Sun Myung Moon
May 21, 2004
Blue Sea Garden, Yeosu, Korea
On the third Ahn Shi Il, May 21, 2004, True Parents gathered members from all over Korea at Blue Sea Garden residence near Yeosu for a special speech and declaration. This is the prepared speech Father delivered on that occasion.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen! First, I would like to sincerely thank Heaven for this opportunity to share this time with you all on this sunny spring day, here in this beautiful area of Yeosu with its soaring hills and the vast Pacific Ocean spread before us.
Today is a special day. Not just because of the fifteen thousand or so Korean and Japanese leaders and Peace UN ambassadors are here. This day is a significant and blessed day in which the "era before Heaven" has come to an end, ushering in the "era after the coming of heaven."
On May 5, I declared the beginning of Ssang Hab Shib Seung Il, and proclaimed to the whole world that the "Era After The Coming Of Heaven" is one in which we must perfect the harmony and unity between heaven and earth, of man and creation, of the eras before and after the coming of heaven, yang and yin, east and west, Japan and Korea, Gyeongsang Province and Jeolla Province.
Invisible to the eyes of humankind who are the descendants of the Fall, God's providence has proceeded without a single error, making it possible to designate and proclaim this era in which we live today the "Era After The Coming Of Heaven."
In this way, as we usher in the era of heavenly fortune, unprecedented and significant in history, God has now given us a heavenly decree to live a life based on a new set of absolute values that is in accord with this new age. Thus, the message I convey to you all today is not for your ears alone, but are words of truth for which I was called by heaven and compelled to proclaim to all six billion people of the human race.
What indeed will open this tremendous providential "Era After The Coming Of Heaven," and enable us to secure our positions as the owners of the absolute values of Cheon Il Guk? The world today, which has lost these heaven-centric, absolute values, is adrift without a sense of direction due to all manner of evil and chaos.
Thus, the heavenly secrets that Heaven is now revealing today through me are the absolute values that must be known by and incorporated into the actions of the owners of Cheon Il Guk in this "era following the coming of heaven," the new heaven and new earth based on absolute values.
The title of my speech is "The Purpose of the Harmony and Unity of True Love is the Perfection of the Absolute Value System of True Families."
A world created through mutual relationships
Dear guests, what was God's purpose in creating man? The desire of the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent God was to not live in solitude. Thus, He created the cosmos as a part of the process of creating an environment for man, and on that foundation, He created mankind as the object of His absolute love.
God created mankind as His children. His desire was for man, His object to become better and greater than Himself. Even in this world, parents wish for their children to become better and greater than themselves. This is all the love of a parental God, which He gives as a blessing.
God's purpose of creation was to feel joy in seeing people created as His children grow and perfect themselves, receive the marriage blessing from Him, multiply true children, and create a true, eternal ideal heaven in which they could live.
The path for becoming an owner of love can be opened through the practice of true love, which invests and completely sacrifices itself first for its partner.
Before God created man, He first established the standard of absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience and then invested Himself 100 percent. Thus, He brought the realm of the object into the realm of absolute values. One cannot become an owner of love on one's own. This is only possible through an object partner. This love principle of absolute values also pertains to God. Without children, parents can never become owners of love. In the same way, in order for God to stand in the position of the owner of absolute love, He must set up man, who stands as God's object, in the realm of the values of absolute love. Perfection is reached through the emergence of the values of an absolute subject and absolute object.
If we observe the order of the universe, we do not see that the weak are unconditionally sacrificed and exploited for the sake of the strong. The theory of survival of the fittest and the law of the jungle are fundamentally wrong.
Believers of this theory have overlooked the absolute values that aim for the perfection of the owner of love, who stands as the subject by living for the sake of others, investing true love and forgetting ever having invested into the object, who responds in absolute obedience. If true love is excluded from this formula, only the concept of struggle remains, but God's principle of creating is not that of existence and development through struggle. Rather, He seeks harmony and unity leading to absolute values through a mutual process of giving and receiving within the relationship of subject and object.
An individual may be sacrificed for the sake of the greater good, but we should not perceive this as struggle. It must be seen as an investment for the sake of mutual development.
Can we indeed define the act of the individual willingly yielding and sacrificing himself for the family or the family for the nation or the nation for the world as struggle? In this way, the realm of absolute values exists for the sake of bringing about the full realization of true love, where each strives to first set up the other in a position of an owner of true love.
