the result.
The hands must be rounded, not square or any other funny shape. If you have rounded hands when you clench them, your life will be an easier life. If so, then why are the feet shaped differently. Why is the first toe the longest instead of the middle, like in the hand? That is because the center of the foot is that first toe. Isn't that true? That is part of the orderliness.
So do we need order? What if the eyebrow would be right here, instead of where it is? If one person out of the billions of people on the earth had a face that was actually like that, then he wouldn't ever have to work! He could just sit in a museum and get paid to be seen.
There is no way of denying that everything in nature exists according to order and design. Then, the second point is that we have rules and regulations. Do we need those rules? Man has man's rules. When a man goes to the bathroom, he can stand up and pass water. A woman has to sit down. What if they did it the other way around? That wouldn't be according to the rules! Actually, it is unruly. If some man strays into a woman's bathroom, or a woman strays into the man's bathroom, everybody laughs. It is funny and surprising. Yesterday, we had a guest and he was in the men's room. On his way out, he encountered a woman coming in. For a moment he thought he had been in the wrong bathroom. So a man uses the men's room in a man's manner and a woman uses the women's room in the women's manner. That is a rule. Isn't it necessary?
Suppose someone says, "I want to exert my freedom of choice. I will walk like this." (Acts out some funny way of walking.) Then he is not a man; he is something else. How can he eat food in that way? Or he says, "I have my own rule so this is the way I am going to use my arms." He does this all the time. Then he is not a man. So do we need rules? Yes.
(Father draws on the board.) Here is a man, with a big face, big eyes, nose and mouth. But his torso is quite small. Is that attractive? No, it is very strange. If he has a big head, then he should also have big shoulders and everything else. What if women had wide shoulders, like men, rather than wide hips? That would not be good. Now it seems that many women want to become men. They say, "Why not? We can become bigger and more powerful and eventually we will be able to rule over men, the way they have been ruling over us." Some contemporary women have this kind of thinking. Those women are American women. I do not wish to undermine or ridicule American women, but this is a fact. No Korean women are espousing such ideals.
This is a rule. If they go outside of the rule, will they find happiness or not? Will they look good? Those who say, "We don't need rules," raise your hands. Are we going to deny the rules of conduct? When we interact within the family, there are all different rules according to one's own position. There are brothers' rules, sisters' rules, mother's, father's, grandparents, husband and wife. There are all these different kinds of order and rules. Those who deny these rules are actually denying existence itself.
Here within the Unification Church, centering on Father, we have a certain order. If someone goes beyond that order, it does not come to anything. Just like the head is supposed to be at the top of the body, and the face has to be in the front. Someone who refuses to do that and wants to be someplace else is like a face that puts itself on the back of the head. That's against order.
You say words such as "I like you. I love you very much." But instead of saying it face to face, eye to eye, you turn around and speak looking upward or down, or off to the side. Does the person you are speaking to really believe you like him? No, the meaning is lost. Can anyone deny order? Even the shape of the nose is determined by order. If someone says, "I don't want my nose to be shaped that way. I want a totally unique nose, shaped differently from everybody else," that would eliminate him from the ranks of humanity. That would eliminate you from being a human being! When you first glance another person, which do you see first-his forehead or his nose? You see his nose first because that is what sticks out the most. If that nose is slanted to the side, then the whole body should correspond. Thus the nose has to be straight. That is the rule for the nose.
Imagine a woman who is very fashion conscious. Suppose she decides she wants to have one round, large eye, like a Westerner, and one very small eye, that looks Oriental. She likes that kind of variety. Then she would have international eyes! No matter how much that person may be pleased with herself, nobody else would like to see such a face.
Why is this kind of orderliness necessary? It is so that one can have proper relationship. It is for the sake of right relationship. No matter how perfect a man or woman may be, by themselves they don't mean anything unless they can conduct themselves properly in relationship with other people. Imagine a woman saying, "I don't care to be around any man. I only care about women." So she would live that way, with no relationship with anyone except other women. In that way, she is denying the rules of existence. If she continues that way, she will not be able to exist beyond one generation.
Look at the tiny sparrows. Do they have relationships or not? Yes, they have proper relationships with each other. What about the world of insects. Would one small insect ever choose to go off and live by himself? Another thing a woman might say is, "I will live above men." Would that be right? The woman is always supposed to be in a lower position than man. The man is taller and the woman is shorter. Is that Reverend Moon's order or Reverend Moon's rule? That is the natural order of relationship, not someone's interpretation. Those who say, "I don't want to be bound by that kind of rule. I will live the way I choose, without any relationship." Can anyone say such a thing? Can anyone be happy that way?
