Sun Myung Moon
January 15, 1978
Belvedere, New York
Translator - Bo Hi Pak
The dividing peak of restoration is analogous to the mountain down which water flows; which side the water flows down will determine which of two totally different worlds it will enter.
Today all men are looking for some hope for the world, which reveals that the world in which we live is not yet the world in which hope has been realized. It is still necessary to eliminate all the negative forces which are blocking the fulfillment of that hope. This principle is true not only in human life but also with God. Saying that God created the world implies that He did more than just start physical life forms; He bequeathed His hope and vision to His creation and started it on a journey to the realization of that hope. Our beginning a certain task signifies the start of a journey toward a goal and purpose, and completing the task necessitates our going over a certain pinnacle.
Many people talk about a goal that they want to accomplish, but they are reluctant to make any diligent effort. In that case their hope will never be realized. Would you want to have a small, medium sized, or an extra large goal? We want big things that transcend nationality, culture, and the color of a man's skin; we are the people who want to reach the highest, most noble goal possible. Did people of the past think differently? What about those of the future? Whether past, present or future, all mankind has been pursuing one great goal.
Why do people want big things? After all, having just enough money to take care of yourself is fine, but having too much money becomes a burden. Presently, you are living simple lives, but if all of sudden you owned enough gold to fill an entire room, it would be only a worry and a burden. You hope for big things, but if all of a sudden those big things were substantiated, what would you do? Could you take care of them adequately? This is a serious consideration.
Many of our Church members dream about having one intimate meeting with me, which is a pleasant thought for you, but it would be an enormous task for me! I would have to continue 24 hours a day with no moment's rest in order to accommodate everybody. It is good to look forward to a wonderful goal, but once that gigantic hope is realized you must know how to take care of it.
Knowing that I could not possibly meet privately with every member of our Church, you actually redirect that particular desire onto the horizontal level in your dealings with others. When you meet with others or with nature, you act and feel as though you were meeting with me, putting yourself in my position to comfort and counsel and give lots of love. Suddenly you will find that not only is your heart filled, but you feel more joy than if you had met privately with me. Such men and women will be greater than those who actually meet me.
Let us expand this theory. You want to meet God, but putting yourself in God's position for a moment, what kind of time would you need to meet with each of four billion people just one time? If they all wanted to see God more than once it would be completely impossible! God could not do it. Have you ever wondered what God's main occupation is in this respect?
When you love someone, do you need to have them nearby all the time or doesn't distance matter? There is a principle in this universe which says that the greater the distance between two lovers, the greater the intensity of their love. Have you ever felt a longing for your loved one? Normally when two lovers are with each other all the time they don't feel an intense yearning for one another, but when they are separated their longing for each other becomes intense. Is this true of the animal world? Do monkeys have high hopes? No, this is the privilege of man alone.
Because we are fully aware of the rest of the world, we want to have a relationship with it instead of being separated. Therefore, man's hope is big enough to embrace the whole world. Is a white person's hope limited to white people, or does it include everyone no matter what color their skin is? Hope proceeds from outer to inner, and your pursuit of a big hope means that it hasn't been realized yet. Historically the hope of oppressed people was realized first, and in the next generation they became the conquerors. Just as your body hunches up when it is cold, people normally gather together very tightly when persecution comes. When they clash with their oppressors which group will break first, the loosely organized group or the solidly united one? The Jewish people have provoked controversy all over the world. Many people say that Jews are especially brilliant, but actually all people are the same; the world's persecution simply spurred the Jews to a greater extent than usual. The significant thing is this: when Jews were a persecuted minority they could not be destroyed or ruined, but when they became respectable and established themselves, they in turn tried to oppress others. This is the most dangerous time for them.
Being oppressed and persecuted is not necessarily a regrettable position to be in. Under those circumstances you can spur yourself on and manifest your brilliant ability. Is the Unification Church in a position to oppress others or to be oppressed? Persecution is coming from all sides, with people around the world united together to undo us. Instead of being defeated by them, we interpret their actions as showing hope that all five races can be united by the Unification Church.