Self-centered individualism is Satan's last struggle
Thus, we must remove from our lives the roots of a self-centered and individualistic mind-set and the behavior that flows from that. This is the root of fallen nature and the cause of all evil. This can be said of self-centered behavior on the individual level and of collective individualistic behavior.
This path is directly contrary to the spirit of the true love absolute values system. Instead of sacrificing and giving for the sake of others, self-centeredness calls for others to make sacrifices for oneself, and causes a person to be concerned with his own interests. Through the Fall, self-centeredness was ingeniously injected into the mind–body struggle. Satan planted this poison mushroom in people's hearts.
Although embracing self-centeredness may result in a person appearing beautiful and gaining worldly fame and earthly comforts, it is a trap that once entered will lead to addiction and a life of suffering that is difficult to escape.
Even where our bodies are concerned, there is not one part that we can claim to be our own.
We were born from the love of our parents; 99.999 percent of us comes from the bone, blood and flesh come from our mother. The remaining 0.001% is from the father's sperm. In this regard, there is nothing we can call our own, nothing that can be used to justify self-centered individualism. You must acknowledge the fact that your entire body is an extension of your mother.
In other words, all the elements of your body were already included in the seed and egg of your parents. This holds true for everyone without question or exception.
Let us think about the concepts of "front" and "back." When we say "front" it already acknowledges as a pre-existing condition the word "back." The word "top" holds true only when "bottom" exists; "left" is a precondition of "right."
In the same theory, male denotes the prior existence of female. In other words, men were born for the sake of women, and women were born for the sake of men.
Without men, there is no need for women. In the same way, without women, men cannot retain the value of their existence.
In the end, nothing is born for the sake of itself. All beings exist and act for the sake of their partner. This means that they were created to head toward the ideal homeland within the context of a relative relationship.
Let us think about man's five sensory organs. Did your eyes come into being for the sake of looking at themselves? Our eyes, nose, ears, mouth and hands all were created for our partner. What is the force that mobilizes our five sensory organs to sustain our lives and maintain our activities? It is the force that aims to perfect the values of true love. Our five sensory organs are but essential tools that came into existence for the sake of practicing true love.
In this way, nothing exists for its own sake. A life of living for the sake of others, giving, sacrificing through love and perfecting the owner of love through obedience is a life that satisfies God's ideal of creation.
Since you were created for the sake of your partner, the law of nature calls you to live for the sake of your partner. This is where the absolute values of true love are created.
The Fall, the root of free sex
When God created Adam and Eve, the first human ancestors, in the Garden of Eden, he gave them sexual organs. Why did He do that? It was so that they could mature and perfect themselves, marry, multiply sinless children, and perfect the kingdom of heaven on earth, God's aim of creation, in Adam's lifetime.
The problem was that Adam and Eve fell. A false love, false life and false lineage came into being because of the Fall. Adam and Eve, who were supposed to preserve and transmit God's love, life and lineage received the satanic lineage instead and fell into disgrace as transmitters of Satan's lineage. Hence, God had to drive them out of the Garden of Eden, because they had become beings without any value.
Originally Adam was supposed to become God's body on earth, and Eve was supposed to become Adam's bride, but due to the Fall, Adam and Eve's body, mind and ideal fell sick making them enemies. How grieved God's heart was as he looked upon this reality!
The Fall became Adam and Eve's grave. It was an act of robbing God of what belonged to Him. It is the root of free sex and the origin of self-centered individualism.
Take a look around you. These days, self-centered individualism of the worst kind, the pursuit of a life beyond one's means, and a trend toward free sex among the young are rampant. Regardless of whether we're talking about the East or West, the dignity and value of the family is being cast aside and everyone is pursuing the pleasures of the body, which in the end have made people into drug addicts and AIDS patients, with only a miserable end awaiting them.
Man's original mind does not desire to follow an absurd path of dissipation in pursuit of an extreme version of individualism and bodily pleasure. Living a life in the universe, nation, neighborhood and family that is wrapped in the embrace of the love of one's parents and siblings is what a person's God-given original mind seeks.
Nevertheless, as we travel down a path going in a direction directly opposite to that leading to the desire of our original mind, our conscience burns out. This gives rise to conflict with the original mind. Hence, we are witnessing a daily increase in the number of people who swallow pills and choose the path of suicide. The historical declaration, "You shall surely reap what you have sown" rings true today in the age we are living through. What kind of seed did Adam and Eve sow in the Garden of Eden? They planted the seed of free sex, in other words, the seed of illicit sexual relationships. That is why they hid their lower parts immediately after the Fall.