Through these examples, we can see the ideal. Intellectually, we have a good reason for this. Everybody wants the ideal, but that ideal cannot be attained without order. Without rules and order, there is no ideal. You cannot gain the ideal without relationship. The way we are -- the fact that our eyes are here, our nose is here, and our mouth is under the nose -- is the ideal. What if your neck was stiff, like a plaster cast, so that every time you wanted to turn your head you also had to turn your whole body. Have you ever felt thankful for your neck and the way it functions? The neck cannot be very independent. It always must be the base for the head and it must stay in position with the shoulders. The neck is always in the shadows of the head, so perhaps it could complain, "Why do I have to stay here all the time?"
Those parts which move the most are the arms and legs, head and neck. Which do you think moves more, the neck or the eyes? Can the eyes look behind you without your head and neck turning around? No sooner do the eyes think about looking around than the neck responds by moving the head so the eyes can see. If an insect or something settles on your nose, your hand automatically reaches out to chase it away. If you didn't have that hand and had to rely on your head alone to shake it loose, you would be in trouble, wouldn't you? So the hands can never feel independent, and neither can the head.
After all these items are working in right relationship, then everything agrees, "Yes, that is a man who is working correctly." Everything in creation will harmonize with him and approve of him, saying, "He is like God's brother." Everything has to be attractive, becoming. When a very heavy woman wears a mini-skirt, is that becoming? No, short skirts are basically attractive on thin women with long legs. Therefore, a short fat Japanese woman could not look so nice in a mini-skirt. Actually, the mini-skirt looks better on a short, thin Oriental than a tall, heavy Westerner.
Isn't it true that everything has to be conducted according to right order and rules? Ideals, happiness -- none of these are possible without the proper orderliness and compliance with rules. Now more and more stress is being placed on relationships, such as man's relationship with others, woman's relationship with others, the father's relationship with the children, and so forth. Not so much the individual, but relationships with others. Look at the way the Western women grow and decorate their fingernails. They like to grow them very long and paint them bright red. But Oriental women do not have that custom. Can they have proper relationship? That is very unnatural-she is creating a relationship. When something is too unnatural, then all things of the universe will reject it. The red on her nails, you wonder about it. I suspect that sometime in the future, women will start wearing black and even purple on their nails. Do you know what purple represents? The color of death. So is that kind of nail polish in line with order? Or is it within rules? Is it designed for proper relationship? No, it is strange. So the outcome is something other than the ideal.
What does it mean to be ideal. It means to be harmonious with east, west, north and south, front and rear-anywhere. Wherever there is harmonious proper relationship, that is the ideal. Why do we need harmonious relationships between the four directions of north, south, east and west? It is because those directions represent the extension of the relationship, how far it extends. We talk about the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and the North Pole and South Pole. So unless you are equipped with all the directions and the limits, then you cannot maintain proper relationship.
We see many things that exist in the so-called "free style," free-this, and free-that, which means "don't care." That is out of the ideal realm. Actually that is when human beings can fall to a state lower than the animals. Even the animals and insects live within the rules of nature, so they are more ideal than human beings. All these perverted, sick relationships which are being seen in some families, such as grandfathers lying with grandchildren and so forth, are absolutely outside of right order. We don't even like to think about these things, much less talk about them. If that individual says, "It is my freedom to do that. I like it and it is my ideal," others may think, "Well, he may be right." So when some man declares, "I am going to have sexual relationship with my own grandchildren," and nobody has anything to say about it, what kind of society can that be? That is far lower than anything in the animal kingdom. Even some animals know better than to have improper sexual relationship. For example, the horse knows better than to mate with its sibling from the same mare. Some birds remain monogamous. When one bird dies, its mate wants to die at the same time. They all live within the boundary of order and rules. Only human beings want to go beyond those boundaries.
When human relationships go out of bounds and people start engaging in such things as free sex, there can be no ideal anymore. If everything orderly has been denied, then the ideal itself is being denied.
My topic this morning is "The New Nation and the New Families." The nation is far away, so let us focus on our own family, which we can see every day.
America has been having a lot of problems, but it has been able to continue to exist up to this time because a minimum degree of order and rule in relationships that has been maintained. But only after there is an ideal, when everything becomes the ideal, then freedom comes to exist for the first time. Everybody is seeking freedom, but where can they find it? Where does freedom come from? It will come only after the ideal has been achieved. Peace and happiness will follow freedom, in that order.
People seeking freedom do not really know what it is they are looking for. So how can you jump over all these right relationships and achieve freedom? Let's assume that someone has freedom. Will that automatically lead to happiness and peace? No, it will not unless you have right relationships. Centering on the ideal, all directions must be connected properly. As soon as the ideal is realized, then everything else will follows. We don't even need to worry about it. We will be free at that time, then we will be harmonious. Equality, right relationship between right and left, between up and down, front and rear-all relationships will become acceptable.