It is a good sign that the Unification Church has become controversial and that people all over the world are trying to persecute us. It will all be over very quickly, but as long as it lasts you will be totally united because of this external pressure and you will form a solid core. You cannot prevent a high-pressure air mass from rushing into a low-pressure area, and once they meet they will create a happy medium. Your hard-core unity creates one which influences the whole area of these extremes and from that moment on motion automatically begins.
When you white people see a black person walking down the street toward you, do you see a black person or a brother? How do you black people feel; are you conscious of color'? What is your instant evaluation in that situation? Even God has to see a person's color, but God loves all men equally. The difference between you and God is that after learning the Divine Principle you reason, "Why do I love him even though he is white? Why is he my brother even though he is black'?" Once you are convinced in logic, you start to love people of different races. That's not God's way, though. God looks at a person and thinks "He is my creation," and instantly falls in love with him. God's instant reaction is joy at seeing His child, and that is the strongest feeling of all.
America is really a multi-colored country, and sometimes you see two parents who both have blond hair but whose child has black hair. Sometimes I wonder if that is really their child, but if you put yourself in the position of those parents, would you ever think that the child was not yours? The fact that a child is theirs is more important to the parents than anything else. Everything about him is beautiful. Do brothers and sisters automatically ostracize one of their family if his skin or hair is different from theirs? No, before they think of their brother's skin they think that he is their brother. That is the most important thing.
In all creation you will find three points, a central line, and roundness
The fact that the number three is mentioned so often in the Bible indicates that it must be significant. When three points are connected, an enormous variety of creations is possible and the infinite mystery of the universe unfolds. When you look at your own face, you see a combination of three points beautifully harmonized; your eyes, for example, have two corners and a center, as well as a top, bottom and middle. In the world of mathematics there is a zero point in the center and positive and negative numbers on either side. No matter which direction you move in, there is always an opposite direction.
The dividing peak is actually triangular in shape, forming three angles and three points. When love unites a man and a woman into one, they move to a neutral position where whether one is a man or woman is disregarded. The eyes function in a similar way. Each eye sees a different image, but the brain focuses these images into one picture. God placed the eyes so that they would focus without forming a double image.
Can you explain why you like to see a person laughing instead of crying? When you are silent or moody your mouth is closed and there is only one line, which doesn't offer variety. When you laugh, however, your mouth is open and forms a circle which contains three major areas. A round shape evokes a good feeling because it can harmonize with anything without too much resistance. On a pool table the round balls can quickly move around and make everyone happy.
In the human body the rounder shapes are more precious. The important elements in our face, for example, are round, and the heart has a round shape as well. A person who is very healthy is not thin but built like a tree trunk, like me. This is important for you women to remember when you are selecting a husband. Don't look at a man from only a front view; look at the side and check whether or not he is thin like a piece of paper.
All creation is essentially round; all the heavenly bodies are round and they move in orbits. It is the basis of creation that the more perfect the circle, the more perfectly something will harmonize with the universe. Laughter rounds out everything in the face. It is not natural to be serious for too long because God created us to laugh and smile.
Do you use just your mouth when you laugh, or does everything get involved, including your limbs? The face of a person who is really laughing without any reservation blooms like a flower. That person has a beautiful mind and cannot be a completely evil person. You can accurately evaluate a person by his smile and his laugh. Some people have very sneaky, uncomfortable smiles; their mouths are trying to laugh but the rest of their faces are stern.
When you really laugh your whole body responds. That is how it is supposed to act, but because there is a lack of harmony between your body and mind the whole body often doesn't listen. An uncomfortable laugh reveals a great deal about a person's mind. If there were many things to smile and laugh about together, it would mean that many happy things were happening. One laugh after another leads to happiness, and that is where art and dancing and music begin. Does anyone dance and sing when a tragedy occurs?
We are integrated with the rest of the universe and we have to move according to universal principles. Everything in the universe has reciprocal relationships and give and take usually results in three lines, both horizontally and vertically. Are your arms both the same or different? If several things are identical then you can stack them one on top of another, but your arms can't be stacked like that. God didn't make them to be identical.
