Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Founder World Culture and Sports Festival (WCSF) and
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU)
Founder's Address
Opening Banquet, (WCSF) 1998
Special Convocation On, "The Family And World Peace"
June 11, 1998
Empire Room, The Waldorf Astoria Hotel New York, New York
Prominent scholars, respected leaders of religion, and world leaders of various endeavors, I warmly welcome you to this Special Convocation entitled, "True Family and World Peace."
We now stand in the historic period of great transition where we must liquidate the grave moral confusion, world-conflicts, environmental problems, and crimes which have stained the 20th century, so that we may welcome the 21st century with hope. Humankind longs for a world of peace free from war and suffering. Yet it is difficult to be hopeful when the future is threatened by a "money-solves-all" mentality, which is utterly insufficient in the face of youth decline, family breakdown, drugs, and AIDS. We find a deeply diminished degree of positive influence on youth from national and religious authorities. Advances in science, communications and information technology, economic development, and political proposals all fail to bring about human happiness, or a peaceful world through true families.
Throughout the long course of history, humankind never has achieved complete happiness. Individuals and whole families have experienced much sadness. Despite this, human beings never gave up their tenacious longing for happiness. This is because God originally created mankind to live in happiness in true families. Although human beings lived a life of sin and suffering due to the Fall, they still searched for the original happy self.
Then what is the essence of true happiness? How did God plan to make human beings truly happy?
Ideal Of Creation Based On True Love
God is the embodiment of true love. God invested unconditionally and created because of the ideal of true love. No individual can fulfill true love alone. Therefore, even God needs a relationship of give and take between the subject-partner and object-partner in order to establish and to experience love. Ultimately this takes place in a true family.
God's fundamental purpose in creating is true love whose ideal is the true person. How can human beings stand as the partner of God who is absolute? It is not possible by mere effort or external position. It is possible only with a relationship of true love. A subject-partner and an object-partner can immediately possess the right to equal position, the right to equal participation, and the right to inheritance when they establish an ideal relationship of true love.
God's true love made Him create human beings as His object-partner. As such, the most precious thing to human beings is the fulfillment of a true family centered on this original true love by which humans were created. True love is the origin of human happiness. Within true love there is infinite joy, eternal freedom, and eternal harmony.
God is the human beings' subject-partner of true love, true life, and true ideal. Therefore, human beings became the object-partner of true love, true life and true ideal. God is Father, the Creator, and human beings are created as His children who are to become one body with Him in true love. True human beings are originally made to live joyously as mind and body unite with God's love, and become intoxicated by it. God created human beings so that He Himself can experience infinite joy watching true families live in happiness. Through His true love He can live together with them. God desired to achieve harmonious oneness with human beings through true love. However, the first human ancestors fell.
True Love Lost Due To The Fall
As human individuals, we constantly live with a sense of intense conflict within ourselves. It is a conflict between the inclination of the self-centered mind striving to fulfill evil desires, and the inclination of the original mind striving to fulfill good desires. We say 'my body' and 'my mind' but we also realize that our own selves are divided between the body and mind. Such contradictory reality as body and mind struggle is due to the Fall of the first human ancestors. Such division and conflict between the mind and body has extended itself to become division and grief for families, societies and ultimately for nations, the world and the cosmos.
The Fall violated heavenly law through Satan's selfish and false love. Consequently it brought about ignorance of God, and ignorance of true love. With this human beings lost God and their own original value. By following Satan they could not establish a true family centered on true love. Without this fundamental element of happiness they could not become true people, able to fulfill the oneness of mind and body and thereby completing the original ideal.
Base Of Unity Between Mind And Body
All creation is created by and exists within the prescribed law of love. Perfection of a human being is not accomplished through knowledge, power, or money but by true love. In other words, a true person can be perfected into a being that resembles God's fundamental true love through experiences of true love.
Individual perfection means achieving the harmonious oneness of mind and body. Mind and body unity can be accomplished when human beings come to be one with the nucleus of God's true love. Mind and body can become completely one and mature into the personality of true love when they have give and take throughout life based upon God's true love. True family, which is the fulfillment of God's true love, can be settled when the mind and body establish a base of unity.
Only true love can build an eternal, ideal relationship between mind and body. When God's true love resides within the unified base of mind and body, the door of true love opens wide so that a true person resonates with the true love of God and the universe. Such a true person cannot help but see, hear and feel true love in everything. That person automatically becomes the master of infinite freedom and bliss. At such moments, the true person will become intoxicated in true love and live in the highest state of artistic emotion. The being of true love will fulfill the overall purpose of creation while naturally harmonizing with and enjoying the environment. That person has the heart to experience beauty in everyday life.
