Sun Myung Moon
August 20, 1986
Excerpts
Belvedere
If I sum up the speeches given by those who spoke to you today, the conclusion is that everyone is feeling sorry because no one could fulfill his or her portion of responsibility. Everyone fell short of accomplishing the mission. However, your failure is already in the past. If you make a fresh determination to succeed in the future, God will kindly forget about it. You should not worry too much. If you move forward for the sake of the God and His providence for the world, He will surely feel grateful to you.
When the theologians of this world are asked, "What is really the will of God?" by common people, they might say that it is clear in words, but complicated and difficult in substance. However, the Unification answer is very simple; it would be easy for you to explain. You would say, "The will of God is the completion of God's ideal, the purpose of His creation." Then why did God create this world after all?
God is absolute, omniscient, and omnipotent; therefore, He doesn't need knowledge, money, or power -- although the people of this world place importance on those things. Man has been busy researching the world around him, and science has developed rapidly, but man has fallen far short of understanding what God's creation is all about. All things in the universe are systematically interrelated. Therefore we cannot deny that God is Himself systematic, and the king of all knowledge. With regard to power, there is nothing under the sun that can compete with God: He is able to create everything man can possibly imagine, even now. And He is the owner of everything. He does not need any of the things the people of this world earnestly desire to possess. Then what does God need? There is one thing that God, as well as man, desperately needs, and that is true love.
Have you ever seen true love? You may have heard of it, but you have never seen it. Do you know why? It is because in the fallen world it is not possible to find it; that is why all the problems of human society have been left unsolved. However, when we attain true love, all of our political, economic, racial, and cultural problems will automatically be solved.
All the Japanese members were invited to East Garden.
God's Dream
Once true love is realized, even God will not regret being taken captive by it. Even though He is treated as a slave in the realm of true love, He will be grateful! If God is that way, then so is man. When human beings come to live together in an atmosphere of true love, they will never know complaint, dissension, or unhappiness. True love, which transcends everything else, cannot be initiated by fallen man. There was not even one day -- throughout the hundreds of thousands of years of human history -- that God could truly love a true man with true love.
Ideal love cannot be attained by God alone. God has had only one dream, and that is to travel in the beautiful realm of Shim Jung where men and women are intoxicated by perfect love. No one, including God, can reach the ideal of love and happiness all by himself. We need a partner, for it is not until all the dual characteristics -- internal and external, male and female -- are interrelated that the unified world is realized.
First your mind and body must be one. Without that unity, you cannot make a foundation for happiness. If your mind goes in one direction and your body in another, you who are standing in between will be a very miserable being.
Then, even after your mind and body are together, though you may feel some happiness all by yourself, it is not supreme, ideal happiness. If you boast that you have love within yourself, it is not love in the true sense. Imagine if God took pride in Himself saying, "I'm omnipotent and proud of it!" He would be weird! If I said, "Well, I am a famous person!" it would leave a bad taste. However, if someone else said so, I would be moved to tears, as when Kook Jin said a little while ago, "My father is the most famous man on earth!" Without a reciprocal base we cannot see, or feel happiness, or laugh. Can you experience love all by yourself?
What is absolutely necessary for a man is a woman. There was never any man in the course of all of human history who knew that before he could reach God he absolutely needed a woman; and no woman ever thought that what was absolutely necessary for her was a man. That is the problem. Men and women just thought, "We only need love occasionally." However, the relationship between a man and woman centered on true love is not temporal -- it lasts eternally. Even God cannot separate them. They are so precious that God will beg them never to part.
True Ownership
True ownership is decided through love. No matter what, a man is owned by a woman once he is united with her through love. Woman is the master of man, and man is the master of woman. According to the Japanese way of life, man is the master of woman and man is also the master of man. Under such circumstances the true standard of love cannot be established; a love like that could not survive in the ideal world. A man needs a woman more than anything else -- more than money, knowledge, or ability. A woman is the only bridge through which a man can reach true love.
Therefore, no matter how big or handsome a man may be, without a woman he is valueless. The man who is always proud and self-confident must know that without a woman he cannot become a man of hope. He is a cripple. Such a man does not know how ugly he is. Because there are many such men living on the earth, we are unable to eliminate many problems. So those people have to be repaired.