In the last days, the time of harvest, the trend of engaging in rampant free sex among our young people will surely manifest itself throughout the world. Through promiscuity, Satan is carrying out his last struggle in the hope that nobody returns to God. Satan's goal is to destroy all of mankind and create hell on earth.
The natural reaction of a young child when caught stealing sweets by his parents is to hide his hands and mouth. If Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would have hidden their hands or mouths. So, I ask you: Why did they hide their lower parts? We cannot deny that the Fall was caused by an illicit sexual relationship between the first human ancestors. God could not do anything in the face of the tragedy of the Fall, because it was connected to the lineage.
Dear guests, do you know where heaven and hell are divided? Is the dividing point in the air? Is it in a cathedral? Is it in a nation? No, the dividing line between heaven and hell can be found in one's sexual organ. This is where the greatest tragedy in human history, which flipped heaven and earth, occurred.
If you recklessly use your sexual organ without direction like a blind man, you will surely go to hell. On the other hand, if you use it in accordance with the standard of God's absolute love, you will go to heaven. Who can deny this fact? If you doubt this, I ask you to carefully read the Divine Principle, which contains the laws of heaven that I revealed. If you are still in doubt, I sincerely ask that you pray to Heaven. I'm sure that your prayer will be answered.
Thousands and ten of thousands of young people in the world who have accepted the teachings of the Rev. Moon have ceased engaging in free sex. The message of the pure love movement, which advocates "absolute sex," or "absolute love," is now spreading like wildfire.
If free sex is false love centered on one's desires and Satan, absolute sex is absolute love centered on God. Many literary works and stories in the press have historically had the tendency to instigate and fan the fires of free sex.
Now, though, leaders of all spheres of life, including politicians, economists, philosophers, journalists, religious leaders and the literati will stand as one in driving away free sex, a disease that cripples people and nations.
The cornerstone of world peace lay within Adam's family, which is to create the absolute values of true love. It was also Adam's family that could destroy the path to world peace. Thus, we must bear in mind the importance of Adam's family, the ancestors of humanity.
The reason I brought an end to the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity and raised the banner of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification is because the time had come.
How can we transform this world, which has become hell? The practice of harmony and unification centered on true love is the only way of finding the absolute values. Since the attributes of God, the owner of true love, are based on eternal, unchanging, unique and absolute standards, we must also inherit and live according to those standards.
The beauty of a family of the original form
Dear guests, why is the family a good thing? It is because it becomes the basis for our activities based on our original freedom, centered on the parents" love. Even though they may be shabby in appearance, when a family becomes an original family, consisting of people bonded in heart with true love at the core, humankind and even God will feel liberated. Freedom without love is not true freedom.
If you feel restrained when you go to someone's house as a guest, it means you still lack a deep bond of love with that household. In other words, because your love does not spread out in all directions you feel awkward and restrained.
Then what is the highest and greatest value in an original family? It is the original parent1. Why is the original parent good? Because the original parent is the subject of eternal love. The original parents are the ones who stand in closest to us in creating a relationship that lasts throughout our lives.
The first partner to whom we relate our joy after we are born is our original parent. Thus the original parent is both the subject and object of our joy.
The original parents are such that when we are happy, they are the first to be happy for us. When we are sad, they are the first to shed tears of sorrow. Thus, children without parents are called orphans, and orphans are treated with pity.
Next, one's beloved husband or wife is the second most valuable being in the family. Husband and wife must be a couple that can give and receive original love that is unconditional in nature.
Although this love may not have begun within the relationship of love that is absolute and eternal in nature as given by Heaven, if it becomes an original love created within the partner relationship, based on the absolute bond between a couple, then that love will become the basis upon which to bring happiness and joy to the family.
But if this ideal, original relationship between husband and wife stops there, between the couple, it will not bring eternal happiness and joy that holds absolute value. That is, this couple must have original children. If couples decide not to have children, saying that they will live in happiness as a couple, you will see the result.
Mankind would die out before the second generation. Only when a couple receives the love that the original children return, can they rise up to the position of the original parents as true couples.