Western people are constantly seeking the horizontal ideal, as symbolized in the way they shake hands, a sign of horizontal unity. The Oriental greeting is to bow to the other, which is a symbol of vertical respect. As we all know, the Oriental language is written up and down. East and West must come to unite in the future. When an Oriental beckons for someone to come, he moves his hand downward, totally different from the way a Westerner does it. When one hand has to go above the other for some gesture, which hand should it be? It should always be the right hand. Why is that? The right represents power and heaven. So the right hand should do the eating. Western people do not make any distinction between the left and right hands. They do not see any difference between them. If someone writes with the left hand, it is actually a bit easier, since they write from left to right. Many people do write with their left hand in this country. Everything is dictated by pragmatism-whatever is easiest. Very rarely does anyone say people should write with their right hand. However, the Orientals always use their right hands to write. Why is that? Ignorance of proper order and right rules bring about mistakes. That is why Westerners don't see any difference between right and left handed writing.
As long as you are living only with Westerners, this may be okay but what if you suddenly have to go and live among Orientals? Then we have to study how the Orientals do things. We have to ask, "Who is right and why?" We have to abide by whomever we determine is doing it right. We can't say, "I don't care." We must care about right relationship and natural law. That is required in order to find the ideal. Times are changing. Even the Western people must do what they are supposed to do according to nature and God's rules.
When a man and woman dance together, what is their usual direction -- do they dance around in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction? They move to the right side, in a clockwise direction, but why? It is because the man is leading. If the woman were to lead, then they would dance in the other direction. These things are not just accidentally determined. They are all in accordance with nature. When lightning strikes, we hear that with our ears. As soon as we hear that, our eyes dart in that direction. Then the mind registers its reaction of fear. That is the order. All these steps take place according to rule and order.
This is the basic rule of the natural world. No matter what you are, you are bound by these rules. Look at the United Nations, where almost every nation of the world is represented, even though there are extreme differences in habits and customs. At the United Nations, they have to abide by some common rules and orders, and how to relate with each other. That is the only way the United Nations can continue. There is something grossly wrong with that organization, however. The form is right, but the way it operates is very wrong. Why is that? In order for right order to be achieved, we should pay a higher amount of taxes to the United Nations than we pay to the individual countries. Then the U.N. would take its proper place of relationship. The center of all individuals should be right there, not off to one side. It should be like an individual. The whole world, which is comprised of different countries, should work like an individual. Right at the center. And many different countries should respond, obey and help each other. They are one, not isolated individuals.
The United States saw that there was something very wrong with the way the UN was operating, so they tried to pull away from it to some extent. The Soviets were not paying their proper dues, but America was paying a major share, and they realized that was wrong. That kind of one-sided relationship could not continue.
If America set priorities based on these rules, then America would have become a much stronger country than it is today. Think about it. If America used more money for the sake of the United Nations than for itself, then America would have become much stronger. So the order, rule and relationship have all been taken in the wrong direction. Then things cannot continue, nor does the ideal come about.
It applies to the smallest unit, which is the family, but also to the largest entity, the nation, world and cosmos. Order, rules and relationship and the resulting ideal are applicable to every level, regardless of the size. It applies to companies and labor unions too. Labor unions however, put stress on the lower relationship, not the upper ones. They say, "I don't recognize that rule. Who made that? I didn't make it." Unfortunately that is why we see, union gangs assaulting the presidents of companies. How can that be? It is like the children beating up their father. In fact, communism went out and symbolically killed the father because communism did not recognize the position of the family, the father and so forth. They believed that the individual was self-sufficient.
Looking at these things we can conclude that they are satanic developments and events. All these elements came into America and helped America to destroy itself. What is America's order? Do we see proper respect for the President? No, that hardly exists. What about the relationship between man and woman? Who is the center? Who is the center of the country, man or woman? Unless we have these relationship corrected, there can be no ideal. What are the hippies, the yippees? They were the ones who were completely by themselves, denied the proper order of relationship. Can you go to spirit world and say, "God, I don't know who made up these rules of order, so let us do away with your throne. Let me sit up there instead." Maybe a woman would walk by and say, "Hey, you can't sit there. I want to." So they fight on the horizontal level.
We must restore the real ideal and the proper order and rules of relationship. Therefore, we definitely need a new nation and new family who abides by this.
Suppose you say, "America is doing fine. We have our own ways. We don't need these Oriental customs." Could America prosper with such an attitude? No, it would eventually perish, it cannot go on. Times have changed and the world has changed from fifty years ago. President Bush went to Japan recently, but he needs some "left hand" to support him. There is no left hand to support him. Without substance, he just goes around and around. Bush, of course, went and tried to exert a certain pressure, but they don't want to be pressured. They just run away. Without giving much attention to order and to relationship, and just saying, "This is the way the rule should be," will anyone listen? No, not likely. Actually, what it amounts to is, "For the past many years, we have been doing it this way, so we should continue to do that." But the other countries say, "Why should we?"
