Sun Myung Moon
February 6, 2003
True Parents’ Birthday Congratulatory Banquet
Lotte Hotel, Seoul, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Respected former heads of state, religious, political and academic leaders who have gathered from around the world, honored guests from the diplomatic community, and esteemed leaders of Korea:
I would like to begin by congratulating you on the results you have achieved for world peace through the Summit Conference, and I wish to convey deep appreciation for your many expressions of congratulations on this occasion of President Hak Ja Han Moon’s and my birthday. I offer all this glory to God, who has protected us until today.
On this meaningful occasion, I would like to share with you my convictions about realizing a peaceful world. In view of our hope for world peace, there has never been a time when understanding between religions and reconciliation between religious people were more urgent than they are today. The precious teachings of our religions are the source of the wisdom that has brightened human history. However, believers of all faiths tend to have three weaknesses: one, they tend to be unrealistic and oriented largely toward the hereafter; two, they can be narrow-minded and sectarian; and three, they can be extremist.
True religious leaders, however, have to be able to embrace all people with open minds. The real duty of all religious people is to overcome the lines of division crippling the human race, in particular the walls between religions. Religions must not exist for the sake of their own success or for the salvation of their believers alone; they need to exist in order to accomplish the Will of God. Religious people should never be narrow-minded or seek their own gratification. When one lives with a loving heart, all walls break down. The great founders of all the religions understood this and tried to accomplish this ideal.
God is the origin of true love. Because the fundamental character of true love is to unconditionally seek to live for another, true love always seeks a partner for relationship. It is from this point that we can properly understand God’s motivation and purpose for creation. God brought forth the created world as His partner for relating in true love. And in all the creation, God set human beings apart as His closest partners of love, His very children.
The significance of the first person, Adam, was not just as an individual; he was also to have been the origin of the family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos of true love. God’s ideal of creation was a world of harmony and unity, in which each person would live for his or her partner in a realm of true love. Nonetheless, before this ideal of true love could be realized, the first ancestor of humankind disobeyed God during his time of growth to maturity and fell through false love.
Due to the human Fall, strife ensued between God and human beings. Confrontations and conflicts ensued between God and Satan, between people and Satan, and among people themselves. The fact that there have been so many different nations and so many conflicts in human history bears witness to this. We can begin an ideal world only through a movement that is able to overcome and go beyond the origin of these myriad conflicts. And the only way to resolve these conflicts and struggles is through altruistic and sacrificial love, that is to say, through living for the sake of others.
The realization of the ideal nation of God begins with individuals determined to love their enemies. The way to win over enemies is not through superior strength. It is possible only through the power of true love, by which we can embrace them. If you plant soybeans, soybeans grow; if you plant red beans, red beans grow; and if you plant the seeds of red flowers, red flowers bloom. In the same way, if you sow the seeds of Satan, which contain the germ of revenge, a tree of revenge will grow, and if you sow the seeds of goodness, which contain the germ of loving the enemy, a tree of goodness and of loving the enemy will grow.
If a nation arises consisting of people who have a mind to love their enemies, it could become the ideal land that God desires. It could become the model for humankind to follow. For the last thirty years in America, I have been devoting myself completely and without resting to solve such problems as the breakdown of the family, sexual immorality, the decadence of youth, the decay of ethics, and the decline of Christianity. In spite of my many efforts, Americans, including many Christians, misunderstood me, persecuted me and eventually even imprisoned me. The negative attitudes and vicious slander against me continued unabated. Yet, I refused to be caught in negative feelings of hatred or resentment, and I continued to live a life of love, giving consistently to those who persecuted me.
No matter what my situation, in my heart of hearts I consider God’s love and Will to be the most important things of all. Because of this, as time passed more and more Americans, and especially Christians, realized the value of my teachings and life, and I can see they are changing their way of thinking about me. In a public speech, I directly told them, “Christians must respond to their mission to realize the Will of God, who is their true root. Christians must change their attitudes and their ways of life.” The founder of Christianity taught, “Love your enemy.” If Christians cannot fulfill this basic principle, the only way left for them will be one of continued decline. If that decline persists, it will be because they abandoned the sacred teachings of Jesus that give us true freedom.
If, however, the Muslims and adherents of other religions are able to realize a higher level of love than Christians in terms of morality and living for others, their enemies will be subjugated through the mighty power of true love rather than through material strength. I have always told the leaders of the Western world that they must not disregard or overlook the 1.3 billion Muslims and the 3.4 billion followers of the Indian and East Asian traditions, as well as the people of other religions throughout the world. If America fails to understand the meaning of the existence of these parts of the great human family, how can we expect that America will be able to build a better future and realize a world of peace for our descendants? For the same reason, how can the Islamic world or the people of other religions look down upon or overlook the importance of the Christian culture? If we scorn each other, there will be no hope. All religious leaders must become leaders in a worldwide movement to realize a higher love that embraces other religions and societies. This is the lofty ideal implicit in the teachings of the founders of all religions. What is the direction of God’s Will in history? The ultimate ideal of God is a world that is peaceful and unified through true love, a world transcending religion, race and nationality; in other words, one family of humankind.
The goal of God is not the victory of one religion or one ideology; it is the realization of a world of love in which all people live in peace, unity and joy. In view of the tendency of contemporary society toward merely external unification through technology and economic development, it is the responsibility of religions to lead the way to internal harmony and unification.
Religions must take the lead and provide the example in this work. History is calling for the harmony and cooperation of the religious world. This cannot be delayed. It is the holy Will of God. If we do not accomplish this, religions will decline. I know this because throughout my life I have taught based upon my direct experience of the heart of God and the Will He hopes to accomplish.
