Sun Myung Moon
January 17, 1999
Olympic Weightlifting Gymnasium, Seoul
Korea Global Expansion of True Families speaking tour
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
I am deeply grateful that you have taken the time from your busy schedules to help me make today’s gathering such a success. Our theme for today is, “The Path of Life for All Humankind.”
Today the world is lost in great confusion, and cries out in agony. We face endless conflict as individuals, in our families, in our nations and in the world. As individuals, we are confronted with inner turmoil between our mind and body. Families are affected by the moral decadence of young people and the breakdown of family-centered traditions. Historical rivalries lead to distrust and even war among our nations, fanning the embers of uncertainty and hopelessness in the world. The solution to all these problems lies in developing an ideal love relationship with God.
God’s purpose for creating humankind
Throughout history, humankind has sought to answer the basic question: Why are we born? Some have concluded that they were born for the sake of their country. Others have decided that they were born for the sake of their parents. Still others believe they were born for their own sake. People of faith believe they are born for the sake of God.
Yet it is not enough to say that God created the universe for the sole benefit of human beings or even for God’s own benefit. The creation of humankind involved the cooperation of many beings and elements. Although each had its own inherent purpose, they worked together to initiate the creative process. God’s purpose in creating, the angels' purpose in assisting, nature’s purpose in providing the materials, and even the human purpose for being created are all consistent. There is some common purpose that is pleasing to God, to the angels, to the rest of creation and to human beings themselves.
This shared purpose is something that, the longer it is possessed the greater the happiness and joy it provides. It is something that, once we possess it, we would never let it go. It cannot be external in nature. It is something internal and invisible. Things like knowledge, money and power are merely collateral conditions that are needed in people’s lives. We are not born into the world for the purpose of possessing them. Such external things may exist in a reciprocal relationship with humankind only temporarily, not eternally.
God has no need for money. If Almighty God ever needed money, He could create as much as He desired. Also, we know that God is the root of all knowledge, since He created the universe through certain principles and laws. Furthermore, the Creator is the origin of power, so God has no need to seek power.
What then is this common content or purpose? It is something we cannot arrive at through human effort alone. This is because human effort cannot control the fundamental origin of life. This content is something that directs the motivation, course and even final destination of each person’s life.
From this perspective, this common content can only be true love. Human beings are born in love and are destined to go the path of love. People even die for love. This shows that love is more valuable than life itself. Moreover, we see that love precedes life. That is why people willingly offer even their lives for the sake of love.
Love is eternal. If we look at novels, poems and other works of literature, we see how authors set unchanging and eternal love as the ideal. Clearly, human beings are not satisfied with momentary or finite love. Our desire is for love that is eternal.
Love has the power to disarm God completely. Even God is vulnerable to love. Almighty God cannot resist breaking into a big smile when smelling the fragrance of love from human beings. God enjoys love stories, too. Yet how much more pleasing it is when love is actually practiced!
Each organ in our body was created for the sake of love. For example, the eyes were obviously created for the purpose of sight. To see what? The eyes were created specifically to look for love, which is the common theme among all beings. The nose was made to smell, specifically to smell the fragrance of love. Similarly, our ears were created to hear the sounds of love. Among all the sounds we hear, the one sound that we never get tired of hearing is the sound of someone saying, “I love you.” This is as true for senior citizens as it is for young people.
Love is the only power that can bring all beings into a state of mutual attraction. Here, love refers to true love, which every being in the entire universe welcomes. True love is the type of love that is publicly endorsed by God, the angelic world, things of creation and all people. If we were to cover the entire universe with a blanket of love, no being would want to crawl out from under that blanket. From this perspective, it is clear that the creation of the universe and life itself originated from true love.
True love is the origin of the creation of the universe
When human beings reach the state of consciousness in which they are able to love the universe, all the doors of the universe open to them. For example, I am just a tiny being occupying this space right here. However, centered on love, I can have a reciprocal relationship with a being of any size or magnitude. Let us say that God is an extremely large being. Then by the power of love, I can rise to a position reciprocal to that of the Absolute God. This is possible because love is an attribute of God.
