Sun Myung Moon
November 9, 1973
Atlanta Directors Conference
Translator: Won Pok Choi
A "leader" means a central figure. If you are in the center, playing the role of the central figure, you must not be inclined to one side or the other. The central figure will decide the balance of all those placed in different directions. In order for you to be able to keep that balance, you as the central figure must stand up straight and balance yourself. You must be like an upright tree. If the trunk is straight, the branches extending to every direction will be well balanced. And the roots are also affected. So in a word, you must not be inclined to just one side: you must keep good balance.
You will be getting information from all directions, so you must not be too attentive to one side and neglect what is coming from the other side. You must be good listeners, and you must be able to analyze and criticize in the best way. You must be good listeners so that you can judge correctly.
Those who are under your leadership will live or die dependent upon one word coming from you. However unhealthy a branch may be, it should shoot out towards heaven, towards the sky; so you must nourish those under you well. In order for you to be entitled to scold the people under you once, you must appreciate ten things they are doing right, and then point out two or three things they are lacking. If you just strike them for what they have not done right, they will be broken.
Again, I must say that you are the trunk of the tree. Over many things, you are the one who must be responsible. Seen from that standpoint, we must sincerely say that anyone who is in the leader's position does not exist for himself. You are apt to dwell on your authority as the leader. However, the authority of the leader must not be set up by you yourself, but by those people under you. If you think of yourself as powerful and authoritative, that is not the right feeling. You must rely on others, your members; it is they who must think of you as a powerful, authoritative leader.
Actions, words, and heart consistent
The people around you or under you will highly esteem your power because of your deeds, your utterances, and your heart. There must not be a difference between what you say and what you do. In speaking, too, you must not speak of two things at the same time. You must not be saying two opposite things. Those three heart, action, and words- must be in accordance with each other.
You are the trunk, and you must have the branches as close as possible to the trunk. If you don't carry out your mission as you are instructed, it is because you have your branches scattered. The branch tips must be headed for heaven, the sky. In order for you to grow, you must have nourishment from the soil and from the air. The roots will absorb the nourishment from the soil, and the leaves must absorb the nourishment from the air, sunlight, and everything else. The roots represent your members; the leaves mean spiritual resources. So without those helps coming from above and beneath, you cannot stand up straight and be well-nourished and healthy.
Leaders are in a more or less dreadful position. I as the leader have sometimes been afraid of my being apt to commit mistakes. However authoritative and powerful I may be, if I don't get the balance from beneath and from above with myself in the center, my work will be a failure. For instance, I always prepare before going out to the platform to speak.
I have gone through many speeches by now, so I know the contents by heart. But the most difficult and important problem is how to be one with my words and how to be one with God in heart. I want to be truthful in uttering the words. When I do that, my spirit goes out to the audience, projecting that same spirit to the hearts of the people. Nothing will come into being without a cause. You must be enthusiastic, you must be full of heart in giving words to the people, or else your words cannot move their hearts. You will see how important your words are.
God stands before you
If the listeners are attentive to what you say and absorb your words, it will change their lives. But you must take responsibility about what you say. If you don't have God standing before you, whatever you say will be a failure. But if you have God standing before you, then you will be the spokesman through whom God can speak. Then what you say will be fruitful, and if it is going to be a failure, then God will take the responsibility for that, and not you. If you speak with the heart of God, even though your utterances may be a stumbling block to the people, you will not bear the responsibility- heaven will do that.
If you as the leader speak out, and you forget that you are the instrument through whom God is speaking, what you say will sometimes be fruitful, but mostly it will not be fruitful. And in the latter case, those who fail to receive the words will accuse you of your mistakes to eternity. If you are like that, however hard you may struggle to win members, you will fail to win them. And even though you win the members, they will fall away easily.
If you, as the leaders, are not able to carry out your mission, your descendants will be affected, too. So you are in a dreadful position. It is something like walking on razor blades. That is the position of the leaders. Whenever I have someone who says that he has something to inform me of, then I am worried. After hearing about something unsuccessful, I think that I might have caused that man to fall.
Invest yourself 100 percent
You must love and care for your members, and day and night you must be thinking of them, praying for them, and seeking to nurture them. God is the Center. And in leading the people, you are in the position of the center. The person in the center must be giving out all the time. You must invest your whole being 100 percent, and then you can expect a good outcome. Without giving to them, you cannot expect any crops from people. You may be without a penny. You may not have material things to give them, but you have heart. By giving your heart, you are not going to lose anything. You must always be conscious of your living for the members under you. So if you are given rich things to eat, you must be thinking of your members first; if you have good things to put on, you must be thinking of them first; and if you have a good place to sleep, you must be thinking of your members first.
After having long been a leader, you are apt to criticize people even though you do not carry out your own mission. You will easily order other people to do something, but you will not do things yourself.
