Unification Theological Seminary Founder's Address
by Reverend Sun Myung Moon
The message I, as the founder of the Seminary, want to convey to you who are graduating today is: strengthen the power of your conscience to possess the true love of God.
To possess the true love of God is not a selfish act at all, but rather a very unselfish one. The reason is that the true love of God is, by nature, unselfish and sacrificial. When God created the world, He in His act of creation completely invested and sacrificed Himself out of true love, hoping that Adam and Eve, His objects of true love, would also assume the same sacrificial nature of true love to build His joyful kingdom. Unfortunately, this hope of God was completely shattered by the fall of the first human ancestors who acted selfishly. But even after the fall, God continued tirelessly and sacrificially to pour out His heart of love towards fallen humanity, hoping that some day the whole of humanity would come back to him to restore the true love relationship.
In order to inherit and possess this true love of God, you have to strengthen the power of your conscience, overcoming your physical desire. Unfortunately, after the fall of man, a fierce battle within the individual between the conscience and the physical body started. This battle within the individual seems to be even fiercer than major wars in human history such as World War I and World War II. For whereas those historical wars usually ended within a few years, the individual war between the conscience and the physical body seems to be unending, not only within the entire life of a person, but also for generation after generation. The fall of man allowed the physical body to become the instrument of Satan's selfish desire. As a result of this, the physical body has always sought to fulfill its selfish desire. As a result of this, the physical body has always sought to fulfill its selfish desire entirely against the direction of the conscience, which is the dwelling place of God. Therefore, whatever little conscience the individual has had, has always been completely dominated by the physical body as a result of the fall. Thus, coming from these individuals there have always been families, tribes, nations and the world under the domination of Satan.
But today, I really want to encourage you to strengthen your conscience, fiercely challenging your physical desire. You know that you still have a conscience, even after the fall in the Garden of Eden. You know that some force within your mind is still urging you to live for the sake of others, practicing true love. That force is your conscience. Just develop and strengthen it. This may not be an easy task, at least in the beginning. But remember the situation of God: throughout history God has always been investing and sacrificing Himself for the sake of the salvation of miserable humanity. So, if you adamantly challenge your physical desire in order to develop your conscience, then God will definitely be with you to offer you His help.
As the one called by God to bear God's burden in this age, I discovered the reality of God's tearful historical journey to invest and sacrifice Himself for the sake of the salvation of miserable humanity. This is the reason why I was strongly determined to completely liberate the conscience from the physical body in order to be completely one with God. In the course of history, there have been many religions and religious leaders teaching that the body must be denied and sacrificed for the purpose of gaining the control of the conscience over the body. But no religion, nor any religious leader, has been able to gain total control over the body because no one has discovered the reality of God's tearful historical journey of salvation. For the first time in human history, the Divine Principle, which is the teaching of the Unification Church, has completely revealed God's heart of true love. As a result of this revelation, perfection is now a reality.
So, be bold and courageous in developing your conscience. Sacrifice yourself and live for the sake of others. If you carefully study yourself, you will notice that your conscience knows everything that you have to do. In that regard, the conscience within yourself is the greatest teacher of all. You have studied at the Seminary with your teachers here. But the conscience as God's dwelling place is greater than all of them. It is even greater than your own parents, once you develop and strengthen it.
When you have gained total control over the body, thus totally liberating the conscience within yourself, the ambition of the conscience will be completely satisfied. That is because the conscience reaches the highest possible position in the entire cosmos, i.e., the domain of God's true love. If you reach that domain, you will inherit and possess not only the true love of God, but also His true life and true lineage, thus being able to multiply God-centered children, families, tribes, nations and the God-centered world to build the Kingdom of God on earth.
Let me explain more about the domain of God's true love. It is where the Four Great Realms of Heart are established, i.e., parents' love towards children, conjugal love, sibling love and children's love towards parents. It is also where the Three Great Kingships are established, i.e., the past kingship of victorious grandparents, the present kingship of victorious parents, and the future kingship of victorious children-victorious in all the Four Realms of Heart.
What we should be reminded of here is that in order for the Four Great Realms of Heart and the Three Great Kingships to be established, we absolutely need to embody the unselfish and sacrificial nature of God's true love as the most essential element. If you embody it to establish within your family the Four Great Realms of Heart and the Three Great Kingships, then your family will be a seed and basic unit of the Kingdom of God. If you additionally love plants, animals and the earth as well as humanity, you will be completely one with God such that you will not feel Him as a separate entity anymore.
Dearest new graduates, I really want all of you to become men and women of the greatest conscience in order to build the Kingdom of God where true love shall be practiced in this way and where, according to the Bible, there shall not be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore. The 40-year wilderness course after World War II was concluded with the victorious establishment of true Elder-Sonship, Parentship and Kingship. During this 40-year period, unspeakable indemnity and sacrifice were made to launch a new era. The next five years until the year 2000 A.D. will be a very critical period in human history. If we work hard out of true love based on the victorious conclusion of the 40-year wilderness course, then with the power of God we will be able to radically change this world of selfish individualism, free sex, homosexuality, and other intolerable crimes, transforming it into the Kingdom of God by the turn of the century.
You as graduates of the heavenly academy called the Unification Theological Seminary are all expected to join this final battle to defeat the force of Satan's selfish desire on the cosmic level. But before winning this battle, equip yourselves with the unbreakable power of the conscience to possess the true love of God.