Thus, a person who recognizes and keeps God’s covenant of love can enjoy freedom anywhere in the universe. A person who is intoxicated with God’s love can examine a single grain of sand for a thousand years without ever being bored. Such a person will see fight radiating from his or her own hand. When lying alone at night, a person feels as if he or she is lying on a golden bed and radiating golden fight. This may sound unbelievable, yet it is true. If you reach this state, you can stand on a hilltop and feel that all creation is cheering to welcome you. Have you ever experienced this? The thought that we are born into a universe of love not only gives us a feeling of infinite happiness, it also makes us want to proclaim to the world, “Hey, look at me!” God was working in the laboratory, and made the most ideal, most sensational discovery: that discovery is each one of us.
We are created in a position reciprocal to God’s love. Therefore, any act of self-destruction is the greatest of sins. Conversely, loving and protecting oneself are acts of great goodness. That is why suicide, the act of self-destruction, is such a momentous violation of heart. Suicide contributes to breakdown of the universe.
A person might be imprisoned and tortured to the point of vomiting blood. In that moment, if he or she feels God’s love, that suffering becomes a key that opens the door to God’s embrace with a love that penetrates to the marrow of his or her bones. A person who perceives his or her suffering in such a way is even able to face death with happiness.
By this example, we see that anyone who lives within the power of true love is a person of great strength. Even if someone were to offer this person a country or the world, he or she would not be swayed. Even Satan would be forced to surrender before such a person. Such an individual, called by God to represent all humankind centering on this cosmic love, would be the Messiah. Jesus is that representative. We can never find this cosmic love without going through the Messiah. It is reasonable to say that all people on earth will have to follow the Messiah. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) The meaning of this would be clearer if the word “love” were added: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and the love; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”
The Divine Principle of the Unification Church teaches that energy is produced when a subject partner and object partner become one. In a family, parents hold the position of the subject partner and children hold the position of object partner. Once they have a reciprocal relationship of love they become one entity, a true family. This entity then becomes a new object partner that can unite with a larger subject partner. With God as the subject partner, the parent-child union becomes one with God. We can also say that when a perfect subject-object partnership is formed with God, centering on the ideal of love, God and humankind can exist in total oneness. When the realm of love between God and humanity becomes a reality, the light of love will shine throughout the universe as bright and constant as the sun.
In this way, each of us is a person in whom the lives of both parents are brought together as one, and is also a partner in our parents’ love. We are one with their love and one with their ideals, including happiness and peace. For a parent, the joy of worldly success is nothing compared to the joy of reuniting with a lost child. This shows that the child embodies the highest ideals of the parents.
Each of us is connected to our parents’ life, love and ideals, and no one can sever these connections. Even God cannot sever them, nor can the universe. In fact, all the forces of the universe work together to safeguard these connections. This is because the parents are the cause and the children are the result. The parents and children are one, centering on love. Cause and effect become one and form the substantial realm of love. This is a principle of the universe.
For this reason, wherever the child goes the mother and father will follow. Even in the spirit world, your parents will always want to be with you. In the original ideal, therefore, it is unnatural for a person to dislike being accompanied by his or her parents. Such behavior tears the universe apart. When a person doesn’t like to go with his or her parents, it means that he or she is already moving away from the Principle and toward the Fall
Thus, acts of filial piety, such as loving and caring for our parents as we would ourselves, are the most precious things. That is why there is a saying, “Good fortune comes to a harmonious family” On the other hand, divorce cuts through family harmony like a knife. The law of the universe does not allow such an act. Parents who disobey this law find themselves longing for the good fortune of having a harmonious family.
Our three parents are this earth, our natural parents and our Heavenly Parent
Each person comes into the world through three sets of parents. The first parent is the material world. Elements from the world of matter combine to form each person as the center of the material world and as a complex material being. Thus, it can be said that these physical elements themselves are the ancestors who gave us birth. At the same time, the material world is an extension of us. The universe is created so that matter can settle only in the ideal of love. It is only in the ideal of love that all cells can live in tranquility. However, this is ruined whenever a person becomes angry.