What I teach is not speculation or theory. God is alive and working in history. It is just that due to the Fall, human beings lost their original position, and without being able to relate with God perfectly, they have lived in sin and strife. Although God is omnipotent and perfect, when He has no appropriate partner with whom to relate, He cannot fully express His omnipotence. After our first ancestor disobeyed God, God lost the foundation of goodness to which He could relate. Accordingly, His goodness and absolute power could not be expressed, even as history nonetheless continued.
God is carrying out the providence to restore His position and fulfill the heavenly Will by working to restore human beings to their original state. To restore the ideal of true love, true parents and true family that Adam, the first ancestor of humankind, could not accomplish, God has been carrying out the providence by entrusting key figures with the missions of second Adam and third Adam. God called me early in my life, and my mission as the True Parent is connected to such providential plans of God.
Respected leaders, I would like to ask you to pay close attention to the prophecy I am about to make. Humankind is at a turning point. In the past, the invisible God seemed almost powerless and nonexistent. However, the time has come when the power of God will become manifest in our lives. We have entered that era, a time long-awaited by humankind. The absolute power of God, who is the Lord of the sacred order and laws that really do exist in all things and in the universe, will manifest in amazing ways and be experienced by people in their daily lives.
This is a miraculous era that is possible only because a solid foundation of goodness has been established through the sacrifices and unconditional love of God, True Parents and righteous people throughout history. From now on, people will gradually come to perceive God and to understand the spirit world and the works of spirit people. People will become conscious of their internal person, their spirit self, and their spirituality will develop.
In this way, people will naturally experience the laws of the universe and become true people, having undergone a clear change in their character. In the course of this change, people will learn that God made the existing order of the universe and the relationships among human beings. He made them not to be centered on the self or self-interest, but for an altruistic life of living for the sake of others. People will come to know that God’s ideal of peace in the creation, as He originally intended, is an ideal of unity. God made the existing world for the ideal of partnership. It is based on the premise of harmony and unity. Hence, no ideal of peace can be realized by neglecting or harming the other.
When human relationships extending above and below, front and back, and right and left, all realize harmony, unity, and the ideal of true love by living for the sake of others, complete peace will be achieved throughout the spirit world and physical world. God will attain joy, and so will His partners, human beings.
Furthermore, God wants the individual purposes of all created entities to be realized as part of a larger purpose, the greater good. God established the order of the entire universe so that through the connection of these dual purposes, individual and public, a great harmony and unity can be achieved.
However due to the Fall, human beings, betrayed God and fell into ignorance. They flouted the order of existence that God originally intended, and lived dominated by selfish greed, which is fallen nature. People have been living more for their private gain than the public good, more for their own private goals than public ones. The result is self-evident. This way has not ensured unlimited freedom, peace and happiness. Self-centered people who pursued hedonistic satisfaction or who, hungry for power, engaged in struggle and confrontation with others, are now bogged down in misery.
Now is the time when people must reflect on their lives and listen to the voice coming from Heaven. Through the benefit of His providence, the living God is now drawing near to us. From now on people will have many spiritual experiences they could not have had earlier. That is to say, they will communicate with the transcendent world. Through these frequent spiritual experiences, people will be influenced directly and indirectly. Especially those who experience the inspiration of God and good spirits will develop their spiritual senses centered on God, and they will experience major changes in their character. People who change their character to fit the way of Heaven are the true people of God’s hope.
We all need to practice the true love that liberates us to love our enemies, become true persons who properly understand the spirit world, become true parents and establish true families. This personal transformation is the starting point of the world of peace. This is the starting point of the ideal nation and world God desires. For the person who is not able to become an embodiment of true love or establish harmonious, ideal family life, there can be no ideal world or ideal nation, overflowing with songs of peace and joy, in which he or she can live happily. The ideal homeland God desires will be realized by loving one’s enemies. It will be realized when we establish the tradition of loving our individual enemies, our family’s enemies, our tribe’s enemies, our nation’s enemies, and the enemies of the entire world.
Many people are hoping that the United Nations will solve the problems of the world and will be able to establish world peace. However, the UN operates under some handicaps. The biggest of these is its inability to recognize the importance of religions and spirituality altogether. Thus it chooses a path that compromises its influence. The result is that in engaging with and trying to solve present-day problems of the world, the UN has been one-sided. If this continues, it will not be able to realize its founding purpose, and its relevance will gradually diminish.
In order to realize the ideal of world peace in a fundamental and comprehensive manner, I once again advocate that the United Nations establish an assembly consisting of representatives of all religions. These representatives need to implement the central ideal that their founders implicitly sought to realize, and they must do it with wisdom. They must exemplify true love in their attitudes and behavior and serve as a model for everyone. I hope many leaders will take this matter seriously and continue to strive to establish an assembly of global religious and spiritual leaders within the UN.
I have worked without ceasing my entire life for the sake of realizing the one world family in heaven and on earth that is the Will of God. During that time I have taught leaders, not only of the religious realm but also in the areas of politics, philosophy, academia, business, media and non-governmental organizations, that we have to live for the sake of others. I did not teach concepts alone; I led the way and provided the example.
On that worldwide foundation, I established the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace and appointed ambassadors for peace throughout the world. This was in order to cultivate leaders who will realize a world of peace and harmony by overcoming the barriers that cause conflict and struggle and by serving as living examples of altruistic true love. In addition, I am building “peace embassies” in every nation of the world as bases for our peace movement and our service movement, and as educational centers to teach and accomplish the vision and wisdom that IIFWP advocates.
I earnestly implore you to re-create your families and nations through true love. I hope you will support and help to accomplish the vision of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, which is working so hard to establish the true, everlasting world of peace that God desires, a world without divisions between nations.
I now conclude my address, with the hope that this conference has provided you with productive and inspiring experiences that will lead to the world of peace being realized even sooner.
Thank you.