How much should we repair them? We cannot repair them imperfectly. God desires that we achieve at least an additional one percent more than one hundred percent; otherwise, we cannot attain the standard of absolute happiness. If fallen men, after they are restored to their original status, still have fallen nature, God cannot forget the fall, and all the repair work is in vain. We need more than one hundred percent reparation. As long we have some additional reparation, the amount of that extra addition does not matter: One percent, an unlimited percent -- any amount extra is allowable! Up to one hundred percent reparation, God is unable to forget the fall and the history of restoration, but by touching that additional reparation, God can forget everything.
Thus, we must have a clear goal in mind: to reach the standard beyond that of fallen Adam and perfected Adam. Otherwise we cannot return to the original wore where God can share His perfect love with us. From the Principle point of view, this standard must be very clear.
Throughout the ages, God has made effort through various religions to connect the realm of His Shim Jung to human society. Many cultural spheres have arisen centering on these religions, and races and nations within each sphere have their unique customs and traditions. Now we can organize all these different groups in one direction and create a single group that transcends the present world.
God has been expanding the religious world through four major cultural spheres -- Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judeo-Christianity -- in order to make a foundation for mixing all the populations of the world together. In reality however, all the religions of these four major cultural spheres have forgotten about the world. Instead, they attach supreme importance to their own groups. None of them is maintaining the desire of its founder to unify the whole world.
The True Family at East Garden. Left to right: Jin Whi Nim, Ye Jin Nim, Hyun Jin Nim, True Father with Yeon Jin Nim, Sun Jin Nim, True Mother with Jeung Jin Nim, Kook Jin Nim, In Jin Nim, Jin Sung Nim, and Kwon Jin Nim.
A Movement Transcending Religion
The purpose of religious teaching has always been to save the world. The Holy Bible clearly states, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." (John 3:16). Christianity has failed to inherit this messianic ideology. Consequently, many nations in the Christian cultural sphere want to dominate other nations centering on themselves. However, Christianity must save America, and America must save the world at the sacrifice of herself. Because this ideological mandate is not being practiced in Christianity, nor in any other cultural sphere, religions and nations have been fighting against each other all around the world.
Under such circumstances the Unification Church was born. According to the teaching of the Unification Church, religion should go beyond itself and even the national level, and work continuously until the entire world is restored to the bosom of God. This is the path original religion should take. Therefore, let us mobilize a movement that transcends nationality and even religion itself.
Man's mind is rife with evil desires stemming from the fall, so before any religious or political revolution, what must be accomplished is the revolution of character. Even if the world is unified, as long as man is unable to control his evil desires that new world will not be safe. New problems and conflicts will arise. The world cannot be unified centering on President Reagan, nor the American people; South Americans would oppose it. If Japan, a small island nation, tried to unify the world, she would be kicked out.
Any man or nation having evil desires cannot unify the world. Accordingly, we need a great revolution of character.
Such a revolution cannot be attained by knowledge or power, but only through true, original love. There is no other way to solve the problems of the world. What does the Unification Church have to aid in this revolution? We have a machine gun loaded with bullets of the essence of love. If the bullets hit our enemies, they will be refreshed and recreated by a beautiful explosion. Instead of being killed and sent to the dungeons of hell, they will be transported to heaven with the fragrance of love. Whether they fly east or west, they will meet God, since He is everywhere. If such a revolution is indeed actualized, the world will be totally changed. Don't you think so?
What God wants is nothing but true love. Since the creation of the world, God has eagerly been awaiting the day when He can see, listen, touch, and speak through true love. If His true children could have touched His hands to taste true love, how joyful they would have been! If God gave you a piggy-back ride and kissed you, you would reach such a state that all 4 trillion cells in your entire body would explode!
Like a thunderbolt, true love will begin at the highest point. When the sound reverberates in a relationship between a man and woman, all the cells of your body will swell up to the extreme and then shrink again, through the respiration of love. The perfect movement of each cell will begin with true love. Even in this fallen world, when a man and woman love each other, electricity flows through them; but the force of that electricity is only on the level of the archangel, fallen man, or lower. In the original world, a man and woman must be united centering on God's love in order to be connected to Him.
