Sun Myung Moon
April 1974
Photo date and location unknown
We do not go through the path of life for ourselves alone. We are going this way under God's will -- the great cause God would have us accomplish. God's will is to establish an ideal world, ideal kingdom on earth. The world must be composed of an ideal society, ideal families, ideal individuals.
When we view life from the standpoint of idealism or the ideal world, we must question if there is really an ideal individual in this world, an ideal family, an ideal society, an ideal nation, and if this world is an ideal place. There is God, who is Himself ideal and absolute. But is there any single individual in this world who is the accomplished pattern of God's intention, or God's ideal? I should say there is none. So God is working His providence to restore man back to the original form. In order for God to make this world ideal and make it into His kingdom, there must be an agency, a group of people representing His ideal.
God wanted the people to love Jesus
The one responsible for all these things was the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Before sending the Messiah to the nation of Israel, God had prepared for so long a time because the nation of Israel had to be cooperative with Jesus, and become one with him in harmony. The Jewish people should have known that God was pleased with Jesus Christ, and when they saw God loving this person they should have loved him too. God loved him and God lived with him in love and harmony. The nation of Israel, the people of Israel should have done the same -- loved and lived with him.
The Jewish people at that time were in the position to beg God to show them how much He loved Jesus and in what manner they should love him, live with him, and work with him to make this world an ideal one. They were in the position to want God to show them in what manner they should conform to God's will. They saw that God loved him, but they had to understand how much and in what manner God loved him. They knew that God lived with him, but they had to understand how. From then on, they had to learn to do everything in the same manner as Jesus did. Through this method alone the people of Israel could understand God's will and carry it out.
Furthermore, the Jewish people should have worked in accordance with Jesus' project, and investigated how he loved his people, his nation, and the whole world. If they had, they could have established the Kingdom at that time. But there was practically no one who really understood that God loved Jesus, who saw God's love for him, and who truly understood Jesus' love for the people. And they didn't understand in what manner they themselves had to love the people. Jesus' three years of public ministry were not years of living with the people in love, but years of paying indemnity to restore them back into the bosom of God. So his course during those three years was one of struggle, difficulty, hardships, and untold misery.
Christians must go the way of hardship
He chose disciples whom he could teach and show how to love people. But other people did not understand his plan and whose will he was seeking to fulfill. He was in great agony to win over Satan and bring the people back to God's bosom. He alone tasted the bitterness of his struggle. Nobody else understood. We must recall that after those three years of bitter struggle, all his disciples rejected, denied, and deserted him. He was all alone, put on the cross, and he passed away in resentment. So we as Christians inherited the bitterness and struggle he left undone in this world; we have not inherited love, harmony, and all those beautiful things.
We are not allowed to taste the glory and love of God, because Jesus himself was deserted without experiencing them. Jesus himself could not have love from God to the fullest extent, because the world did not receive him. So we are not qualified for that. He was not loved as an individual, he was not loved with a family or by members of his family. The nation and the whole world were unfulfilled under God's will. That is to say, no love and harmony were created and realized on the national base and the worldwide base. This required the ideal of the second coming of Christ.
So we as Christians must start by going through difficulties and hardships in order to restore and indemnify God's original world. We must have chis as our goal. Until we reach the goal, we must struggle hard under God's will. The question follows, what position are we Christians in for carrying out God's will? Our position is right in the middle of the battle; but we must resolve to overcome all obstacles and fight through until we gain the goal. In accomplishing this, we must anticipate the love, harmony, and all the beautiful things which are ahead of us, which are to be ours after we have gained the goal. That's why in the Bible Jesus said, "He who endures co the end shall be saved."
The way of self-denial
And in another place, the Bible says, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind," pouring out your soul in sincerity and love. You must love God alone. The Jewish people rejected Jesus, who brought God's love and who was the incarnation of God's love; thus he was rejected and went through bitterness. So we must start right from that point -- we must go through bitterness and struggle in order to obtain happiness and love. In order to love God we must deny ourselves. The Bible says: "For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." This means we can attain the goal and receive the Lord of the Second Advent, who will bring God's love. We can love him, live with him, work with him, and accomplish what he will accomplish only when we practice these things.