But my philosophy is to do things myself, and then let others do them. The principle is simple: you sleep in a humbler place, you eat poorer things, and you wear poorer clothing. Leaders will have many opportunities to appear in public scenes, so your members will be considerate and have you put on good clothing and look nice. That is what your members should do for you, but you should not do it for yourself.
Be thankful to your members
Even in case what you are doing is successful, you must not be boastful of your being successful, because the success did not come because of you, but because of the members. You must be thankful to God and to the members for their cooperation. Without that notion in your mind, you cannot progress. You must hate to be indebted to your members, and you must endeavor to have them indebted to you. If you as the leader find yourself being indebted to the members, you must retreat from that position-that is far better.
If you go on like that in the same role, then God will strike you. You will be a failure, and you will feel disgraced before the members. If you are indebted to the members, you must repay it. That is why you must be running in the vanguard of all the rest of your family, and you must work harder than they, and you must have poorer things to enjoy. You cannot go on all by yourself, so you must get the cooperative power pushing you ahead.
In the Bible we read, "You shall love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37) There is no commandment excelling that. It sounds simple. Whether you are indebted to others or have them indebted to you will decide your success or failure. First of all, you as the leader must give your members words. And you must show them the way. Then you must exemplify how to live, how to live the words, the truth. You must have your members always feeling like jotting down what you say. What you say should be so important to them that they feel like writing it down.
And you must be able to get the cooperation from your members because you ate working so hard they feel like helping you all the way. And you must have your members follow your example, because they feel you are always acting out what you say.
Dedicate gifts to God
The way I instruct my members is always this: when you are given a gift, don't touch it and think about it because you are apt to be not qualified enough to have it. In case you use it and take it for granted, then it is poisonous to you.
If the person who is giving you the gift has poured out 100 percent sincerity and love there, and you receive it with ten percent of that person's love, then the rest of the 90 percent will accuse you, and the heavenly fortune coming to you will retreat from you.
When you are given a gift, you must offer it, dedicate it to God first, and receive it back from Him. Always be conscious that the money is not for you, but for the public, for all the family. So if you have money, you must first of all use the money for the public purpose.
In using money for myself, I am very stingy. In order to take my members out, I would go to a restaurant, but otherwise I wouldn't. But when I use money for the public purpose, I am not stingy- I am generous.
The factories and many enterprises we have in Korea, even though the persons responsible for those factories would go to sleep early and get up late in the morning, I would go to sleep late and get up earlier than they. I would visit the place and instruct those people every day. The round trip between the Korean headquarters in Seoul and Sootaek-Ri takes three hours. I established the record of having visited three times a day. I would visit there once a day at least to those places; twice was very common. That is because I wanted to pour out my energy and heart into the business. Otherwise, if I am going to use the money coming out of the business, I am a thief.
Weep when speaking
In speaking, I am pouring out my heart to be planted in the hearts of others.
You must weep when you speak. I am using the interpreter, so it bars the way. But if I am speaking in English or Korean, there are many places where I have to weep. I must have the feeling of a man being drowned and asking for help -- I am that serious. Before going on the stage to speak, I prepare my heart instead of preparing the manuscript. So you can imagine how grave and serious I am when I talk.
If you are like that, cooperation will come from the heavenly side, and it will touch the hearts of your audience.
In giving speeches, don't just memorize and utter the words, but pour out the heart through the speech. If you are going to have people spellbound, you will sometimes yell and pour out your soul into the souls of the others. What you are doing is something like that, and it will penetrate the hearts of the listeners.
When I do this, the listeners will speechlessly fall back. Without cause, there will be no result. You as the cause must be powerful in order to influence the people. You are in the position of the subject. You are in the position of the center. And you must be ·:· all-zealous to carry out your mission. As the leader, how many times did you wake up early in the morning, earlier than other people and jump out of bed, and almost at the threshold you prayed before God that your faith that day would be fruitful? In the doorway, how many times have you been waiting for the people to come? Have you been working like that? You must imagine that there are many souls waiting for you to reach out to them, and you must be anxious to meet those people. You must remember the biblical verse, "Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matt. 7:7)
Revelation in prayer
Without witnessing to as many people as you planned, how can you go to bed, lying down with easy hearts? You must not feel like going to bed in pajamas. In that case, I would sleep just as you are, with your clothes on. In beginning to pray, I would fall asleep, but I would never feel like getting into the bed. We cannot afford to relax like that. If you have new members, you must be praying hard for them, and then you will be given visions and dreams about them. And the next day you can tell them that they have such and such disadvantages, and things like that, and they will be awakened to the fact. Many times you will be able to predict things, and when you point out the fact that a person is thinking this or that in his heart, that person would be astonished and would ask you, "How do you know?" "When I prayed, I saw it." And he will be thankful that you are so concerned about him and take such care of him. In light of all these things, you must judge your own selves.
