Sun Myung Moon
February 4, 1972
Lincoln Center, New York, USA
Seven-city speaking tour in the United States
Photo date and location unknown
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my gratitude for your attendance this evening. For a long time I have yearned to meet with the people of America, and I am truly delighted and thankful for having been given this opportunity. The topic I would like to discuss with you today is, “The Ideal World, or the United World, for God and Humankind.”
Where does the pursuit of the ideal world begin?
In their hearts, all people long for an ideal world, a world of oneness. However, at this point it seems like an impossible dream. This can only be a source of sadness for humanity.
If there is a God, He too undoubtedly is longing for such an ideal world, the world of oneness. Without a doubt, both God and humankind yearn for this ideal world of oneness. If there is a God, He must bring about such a world, without fail, and if you are a person who believes in God’s ability, you will think that this task must be accomplished above all else.
Although all human beings yearn for a united world, we must acknowledge that it is not simple to bring this about. The democratic world and the communist world, from their own positions and in their own ways, both are thinking about uniting the world. Then, could the communist world submit to the democratic world and become one with it? Or could the democratic world submit to the communist world and unite with it? This is an extremely difficult problem.
Before we start our search for a way to realize unity and an ideal world on the global level, we first need to ask if there is a nation which is itself united. Only through such a nation can we bring about a united world.
Before there can be a united world, there must be a united nation, and before there can be a united nation, there must be a united tribe. Before there can be a united tribe, we need a united family, and before a united family, there must be a united individual. This is where the problem lies.
Human beings are the origin of good and evil
Where is unity first achieved? Since this world is a resultant world, we can conclude that unity must begin with the causal beings. Where are those individuals? It cannot be denied that we human beings are torn between two purposes that lead us in contrary directions. Our minds desire to go toward goodness, whereas our bodies lead us the opposite way. The two are fighting with each other. There are two different individuals, a man and a woman, who come together in union to form a family. Because they each possess an internal self and an external self, when the two meet as a couple, they in fact come together as four beings, each acting in different ways. In the same way, whether it is a clan, a tribe, a people, a nation or the world, everything is divided. Nevertheless, we can be grateful that they are not divided into hundreds or thousands of directions; they are divided in two ways. This is what is fascinating.
If there were a God, He surely would not allow people to continue like this. He would have no choice except to work in the background of history, even without their knowing it. And if there were a Satan who had driven human beings to evil, that Satan would keep trying to pull them in the direction opposite to that of God.
Nonetheless, even if Satan opposes the absolute God, he does not have the right to rise up and oppose the principles that God set up with absolute authority. God governs what is good and Satan governs what is evil. The resulting fight between God and Satan starts within us as individuals. We need to understand that this is the reason that human beings can be the origin of evil and the origin of goodness. In short, a person can be the starting point of goodness and at the same time the starting point of evil.
Ladies and gentlemen! Going up symbolizes something good and going down signifies something bad. When you are complimented for some reason, you wish to boast loudly of it. In contrast, when you are criticized for doing wrong, you shrink into yourself. When you do something good, you advertise it and call for others to follow your example. When you do something bad, you hide it for fear of it being known. No one goes about boldly advertising having done something bad, like stealing. Rather, such a person goes his or her way in secret.
You need to understand that people have two parts, one desiring to go up and the other desiring to go down. The part that desires to go up is the conscience. There is no person, even one of great power or fame, who does not suffer pangs of conscience when doing something evil. We need to understand clearly that the human conscience is the guardian of God, whereas the body is the guardian of Satan, and that the conscience is the origin of heaven, whereas the body is the origin of hell.
This leads us to realize the fundamental difference between the essence of good and the essence of evil. Goodness seeks to benefit the whole, whereas evil seeks only its own benefit. Good people live more for the sake of their family than for themselves, more for the sake of their village than their family, more for the sake of their nation than their village, and more for the sake of the world than their nation.