So we must be read to give out our lives, lose our lives, and deny ourselves in order to obtain God's love. Then through that love, and through that person whom God sent, we can accomplish our mission. We must be ready to lose our lives for God and for God's will. You must bear two things in mind: to be able to love God and to love God's will. In God's will are many levels: re-creating or saving individuals, saving the family, saving the nation, saving the whole world, and saving the macrocosm, including the spirit world. Only after having accomplished this much are we really qualified to enjoy God's love.
We learn love first on the individual level
The Messiah represents God's will as individual, as the core of the family, and as the central figure of the nation, the world, and the whole macrocosm. Because of this, the Messiah is supposed to teach us on the individual level how to love God. Representing the family, the nation, the world, and the whole universe, he teaches us how to love God and His will. Because he lives completely in accordance with God's will, in loving individuals, families, nations, the world, and the whole universe, he is with God and in conformity with God. So he is an example for us to follow.
Have we learned how to love God on the individual level, according to the Messiah's standard? Has there been a single Christian who has done that? There has been no such person, no such family, no such society, no such nation, no such world, and no such universe. So we must stare right from the beginning.
God is discouraged. He has not been able to see any such individual, any such family, any such nation or world up to the present moment. God cannot abide in a world which is against His will. In chis dark world which opposes His will, God is really longing for one person who can be responsible for God's will, family, nation, and world.
If God finds a group of people who are willing to deny themselves, lose their lives for God's great cause, and establish the Kingdom of God under God's will, God will be compelled to love chis group. Even if He has co desert the other groups of people, He will be with those people and abide among them. We are supposed to carry out that kind of mission.
We must be resolved co work hard while other Christians and other people in the democratic world are at ease without working for the cause of God. If the people outside go a different way, we must go the other way, struggling hard without sleeping or eating, forgetting about every worldly worry, and forging ahead with our goal and our vision. Our way is the path of restoration, in which we must go the reverse way. And we must not just walk the way but go the way restoring ourselves through indemnity.
Re-creating through indemnity
We do not go through the course of indemnity blindly, without a purpose in mind, but we must go according to God's principle of restoration through indemnity. That is the way of re-creation. We must know that we are in the position of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, before the fall, when God's intention in creating man was not accomplished. Therefore, we must accomplish that through ourselves. In order for the word "re-creation" to mean anything, we must start from the point that there is no such thing as Satan. However, Satan is around us, so we must win that position by struggling to defeat Satan on the individual level, family level, national level, and worldwide level. After we have gained that much, we have to go through the course of re-creation. After we have won over Satan, there will no longer be anything like indemnity.
When God created heaven and earth and everything therein, He could only do it by pouring out His energy and power. To have poured out His energy and power means that He put a part of Himself into the creation. When God created man and everything else, He did it for the sake of those created beings, not for His own sake. Without pouring all of Himself into the created object, He could not create on the perfect level. He poured out His love, His ideal and everything else into the created object. The Principle says that God created man in order to receive joy from him. But, when we think of the manner in which we receive joy, can we get joy by ourselves alone? No. Joy is not produced when you are alone, because joy does not come from you, but is returned from the object.
Love is a reciprocal experience; you cannot love by yourself. The same with happiness; you cannot be happy when you are all alone. Suppose you have a lot of money, and you are full of dreams, full of ideas. But are you happy if you are all by yourself, in solitude? When God created objects, He created them not for Himself, in the first place, but for the created. God created men for the sake of men themselves, then after that He was going to receive joy from them. We must know that men are created for the sake of God. God exists for the sake of men and men exist for the sake of God.