Our second set of parents is our natural parents. By giving birth to us, our parents gave us a particular form, and to this extent they are the masters of our lives. However, no matter how hard they may try, our parents cannot be the masters of our love. The master of love is God. In this context, God exists so that love can expand into the entire universe and be made eternal.
Because God is the subject partner of love, God becomes the Parent centering on love. God is our third Parent, so we have three sets of parents.
Human life can be divided into three periods: life in the womb of about ten months, a physical life of about a hundred years, and life in the spirit world that lasts tens of thousands of years into eternity. If we look at our own face, we also see three stages: the mouth, the nose and the eyes. These reflect the three periods of our lives. The mouth symbolizes the period in the womb, which is a world of material. The nose symbolizes the period on earth, which is the world of humanity. The eyes symbolize the period in heaven, which is the spirit world.
To the fetus, the aquatic world of its mother’s womb is a world of total freedom. Interestingly, although it is constrained within the confines of the womb, the fetus feels completely free. In the womb, it can’t stretch its legs, and it relies on an umbilical cord to breathe and receive nutrients for survival. Its nose and mouth are both useless in that world. Nevertheless, to the fetus, the world in the womb is one of complete freedom.
At the time of birth, do you think the fetus would say, “I am going into the world to eat delicious rice, sweet honey and lots of cake with this mouth?” No. The opposite is the case. It would say, “Oh no! I don’t want to leave!” However, even if the fetus doesn’t want to leave its mother’s womb, when the time comes it has no choice. As the amniotic fluid flows out, the fetus follows soon thereafter. This is what happens in a normal birth. As soon as the baby is born, it begins to cry. At the same time, it starts to breathe through its nose and becomes linked to the second world, the world of air.
As the baby leaves the womb to enter the world of air, the umbilical cord is discarded along with the amniotic sac and everything it needed in the world of the womb. With the destruction of these things, the baby is born into the bosom of its new mother, the planet Earth. Once born, the baby begins to eat with its mouth and breathe through its nose. The food we eat on earth nourishes our physical body, but it does not contain the essential element of life. This life element is nothing other than love. Thus, while we are in this world, we also need to breathe the air of love. We need to inhale this air of love from our mother and father.
A newborn baby automatically searches for its mother’s breast, following the vibrations of her love. Whether she is beautiful or ugly does not matter to the baby. The only thing that matters is that she is its mother. It is a sacred scene manifested in limitless variety. We are born in love and we grow by receiving love. Each of us is the substantial fruit of our parents’ love. The nature of our parents’ love is made visible in us. Parents love their children because their children are the fruit of their love. Boundless love can multiply from this fruit. In this way, we are linked to the love of the individual, family, tribe, nation, world, universe, and ultimately to the essential love of God.
I am the fruit of my parents’ love
Once we are born, our parents take responsibility to see that we become good human beings during our life on earth. Our parents act on behalf of the world, the nation and the family to teach and provide for us. We receive material things and education from our parents so that we may become complete as individuals. Based on this, we then become linked to a horizontal foundation of love, which is marriage.
Parents take responsibility for us until we marry. After marriage, we inherit the love shared by our mother and father. When we marry and start rearing our own children, we begin to understand how much our parents loved us, and thus come to inherit parental love. In this way, the individual becomes capable of receiving and giving love completely. This is how each of us matures as a complete man or woman.
We are born and mature in the vertical love of our parents, and later we engage in horizontal love. This is the only way we can find the integrated realm of love. Heaven and earth together form a spherical world, covering all the dimensions of top and bottom, left and right, and front and back. When the vertical and horizontal love relationships are linked, they interact, revolve, integrate and finally emerge as a single center of harmony. Once the vertical love of heaven and earth is firmly established as the axis internally and externally, the need for horizontal love arises. This takes place during adolescence.
During adolescence, even the sight of an autumn leaf blowing along the ground can seem inspiring. Girls who used to be so reserved when they were younger suddenly start doing things to their hair, putting on makeup and trying on all sorts of clothes and accessories. Their interests expand as well. These are horizontal phenomena of love.