Until now, history has unfolded as a struggle between the perspective of living for one’s own sake and the perspective of living for the sake of others. God’s absolute demand is that we completely uproot and destroy the basis of evil in our bodies. In contrast, Satan’s evil demand is that we mercilessly destroy the conscience and anything associated with it. History continues to unfold through this conflict.
God’s side is centered on the conscience, while the side of evil is centered on the body and on material things. They oppose each other, and we can conclude that this is why humanity is divided between the realm of materialism and the realm of spirituality. If there were no God, we would not have such a resultant world. Evil manifests as jealousy, disunity and conflict that lead to self-destruction. From this viewpoint, where can unity and the ideal be realized? In the end, they start from the most fundamental level, from “me,” the individual. Thus God needs to teach us about the united world, the ideal world for which He yearns.
The teachings of religion
Ladies and gentlemen, would you like to know how this is done? It is not done in a way that you desire. In fact, no one desires this way. First of all, you need to chastise whoever or whatever opposes the conscience.
God cannot do this. Human beings are stuck in the midway position, with God and Satan both struggling to claim them, and if God were to strike them, so would Satan. So God’s teachings center on the conscience and tell you, “Strike, strike, strike your body!” We need to carry out this campaign worldwide. You have to do what your body hates. It is religion that teaches this.
Then what are the teachings of religion? All religions teach, “Strike the body! Don’t eat what you desire to eat! Don’t do what your body desires to do!” All major religions teach this. Buddhism places great importance on asceticism. Also, self-sacrifice is an important principle in Christianity. However, because it is extremely difficult for people to practice this, God has had no choice except to find a way to work with us just as we are.
Since our minds and bodies exert a similar degree of power over us, we tend to alternate between going this way and that, back and forth. Religion teaches us to deny what the body wants while offering devotions that give us strength from God. This has been the role of religion until now. God started out working with one individual and advanced through the family, tribe and people in His desire to gain one nation. In this way the nation and people of Israel emerged. In short, they were the chosen people. The existence of the terms “chosen people” and “chosen nation,” testify to the existence of God.
In accordance with His plan, God promised to send His representative who, as an individual, could completely unite his body and mind, then unite his family, tribe and nation, and completely unite the world. This was the messianic vision of Israel. Following this pattern, God anticipated that the people would unite with this individual, family, tribe and become the nation to save the world, creating one world and bringing it to God’s side.
Jesus came as the embodiment of unity
Of course, God’s purpose was, in part, to have the people of Israel receive the Messiah and live happily. However, His providence is not merely to save one people; it is to save the world. He was, in fact, trying to save the world, and for that He established the people of Israel as the foundation upon which He could send the Messiah. Yet at that time, although the desire of the Israelites and the direction of God’s providence ought to have been the same, they went different ways.
Jesus came as an individual with the ideal of a united world. Based on that ideal he was to form a perfected family, then go on to establish an ideal tribe, people, nation and world. Instead he was crucified before he could accomplish this. The nation of Israel was like a field of wild olive trees with which the owner could do whatever he pleased. When Jesus came as the true olive tree to this field of wild olive trees, God’s plan was to engraft all the wild olive trees, from individuals to families to the entire nation, into His ideal. If this had come to pass, the people of Israel would have become true olive trees. If Israel, based on Judaism, had become one with Jesus and backed him with its sovereignty in carrying his mission to the world, the two-thousand-year history of Christianity would not have been necessary.
God sent Jesus to a world filled with people whose minds and bodies were not united, to embody the ideal and to unite all people. However, the people to whom he was sent nailed him to the cross and murdered him. Because Judaism and the nation of Israel went against God’s Will, the nation and the foundation established by God over the course of thousands of years were lost to Satan’s side. The Israelites became a people without a nation, groaning under tyranny, overrun by other peoples for two thousand years, having to fight for survival. Israel became an independent state in 1948. This indicates that we have entered a new global era in which the people of Israel can overcome their suffering and regain their good fortune. This means that the time for the Lord to come again is approaching.