Therefore, the next most valuable and important thing is the love of the children toward the original parent. If the children can sacrifice and love the original parent with a bright and positive mind-set, while longing for the ideal environment in which their hopes -- not despair -- for the future can bud, that love can become original love as the pure and genuine value for the sake of the family's happiness. In this way, an original family extending over three generations, completely endowed with the sacrificial, original love of original parents toward their children, the true love between the original couple, and the true love of the original children toward their parents will become the most ideal true family in the world.
What kind of person is called a happy person? In other words, what standard is used to measure happiness? Can a person be called happy due to the fact that he has external talent or authority that no other person possesses?
Can a person be happy just because he has tremendous wealth that draws the envy of all? Is happiness obtained by becoming a world-renowned scholar and rising to a position that everybody envies? That is absolutely not the case.
No external condition alone can guarantee a man's happiness for eternity. It may be a reason for searching for happiness, but it cannot become happiness itself.
In the end, genuine happiness comes from a family that has loving parents, a couple bonded in true love and children that are devoted and faithful to their parents.
Family relationships as the basis of heaven
Dear guests, what kind of place is heaven? According to the principle by which God created, heaven must first be perfected on earth. Man was created to live life in heaven on earth in his physical body and then to naturally discard his flesh and move onto heaven in the spiritual world where he can live for eternity.
Then what would the kingdom of heaven on earth that we must build look like? The answer can be found close by. Our original family and heaven are similar in form.
In an original family there would be parents of the original standard who are a couple of the original standard and children of the original standard who are siblings of the original standard.
If that family unites while centering on true love, harmony and unity are automatically created. On that foundation, true love, true life and true lineage are connected, and the ideal purpose can also be made. The original grandparents should be able to convey the tradition of true love to the original parents. The original parents must also be able to transfer the same life of true love to the original children in order to call that family a true, original family.
Original siblings should take after their grandparents and parents by practicing a life of living for the sake of others and forming original relationships of true love. When that happens, that family becomes a heavenly family. If even one of these components is missing, it is impossible to create an original family as a unit of heaven.
Love for one's parents should be greater than that between couples; love for one's grandparents must be greater than that for one's parents. Only then can the tradition of the values of true love be established. The original family is the model of heaven.
Thus, the original parent is in the same position as an "owner" of a nation; original children are in the same position as the people of that nation; creation is representative of the land of that nation.
Individual perfection can be achieved through mind-body unity
In this way, the starting point of heaven lies not in an individual or nation but in a family. As when surrounded by the family we love, heaven is a place where once inside you do not want to leave. It is a place where those who you would want to meet repeatedly -- hundreds and thousands of times -- live. Everybody would like to go there.
Yet, that kind of heaven is not created in an instant. Just because the age has changed and heavenly fortune is with us does not mean that heaven will fall from the sky and appear before our eyes. We must first become people of character who can create a heavenly family. In other words, we must achieve individual perfection.
The path of becoming a person of genuine character through individual perfection can be achieved by perfecting the harmony and unity that exists between one's mind and body.
Originally, unity was meant to exist between mind and body. Man was created to live without conflict or disharmony. The mind was created to live in perfect harmony with the body, which was to be an object partner in absolutely submission to the mind as its subject partner. However, the Fall of the first ancestors, Adam and Eve, meant that all mankind descends from the Fall, and everyone has inherited fallen nature. Mankind has lived in suffering because of the inevitable conflict between mind and body that resulted from the Fall.
No one in history has ever achieved mind–body unity. Despite the steady progress of God's providence of restoration and His determination to save humanity, there has not been a single person who has achieved individual perfection and been liberated from the struggle between the mind and body.
Countless numbers of people have built tents deep in the mountains and spent their entire lives in prayer, engaged in a life-or-death struggle through asceticism; yet not one person has ever been freed from that struggle.
The reason is simple. Not a single person in history has known the method. Not a single enlightened person or philosopher has been able to stop the struggle between the mind and body. The answer could not be obtained just by disciplining oneself. All those efforts are worth nothing unless one understands the providence of Heaven, receives the calling, reaches the stage of completing the providence of restoration that God has guided for thousands of years and gains victory in a position publicly recognized by heaven and earth.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus came to earth as the Savior, Messiah and True Parent in order to complete this mission.
But even Jesus, who came as God's begotten son in order to complete the providence of Heaven, in the end died on the cross due to the disbelief of the Jewish people and Israel. Even the teachings of Jesus, who with each opportunity would call on people to love their enemies, cannot bring an end to the struggle between our mind and body.