So we are travelers on the path of life. The most important thing on this path is to experience and embody vertical and horizontal love. We need to build a family centering on the love of true parents, true husbands and wives, true brothers and sisters, and true sons and daughters. Next, we need to expand ourselves horizontally, multiplying into families in all directions. When these families, linking the horizontal and vertical, manifest themselves as true families connected to the levels of tribe, society, nation and world, then this world, interlinked by true love, will be the kingdom of heaven.
When a husband and wife love each other, their relationship symbolizes the planting of God. Parents represent God’s original position and husband and wife each embodies different aspects of God. Also, each child is like a small God. Since God is the original entity of true love, when the various members of the family link themselves to true love, they become one body with God. Parents are the living embodiment of God and the children represent God as well. Thus, three generations stand in the position of God, centering on true love.
This is why all members of the family—parents, husbands and wives, and children—need true love. A family formed on true love in this way is the foundation for the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven will be established when we create the foundation of true love. This is the formula. The family is the center of the entire physical universe. People today do not realize that their family represents their country, world and universe. They do not know that their family is the center. Breaking apart a family is an act of aggression against the country, world and universe. Because a perfect family is the foundation for a perfect universe, a person who loves the universe as he or she loves the family can travel freely everywhere. God, as the Parent of the entire universe, is in the central position of love.
The path to be followed by a family centered on true love
When a man and woman become one centering on true love, they form an ideal couple and build an ideal family. By doing so, they stand in a position representing God and thus are connected to everything in the universe. When this happens all of God’s possessions become theirs. Think how wonderful that would be! This is the reason we naturally desire to have dominion over all creation.
Men and women come together as pairs to build families, societies, nations and the world. The family centering on one man and one woman is the model for the tribe, and the tribe is the model for the nation. Families strive to achieve the ideal family, tribe and nation. Ideal nations will emerge based on families that establish such a foundation.
Respected guests! The greatness of true love is that it enables us to become God’s object partners and also enables God to become ours. The Bible speaks of God being in us, and Jesus being in us. This is similar to the idea that the parent is in the child, the grandchild is in the grandparent, and the grandparent is in the grandchild.
A grandmother and grandfather bind their hearts together centering on their grandchildren. This is necessary so that the vertical line of love can have a beginning. Then, grandchildren become one with their grandparents. Grandparents are in the same position as God, so we need to attend them as we would attend God. Grandchildren will not be able to find the vertical axis of love without doing this.
After the formation of the vertical axis, horizontal expansion can develop. The horizontal can be connected to all directions, although the vertical has only one direction. The horizontal can turn north, south, east or west; it has a range of 360 degrees. The vertical can move centering on only one axis and cannot be split.
Our first task is to create mind and body unity, centering on love. We need to know how to love the spirit world, which is the vertical world centered on God. Furthermore, if in the future a central country emerges, we will have to love humanity centering on that country. When we love the spirit world and the whole of humankind by means of sacrifice, service and dedication, we can automatically become the central figures who can have dominion of love over the two worlds and make them into one. Then God will surely dwell there.
The entire spirit world and physical universe together are called the cosmos. The spirit world and the universe yearn for the unity of the cosmos centering on true love. True love can unite the cosmos. True love can transform all families into completed families and make them one. Thus, we can conclude that true love is the only thing that humanity needs absolutely, whether we are alive on earth or are in the spirit world.
All beings are attracted to true love. Animals and plants are attracted to the one who possesses true love. They want such a person to be their master. Every being is trying to become one with the person who has true love. The desire of all things is to be closer, to dwell together with, and to be under the dominion of a person who possesses true love. We can conclude, therefore, that nothing in this world is more precious than a true person who possesses true love.
Human beings have no wings. If we want to fly farther than any insect or bird, or circle the planet faster than an airplane, we cannot be confined to our substantial physical body. Even the strongest runner cannot run for very long. As the highest being in creation, human beings are in a reciprocal position equal to God’s. So human beings need to be able to act even more quickly than fight, which travels at about three hundred thousand kilometers per second. It is our spiritual selves that make such a thing possible. I can be in Seoul, and my spirit self can travel to New York and be back in an instant, faster than a bolt of lightning. The spirit self is capable of acting at the speed of thought.