Perfection of Character
God must complete His original creation through the excavation of true love. God Himself cannot do the job. It must be done by a descendent of fallen Adam and Eve. The restoration of Adam and Eve through their descendants is a task far more difficult than the original creation, because having inherited the blood lineage of the fallen archangel, mankind is facing a direction which is 180 degrees opposite to God's Shim Jung. God is not able to give us true love in order to make our character perfect. We can regain true love only after the perfection of our character -- not the other way around! That is the problem.
For this reason, God can look at fallen people, but He cannot stand in front of them. Only after the perfection of our character can God, the subject of true love, stand in front of us. This perfection of character is accomplished through the fulfillment of our own portion of responsibility. Once you fulfill it, you no longer have any need of the commandment God gave to Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree. You can stand in a dignified manner before God and share love with Him as His true and mature son or daughter.
To attain this perfection of character and to restore true love, God sends the Messiah in the last days. Centering on him, God consummates human history and unifies the world through religious groups. An external foundation for unity has been prepared through science, which has made our world very small, since all parts of the world can now receive the same information in a matter of seconds.
After the revolution of your character is accomplished, true love will come to you. However, insofar as you still entertain worldly desires, thinking only of your own family and taking pride in your own country and culture, God will not receive you as a person who has reached the standard of perfected Adam and Eve. Thus a religion which moves toward the ideal world of perfection begins by completely denying this fallen world.
Because I have lived by this principle and strategy, I have been persecuted by many different groups. If America and Korea had been united with me on the basis of their Christian cultural background, we would not have witnessed the decadence of the free world; our youth would not have become demoralized; and communism would have disappeared from this world a long time ago. We would have been able to establish a unified world quickly with the top leaders of the world.
Instead, communism and democracy are fighting -- and they are tired of fighting! Even though America boasts of her mighty economic, scientific, political, and military power, she has completely failed in her responsibility to the younger generation, which has lost hope. The Soviet Union is now also on the edge of explosion, and the youth there are turning away from their system towards a free society. In the midst of such worldwide degeneration, our God-centered Unification movement has risen. Just as the sun rises in the morning, Rev. Moon's ideology has risen -- and it seems a nuisance to the world, especially the white Anglo-Saxon race.
As Mr. Kamiyama pointed out, there are people with many different minds gathered here today. Some might have felt happy to come to New York because they could see their spouse, or see me for the first time. In particular, some of the Japanese might Fie thinking, "Oh, I wish I were back in Japan. I want to see my family, and I want to eat sushi." So the Japanese are complaining; when we look inside their minds we will see all kinds of warps and scratches.
Actually, since your minds are not centered, you are not people of true value. You have no right to complain no matter how you are treated. If you feel disgusted following Korean leaders, then your attitude is wrong. We have no national boundaries among us. From God's point of view, Japan as well as the entire Oriental and Occidental worlds are still under Satan's bondage. They are the temporal realities that God has to work through in the course of restoration; they actually have nothing to do with God's eternal realm of love.
Inheriting God's Love
As Jin Whi said, it is not easy to inherit the realm of God's love. Those who inherit the heavenly lineage and become unforgettable to God cannot pay so much attention to themselves but must always think of the entire world and universe first. The total fulfillment of our portion of responsibility is equal to the completion of cosmic character. There is no way other than the fulfillment of human responsibility to be connected with God's original love and ideal.
Historically, God did not lead or educate people directly but divided the world into Cain and Abel realms. Then throughout the ages He gradually expanded the realm of Abel. You cannot return to God all by yourself; you must pass through the stages of servant of servant, servant, adopted son or daughter, and true son or daughter. Some of you are standing in the position of servants, and others in the position of adopted children, but everyone is connected to each other through me. In the original world, there never would have been any need to have people in any position lower than true son and daughter.
True children can inherit God's essence. Have you attained the position of true children? Have you inherited God's essence? No, instead you have inherited the essence of the fallen angel. You are not much different from Satan who thinks about everything centered upon himself. To inherit God's essence you must attain that very perfection which Adam and Eve were supposed to reach without the fall. To accomplish this, the Unification Church is initiating a movement to revolutionize the human character. There will be no way to defeat us.