Wherever you are, wherever you go, you must be with God. You must have your God stand before you, and follow Him. It is a very difficult thing to be leaders. On the spiritual level, you are responsible over the lives of the 200 million population of the United States.
If you find a certain member, a certain element causing disharmony among the group, you must have the heart of the Father, and call the person in secret and take him out to one of the restaurants or to one of the theaters, and after giving him something good, then you talk with him and discuss the matter. Then he will come to like you, he will come to love you. You will be in the position of the parents. And wouldn't your children want to follow you wherever you go? You must create that kind of atmosphere in your family. You must be able to create that kind of feeling in the hearts of your members, so that they will like you from the bottom of their heart, and serve you from the bottom of their hearts.
Hard times expose poor qualities
Here is another important thing for you to carry out, to bear in mind: as the leader, when you hear something from A, you must not convey it to B. If one of your members has committed some mistakes, you must keep it to yourself, without publicizing it. It will defame your own family. When the family is defamed, the central figure, the leader, is always responsible, and must take the responsibility for that. In ordinary daily life, it will not be too conspicuous. But if you go on a trip, or if you are in a difficult situation together with the members, the members will find out whether or not you are a qualified leader right there. Especially on the international Mobil teams, when you have to pack and move about from place to place, then your disposition and your qualifications will become very conspicuous. Even the leaders will not like the idea of having to move about from place to place too often. If you don't like that, you must be sympathetic with the members. You must pray for them from the bottom of your heart. You must share the difficulties of your members, and you must console their hearts when they are in trouble. And you must encourage them, without just giving commands and scolding them or punishing them when they fail to do something.
In my prayer, I cling to Father that He give me strength to love my people, and if I am indebted to my members, I know that our movement will not progress further. I, as the leader of the group, must have the members indebted to me, not I to them. You must be cooperative among yourselves as the leaders first, and then have your members indebted to you instead of your being indebted to them. Creation is to invest your whole energy and whole being in those in the object position.
Nurture new ones like plants
If you have 40 to 100 members under you, you must at least be praying for three hours every morning for them. Have you done that? You must take care of them as you would your own children. In the night when you wake up, you must look around and cover them with blankets if they are uncovered. You should be nurturing them as carefully as though they were plants, using fertilizer or nourishments, and watering the plants; if you are not doing that, they will not grow properly.
For seven years from the early days of our movement, I wouldn't sleep at night. I would sit up the whole night nurturing the members and giving them truth to raise them. I wanted to sleep; I was tired. Still, I wouldn't. So many times I had a bleeding nose from exhaustion. Still, I would just talk on and on. My eyes would be reddened, and I could not look up at the sun in full daylight. If there is God at all, He could not but be sympathetic with me. And in the midst of all those difficulties, I would just think of the members and pray for them.
Those who are in the leader's position must play the role of servants to the rest of your family. Think of your own parents; they served you all the way. If you fail to do that as a leader, putting yourself in the position of parents, you cannot go on taking the job. But if you are a parent to them, you cannot but have your members increase.
You must at least pray three times a day: as soon as you get up in the morning, at noon somewhere in the day, and in the evening before going to bed. My way of praying is very simple: Let me sacrifice myself for these people, and let these people sacrifice themselves for the rest of the world. That is the contents of my prayer to God. Since my prayer is that way, and very ardent, I know that God will answer my prayer. So I am confident to talk to the people of the world that they should do the same. And in that case, I feel confident.
Unity among nations
We have got to make a good solid foundation in three years' time by mobilizing so many members from so many nationalities. That is what I have in mind. What we do and what is taking place within this three years' time will be recorded in the history of America. We are concentrating our battle in America, but from this beachhead, it will spread out to the whole world. During this period, if our members from all nationalities cannot be united in good harmony, then we cannot dream of making a world of oneness and harmony. The more members we have in our family, the more members from more nationalities we have in our family, the more difficult our job is going to be. So while our members are few in number, we must practice unity here. And if we quarrel among ourselves, it will be a tragedy.
There are European leaders here: the leaders from England, France, Italy, Holland, Germany, Austria. Well, what you will have done will be forever recorded in the history of our movement, and when you die, you must tell the story of how you fought to your descendants. You must be proud of your deeds in the past, or else you are going to be a failure, and you are going to be put to shame. When you leave your will to your descendants, you must show them your own example, and tell them that they must be loving all mankind, transcendent of national boundaries, as I have so far done. And out of your descendants will come world leaders, because they followed your example, your tradition. Then God will continue to send great personages in your lineage in the future generations to inherit what you have done. So you must know the importance, you must feel the importance of what you are doing.