It is natural that your two hands always join in a circle when trying to lift something. Trying to move your hands in a straight line is unnatural because we were not made to move in straight lines. You lift up your legs when you walk in order to cover three points with each step. Your fingers have three joints and there are three major joints in your arms. The eyes, nose and mouth outline three levels on your face. How ugly you would be if you had no nose, leaving you with only two levels on your face!
A person's face reveals much about him. A person whose face dips in at the center will have some suffering during middle age. Why is the egg shape more suitable for the human face, with the wider end on top? Have you ever thought about having your two eyes located down near the chin? The eyes are way up top in order to oversee everything from the highest position. The eyes represent God and the nose represents Adam and Eve, being one organ but having two holes which join together inside. Should Adam and Eve be represent by two separate organs instead?
The mouth is wide horizontally, representing the horizontal or physical world where food comes from. In eating a meal, all three levels of your face work together; the eyes look at the food's beauty, the nose smells its odor and the mouth actually eats it. Why did God give the nose the function of smell? The nose represents man, who conquers or controls the airy environment. The eyes and ears link us to nature and to our surroundings. You not only like to eat Western food, you sometimes like Oriental food, which shows that your mouth links you to the whole horizontal world.
The arms are placed on opposite sides of the body, but the two hands join together to make beautiful harmony. Do you write with your left hand or your right hand? The right hand never accuses the left hand of being idle and useless; instead they meet in the center and work together. A balanced person does not clap his hands to one side because everything should meet in the center and be straight.
When your two hands join together they form one central line which starts from between the eyes, and continues down the nose and the center of the mouth. You should be able to walk straight, not slanted to one side. A soccer champion who always kicks the ball with his right leg doesn't walk down the street leaning to his right side; even though one leg is stronger than the other, the left and right work together. With both legs working in harmony there is greater strength than the two working separately.
How does this principle apply to men and women? Which unity is more powerful, unity between two women, or unity between one very masculine man and one feminine woman? Women's basic nature is such that three women will never unite. When three or more women gather together there is always a squabble and the whole village erupts in noise. This is true in the Orient; is it true in America too? Putting together three of the Chinese character which represents a woman creates the character meaning "The worst possible consequences." That is the Chinese philosophy.
A man is needed because women by themselves find it impossible to cooperate. The man should be the subject, standing like a tower in the center. This is the beauty of God's plan in which one is feminine and weak and the other is masculine and strong, but joined together they make an invincible combination. Electricity works on the same principle. Keeping all this in mind, do you think that God would have created the Orient and the Western world to be the same? Naturally they should be different. When the East and West are finally united together the ultimate unity of the universe will be seen.
Love will be the binding force to unite East and West. The binding force of culture or of ecumenism will not hold, but when you bind East and West together with a chain of love, it will not break. Today the trend is for Westerners to be intrigued by the mysterious East, while Easterners are drawn toward the scientific West. America is an entirely foreign world to the Japanese people, but when they come to the West they want to stay. The same thing happens when Westerners marry Orientals; they want to go to the East to live because they find more stimulation there. When cold water hits a hot surface there is a big explosion; in the same way the ideal marriage will be a universal marriage of East and West. I am the flag-bearer in the quest for unity of the East and West with a chain of love.
I could go on like this for hours and hours, but in summary, I have been talking about three points. There is a central boundary line to everything. You must become men and women who can freely travel across the central boundary in each direction, because that action will be more in harmony with the universe and the closest to the Principle of God's creation.
The American welfare system vs. heavenly welfare
You say that America has a democratic form of government, but some aspects of American life are even more dictatorial and severe than life under communism. I am speaking of segregation, which is not so blatant in communist countries. When discussions about human rights take place in the United Nations, the communist ambassadors point out to the United States ambassador that in spite of the Bill of Rights, certain people, like Reverend Moon, are exceptions to the rule. Why are the American ambassadors embarrassed by such questions? There is definitely a deeply embedded attitude of segregation in America that cannot reconcile the differences between the races.
The American system of taxation illustrates how different chains bind people here than in the communist countries. In the communist countries the state is the landlord and farmers give one third of a crop to the government and keep two thirds to sell. According to the sliding scale of taxation in America, however, well-to-do people may pay as much as 80% or 90% of their incomes to the government. lt is a different kind of chain which controls the individual's life here in America. On the surface people here are free, but actually there is not so much room for maneuver. America's virtue lies in the fact that here the law is supreme, but when this nation faces a large-scale emergency it is totally incapable of dealing with it.
