Sun Myung Moon
July 4, 2007
Address at the World Culture and Sports Festival 2007
Yu Gwan-soon Gymnasium, Cheonan, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished guests from Korea and abroad, and athletes participating in this inter-religious sports tournament:
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking part in the World Culture and Sports Festival 2007. It is a peace festival that is increasing its global presence. This year, we are celebrating the Twelfth World Culture and Sports Festival, with the theme "Beginning the Era of a New Universal Civilization of Peace." The festival presents a model of harmony and peace that can bring together the 6.5 billion people of the world as one family under God.
Ladies and gentlemen, please look at the world today. Can we find leaders who are genuinely concerned for the future of humanity and who are making the sacrifices necessary to bring harmony and peace on an inter-religious and international level? Human beings are like children who have lost their parents, like misguided youths who do not recognize their teachers, like sheep without a shepherd. People have become spiritually blind, unable to see more than an inch in front of them.
There are now some two hundred nations in the world. Yet, aren't many of these nations engaged in fierce conflicts, directly or indirectly? Aren't they all intent on pursuing their own interests? Even the United Nations, founded with the noble ideal of protecting the welfare and peace of humankind, has reached its limits. Watching helplessly without a solution to the global crises of war, starvation and disease, the United Nations is becoming an organization that exists more in name than in substance.
Thinking of ourselves as lords of creation, we human beings have forged our own history. Despite terrible massacres and natural disasters, the human race has survived and continues to multiply to this day. We seek a bright and happy world, but we have only a vague concept of what that might be. Why are we still unable to escape from the mire of sin and disease?
Ladies and gentlemen, on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Peace Palace and coronation of the King and Queen of Peace on June 13, 2006, I proclaimed the basic duties and mission that all citizens of the kingdom of God, Cheon Il Guk, must understand and fulfill. I did so in order to fulfill God's call to lead people to overcome the tragic realities we are facing and live as one global family under God's sacred reign of peace.
Today, I would like to address the theme "The Three Great Subject Partners Principle from the Viewpoint of God's Providence." This message is Heaven's blessing that serves as an important teaching in guiding humanity's future. Please open your heart and listen to these words so that you may prepare for your eternal life.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is important to know that at the time of creation God established the principle that human beings are to become three great subject partners. The first great subject partner we are to become is a true parent. God created us as His children. We are to become true children by perfecting our individual character after going through a period of autonomous spiritual growth based on the principles God established. We are then to become true couples, have our own children and attain the position of true parents. In this way, we are to perfect ourselves by practicing and embodying the true love that God bestowed upon us when He created us.
In reality however, moral values in our world today are deteriorating rapidly. The world is rejecting the time-honored moral laws governing the relationship between parents and children. Couples are discarding marital fidelity as an old-fashioned idea of previous generations. Brotherly love among siblings has become rare, submerged in the swamp of self-centered individualism. For these reasons, the most important thing to do is establish true families based on true love. This means we have to build families in which three generations live together in true love with true parents at the center.
The second great subject partner you are to become is a true teacher. Although the world is full of evil influences, one way or another, a person enters relationships in life where he or she is in a position to teach and to learn. Our first teachers are our parents. They are our first and greatest teachers. As true teachers the parents' primary responsibility is to raise true children.
Children who are brought up by true parents through a true and good family education easily progress into their school education. This is the next stage. School provides an institutionalized education, however even within that framework teachers have the responsibility to guide and educate their students with the heart of a true parent so that they may become true individuals. By this I mean that horizontal, academic education needs to be carried out on the foundation of vertical, character education. Therefore a teacher must first possess the heart of a true parent.
The third great subject partner you are to become is a true owner. God created the universe and is the true Owner and Lord of all creation. God's creation is the fruit of God's complete investment, carried out with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. From His example, we can gain the wisdom that enables us to become true owners. The secret is to invest true love based on that absolute standard. The prerequisite of becoming a true owner is to possess the heart of a true parent.
The three great subject partner's principle holds organic internal relationships that are mutual, absolute and indivisible. This is because a true parent, true teacher or true owner can stand in the position of either a subject partner or an object partner in relation to the other two. In other words, once you become a true parent, you also become a true teacher and a true owner. Once you become a true teacher, it includes being a true parent and true owner. Once you become a true owner, you will immediately become a true parent and true teacher as well.
From the outset, human beings were born to inherit and embody God's complete three great subject partners principle. To become a person of character who perfects the three great subject partners principle, we need to become like God. We must have a heart like God's and love people and all creation just as God does, based on God's absolute standard. In other words, we need to attain a state of loving unity with God, wherein we can love the creation. At that point, true parenting, the true teaching and the true ownership converge.
The world operates through harmonious relationships in various systems. In this complex and diverse world, the principle of becoming a true owner naturally applies to the relationships between people, and it also applies to the relationship between human beings and the creation. What kind of person can be called a true owner? He or she is a person who lives for others, cares for others and sacrifices to serve others, and practices true love in their daily life. Such a person can be called a true owner. Also, the true owners of creation are people who care for all things in the creation with true love, protecting and nurturing them.