The fastest action in the world is not the transmission of electromagnetic waves. It is love. Love travels faster and flies higher than anything in the world. When two people at opposite ends of the Earth love each other, they pull toward each other from across the globe. That is the power of love. In the world of God’s original ideal, a person who has experienced true love has the ability and authority to possess instantly anything God wants.
People need to experience such a state while on earth. One can rise to this position only if the physical and spirit selves become one while establishing a love relationship with God, centered on a true family. We can feel God’s love by loving our countrymen, the people of the world, and creation. Each of us, regardless of nationality, has to develop the heart to love people of all races. We need to love not just people; we need to love even the smallest microorganism. This love has to spring naturally from within. When a flower blooms, its beauty and fragrance come naturally. The blossom of love has to bloom in the same way. The fragrance of love would fill the air naturally.
To do this, we need to receive the nutrients that make it possible for the blossom of love to bloom. In the same way that plants receive nutrients from the soil and air, we receive nutrients from our physical body and spirit self. We receive vitality elements from our physical body, and we receive living spirit elements from our spirit self.
This is how we become beings who are totally equipped to love and how we develop the ability to fly anywhere. When this happens, the solar system and the entire universe become the stage of our activity.
The spirit world is a world centered on love
When human beings finish their physical life, they go through a second birth. This is called death. The place into which we are born this second time is the spirit world. We go into the spirit world and, on behalf of the entire universe, receive love from God, our third Parent. That is to say, we receive ideal love. So in the spirit world, unity is inevitable.
At the moment of our death, we leave the second world, the world of air, and fully connect to the third world, the world of love. We leave behind the love of our natural parents and siblings and enter the spirit world. There we eventually enter the sphere of love in which we merge with the original body of God. The seed comes from the original body, so it has to bear fruit and return to the original body.
In the spirit world, people breathe and live centered on love. A person who is unable to develop a complete character of love will be limited in his or her movements. This person will not be able to move freely. If there are several gates, for example, he or she may be allowed to enter through one gate only. If a person wants to be able to fit in with any season, any place or any time, he or she needs to develop a character of perfect love. This is why human beings were created to live through three stages.
The dragonfly lives first as a nymph, swimming around in water. Then it climbs out of the water and molts. Finally, it starts to fly and begins catching and eating bugs that it would never have imagined eating while underwater. It flies around with the world as its stage. There are many insects that have wings and develop through different stages. Human beings, who are the highest form of creation, have wings of a higher dimension.
We are born in love, live in love and, as God’s representatives, give birth to sons and daughters through love. Eventually, we reach the resting place of love and return home so that we may live eternally in God’s presence. In other words, our lives begin in love, ripen in love and are finally harvested as the fruit of love. When a person dies, he or she harvests the fruit of love.
During our life, we receive the love of our parents, share love with our husband or wife, and give love to our children, bringing to fruition all the seeds of God’s love sown in the internal world of love. Eventually, we harvest this fruit and go into the next world. When we become completely one in love, we come to resemble God. If a husband and wife work together to complete the three stages of love and then go to the spirit world, they will exist as creators in a reciprocal relationship with God, who is the eternal subject partner. That is what happens when a husband and wife die centering on love. We begin and end in God.
The reason people have to die is that our love is limited as long as we are in our physical body. The physical body is inadequate for developing fully as an object partner to God’s unlimited love. This is why we are transformed into a spirit, which is invisible. We die so that we can become one with the ideal of love, together with all of heaven and earth. Death is not a path to suffering. It is a time when the gate of happiness is thrown open, enabling us to possess cosmic love. To die means to move from a world of land, where we crawl and walk, to a world where we fly freely. We pass through death in order to become qualified travelers who, with love, can enjoy the entire universe. That is why death is, in reality, a new birth.
We started out in our mother s womb. The womb was the first world in which we were nurtured. When we were born, we separated from that world and entered a new world. Likewise, in death the spirit self cuts off and flies away from the physical body, which is like its womb. Human beings pass through a world of water and a world of land and air, until they come to live in the eternal world of love.