Love does not come from one's self, but comes from the other, from the object. We can say God created man in order to have joy from him. Although God may be full of love, if He doesn't have any object to give His love to, His love has no life. Then His love is not love; it is dead. When He finds a person as an object, His love is animated, and when the love abiding in God's heart comes out and is given to the object, His love bears fruit. When Adam and Eve, as man and wife, can form a couple, reproduce, and multiply, we see God's love. If these three beings are separated, we cannot think of love. When God loves men and men love one Another -- especially the love between husband and wife -- there we really experience God's love.
You are born from love
When God created the first man, He was thinking of making one who could truly receive His love and return it to him. In the course of re-creating we will fulfill that. Then the question is, which is first, love or life? For God, the source of life, life is more important. But man is born from love, from the act of love, so love is first and more important to human beings. God had life and then required love to exist, but man has been born out of love and pursues life. Man's life is built on the basis of love. Then his life must be fruitful in love. Because man is formed on the basis of love, he has life. God can love that life, and man can return love or joy to God. God cannot but love man, because man is created in such a way.
From God's standpoint, man should be born out of love, live joyfully in love, and die in love. That's what God would have men do. You are not born from the life of your parents, but from the love of your parents.
Since you are born out of the love of your parents, your parents are all prepared co love you from the moment of your birth. Since you are born out of love, you must live in love and must die in love; by doing that you will have joy. Even in the United States, where individualistic ideas are flourishing, is there anyone who does not want to be loved by his or her parents, by his family, by the people around him, by the whole world? Are there any such people? Why is it so? That is because we are born out of love, we are supposed to live in love, to get joy in love, and die in love. That is the natural law. So, that is why we desire such love around us. It is a bitter thing to know that there is such a high rate of divorce.
The more money you have and the more friends you have, the happier you are. But are you happier the more parents you have? You don't want to have thousands of parents, but just one pair -- the smallest unit. That is the proof that the path of love, that path of happiness begins at one point.
What is the most valuable thing in the whole world? If you were asked that, what would your answer be? Before marriage, your parents. There is nothing more valuable co you than your parents' love. It is not because they have life that they are dear to you, but they have love. The next most important thing is marital love. The third precious thing is love of children, your own children who are born out of your love. Those children are the most precious things in the whole world: parental love, marital love, and love of children. The reason why we take those three loves to be so precious is because those three loves represent God's love. With those put together we feel, know, and understand God's love. Without experiencing all those three loves, we cannot experience God's love fully. We cannot really know the existence of God without experiencing all those things.
Is there a single person who does not like the idea of being loved by his parents, by his spouse, by his children? How does love operate? First, there is God who is full of love, but just by Himself His love does not flow. If He has an object, His love flows and is returned in the form of joy. The more you feel you exist for your husband, for your parents, for your children, the stronger your love becomes. So whether you love God or another person, you must love with all your heart and with all your might and with everything you have; and then it will be returned in the form of joy, joy to the fullest extent, perfect joy. On God's part, when He created man, He poured out all of His energy, all of His life, His everything - - so from that point of view we can say that He was consumed in creating.
Love is total investment
Suppose you are a businessman who is going to invest a million dollars. When you do that are you ready to lose it? If you have in mind to gain by investing that amount of money, you are joyful, you are happy to invest it. We are always happy to give something for investment. When you invest your money, it is gone from your pocket; but if your investment of a million dollars will return to you with another $100,000 added to it, it will bring your more joy. If the return is doubled, tripled, or quadrupled you will be so glad that you will dance around the room.
With God it is the same. He knew that if He created man in the perfect form, the joy that man would return to Him in perfection would be a thousand fold or more. He had that in mind when He created man. He looked forward to perfected Adam and Eve bringing back so much more love to Him. When He poured out His life and love and everything else into man He was not sorry that He was losing those things, because He knew very well that all would be returned a thousand fold, with added joy and happiness. The more He poured out His whole being without reservation, the more He knew that perfect love and joy would be returned to Him. This is the law of creation, centered on human love.
