Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 21, 1978
Kamikawa, Japan
From: God's Will and the World
Scanning the vast expanse of the history of God's providence, we come to realize that it took not just 6,000 years, but tens of thousands and even millions of years, in order to restore a single individual in the sinless likeness of the original person, Adam.. For this purpose, many individuals, families, clans, and nations sacrificed themselves selflessly down through the millennia. The person who came on the foundation of this selfless sacrifice was the Messiah. Then, what is the mission of the Messiah? First, it is to be a man who measures up to the original principles characterizing mankind before the fall. The sinlessness of Adam is thus recreated. Next, that of Eve is recreated by Adam.
Therefore, it is an awesome event when Adam and Eve are restored and both of them stand in front of God, are blessed, and go through a host of indemnity conditions. Billions of people who sacrificed themselves throughout history are watching us critically from the spiritual world. They think that if they were in our situation, they would not do many of the things we are doing now, and, especially, which Japan and the world at large are doing. The concern of these spirit people shows that any problem is not the problem of one single individual but is a cosmic problem.
You are here as Blessing candidates but what condition do you have for being blessed? In many cases, only two or three years have passed since you joined the movement. Spiritually, in the sight of God, you have been like worms in muddy water and you have not yet internalized the principles concerning God-centered relationships. To ignore a woman is the same as to ignore Mother. To ignore a mother is the same as to ignore a father and heaven.
A person who cannot understand that he must live in a web of such relationships is not worthy of living. That kind of person causes problems for his good ancestors over 70 generations. If he goes to the spiritual world, it is worse than hell for him. The Unification Church is trying to restore even hell through teaching how to live God-centeredly. However, there is virtually no way to save a person who tramples the parents' perfection level heart, treating them contemptibly and spurning the parents' love. If there is a way of salvation for that kind of person, it is only after the fulfillment of God's ideal. But, in one sense, a person who tramples on a heart of love is never forgiven and never saved. After the third 7-year course, reblessing will never take place.
The teaching of the Bible is that a person who commits adultery is stoned to death. Those who are blessed by heaven, and who then are unfaithful, separate, and remarry on their own, leaving their lineage on the earth, pose a very serious problem about which I am very worried. Should that kind of adulterous person exist in the Garden of Eden? Should that kind of person be forgiven in the establishment of the ideal Heavenly Kingdom? There is no principle which allows things like that. A wife who is unfaithful to her husband, or a husband who is unfaithful to his wife cannot turn his or her face to the universe. They are the very people who totally violate the sphere of heart. Such people have nowhere to go to be at peace.
For a man, his wife represents mother, elder sisters, younger sisters, and, indeed, all women of the world. To love a wife who has such a significance means to love all races of humanity, all women, and one's mother, elder sister, and younger sister in the home. Accordingly, the family is the "basic training" center that educates people in human love. Therefore, to be trusted and to live a happy life in a family means to live a happy life as the center of the entire universe and to be situated at the center of happy love. There is nothing meaningful without love. Likewise for a woman. Her husband represents father, elder brothers, younger brothers, and all men on earth. This is our ideal of the family.
Passing On Their Love
The reason why parents desire their children to marry is because they want their children to pass on the love they inherited from them, the parents. Parents will die sometime, so they seek to leave their substance to their descendants. Parents need their descendants, since love should last forever and is the highest desire of mankind. Because parents leave behind such a precious thing, they can proudly go in front of God in the spiritual world. The family is the place where they can accomplish leaving behind a wonderful heritage of love. Through the bonds of love generated in the family, people can go to the Heavenly Kingdom. Without learning such embracing love, it is absolutely impossible to go to heaven.
If a man is born not because of his own wishes, then by whose? By the wish of his father and mother? No. A man is born by the wish of heaven. A person is born due to the love of his parents, who are heaven's proxies. In essence then, when a person is conceived, he receives all of the love of the universe, and is born as the being that stands at the central position of the entire universe. Man is born by love, and is meant to grow by love, to live by love, to be loved and to give love. This is the highest purpose of our life. It doesn't matter whether you conquer the world or even the cosmos. To fulfill in your own family the mission of love, which is the center of the universe, is the most wonderful thing. The purpose of creation is the perfection of the four-position foundation of the family centering on love.
In human relationships as well, we should think in that way. I understand that when a husband and wife start married life, sometimes they don't feel comfortable together. But when they confront the conjugal relationship with much stronger confidence, they can grow into the ideal.
You do not have enough gratitude for the Blessing. Satan challenged me throughout my life in order to destroy the foundation of the Blessing. A person of adulterous tendencies cannot take responsibility for heaven. A man whom his wife cannot trust is never trusted in the world, either.
