Sun Myung Moon
February 1, 1990
Olympic Fencing Gymnasium, Seoul, Korea
Many distinguished speakers have praised my work generously. Today’s occasion would have little significance, however, if its sole purpose were to applaud my accomplishments. The degree to which my work up to now provides a reason to have hope in the future, the degree to which my work can brighten the future of humankind, and the degree to which it relates to the providence of God, who governs the entire cosmos, ought to determine the substance of our celebration.
Throughout my life, I have been running at full speed to pioneer a course never before traveled by anyone. That, on an external level, I have been continuously buffeted by opposition arising from a lack of understanding is already widely known. Within the realm of my heart, however, I have been in a constant state of tension, fighting every minute, every second, to stay focused on how I can accomplish God’s desires during my lifetime. My life so intertwines with God that I can never speak of it without reference to him. Because my life connects directly to the fate of the nation and the world, I have shared every aspect of it in a deep interactive relationship with God. Recalling how I shared with him my deepest sorrow, my greatest pain, and my most exalted joy, I offer my deepest gratitude to God, with a heart that I cannot be fully shared with anyone else.
That the foundation I have laid around the world is an astonishing accomplishment is true, but I take less pride in this foundation’s external aspects than in the fact that I established no part of it centered on myself. I geared each part more to the future than the present, more to the benefit of the whole than to that of the individual, and more to the larger purpose than to the narrower purpose.
The value of this foundation lies in the fact that God was its motivating force; I established it under God’s protection and during the severest hardships and most turbulent vicissitudes.
A life dedicated to others
My seventy years have certainly not been an easy course. I had no friends in the world and no mentors. I took this road alone and survived many treacherous moments. Repeatedly, I persevered even when death seemed certain. The only reason I did not lose courage under such circumstances was that I maintained deep heart-to-heart communication with God.
The conversations that took place in that profound realm are beyond anyone’s knowledge. I can only say that God always softly whispered his advice to me and motivated my life. He did even more than that. He was life itself. He was the source of my life energy.
I never lent an ear to what others were saying about me. I never took my gaze offof God for even a second. I was never concerned about public opinion of me. I had no thoughts other than those of God’s earnest desires. With every cell in my being in unity with God, I lived with an almost fanatic determination to bring his ideal of creation into reality.
What do you suppose God’s earnest desire is that I have dedicated my life to fulfill? If not for the Fall, God would have been the invisible Heavenly True Parent with all people as his children. Each person would have become a true life form, receiving love and a lineage of goodness from God, the parent possessing vertical true love, and Adam and Eve, the parents of horizontal true love. Also, by practicing true love, people would have been able to transmit the seed of life to their descendants.
The Fall occurred when the first human ancestors were unable to fulfill horizontal true love under the auspices of God’s vertical true love, allowing instead an invasion by the archangel, which led them to false horizontal love. Consequently, God lost the children He loved, and people were placed in a position where they had no alternative except to be born into the world as dysfunctional life forms, embodying a contradiction between their minds and bodies. Satan has used the condition of horizontal love as a curse to unjustly control people on all levels, from the individual to the world. God, on the other hand, in an effort to return all people to their original state, has been carrying out His salvation providence. In accordance with the Principle, He has been working toward the natural subjugation of Satan, and He has been working through the Messiah to engraft humankind into his lineage.
I know that God has been investing Himself fully into the providence of restoration, which is actually a course of re-creation. In doing so, He has been totally investing His true love, just as much as when He sacrificially engaged in the original act of creation. I have therefore followed His Will and have offered my entire life to putting into practice these basic principles of true love and living for the sake of others. I have led my life thoroughly in service to others within God’s will, investing myself fully and continuously. The foundation I have now achieved is a result of these efforts.
Advances in modern technology have already led to tremendous changes on the planet Earth and are likely to bring about even greater changes in the future. As a result of these advances, we are faced with an acute emergency that requires us to pool our wisdom to find solutions. Contemporary civilization now stands at a major turning point.
To deal with this situation, we first need to transcend national, racial and religious boundaries, so that we can make cooperative efforts on a global scale. This is necessary because today’s problems, such as environmental pollution and overpopulation, are global in scale.
Finally, today’s social ills, particularly the deterioration of ethical and moral standards and the deterioration of our humanity, including threats of racial and religious wars, all have their roots in human nature. Thus, solutions to these problems need to be approached from the perspective of bringing about a revolution of human consciousness and of renewing human nature. It is not a matter of simply making changes in social institutions and structures.