In the spirit world, love is the life element. As long as your command is given through love, anything you say will be accomplished immediately, and nothing will be impossible. Even if a billion people say they want to have dinner, the appropriate meal can be prepared and the feast can be ready in an instant. If all the guests say they want to become princes and princesses, then everyone will indeed be turned into princes and princesses. This will actually be possible.
So now that you know these things, would you like to live here on earth or go to the next world? When we are in the womb, we think the womb is the best place to be. We just spend our time kicking. If someone were to try pulling us out midway through, we wouldn’t like it at all. When it is finally time to come out of the womb, it is like dying and then being resurrected. In the same way, after physical death we are resurrected to a new form of life. Therefore, death is actually a second birth.
God and humankind are in a parent-child relationship
Ladies and gentlemen, because human beings fell, our life course is not a smooth path. The Fall of the first human ancestors led to misery for human beings. God also suffered misery. For this reason, we do not dedicate our lives only to the accomplishment of the ideal world. An even more important goal for our life is to clear away the sorrow and agony in the heart of God, who is the origin of all life. Thus, when human beings finally attain happiness, then God too will be happy.
God and humankind have gone through the course of history in the same situation, pursuing the same goal. As a result of losing Adam and Eve, God has walked the most difficult path, a path that no one would choose to walk. Human beings too have walked this inevitable path of destiny brought about by the Fall, always hoping for the coming day of salvation.
Humankind’s most fervent hope is to become sons and daughters of God. This is because no relationship is more intimate than that of parent and child. We were born when the love and life of our parents converged, and thus we represent their ideals. However, words like love and ideals do not make sense in reference to just one person. Life comes from a love relationship between a husband and wife; it cannot be created by one person alone. When God created human beings, He created us to be the object partners of His own love, life and ideals. This is amazing and incredible.
If I did not exist, my parents’ love would not have become visible. The love, life and ideals of my parents exist in relation to me. I am the fruit of my parents' love, life and ideals. That is why the child’s position is the most precious of all.
It is remarkable that we started from a point where our parents’ love was our love, our parents’ life was our life, and our parents’ ideals were our ideals. That is why parents look at their children and say, “These are the sons and daughters we love.” Parents sense, realize and know that their children are the substantiation of their love, their lives and their hopes.
A single day cannot pass without parents missing their beloved children. Even if it has been only a few minutes since they last saw them, they want to see them again. If someone were to try to sever this relationship, they would find it impossible to break, for children are the bone of their parents’ bones and the flesh of their flesh. If their children disappear, parents feel as if they want to die. Their ideals are fulfilled when their children succeed.
Even parents born into this world deprived of true love, true life and true ideals due to the Fall know what it is like to love their children like this. How much more, then, would this be true for God, who is the subject partner of all parents!
Completion of the providence of salvation
Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have been the children and royal descendants of God’s direct lineage. Adam and Eve were in the position of prince and princess who stood to inherit the kingdom of heaven in the spirit world and on earth. At the same time, because they were created as the object partners of the invisible God, who is the subject partner, Adam and Eve were substantial beings who could receive God’s love. They were substantial manifestations of the invisible God.
It is the special privilege of a child of God to say, “God is mine. All that is Gods is also mine. Even God’s love, life and ideals are mine.” It is up to human beings to recover this amazing and incredible value that was originally ours.
If God is the subject partner of love who exists eternally, then the reciprocal partners of God’s love also exist eternally. When I become one with God’s love, God becomes me. Had Adam and Eve not fallen, their bodies would have been the homes where God could dwell. They would have placed God at the center of their hearts and become entities of love, life and lineage who would be united eternally through true love. If they had done this, our mind and body would not be in conflict today.
The Fall means that we inherited the life and lineage of evil, centering on evil love. We were born from false parents, false olive trees. We must therefore rebuild the lineage by changing that false olive tree into a true olive tree. We have to be engrafted onto the true olive tree, go through at least three generations, and produce fruit that itself becomes true olive trees representing the original standard. Then the providence of salvation will be completed, and fallen people will be restored to their original state.
In this way, God is trying to make us into children of the Parents of goodness, based on loving oneness with God. This is why God sends the Messiah to earth as the True Parents. The Messiah is the one who comes to restore the lineage of all of humankind to God and establish the original ideal of creation.