We Must Overcome Temptation
When we confront this world centering on the heavenly Principle, only the firm and strong things can remain. We are now in the midst of a battle in which we must expand the realm of goodness by applying the Principle. In this battle, we must overcome not only temptation from men, but also numerous temptations and tests from Satan. Satan, who has been accusing God throughout the 6,000 years of biblical history, has great power and subtlety. Most people are defeated by him. The reason why I myself could proceed successfully until the present is because I clearly knew the Principle, the heavenly Principle. That is why I'm not snared by temptation.
I am nearly 60 years old and do not have such a long time left on earth. Thinking about this point, we must establish a universal tradition in the world. Having established that tradition to a certain extent, I am returning to Korea for a period of time.
God has been working so hard until now centering on this problem of restoring love and loving relationships within the family. It is because of this problem that the people of Israel were ruined. God has been working so hard in order to let the Unification movement live. The most central issue of letting the Unification movement live is letting the family live. The blessed families, from God's point of view, have such a significance. The director of the family department must understand this very well and provide good education on that topic. I'm doing this at the risk of my life for the sake of the human race, which is falling into a ruinous condition, I am opening a new way, repairing people one by one and letting them live. This is God's dispensation. This is the repair factory of the family and the repair factory of love.
Strictly speaking, those among you who have indulged in premarital sex are not really qualified to start a blessed family. The fact that you have written a letter longing for your lover is itself a shameful thing. We can say so from the point of view of the Principle. In spite of this Principle, Japan is engulfed in chaos. Young people are totally confused like animals. And it is you -- who have a background of being that kind of people who are now going to be blessed! If you presume to receive the Blessing of the Unification Church without repentance, you are utterly in error. My mission is to restore virgin men and women in front of God. This Blessing that is going to be given involves a special forgiveness. I declared previously that the Blessing would not take place until we finished the third 7-year course.
Without solving these ethical problems, the Unification Church cannot fulfill its mission on the earth. It is our task to clean up this corrupt world and create a clean one. Then, why has the kind of person appeared who casually, unrepentantly asks to be reblessed? He has no qualification to say, "Rebless me, Father, please." I never imagined such a mission for myself. Now, however, we are engaged in the 21-year course of restoration, and many of the world's constraints upon us cannot end until the third. 7-year course. So I have to burden myself with and solve that problem. But after the third 7-year course, there will no longer be reblessing.
After 1960, radical changes began to occur throughout the world. This was simply due to God's dispensation centering on the Unification Church. Today's historians do not know why history has entered a period of such enormous flux. It is because of this small Unification Church.
You Should Be An Example
Your Blessing is for the purpose of setting an example for the rest of the world. I clearly know what conditions will be most beneficial for people in the spirit world, for those presently alive, and for future generations. Thus, I have clearly understood the providential significance of your Blessing, and upon this understanding I am initiating it. It is your mission to understand its significance just as vividly as I do and to live a blessed life in accordance with that understanding, examining yourself constantly to see that your way of life conforms with the way you know you should be living.
We are all brethren. If you have a disabled person among your brothers and sisters, it is proper that compassionate love should well up in your heart and you should sacrifice yourself to care for the individual. Parents feel that way, so to sacrifice yourself, following the example of the parents, is the way of filial piety. This is the Principle. In the case of the Blessing, Mother and I are in the position of parents. In this situation, if you stand in our position and look on your spouse-to-be, who may not be nice looking, who may be of below average intelligence, and very short in height, you should feel very loving toward that "child" of ours. It is the parents' heart to view a child from the standpoint of the heart of heaven and to love that child more than anybody else.
I take responsibility for blessed people eternally -- not just for a lifetime. If they go to the spiritual world, I will guide and take responsibility for them. To be blessed means to have an eternal relationship with me.
If I go to Korea, I feel like the father of Korea. I have the experience of severe torture at the hands of imperial Japan. If I think about that, it is conceivable that I might hold a grudge against the nation of Japan. But I don't think in that way. When Japan was defeated at the end of World War II, I contacted all of my former torturers one night and told them that they faced great danger if they remained in Korea. Then I helped put their luggage on their vehicle and sent them off. Although Japan had been an enemy country up until that time, I knew that it would become a brother in the future because of God's will. So I determined to forgive Japan which was not the "reasonable" thing to do at that time, since Japan had persecuted Korea so terribly. But I knew so strongly that Japan would work for God's will together with Korea. Now thousands of Japanese members are following me at the risk of their life.