We can look at certain natural laws. When you try to throw a discus, you have to do it a certain way. If you don't let it go at the right time and with the right motion, you might throw it out with great strength but it won't go very far. Sometimes it lands right at your own feet. And sometimes you can lose your balance and fall over. When President Bush fell over, that showed the lack of American balance. What if the world is in a very serious, chaotic condition? You not only fall, but also you die.
Do we need the new order? Does the world need that? Without the new order, can the new world of peace ever come to exist? What about without the new rule, can world peace come? No. Without the new type of relationship can the world find peace? No. Without all these, no new ideal will be born.
What is it which has allowed mankind to continue to exist, throughout all the wars, conflicts and destructive things which have never stopped? Mankind was able to keep going until the present day. What allowed us to continue? What is the main element? What element has supported man's continued existence? Man and woman continued to develop-has that been due to the power of money, or was it through the application of knowledge, or governmental authority? What element has done it? Yes, it was the power of love, but it was not True Love. Only love can give birth to a child. Certainly money, knowledge and power cannot create a new life. In order to propagate history, man and woman had to come together in love. Without love, no history could have continued.
The same is true in the other realms of creation -- animal world, plants, minerals -- without love everything would cease exist. Love is like the common denominator. Love is the minimum requirement of relationship among all relationships. Love made the connections in history. The center of all power is love power, right? The factor that gave rise to the five different colors of skin of mankind-what made that? Love made that. Love power made all the different races and colors of people.
To whom do the white people owe the continuance of their race? They owe their existence to love. There are two realms of love, one is vertical and one is horizontal. Do you all appreciate love? So we must respect love, and vertical love above all other forms. The fact that parents love their children is absolute love, vertical love. Horizontal love is only secondary love, not primary. Man and woman, right and left, cannot come together until they meet right at the center. Brothers and sisters are in the front and rear position. Reciprocal position. The husband and wife can only become one by reaching that center point. But the brothers and sisters have unity even before because of their relationship with the parents. As soon as they are born, they have that unity. That is the difference in relationship, you see?
Which do you prefer -- to have lots of brothers and sisters or only a few? It is best to have lots. Is this just my opinion, or is it true? We all want to be welcomed wherever we go, don't we? If we have brothers and sisters around the world, then we will be welcomed around the world. If there is someone who is respected outside of his family, who is very successful, yet who is not loyal to his own parents, who does not exhibit filial piety, then that is not a good person. He is a good person outside, but once he comes home, he hits his wife. That is no good. First we must exhibit good conduct within our family, then we expand it to the larger level to the world. We must do very well within the family. The family is the place where we must exhibit the utmost courtesy and kindness. The family is the most important point. It is the beginning point. There is where we find the grandparents, parents, and children. Left and right are husband and wife. Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. As we said before, all of these elements comprise the family.
All these things should be measured. In order to measure something, we have to have a ruler. On that ruler, we have a line for one centimeter, one meter, and so on. We might compare the family as the millimeter, the nation as the centimeter, and the whole world would be like the meter. But they are all part of the same ruler, same standard of measurement. If the clan is the formation level, the country would be the growth level, and the world would be the perfection stage. The same rules apply to all the different levels.
We come to consider one of the most talked-about problems in the world today: racial discrimination. Is it right or wrong? People instinctively feel it is wrong, but why? Why is it wrong? We may not be able to explain it from a theoretical standpoint. We have to ask, what sort of love do black parents feel toward their children? How do they feel? How do white parents feel toward their children? Is there any difference in the quality of that love? Let us compare the quality of love that animals feel toward their offspring with human love toward their offspring. They are almost the same, aren't they? Why are even the animals born to love their own offspring? It is so that history can continue, the species can be propagated. Look at the lions and other large beasts. They will always try to protect their babies from any outside danger because they have the responsibility to preserve their race.
Looking back at history, white people learned that they had to preserve themselves from attackers, such as the lions and beast. So they tried to get together for the purpose of self-preservation. And they continue on and one, thinking that power is the utmost thing. If they have power, they can preserve themselves, they think. Western history has been one of too much bloodshed. That is because power was the utmost value, the way they believed they could preserve themselves. They saw blood all the time, killing animals, killing predators such as bears and other big animals. Where did the white people originate? It was from the cold climates of the north, close to the North Pole. Today at this point in history, the white people have garnered a lot of power in the world. So they continue to do the same things as before. They compare the progress of the white race and the Chinese race, for example. America has a lot more power than China, yet there are 1.3 billion Chinese, far outnumbering Americans. Are the white Americans afraid of China, or not? Yes, they are afraid of "Yellow Power." But why? They know they cannot control other people by power.