Do you think there was a foundation, an individual, family, tribe and nation that God could use as His stepping stone, after the people of Israel did not fulfill God’s providence? There was none. Since the First Israel was unable to fulfill the Will of God, Christianity inherited its position. Christianity must accept the mission of the Second Israel and fulfill God’s Will. However, you must know that Christianity has been unable to set the foundation to unite the physical world and the spirit world. Instead, it denied the physical world and tried to find the one nation based only on the spirit world.
Today’s Christians believe that the Lord of the Second Advent will come from the sky. However, based on such an event, he cannot bring unity within individuals, families, tribes, peoples and the world. We must know with certainty that the place where the coming Lord can fulfill his purpose is not the sky; it is this earth, this physical world. To do so, Jesus, as the man who has achieved the ideal of integrity, the man whose mind and body are united completely, must find a woman of integrity and form a family with her. Only when this occurs can the united nation and world come to be. How can this be brought about?
Among today’s Christians, is there anyone who is prepared to become the bride of the Lord and form a family with Him? Christians don’t know about this. They don’t even know where and how he will come. The Lord of the Second Advent does not come on a cloud in the sky. The Lord comes to restore the family of oneness, which God desires. It will take more than one family to restore that family. There needs to be a tribe that can live for the sake of the family. There needs to be a people that can live for the sake of the tribe, and a nation that can live for the sake of the people. Present-day Christianity needs to understand clearly that without going through this pattern in one nation, the nation that inherits the mission of the Third Israel cannot be restored.
Christian doctrine is the teaching of service and sacrifice
Let us take a moment now to think about the way in which a person can enjoy eternal life. If we as individuals wish to be respected in this world, we cannot simply praise ourselves. To earn respect, we need to sacrifice. If, for instance, you have ten friends and you have served those ten friends for a long time, you will become the central figure among them. Not only that, their relatives and friends will want to unite with you.
In contrast, let’s say there is a person who tells his ten friends, “You need to live for my sake. Live for my sake.” Those friends will break away from that person. In short, that person will be left alone and in the end will have no place to go. You need to realize that this is the point that distinguishes between good and evil in society.
Let us consider a nation’s patriot. When you think about the United States, you surely respect people like President Lincoln and President Kennedy. Why do you respect them? You respect those two presidents because they gave their lives for the United States. Among the presidents of the United States, there are those who died miserable deaths for the nation. The more they sacrificed themselves, the more they are revered as patriots and the higher is their position as presidents.
The more a person sacrifices out of love for the nation, even at the risk of his or her life, the more that person is revered. Those who suffer miserably through their sacrifice are considered even greater. Even though they are miserable at the time, their misery is only for a moment, and as history goes on, that person’s impact in the world broadens in scope.
This holds true in the death of Jesus. If you were to ask for whom Jesus sacrificed himself, the answer is for the sake of humankind and for the nation. In the position of having loved humanity more than anyone else, of having loved God more than anyone else, and of having loved even his enemies, he died miserably after praying for them to be blessed. At the time, Jesus died without a name, for he was accused of being a traitor to his people. No one could have known that he would give rise to today’s worldwide realm of Christian culture. At this point we can propose one principle: It is that those who sacrifice themselves for a greater purpose, for the greater good of the whole, cannot fail. We know that they cannot fail. Such people are historical saints.
In this regard, if there is a God and He has a strategy for fighting the world of evil, we can discover His strategy at this point. The nature of evil is to follow the complete opposite of God’s strategy. It sacrifices others for its own sake. If it does this on the individual level, then other individuals will oppose it, and when it does this on the level of the family or the nation, it inevitably leads to a dictatorship that is denounced by history.
You need to understand that the strategy of evil is to promote oneself by sacrificing others, whereas God’s strategy is to sacrifice oneself to save others. That is why the people who asserted goodness in the course of history were not welcomed in their time and were sacrificed, yet nonetheless the names of those who sacrificed themselves out of their love for their nation and the world came to be known long after their time. We cannot deny that this is the truth.
