Sun Myung Moon
August 22, 1992
The Fifth Summit Council for World Peace
Lotte Hotel, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished presidents and prime ministers, former heads of state, government leaders, and eminent leaders from all walks of life gathered here today in Seoul, Korea:
May I offer to the participants in this Opening Ceremony of the Fifth Summit Council for World Peace my sincerest welcome and warmest thanks. This conference, which is a part of the World Culture and Sports Festival, has as its theme, "The Reunification of Korea and World Peace."
The new teaching for the future
The diverse problems of our world are complex and interconnected. Accordingly, under the overall banner of the World Culture and Sports Festival, here in this one location we will be addressing a wide range of issues in the fields of philosophy, politics, academia, religion, the media, science, art and other cultural fields. I believe this will be an epoch-making event, which will help us discover the true way toward world peace. Moreover, the fact that the Summit Council and the World Sports Festival are convening simultaneously demonstrates the importance of balancing the spiritual and physical sides of human life. Finally, at the heart of the festival is the largest mass wedding in history -- 30,000 couples, sincere, pure-hearted brides and grooms from 130 nations. As we enter the new historical age of the twenty-first century, I envision this grand festival centered on God as the pathway to realize true world peace.
If you look back at the history of our planet, there has not been a single day or even moment in which true freedom, peace and happiness existed on this earth. Communism, waving the banner of economic equality, proclaimed that it would free human beings from exploitation. However, it is not the solution. It turned out to cause even greater conflict and poverty. We see that democracy, which puts forward the ideology of freedom in contrast to communism, has fallen into self-centered individualism and moral decay. The guns and fires of war are not receding from the face of the earth, as expected. In fact, intense confrontation and increasing chaos are casting an ominous shadow upon the future of the world.
No one has a right to harbor bitterness over the countless trials and pain that people have suffered. The cause was people's own clinging to human-centered systems of thought that ignore the ideals and goals of God. Even if people did occasionally consider theological thought, because we have neither known nor understood the Will of God or His teachings, we have only a superficial grasp of the ultimate direction of history.
Let it be known that in the background of history, God our Parent has been carrying out His providence for the restoration of humankind. As we prepare to enter the twenty-first century, a new teaching must emerge that clearly examines God's Will and His ideal for humanity. This new teaching should precisely clarify the true relationship between human beings and their Creator.
True love is the universal principle of peace
Originally, a man's mind and body and a woman's mind and body were meant to harmonize together when they became husband and wife centering on God's true love. This type of family was to represent a united body of God's love, and was to have become the original dwelling place of true freedom, happiness and peace.
God's true love wants to give limitlessly to His object partners in the creation. It is similar to the love of parents, whose heart wants their children to become greater than themselves. Parents want only to give and give again to their children. The same is true for a loving husband and wife. Just as the husband wants his wife to be better than him, so also the wife wants her husband to be better than her. With this attitude, they both determine to invest, and invest more in each other.
The special characteristic of true love is the longing to give to an object partner. This is the expression of heart that initiates giving and receiving. God is the Subject of true love. He wants to give to His children in this altruistic manner. That God exists eternally can be traced to the original nature of true love, which is to give and keep giving and, by so doing, maintain a state of reciprocal action.
Human beings are God's eternal object partners of love. It is God's Will and the human ideal that God and human beings become one in heart. The giving and receiving of love enables this relationship to last for eternity. When God and human beings cooperate with the awareness of their joint ownership of the creation in the ideal of true love, then for the first time humanity can come to enjoy true freedom, true happiness and true peace. This principle is the axiom of peace common to the individual, family, society, nation and world. If human history had gone in this direction in the beginning, then human beings would have embraced the ideal of God's true love and would have become one body with God.
However, the path of human history did not did not go in God's direction. This is due to the human Fall. There has been no husband or wife in history who became one body participating in the true love of God. Accordingly, the ideal of the True Parents, who are the source of God's true love, was never accomplished.
To the contrary, because selfish love, selfish life and selfish lineage were passed down through marriages built upon self-centered love, human beings had no alternative except to wait and prepare for the Savior who, coming as the True Parents, would restore these historical errors and recover the original love, original life and original lineage of God.
If man and woman had united with God's ideal direction from the start, human history would not have seen the endless division, conflict, exploitation and oppression recorded in our history books. Instead they would have realized true love, and with that a united history of true parents, true families, true societies, the true nation and the true world would have come about.