Why, then, did I have to be imprisoned in Danbury? It is because I was not standing in the position of True Parents. Had I been standing in that position, such imprisonment would have been a most terrible occurrence, indicating that all of heaven and earth had become the satanic realm. The fact it took place shows that I am not yet standing on the foundation of True Parents. Do you understand?
God's strategy is for us to separate from the satanic world. If in the process I become the target of satanic accusation, I fight until it is destroyed to pieces. That is why I was imprisoned on so many occasions. Yet I received many commendations while I was in prison. If I were to tell you all my prison stories, your eyes would become so swollen with tears that you wouldn't be a: le to open them, and I myself would probably become too choked with emotion to continue. Yet every time I came out of prison I thought to myself, "Even bigger and more severe trials remain before me I never took a detour but always went straight ahead. Now I have reached the level of America, but I am already thinking about prison in Red China or the Soviet Union. I must solve many problems before I go.
God wants to stand on the side of the man who always moves forward, even under severe persecution, and wins the victory over the fallen world. Even though I often keep silent, God comes and stands right behind me. I tell Him, "Under any circumstances, even with Satan's accusation, I will accomplish my responsibility -- to revolutionize my character and never be defeated" The only next move my opponents can make is an assassination. Despite such danger, I am still moving forward with constant determination. How about you?
Uniting Cain and Abel Spheres
Let's conclude. God's original ideal was to have been accomplished centering on true love. God and Adam and Eve would have celebrated that wonderful day when human responsibility was fulfilled. God's joyful laughter would have reverberated throughout the entire universe, harmonizing heaven and earth on the wavelength of love. Adam and Eve would have grabbed God's arms and legs, and becoming one with Him, they would have jumped into the universe. Have we ever read about such a day in the Bible? No. From the moment of the fall, God regretted having created Adam and Eve.
In order to restore humankind to the original Garden of Eden, God divided the world into two major spheres -- the Cain or external sphere, and the Abel or internal sphere. These spheres must be united in order to accomplish the needed revolution of character. Human history cannot be consummated until the relationship of Cain and Abel is removed from the fallen realm. Communist ideology teaches that human history is a history of struggle. History is indeed a history of struggle, but not of material forces. It is the struggle of good and evil. Unless we can encourage Cain to surrender voluntarily centering on Abel, our way will not be in accord with the law of love and the law of nature. The internal and external realms were originally created to accord with each other automatically.
Now the external world is moving centered on Satan, and the internal world is moving centered on God. Throughout the course of history, they have been moving in opposite directions and fighting one another. Therefore we have no foundation for the True Parents. According to the Principle, True Parents can only come on the foundation of Abel completing his portion of responsibility. Since the original Cain killed Abel, Abel must now save Cain and allow him to surrender. Only when Abel returns to the True Parents together with Cain can the elder and younger sons, both on the side of God, be given rebirth.
In the fallen world, the eldest son has taken sovereignty. In restoration, however, Abel must come to stand in the eldest son's position, and in order for Cain to return to God, True Parents, and the realm of true love, he must respect his younger brother and receive love through him. This is the secret in the battle between God and Satan. In the past, people in the religious world never knew why they had to renounce the world, sacrifice themselves, and serve others. In order for them to find their personal relationship with God, they had to deny their family, tribe, nation, and world. They had to think about God and other people before all those who were dear to them. Throughout the ages, they were murdered by the sovereigns of nations. Therefore, we must expand the territory of Abel and multiply his descendants through the family, tribal, national, and worldwide levels. Today, even patriots belong to the satanic realm: only saints stand on the worldwide level. And unless we go beyond even the level of saints, we cannot become the true sons and daughters of God.
Japan has been the enemy of enemies to Korea. Once Japanese authorities even tried to kill me, and because of them I actually came to the brink of death many times. I have chosen Japan as the Eve nation because forgiving and loving the enemy and going beyond one's own misery is the highest condition before Heaven. Young people are coming here from an enemy nation to do God's will. America was once an enemy to Japan, and now you Japanese must try to save her. Germans must also try to save America. Then Japan and America can save Korea. By uniting enemy nations, we can establish the highest tradition centered on God.