Should the authority of the law be the ultimate point of reference? Or is decency of human life and human rights more important? Democracy is supposed to be the government of the people, for the people, and on the surface American society seems to be open and free, but when you look more deeply you will find that it is very inflexible. The point is that harmony is essential; emphasizing only one element such as human rights or the law is inadequate to guarantee peace and prosperity.
The theory behind the welfare system is very fine, but in practice it has often degraded human life. New York is a victim of its welfare system. Norway and other Scandinavian countries are trying to perfect a social welfare system, or what they call "cradle-to-grave" welfare. That kind of system sounds good but it has killed human creativity and incentive. Why should you work hard to become a Ph.D. if everyone is going to be taken care of by the state anyway?
Young people must be motivated to live purposeful lives instead of spending their time in leisure activity, pursuing carnal desires and pleasure. God created man to live creative, active, full lives, and a welfare system only discourages that. The present system is so well established and regulated that it is very difficult to bring about changes, but we must introduce God's way of life regardless.
The so-called advanced nations, such as America, Japan and Germany, are all running into stone walls and it's very difficult for them to change. Hope lies instead in the underdeveloped countries where people are willing labor and sweat to advance themselves. If they are motivated by the ideal and purpose of God, they will be much freer to invest themselves in building a God-centered world. I am not saying that the welfare system is wrong or that the American system is wrong. No, the original goal and ideal is right, but it has become distorted and gone to extremes. The original purpose has disappeared, and instead of providing incentives for people to really better themselves, it encourages them to sit at home and wait for their welfare checks.
There must always be give and take. The person who receives a welfare check must think that it was made possible by someone sweating to make those dollars. In appreciation, that person should want to do something productive to reciprocate, returning some benefit to society. That's the only way a welfare system can be workable. One of the reasons New York is virtually bankrupt is that many New Yorkers wait for their money to come to them instead of contributing to the whole.
This attitude is becoming a world trend. Poor people from South America think that in America all you have to do is declare unemployment and sit in an armchair and wait for your check to come. From a heavenly point of view, the welfare system needs to be brought back to the original concept of God and made to encourage human creativity, giving dignity to man. We are certainly a different kind of people because we feel that it is a crime to become a burden to someone.
If I were a billionaire, would you like to sit idle and receive welfare checks from me, or would you want to be creative and make money, knowing I would use it for the purpose of God? The American government is puzzling over the Unification Church because other organizations pay their people to work, but here you work hard to contribute money instead. It is totally opposite the present world trend. The two systems must be harmonized because both are too extreme. We will eventually settle into the happy medium.
In the last days the old world will be divided from the new
How is restoration related to the dividing peak? We call the origin of sin the fall of man. Man originated at a certain point but fell below that level; restoration means that he must return to his original position. Since the fall actually initiated human history, where would you begin the history of restoration? Of course it would start at the extreme opposite of the fallen position, and the extreme end of history is what we call the end of the world. Restoration starts at the end of the world, or the last days, which the Bible says is when the Messiah or Savior will appear and save the world.
What does the Bible mean by the end of the world'? At that time everything in the world will end. Whether the ideologies of communism and democracy disappear will not matter because they will not be serving any purpose. The entire national system will be based on the family as the building block of our heavenly society. When the end of the world comes, will the old family system crumble or not?
If we say that the area above this line represents heaven and below the line represents the fallen world, then everything we now have is below the line. All the systems, the organizations and the ways of life man now has all belong to the fallen world, and in one way or another they must end and start anew. God's world should be the extreme opposite of the satanic world and use an entirely different system. Without doubt this present system has to end. This explains why a movement must begin which will lead people to deny the present ways of governing societies as well as man's present habits and attitudes, and make a new, heavenly system instead. That heavenly way is what all men are hoping for. Such a movement will begin at the end of the world and signify the coming of the Lord. It will mark the transformation point from the old world to the new world.