The fundamental principle that can unify North and South Korea
The basic principle capable of unifying North and South Korea begins with true individuals who have achieved mind-body unity, and who come together to form true families. Only then can that principle be applied to unifying the Korean Peninsula. When that principle is extended to the world level, it becomes the principle for realizing true freedom, true peace and true happiness. The unification of the Korean Peninsula, therefore, will provide the opportunity to realize a united world and, eventually, even bring about the unity of God and humankind.
Today we are discussing Korean unification and world peace. The Korean Peninsula is the site of history's sharpest ideological conflict. It is here that God-centered Hebraism and human-centered Hellenism, two currents of thought that have diverged throughout history, face each other in the forms of democracy and communism. Overcoming the ideological division of the Korean Peninsula, therefore, will provide the direction toward achieving a united world.
It can be said that the Korean War that broke out in 1950 was the concrete starting point of the Cold War, with the countries of the world aligning with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Thus it was a microcosm of the intense global struggle between the democratic world and the communist bloc. As such, the frontline of the Korean War was the frontline between the forces of God and the forces of Satan, which represented two distinct currents in history.
The Korean War was a holy war, in that forces fighting on behalf of good in the world fought against the forces of evil. Since the Cold War began in this region, the Korean Peninsula, we cannot declare that the Cold War is truly over until the Korean Peninsula has once again been unified.
The Games of the Twenty-fourth Olympiad held here in Seoul in 1988 held great significance. For twelve previous years the Olympics had been stifled, boycotted first by the United States and then by the Soviet Union. In Seoul, the two participated together and the games thus became a starting point for East-West reconciliation. Also, with a record of 160 nations participating, the Olympics became a symbol of reconciliation for the entire globe.
Even as the Seoul Olympics gave us the opportunity to understand that it is vital to consider the physical aspect in order to build a healthy world, it is also important to consider the spiritual and cultural aspects. It was for this reason that, at the close of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, I began preparations for the World Culture and Sports Festival as a festival for all humanity, a unique event to foster the development of both our spiritual and physical aspects.
Time for a great spiritual awakening
The conflict on the Korean Peninsula exhibits characteristics of a conflict between the more developed and less developed countries of the world, as well as characteristics of the conflict between the Eastern and Western cultures. Thus, the unification of the Korean Peninsula is indispensable for the achievement of world peace and will be an important milestone for resolving issues surrounding the idea of a unified world culture.
Today we are in great need of a spiritual revolution. Individuals, nations, and the world as a whole, need a new understanding of God and His existence. We must have a meeting of God and humanity such that we can restore our original inseparable relationship with God and establish it for eternity.
It is for this purpose that I advocate Godism, which is centered on true love. Godism is head-wing philosophy, meaning that it belongs neither to the left wing nor to the right wing.
Since I inherited the mission of the True Parents, I have endured all kinds of trials and hardships in order to realize world peace through Godism. We neglected God due to our fascination with materialism, and we pushed Him aside to embrace secular humanism. Godism allows us to find God again. It illuminates for us the point of unity where we can meet God.
In the former Soviet Union, previously the center of state atheism, tens of thousands of politicians, scholars and religious leaders have participated in five days of training to awaken them to Godism. This dynamic spiritual renaissance is rapidly spreading.
It is through true love that God and human beings meet and become one. It is in true love that humanity is able to meet God and enjoy eternal life. For this reason, true love is capable of overcoming all the world's problems. Through true love, by which we sacrifice ourselves in order to live for others, we can find the solutions to such problems as interracial conflict, violence, the gap between rich and poor, and many diverse environmental issues. Families whose individual members are united in true love can successfully combat the corruption of morals that has contributed to the downfall of so many of our youth.
Humanity united in true love has a bright future
In the newness of the twenty-first century we must find the starting point where God and human beings can come into oneness. When the individual, family, society, nation and world become one in true love, humanity can expect a very bright future.
My dear esteemed world leaders, this modern age has already gone beyond all national boundaries in the fields of politics, economics, culture, and in every other realm of human endeavor. We are thereby entering the "supra-national age." The age of the nation-state, for which you have been responsible and for which you have given yourselves, is now passing. We are at the beginning of a new stage in which the world has to cooperate as one.
In reality, only a few leaders influence and guide the contemporary world. If all of you who are gathered here today will simply unite and step forward to educate all the people, then the future of the world will surely come to rest in your hands.
I hope that your three days of conferencing are fruitful, and that we can achieve a new milestone in the quest for peace. I pray sincerely that God's blessing be upon you, your families, and your nations.
Thank you very much.