Without love man could not have been created. So also in the course of re-creation, without love we cannot re-create the people of the world or re-create the world. For us fallen men, we have to re-create our own selves. Our first human ancestors fell and we are responsible for that, so we have to re-create our own selves in relation to God.
After having re-created ourselves, our objects to re-create are our spouse, our family, our tribe, our nation, the whole world. This is why religions teach us the way of sacrifice. When they demand sacrifice, they want us to pour out our whole selves, to give of our life, give of our love, money, and everything else. If we pour out those things completely, what will be returned to us? For example, when you pour out all your being and all you have into one person, that person himself including his love and heart, will finally be yours. If you desire love, the secret of gaining it is to pour out yourself, your life, your love, and your everything. This is the law of re-creation -- simply to win the hearts of people.
Suppose you have ten friends and you try to define who is the best friend. You immediately think of one -- the person who has given out all that he has to you -- his love, life, and everything. Whoever did that most for you is your best friend. Isn't that true? Out of the whole history of the United States who do you think is the greatest patriot? The person who has fought, struggled, and given up everything he has for the sake of the country. All the citizens of the United States would be willing to give out all that they have to that person, with their love and their heart added. That is the formula which can be applied to any nation regardless of background, to people of any culture, custom, or tradition.
When we think this way, we realize God is such a wonderful God. According to the criterion of who has given out the most, who has given everything he has, the best person is God. If the people of the world really knew that God was like that, and that God is still pouring out all He has -- His life, His love and everything -- to us, they could not but love Him and return joy to Him. They would want to live for Him, die for Him, and belong to Him. God knew that, and knows that still. If you know that for the first time you are loved by a person, 100 percent without reservation, you would want to return it, not 99 percent or less, but more than 100 percent. Isn't that true? That is a great and wonderful thing.
If there is any person who received God's love to the full extent and truly knows how to return it to Him, we must learn from him how to love God. If there are any such people who can follow this person and try to love God through him, those people too will be loved by God. The more you try to love this person, the more you are loved by God, and by loving this person you are loving God. If you do that, your neighbor will love you and be attracted to you, and something more is added to your love when it is returned to you. When love is multiplied, how much is returned? More than 100 percent. But you must remember the wonderful fact that love starts only from sacrifice, from giving of yourself and investing yourself, your life, and your all. So, a person resembling God fully is the person who is prepared to give of himself completely. That person we can call an ideal person.
We are not created for ourselves
Between man and man, the same may be applied. When we are born or created, we are not created for ourselves. We are created for our spouse. Do you understand? Is a woman born for the sake of women? No, for man. Likewise, a man is born for the sake of a woman. You men don't be too proud of yourselves -- you are born a man, but you are nothing if you don't have a wife. From the time of our birth we are born for the sake of others, not for ourselves. We must remember this. So we conclude that if there is any good man, any ideal man, any happy man, any respected man, he is the one who is ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of others.
Then let's return to American individualism: "I am born for myself," you say, "I must do as I please." Is that right? That attitude is destined to lead us into destruction. I want to cry out to American youth, "Remember, if you go on like that you are doo t led." With the Divine Principle formula in mind, when I look at the country of the United States, I am sad. This country is doomed to destruction. Then who is going to save this country? We are only a handful of people, but we are ready to save this nation, at the cost of our own lives. We must be confident that we are those who can save this nation. In the United States, I find that many young people enjoy love for their own sake, just the physical side of love. They misuse the most precious gift, divine love; and I am most unhappy to see this. Without God's love, without the precious side of love, there is no life, there is nothing. There must be an eternal give and take of love, and then there will be an ideally happy society. When we find that love, experience that love, and are ready to multiply that love, the ideal world cannot help but come. This precious love is obtained only through the person in the object position. So when you love, you must respect that person, treasure that person, and cherish what he has. That must be your attitude. Only by living in that way can we realize the ideal and find our ideal happiness.