All people desire to be the best. We want to be God’s sons and daughters, God’s princes and princesses, heirs to God’s kingship. Everyone has this original desire, yet we have inherited a different lineage. We say that life is an ocean of suffering as we lament at our birth, lament over our lives and lament even as we die.
Thus, it is important to know how to end the struggle between our mind and body and unite them as one. A person who cannot unite his or her own mind and body will not be able to play a role in uniting the nation, the world or the spirit world.
Once a subject partner and object partner form a reciprocal relationship, they need to become one with a greater entity. Once a man and woman become one as reciprocal partners, that couple has to become an object partner to a greater subject partner, serving their nation as patriots. Likewise, a patriot who enters into an even greater partnership with the world will be engrafted onto the way of saints. A saint becomes part of a greater partnership with the cosmos and is engrafted onto the way of divine sons and daughters. Only after we have achieved the way of divine sons and daughters can we be engrafted onto God.
Before seeking to excel on the world stage, humans first have to excel as the original family of Adam and Eve. Had Adam and Eve taken their places as the lineal prince and princess before God, they would have been the most exalted among all men and women. However, they fell and lost their rightful positions of the elder son and daughter, the crown prince and princess. This tragedy has remained throughout human history. That is why humankind has traveled a path of life in search of the positions of first son and first daughter so that we might recover God’s true love.
If we are to receive God’s true love, we cannot live selfishly, centering on our own interests. Instead, we need to live for the sake of God and humankind as our brothers and sisters. The more a person sheds blood and tears for his or her brothers and sisters in place of their parents, the deeper, wider and higher will be the love he or she receives. This is the son and daughter we have to become if we are to inherit everything from our parents. Every man and woman will walk this path. Even if we have to face death ten times or a hundred times, we have to continue our search for God’s true love. This is the supreme path of life.
The Divine Principle of the Unification Church teaches that the Fall occurred when human beings left the realm of God’s true love. Restoration means to return to that realm. When a person enters the realm of such love, that person can merely look at his or her body and praise it tens of thousands of times. In that world, you know that your own body is what receives God’s true love. Words cannot express such joy. This wonderful world is called the kingdom of heaven.
The mission of religion
On the day that the hearts of men and women can take hold of God’s true love, we will be inspired to sing and dance for tens of thousands of years. The state of intoxication with God’s true love is so wonderful; alcohol or drugs pale to nothingness in comparison. A person can call on any being under heaven and it will respond. Just the sight of water flowing in a river will inspire us to sing for a thousand years. In heaven, even a simple whisper will convey unfathomable tenderness. Everything will have been accomplished, so there will be no need for treasures of gold or anything like that. From this perspective, the value of human beings is that we are in the position of owners who can commune with the universe through true love and feel the sensations of love. Fulfilling this is the path of life that humanity travels.
Until now, people have known relatively little about the spirit world. It is a world where people are recognized depending on how closely they followed God’s principle of existence—the principle of living for the sake of others. A world built on this content is the ideal kingdom of heaven. This is the original homeland for which all humankind searches. Today, we live as fallen people who have been expelled from our homeland, so it is our destiny to return there. However, we cannot do this on our own.
God has worked through history to resolve this problem by establishing numerous religions in accordance with the different cultural backgrounds, respecting the customs and traditions of various nations. God has done this so that human beings would have a path to find their way back. Religion is the training ground where we can cultivate the qualifications that enable us to return to our homeland. In accordance with the cultural background of each region, God is guiding us toward one united world religion that can advance us to higher ground.
Since religion is supposed to lead us to this homeland, it has to teach us to live for others. The more advanced a religion is, the more it emphasizes the principle of living for others, with humility and modesty. Religion teaches us to exalt all people and to live for others in service and sacrifice.
Let us make the new millennium an age of true peace and true ideals, in which people will practice the way of true love. I hope we will recover the value of true original human beings, establish true families, and live for others eternally, centering on God and the True Parents. May your families and country be filled with an ever-increasing abundance of God’s love and blessings.
Thank you very much.