In light of this, it is not your position or status that makes you a true owner. It is determined by your character and capacity to love. The president of a company who loves and cares for all his employees with a parental heart is the true owner of that company. Only if the president of a nation loves its citizens as a parent can he or she become the true owner of that nation; it means raising them with care and sharing the sorrows and joys of life with them as if they were his or her children.
Ladies and gentlemen, God's creation is truly mysterious and profound. God created us as His children, to be the lords of creation. To this end, God gave each of us a conscience as His highest and greatest gift. It is given to us as a compass to guide us through life in this earthly world. Our lifespan may be one hundred years. Regardless of who we are, from the moment of our birth to the moment we die we cannot escape the influence of our conscience.
The role of the conscience is as our true parent, true teacher and true owner. Our conscience acts as a true parent, true teacher and true owner on behalf of God, guiding our life and educating us from the time we are born. Our conscience keeps watch over our every action at every moment.
It is aware of our every word, thought and deed even before our parents, our teachers or God are. God endowed the conscience with the fundamental function of guiding and supervising our life.
Yet the conscience, which ought to be clear as crystal, has been clouded over due to the human Fall. Amid all manner of sin and spiritual sickness, it is now unable to fully function in its original capacity. That is why you need to become people who can listen to the voice of your conscience. You need to cry out to be liberated even one day sooner from this evil world that is under Satan's dominion and to become a person who is free from its shackles.
However, there is no way for fallen people to restore the original function of the conscience by their own power. This is because they have not established a direct vertical relationship with God. The 6.5 billion people in the world today are off on a tangent, each and every one living under the illusion of being genuine and the best in his or her field. However, no one will be able to find the path to salvation until someone reaches the absolute standard of a direct 90-degree angle relationship with God. Beloved leaders from around the world, there is one person, the first and the last to hold such a position in history, that holds the key to free human beings from Satan's bondage and lead them to heaven. That person is standing before you today.
I never wished for nor sought it, however I was anointed by God and placed in the position of the Savior, Messiah, returning Lord and the True Parent of humankind. It is a position that is absolutely free from the influence of Satan's realm. God charged me, Reverend Moon, to practice and demonstrate first-hand a life based on the truth and on submission to the conscience. The path I am walking as a true parent, true teacher and true owner will allow the people of the world, who are going 6.5 billion separate ways, to be reconnected to God at a 90-degree angle. The more than 300 billion absolute, good spirits in the spirit world testify in unison to this fact. The founders of the great religions, led by Jesus, the great philosophers and thinkers, and even communist leaders, are shedding tears of gratitude for this amazing truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, even the people in the spirit world have no way to be saved without receiving the grace of the Blessing from the True Parents. The time has come for human beings to fulfill Heaven's decree to create one family under God through the international and cross-cultural Blessing. What other way is there to create the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven other than by becoming one family under God? This is the way to create the ideal world that God envisioned at the time of the creation, a world in which all people are united beyond the boundaries of race, culture, religion and nation, a world where war and conflict do not exist.
Without your being aware of it, the True Parents have proclaimed the opening of the Era after the Coming of Heaven, which will allow humanity to be liberated. Even God will be liberated and God's heart will be set completely free. The True Parents are now spreading this revolutionary truth to all corners of the earth, that we all must become true parents, true teachers and true owners.
Ladies and gentlemen, the fundamental spirit of the World Culture and Sports Festival 2007 is bringing all people together as one family, fulfilling a sacred task. As people of religion, culture and athletic prowess, we have the mission to come together as one and bring this era that begins the new universal civilization of peace into fruition. Religious people in particular need to become leaders of this sacred revolution of true love. I have already completed all the preparations necessary for this.
With a view to building the ideal kingdom of heaven that is God's desire, I am promoting the world's grandest project, which is to build a bridge and tunnel complex spanning the Bering Strait. It will be part of the International Highway of Peace that will connect all oceans and continents and allow people to travel at high speed around the globe.
The United Nations, which began with the noble ideal of realizing world peace, is now only a shadow of what it was meant to be. I cannot pretend that I don't see this sad reality. Therefore I am promoting the renewal of the United Nations. In support of these efforts, I have founded the Universal Peace Federation as the new "Peace UN," or "Abel UN," based on the notion that new wine needs to be poured into fresh wineskins. The Universal Peace Federation will guide humanity in this era when we are beginning the new universal civilization of peace. It is already active in more than 120 nations.
All you have to do now is trust in and follow the True Parents. With your conscience as your compass, attain the status of a true parent, true teacher and true owner. Manifest true love in your daily life, thus ensuring your eternal life in heaven. Heavenly fortune will speed you on your path, and your good ancestors who have received the marriage Blessing will actively assist you in your activities. Have courage, and strive to go forward!
I pray that you may all attain the true family ideal so that you can see the advent of the era of the kingdom of peace under the sacred reign of peace, based on the three great subject partners principle.
Thank you very much.