No democracy in love
No one in the world likes the idea of a dictatorship; yet love is the greatest dictator. You want to be dominated by love, occupied by love, dictated over, bossed over. You are ready to be bossed by the greatest love. Is there anyone here who wouldn't like that? When you are embraced you want to be hugged until your bones are crushed. Even though your whole body would be crushed and out of joint, you would be intoxicated in love and joy. Love is the greatest experience and love is the greatest dictator. In this dictatorship we find joy.
When you make love with your spouse, do you let any others interfere there? Well, there is no democracy there. Under God's love we will have dictatorship. Then whose love do you want to receive in that manner? Whose love is like that? God's love. Even though He may be boss over you by the strongest dictatorship, you are ready to receive it and only too glad and happy to receive it. When we come down to the human level, a man would like to have the most perfect woman -- the most beautiful externally and internally, a perfect creature, a perfect girl -- for his wife. A woman wants a perfect man for her husband. You want your love to be more perfect, more perfect, and more perfect until you reach God's love. You want first God's love, and then you want your owl love centered on God's love. But alas, there is only one God. What should we do? Shall we fight against each other in order to win God? If we know that anything and everything is the object of God's love and that God's love is infinite, the question is solved.
I have a handkerchief here. It is like any other handkerchief, but if you really want to be loved by me and I am the only one you respect and love, then my handkerchief would be valued more than other handkerchiefs. Mine has a sentimental value. You want to have this more than anything else. You want to be given anything by the person whom you love. When you find God, you discover that God is loving you. God is perfect and absolute; God is full of love, the original love. If you find that you are loved by Him, you wouldn't desire anything more. The Divine Principle teaches that we become one in the love of God; that's a wonderful expression.
Suppose you have just one thread of hair of your loved one. That has infinite value. As a child, you loved your doll, and if you have a strand of her hair, it is a part of that doll and it represents her. When you have that thread in your hand, you can feel as though you have that doll in your bosom, and that means everything. For us fallen men, the most important thing is to love God. That is why the Bible says, "You must love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." In that case, by loving God, you lose nothing. It is all returned, doubled, tripled and even more.
The way of re-creation
So we understand the method or the ideal way of restoring or re-creating ourselves -- the Principle of recreating ourselves into ideal men. Love is reciprocal, and only through love we can re-create ourselves. That means that we must have an object in order to re-create ourselves. In order to find an individual to be our object, we must pour out our love. And in order to find a family, nation, and whole world, we must give out our love and everything we have. That is the way to re-create an individual, family, and the whole world.
Have you ever done anything to re-create such a family, such a society, such a nation, and such a world? Adam and Eve fell and caused God's will to be nullified. Therefore, in order to re-create ourselves, we must find our original selves on the individual level and then we must restore our families and bring restoration on the national level, the worldwide level, and then the universal level (including the spirit world). In what manner and how much have you participated in re-creating the world? Does God have His own nation? Does He have His own world? No. That means there is no world which God can love, and no nation at all. In order to re-create or restore yourself, you must pour out all you have for that purpose; in order to re-create or restore the family, you must pour out all you have, your life, your love, and your all.
And in order to restore or re-create the nation you must pour out yourself including your family, for that purpose. In order to restore the world, you must give everything, including your nation, your family and yourselves as individuals into this. Without doing that much, you can never dream of restoring the whole world. When you do things, do you want them to be done perfectly or imperfectly?
Perfectly -- everyone wants to do things perfectly. If you want things to be done perfectly, you must be ready to pour yourself, your whole being into your actions 100 percent. You want yourselves to be perfect, but have you been doing whatever you can to accomplish that? If not, you cannot think of being restored. That is the Principle; that is the formula. Some of you here may be very proud of what you have accomplished, thinking, "I have done this, I have done that." But have you really put your whole being into that work? Have you loved each other and harmonized with each other? And in oneness did you pour out your energy for this great cause? If you have done that, this whole nation of yours will be touched and moved and stirred, and it will return to you. Have you done that?