But Heaven can wait no longer. Heaven is now revealing all its heavenly secrets based on Rev. Moon's foundation of victory. The truth about the absolute values of true love, which can create a revolution of character within humankind through the perfection of individuality, and bring about the construction of the ideal of heaven on earth, is being revealed through Rev. Moon. He has successfully completed his mission as the Lord of the Second Advent, Savior and True Parent, and comes to bring the final stage of the providence of humankind's salvation to its conclusion.
Dear guests, the only way to bring harmony and unity between mind and body is to live for the sake of others, to invest oneself with true love and forget that you have invested, and to live according to absolute values in order to perfect oneself as the owner of love in the subject position to an object partner who relates with absolute obedience. Without living according to absolute values, where you discard self-centeredness, which can be said to be the root of fallen nature, and completely give yourself for the sake of others, that is, unless you maintain a life of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values which is focused on the greater good, harmony and unity between the mind and body is impossible.
In the end, unless individuals who have perfected this harmony and unity between the mind and body gather to form families that meet the original, true standard, the realization of the kingdom of heaven on earth is impossible.
Thus, all people must live their lives in absolute obedience to the voice of the conscience, which precedes the principles of the three great subjects -- the parent, teacher and owner, which is like the root of our mind. You must listen to your conscience, which arises from the actions of your mind, and maintain a mind that knows how to modify its course at any time, anywhere, and is as clear as crystal.
No matter how strong the desires of the body, if you can willfully place greater force behind your conscience in accordance with the teachings of the Principle, your body will end up following your mind. If you cannot, you must strike your body through fasts and self-denial. If clear water continues to flow into a muddy pond, someday that pond will be clear again.
You must not let your mind grieve anymore. Disobeying the call of your conscience and bringing sorrow to your heart will result in bringing sorrow to not only your parents but also your teacher and even God.
You must spend more time in joy with your heart. Although in the eyes of the world, your position may seem lonely and dismal, you should create an unbreakable bond with your heart2 and try becoming your heart's best friend. Within the harmony and unity of your heart and body, you will discover a world where all of heaven and earth will be spread out before your eyes.
If you reach the state of mind–body unity, your conscience and physical body will resonate. Buddha's saying, "I am my own lord throughout heaven and earth,"3 should be understood in light of this dimension of the world of mind.
Ask your mind and it will tell you whether God is in your mind or not. You will reach that state where you can freely converse in harmony with creation through your mind.
Furthermore, you will be able to freely commune with the spirit world, and be able to live an earthly life that thoroughly prepares you for eternal life.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, humanity will now witness a great revolution of true love that is taking place on the Korean peninsula. Humanity, which has struggled under the false love of Satan for thousands of years, will now hear a cry of joy upon establishing the absolute values of the true family and ridding this land of all sorts of false values.
These two hands must come together in order to clap. Heaven has already opened the gates of the "era after the coming of heaven" on the foundation the victories of Rev. Moon, the True Parent. Our responsibility is to become the absolute object partner before Heaven, the subject partner, and open the way for the age of the creation of a new heaven and earth.
From this land of Yeosu, the center of the Hanryo waterway4, marking this meaningful day on the third Ahn Shi Il on May 21 of the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk, the beacon of true love that will light up the "era after the coming of heaven" has been lit with the fifteen thousand people gathered here today. The four thousand small islands off the coast of the Korean peninsula will be developed. The land of Korea will be cultivated, and this will be transformed into a new heaven and earth where all six billion people of the world will come on a pilgrimage to where True Parents reside. This will be recreated as an ideal garden, where the revolution of indemnity, revolution of conscience and revolution of heart are completed, and where we can throw off the loathsome satanic fetters and sing songs of liberation and complete freedom.
Let us all hold hands and let loose -- with hope and joy -- cheers of mansei toward the vast Pacific Ocean and the entire globe until our throats become sore. May God bless all your ideal families.
Thank you.
Endnotes
1 "Original" here means according to the original form and ideal.
2 Here the word used in Korean is ma-eum. In Divine Principle this is translated as "mind" but its use includes the notion of feelings and emotion that we would often describe as "heart" in English.
3 In Exposition of the Divine Principle this is rendered "In heaven and on earth, I alone am the honored one."
4 The Hanryo waterway extends from the edge of Hansan Island by the City of Tongyoung in South Gyeongsang Province to the coastline of the City of Yeosu in South Jeolla Province. One of Korea's most beautiful regions, it was the first marine park to be designated as a national park.