That is why the doctrine of Christianity is the teaching of service and sacrifice. If a Christian denomination existed only for its own sake, it would come to ruin. However, if there were a denomination whose entire purpose was to save the United States, one that stepped forward and sacrificed itself to achieve this, Heaven would cooperate with it. Having saved the United States, Christianity would thereby become a movement for the United States to sacrifice itself to save the world. This would be the Christianity that could be considered suitable to guide the world.
The reason God blessed the United States
If we ask whether God loves the United States or the world, we would say that God loves the world more than the United States. Because of this, God has placed the United States at the forefront, to have it pay the price of sacrifice to save the world.
American citizens! Do you think that the United States has an ideological tradition? You cannot find it among today’s youth. As you know, the Puritans were among those who pioneered the United States. They were a group who came to the new world, the land of America, leaving behind their nation because it limited their freedom to practice their faith and serve God as they desired.
At the time, a small number of Pilgrims risked their lives and held on to God as they struggled to survive in a new land with native inhabitants. I am aware that their beliefs were based on their reverence for God, and they overcame many difficulties while holding on to Him, which became a founding principle of the United States. I also know that this is the reason they built their homes only after first building a church and a school. Because they stood in such a position, God pulled them out of an environment in which they were oppressed and protected them in this land. He thus made this nation a global power in a period of less than two hundred years. Why did God do all this and give you such blessings? Do not think that God blessed you so that only the people who live in the United States can live in comfort. Instead, you have to take the point of view that God blessed you to make this land the representative nation for saving the world.
However, do the American people have a truth that calls them to join forces and save the world? No, they don’t. In contrast, the communist world, the enemy of the United States, has an ideology that can conquer the world, and it is displaying its confidence that it can swallow up the United States without a problem.
American people need to remember that reducing support for Asia or other parts of the world is not the Will of God. I believe that President Kennedy was the president who first began this trend. The United Nations secretary-general at the time was Mr. Hammarskjold. It is a matter of speculation as to why they both met such tragic ends.
I had a meeting with former President Eisenhower in 1965. I pointed out to him, “You may think that you did well to call for a truce in the Korean
War. However, it was actually a historical error.” I also said to him, “Do you trust communists? Communists are a group of people whose words and actions differ.” Their actions and words are different. You need to know this. Now, twenty years after the ceasefire agreement, we can see with our own eyes how North Korea has done everything in its power to militarize. Can you deny this fact?
On February 21, a meeting is scheduled between Mao Zedong and President Nixon. Mao Zedong has nothing to lose; he can attack or do whatever he wants to President Nixon. The American people need to be aware of this fact. Communists may announce with regard to the United States, “We are very close,” and suddenly do an about face. Theirs is a dictatorial system; it can go forward or retreat on command at any moment.
The American people, on the other hand, cannot do that. Let’s say the United States made an agreement and all its people had gone forward. If they then were told to retreat, do you think every one of the American people would retreat? You ought to know that at least half would break off. I am now thinking about what would become of the United States if such a thing were to happen. From the viewpoint of providence, I believe that God will protect the United States until its fortieth president, or for two hundred ten years of its history.
Ladies and gentlemen! I know that the year 1976 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the United States. Also, forty-two generations lie between Abraham and Jesus, and two thousand-year historical cycles, of forty generations, have been unfolding based on the Will of God. Though the actual number of generations is forty-two, since the God of three generations, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, is considered to be the God of one generation, we can say the number represents forty generations.
We must transcend the nation to save the world
It is my view that a history of indemnity is unfolding during the Last Days centered on the United States. If the United States is unable to fulfill its responsibility during this period, I believe that it will no longer remain under the protection of God. Americans must not boast about the United States shouldering responsibility as the leading global power now in the latter half of the twentieth century. Even if the United States ceased to exist as a nation, you need a philosophy that you can be proud of, even to the thirtieth and fortieth centuries. If you Americans have such a commitment for the sake of the world, I believe that you will become a people who can guide the world.