Is the Messiah coming as one individual here on earth, or will he bring his entire government and cabinet with him? He will come as one person, and God will not automatically give him a family, society and nation. Initially he will restore himself into perfection and then he will restore his family, society, nation, world and cosmos.
When the cosmos is restored, the kingdom of hell on earth will disappear. This particular point is the dividing peak of history, the beginning point of a new history which will progress upward all the way into heaven. There is a dividing peak at every level of the dispensation, and in order to continue advancing every person must pass through judgment at each one. The Messiah cannot come and just declare that as of a certain day all America is in heaven. Each person has to grow into it.
This entire sequence will be covered within twenty years, which is the shortened period of the 2,000 years of New Testament restoration. The Messiah could not live for 2,000 years on earth, so restoration must be condensed into his lifetime. Through studying the Divine Principle, you will see that the Messiah's work will be consummated within twenty years and if everything goes well it could even be done in seven years. That is the time period in which the Unification Church has been working, fulfilling those twenty years in three seven-year courses.
The Messiah's mission is vastly more complex than Adam's
What is the Messiah going to do when he comes? He will cross over the hills of perfection on each level of the individual, family, nation and world. Each one forms a mountain, and therefore each one has a dividing peak. At each level there is judgment and as a person continues advancing to the pinnacle of each hill, he creates one straight line. Finally he will reach the ultimate hill of universal perfection. When God looks at the work of His dispensation, He sees that this is the logical way to do it.
Did Adam and Eve need a Messiah before the fall? There was only one man, Adam, and his reaching perfection would have established the perfection of all mankind. Once Adam's family was perfected, the entire human race would automatically reach perfection as it expanded into a tribe, nation and world. Because of the fall of man, however, the whole structure was demolished and everyone must help remake it. In order to repattern the garden of Eden in our day, the central person must be a man because God created Adam first. The person God promised to send in the last days is known as the Messiah, who is coming in the position of Adam in order fulfill Adam's role which was left unperfected in the garden of Eden.
Many thousands of years elapsed as God strove to establish another Adam on earth. God has not changed His idea even one iota; this is why the Messiah will come with an ideology identical to God's original ideal. He must perfect himself and set up his family, which will then expand into a tribe, nation and world. During Adam's time the job was rather simple because Adam and Eve only had to be concerned with themselves. Once they were perfected, everything else would have been perfected. The restoration era is different now because there is already a world of people which needs to be restored, as well as many thousands of years of history.
Originally the perfection of Adam and Eve would have guaranteed the perfection of a society, a nation and the world, but they fell before they reached that level and everything else that came after the fall became the fallen world. When the Messiah comes to this earth, he will face an unprincipled world which is totally occupied by the fallen generation, while Adam and Eve had before them a vacant, unoccupied world. Unlike Adam in the garden of Eden, the Messiah comes with the additional mission of embracing the existing world and restoring it into the heavenly world. How difficult that mission must be!
Adam and Eve had an easy job to do, but they fell and brought the entire world down with them. Now the Messiah not only has to fulfill Adam's mission of perfecting himself as well as his family, society, nation and world, but he must restore each fallen man and woman one by one, lifting them up to the original position. To make his job even more difficult, this world is divided up to an incredible degree by differences of language, culture and race. There are many barriers the Messiah has to break through when he comes, but nevertheless it is his job to bring the entire world together.
Now you can understand why the dispensation starts from denial of the existing system of living and of the old loyalties. Each person must first leave the old world and start anew. Unless there is a movement that teaches this, the world has no hope to return to God's ideal. Just blindly denying things is not what is called for; you must know beforehand the precise way to recreate yourself. First you must see a new vision and hope centering on the Messiah. As soon as you unite with him you can become a new creation and give hope to mankind. Then all people will have a goal and can find the courage to deny themselves and unite with him.
Self-denial is necessary to get out of the shackles of the fallen world, but if you are blindly groping then you are like a ship without a captain and you don't know where you are going. In the fallen world you have been buried under your family, your nation and the world, but now you have to cut the shackles away and unite with the coming Messiah.