Other people's lives are in your hands
Before God, you must always be humble and think, even after having done what you could, "I have not done quite what I could, I want to do more." And, you must apologize before God for not doing what you should have done and be ready to do more for the future. That must be your attitude. After a day of hard work, you are tired and exhausted and you sink into bed. When you are praying, you must have this attitude: "Oh, I have not done all I should have done. Oh God, I apologize before you. Please help me do more tomorrow. You wanted me to do this, and I could not quite accomplish it. Please give me more strength to do that tomorrow." And there comes God's sympathy. God's heart is touched and moved and then His energy is poured out to you and you are strengthened for the days to come.
Have you ever loved anyone with your whole heart? If you have never loved a person with all your heart, how can you love God? You cannot say you love God. Then Jesus said that he came not to be served, but to serve the people. His love was not that which would be poured out just to those persons who loved him, but he was ready to love the enemy. Have you ever been so serious that you think that a person's life or death is in your hands? So when you want to speak to that person, you are really serious and you almost tremble before God to think that there is a possibility you might fail this person. Then you will be doing right. At that moment you must pray to God, "Help this person from your part, but use me as an instrument to love this person. Save the life of this person. All is in your hands, so please use me to do your work." When you are that serious, God will be working with you. Even in the work of re-creation, God must work with you, you alone cannot do anything.
Have you ever loved any person in your family, in your neighborhood, people on the street in that seriousness? Remember the law of restoration through indemnity based on the principle of the relationship between Cain and Abel. Re-creation is more difficult than creation. Creation is like sprinkling water and molding the clay. It will work when the clay is obedient. But re-creation is something like pouring oil mixed with water on the clay; it will scatter and will not be molded according to your will. You must try to get rid of the oil. And when you have removed that oil, you can use water to mold the clay to form. Removing the satanic element from man is something like that. Between Cain and Abel, we must have Cain obedient to Abel. By doing that alone, we can mold people back into the original form. That resembles God's work He tried to get rid of Satan, who comes attacking even God. When God loves His people, even touching the heart of Satan, everybody becomes like clay in His hands, obedient, and utterly devoted. Then He can mold the clay into the forms He desires. The course of re-creation is like that.
Love God more than I do
We must be the symbol and the subject of re-creation. We must be proud to be the soldiers fighting for God's cause, for the Great Cause, on the individual level, family level, national level, on the level of the whole world and the universal level. Don't you feel that by our pouring out the whole of our being into this cause, the whole world is being changed, being re-shaped, being renewed? And although I am a small being, like a grain of sand in the ocean, as I worked through my course, I always experienced that God was there, helping me, sometimes going ahead of me and doing things for me. Let's believe in God and trust in Him -- the God whom our forefathers, our first ancestors Adam and Eve, deserted and did not believe in. We must be prepared to minister to God, whom Adam and Eve failed to serve. Let us love God, the sad God whom Adam and Eve failed to love. Let us be ready to lose our lives for the sake of God and His will, while Adam and Eve failed to do that.
If our family is to prosper at all, the descendants or children must be greater than the parents. What I want you to do is to love God more than I have -- love God whom I have loved, but more than I did. I want you to serve God and love God, more than I served and loved Him. From the start, I was resolved to throw away my life, to lose my life, to deny myself for God; but here I am, still living. And I am sometimes shameful of that. But you are in your youth; you are in your twenties and thirties. You have a long life ahead of you -- why can't you fight for the cause?
By your doing that your ancestors will be benefited in the spirit world; your family, your neighbors, your friends and your nation will be saved by your doing this. Like a parent looking at his children and wanting them to do greater things than he has done, I expect and want you to do the same. I want you to do greater things than I do.
If you really love me, I want you to love God in place of me, more than I do Him. If you really love God, you must be loving your brothers and sisters whom God loves. If you can do this, even if you may not have found and seen the kingdom of God while on earth, you will enjoy the kingdom of God in the spirit world.