Based on this viewpoint, let us interpret the mission that today’s Unification Church is trying to fulfill. The Unification Church is trying to attend the bride of the Lord, and to prepare a multinational movement to construct the kingdom of heaven of hope that God requires on this earth.
To do so, this Unification Church must reject the idea of working for its own sake. God’s strategy requires the individual, family, tribe and nation to sacrifice for the world. It is our mission to raise such individuals, families, tribes and peoples and pave the way for the kingdom that God desires.
We need to become individuals, families, tribes and peoples established on the principles of internal unity and unity with the Messiah. Who will take the lead in carrying out this task? Will it be a nonbeliever or a believer? Will it be a person of religion or a person without religion? This task needs to be carried out through the joint effort of Christians and all religious people. Such a movement needs to be realized in the world now.
Thus, do not focus only on your own religious denomination. Instead, become one with the motto of serving God’s Will and saving the world. In organizing such a movement, do not think about taking a leadership position. Instead you need to go to the lowest position and support the movement by serving others. Do not become a central figure by employing every means you can and seeking influence through the power of money, authority or knowledge. You need to build a new movement worldwide through which others will voluntarily install and revere you as their central figure. Otherwise there is no way to save this world.
The man standing before you has had to walk the path of much persecution before he could be where he is today. Even though I was working for Christianity and proposing the way for it to go forward, Christians have opposed me. Even though I was proposing the way for the nation to go forward, I have been opposed by the nation. Based on this viewpoint, I believe that a day will come when this group of hardworking people will also be criticized by the United States.
The way of goodness is to endeavor to save the world even at the sacrifice of those on your own side. This is the historical tradition. Therefore, unless we inherit such a tradition on this earth in this day and age, and build a movement worldwide through sacrifice, we cannot show the direction toward the ideal. Henceforth, only an organization that teaches people around the globe to save the world by living for the sake of others, and promotes the principle of working to save the world even if it means sacrificing oneself, will have authentic authority.
Let us think about the United States, which represents the democratic world. If the United States had stayed its course in giving assistance for the sake of the world, it would have remained a nation that is revered by the world. If it had continued its movement to love the world even more than its own people and nation, the United States would not be in the position in which it currently finds itself.
However, as a nation representing the democratic world, if the United States believes that historically there has never been a country that prospered by supporting other nations, and that it must follow that historical tradition, and it turns around and starts to prioritize itself before others, it will be isolated.
The United States today is placing its national interest ahead of that of the world, and serving the people of America more than the people of the world. God’s vision is different. God is trying to save the world by mobilizing the United States. God is trying to have the United States go beyond itself and serve the world. Democratic nations cannot progress if they are divided amongst each other.
Only a united world can realize God’s ideal
A movement that teaches and practices the principle of serving the world more than its own nation or people, that is, a movement capable of loving God above all, will remain to the end. Therefore, the problem is finding that principle and multinational movement that can transcend the nation and lead us to the place where Heaven’s love and the love of the people of the world flow freely, beyond national borders.
If the Lord of the Second Advent is indeed coming, he does not come to save just one nation. He comes to save the world. When that time draws near, it will be the Last Days. Therefore, we conclude that the world will come to ruin unless we can love beyond our own nation, honor the people of Heaven, and establish a movement through which we can go beyond the nation and love God. This is the path of unity, the teaching that the world will need in the future.
Respecting this ideal, one’s skin color is not an issue. In this matter, one’s cultural background is not an issue. Our shared hope and purpose will be to love God and become one for the world that lives for the sake of God’s Will. When the world becomes one in this way, I believe that the ideal world desired by God and humankind will be realized. Therefore, the mission of the Unification Church is to teach the path for individuals to follow, the path for families, tribes and peoples to follow, and the path for the nations and the world to follow.
In closing, please have faith that the ideal represented by the title of my speech, “The Ideal World for God and Humankind,” will be realized, and that we are beginning the work to bring this about on the earth. Thank you.