When you deny yourself, you will find a new family; when you deny your family, you become the member of a new family which has the value of the world because it is equivalent to Adam's family. This is why we have the term "True Parents." They are the center of the new home and by joining with them you will create a new race. You can disregard anything you had in the past because your new value is greatly increased.
God is shaking everything loose in the sinful world
Ultimately the new society and new race will expand into a nation and then the world, and from then on the fallen world will be rebuilt according to its original pattern without compromising anything. As the Messiah increases that success step-by-step onto the worldwide scale, he is not only building his own family, clan and race, but also restoring all the world's human beings into his own race.
Everything in the Garden of Eden remained as an unfulfilled ideal after the fall, but here in this new world the ideal will become a visible, tangible reality. You are becoming citizens of what country? God's nation and the Kingdom of God. When the Roman governor, Pilate, asked Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world." In our time we will say that we are citizens of God's kingdom on earth.
The Kingdom of God on earth is no longer just a concept, but a kingdom that we can make. Can the Kingdom of God on earth accommodate all the human races on earth? The kingdom, which you joined as a pioneer, embraces all races, all languages and all nations. You can cross all human barriers. Even God has had a hard time breaking through the racial, cultural and nationalistic barriers, but you have already crossed them. God has been struggling for 6,000 years trying to break down the barriers, but have you gone through such a bitter struggle? Some higher ideology has enabled you to cross those barriers.
Put yourself in the position of God, who has been doing His best for many thousands of years to eliminate the barriers, but who now sees the Unification Church members cross the barriers after going to a 7-day workshop. Would God be excited or not? There are no barriers for us; they have been broken down. In the world at large, barriers are only bent through force, and the battered human race can only see a world without any hope. People don't know why families crumble, why society is corrupt or why one nation after another is falling.
The situation is America today is beyond the control of any human government. The extensive moral degradation has spawned trends toward free sex, streaking and drug addiction. Do American young people have any love for their parents or nation? Do they worry about the world of tomorrow?
God is helping us and preparing for the harvest by shaking everything loose in the world of sin. When the new ideology of unselfishness is installed, the evil ways of the old world can easily be pulled aside. No matter how proud Americans may be of their democratic system, the heavenly dispensation will replace democracy. On the worldwide scale the democratic era is over, but the communist era is also over. The communists think they will take over the world, but they will be defeated. America has been preaching democracy to the world as the supreme ideology, but America has found that democracy doesn't always work everywhere. The entire world is answering that democracy is fine for America, but that each country prefers its own system.
Initially the communists talked about world brotherhood, but today they have become nationalistic, fighting with each other over their own national goals. The communists have proven that they do not have a universal ideology and that they cannot embrace the world. Democracy didn't work everywhere and even here in America it is having a hard time. Money talks, and democracy functions according to money and favors. Is that true democracy?
All these things will come to an end. Democracy has always been manipulated largely by selfish interests; white people use democracy only to benefit themselves, while black people have not participated fully and have not been given their share. There has never been a black candidate for the American presidency, and even if a black candidate entered the race, no matter how great he might be, the white majority would think, "We cannot afford to have a black president."
Democracy in the truest sense is not working; communism is only materialistic, emphasizing industry and productivity, as though human beings were machines. Of course, democracy is superior to communism because at least democracy recognizes human rights and dignity, but democracy is not the ultimate ideology. What will that ultimate ideology be? Does having constitutional rights make a person perfectly happy? Suppose everyone all over the world had the human rights that President Carter has been advocating. If a personal tragedy were to strike a person's family then he would be unhappy, regardless of his rights.
Human rights should be based on the fulfillment of love. Love must be fulfilled and then having human rights will bring happiness. If husband and wife are fighting at home over their human rights, would they feel the fulfillment of happiness? Can claiming one's own rights and disregarding the other person's rights bring happiness?
God pays the most attention to love
Love is the ultimate ideology. Centering upon love, the privileges and dignities of human rights can be given and the survival of such a democracy can be guaranteed. If individuals are concerned with giving sacrificial love then democracy can prosper, but otherwise it will wither. If communism was based upon a God-centered, unselfish love, then that ideology would be great, but since the basic premise is that God does not exist and that the material world is supreme, that could never happen. Millions can be purged overnight in the communist world, but that could never occur when love is central.