It is the same as in my college life. There is nowhere I didn't go, from the shipyards of Kawasaki to the slums around Sanya. I know Japan very well. The Communist Party is working hard to destroy Japan, but I am doing everything I can for the sake of the future of Japan. As it stands now, Japan has little hope for the future because there are few young people who can inherit and pursue this work of building up the nation. In Japan, today, in elementary school or in middle or high school, there are some who even reject saluting the national flag. If there is a problem which we should worry about in Japan, it is not the economic problem, it is not the political problem, but it is the problem of finding young people who can build up the nation. I've been thinking in that way for decades. I've determined to raise up such young people who can not only take on the nation building responsibility, but also be able to develop a commitment to build up the world. We cannot find such young people except in the Unification Church. Here, we have the theoretical foundation to achieve the perfection of the individual, the perfection of the family, the perfection of the community, the perfection of the nation, the perfection of the world, the perfection of the cosmos, up until the liberation of God. To reach the sphere of God's love we have to go through all those stages, even if we die on the way.
I Have Been Consistent
Thirty years ago in Korea, people did not consider Reverend Moon of the Unification Church to be even a human being. I was dealt with in a miserable way, indeed. But there is not much difference between my personality today and at that time. Now I am nearly 60 years old. But at that time, as today, I was full of courage and vitality and was a very trustworthy person. But I was treated like the scum of the earth.
Why did things go that way? Clearly, because there is Satan. The sphere of Satan and of Cain is never satisfied until they beat the realm of Abel to death. Ironically, however, they do want Abel to appear again. This is the heart of Satan. Because of this reason, I've been accepting without complaint and digesting all the persecution that has come my way from thirty years ago until today. Facing all persecution head on, I have been fighting with perseverance and will power in order to overcome it. I'm a man who has very strong will power. Once I determine to do something, I go forward, even at the risk of my life. There isn't much difference between my body and yours. Any difference between us lies in the realm of thought and will power. I am strong because I have a way of thinking which is not only for the moment, but which extends to all of past, present, and future history and to the whole human race. In addition to that, I structure my thinking according to the pattern of God's dispensation.
Thinking about that point, if I fail, it is not only I who fail. In that event, the whole human race would have no future and the ideal of the restoration of the cosmos would be destroyed and God Himself would be profaned. I know these consequences very well. Therefore, even if I receive tremendous persecution, persecution in thousands of ways and by millions of people, I stand up without flinching for the sake of the human race and in order not to profane God's name. This is the way I think.
It was the same when I left for the United States. Nobody knew of my departure from Korea on Dec. 18, 1971. But I had a plan with God in my mind as to what to do for the world-level course. In the beginning, the American people thought that a Korean man, coming to give speeches without knowing anything about the Western world, would never be successful. However, I was perfectly victorious in this long battle in the United States, and I also just established the European foundation in England. I'm going back to Korea for a 40-day vacation before I return to the United States. I stopped off in Japan for this Blessing. But you have the attitude of enjoying the Blessing for yourselves, not for God. It is true, even if you make excuses to the contrary. Yesterday, I came to Japan after riding in an airplane for 24 hours. I've come through here just overnight. It is really something, then, for which to be grateful. I'm even doing this at the risk of my life. But I have suspicions about how grateful you are feeling.
Concerning this Blessing, the spiritual world will kneel down to me in an expression of gratitude. You don't understand the Blessing as having such a significance -- a significance that would make you choke with gratitude. You think as you like. If even you members think this way, I certainly have a lot to do to restore the world, don't you think so?
A Woman Must Be Careful
When a man feels embarrassed, he brings his hand to his chin. A woman covers her mouth with her hand, coughing delicately. It is noteworthy that Western ladies behave in the same way. This means that a woman has to be careful about her mouth. In the family, the problem is usually the woman. Women speak very quickly, like a motorcycle revving. So a woman must be careful with her mouth. Then how about men? A man has to have authority. He must be a person who has the authority with which he can judge evil people.
The more people come to know the meaning of the Blessing, the more they will be thankful to you. Please become a wonderful couple and make a wonderful family that you can be proud of at any place, at any time. But the weak, shallow, ungrateful type of person whom we saw today is no good. Everyone has a tendency to become that kind of person. I have a lot of experience of my trust being betrayed. If circumstances are a little disadvantageous, a man tends to run away. and if they are advantageous, a man feels like returning. That's the reality of man. You're the same, aren't you? You have it written on your face. History shows this and reality shows this. Even the 12 disciples of Jesus ran away. The 12 disciples were better people than you. Man is indeed a weak being.
Depending on the depth of the heartistic standard between husband and wife and depending on their degree of unity, a certain quality of child is born. Therefore, to become parents is not an easy matter. And to become a wife or a husband is also really an awesome thing.
The history of the Unification Church's Blessing started in the midst of battle. Satan's world was crazy to oppose it. But now in Korea, those who opposed us are now members of the church. In Korea, people gave a nickname to the Unification Church: "mass weddings." Let's establish such a tradition.