When that is accomplished one can become the complete object-partner who resembles God and inherits His true love. Such a person will feel what God feels and appreciate what God appreciates.
For human beings, true love is the most holy and precious thing. True love is not created by an individual alone. Neither is it created amidst self-centeredness. True love desires to give, give again, and then forget what was given so that more can be given and shared. This pattern brings forth unity. It enables true love to embrace everything. True love is never one being's possession. Once true love is inherited, it belongs to its original owner as well as to all people and to the universe.
God's dream is to realize true love together with human beings. God desires to feel the joy and happiness of true love eternally in the world of heart together with human beings, who are His children, as well as being the highest and the most precious beings of all creation.
Perfection Of True Love
Once true love is perfected in the human world, what possible political, economic, cultural, or environmental problems could persist? There is no problem that cannot be resolved in the world of true love. A world of true love is one of bliss, peace, happiness, and freedom filled with ideal. it is the world where joy and happiness are magnified infinitely and eternally within the domain of the rights to equal position, equal participation, and inheritance of true love. The problems that humanity faces today can be resolved fundamentally only with the perfection of true love.
Human beings should mature in stages as they experience the true love of God during their growth period. Born through true love, human beings first experience the true love of true parents, true love of true brothers and sisters, true love of true husband and wife, and true love of true children. According to this order one is perfected.
Once an individual achieves the unity of mind and body, true love emanates from that person. Next, a man and a woman both of whom have perfected mind and body unity marry and truly love one another as a true husband and true wife. Thus they become true parents, connected with the true love of God. This gives them the ability to truly love their children. The true love of God resides within the mind and body of true husband and wife. When such a couple becomes one children are born. That is how a complete ideal family is formed. Essentially there are Four Great Loves, and Four Great Hearts; parents' true love, brothers and sisters' true love, husband and wife's true love, and children's true love. True family is the smallest unit where the Four Great Loves are perfected and the Four Great Hearts can be experienced. This true family is the foundation of true human love and true happiness. It is the place from which true life and true lineage sprout forth. it is the training ground and school
A man and a woman are the substantial object-partners of God representing God's masculine and feminine qualities, respectively. God's creation philosophy is to divide God's inner, harmonized qualities of masculinity and femininity into two poles and then re-unite them into one body that resembles God's original oneness. A true husband and a true wife each represents God's extreme poles and both exist to form one harmonious body as the respective representatives of heaven and earth. In other words, men and women are not created to live in self-centeredness for the sake of the self. Each is created to exist for the sake of his or her partner. We should clearly realize that true husbands and true wives exist for their respective partners.
I have already stated that true love cannot be realized alone. Only through a reciprocal base can true love be realized. True love between husband and wife is not only for the sake of that couple. It is also the true love that centers on God's ideal of creation. God is the owner of absolute true love. The absolute true love of God dwells where one finds the desire to unite with one's spouse who embodies God's true love.
A true couple embraces God's true love and moves toward the future with one unified hope. Conception of children and the prosperity of the family take place upon this foundation. It is the ultimate hope that a couple's true love moves beyond the mundane realm of the daily environment so as to form a family that is one with God's ideal of true love.
The Importance Of Family
The purpose of restoration which returns to the original state is to complete the restoration of Adam's family; for the Fall took place in that family. God seeks His partner and one central family before seeking to restore a church, a people, a nation, and the world. Throughout history, God sought a true family which could be His ideal object-partner. Such a true family is fundamentally different in its essence from the families we have typically come to know. God cannot establish an ideal nation and world unless He first finds an ideal true family united with God. There lies the principle that an original true family must first be established. The individual is not the purpose of salvation, but rather true families are the basic unit of salvation.
Had the Fall not taken place, how would Adam's family, formed through true love, have propagated? Adam and Eve would have become the ideal true couple of true love and would have become True Parents and true ancestors to their descendents and to all of humanity. Humanity, having been propagated through Adam and Eve as true parents, would have formed one great family and a peaceful world of Adamic culture. Therefore, the culmination of the history of restoration lies in establishing the true family that is centered on true parents and true love. The central true family is the hope of humanity as well as the hope of God. This true family is the origin of true love and true life, and it is the foundation of peace and happiness for humanity.
The Revolution Of True Love
There is a saying that you reap what you sow. Due to the false love centered on Satan, human ancestors became people of evil character. They became evil spouses, and evil parents, spawning a history of evil and falsehood. At present, even the parent-child relationship and the basic standard of ethics and morality which have somewhat held human society together have been shattered. Acts of decadence and immorality worse than those committed by animals continuously occur, and the severity is getting worse. It signifies that these phenomena which were sown initially by the act of Fall in the Garden of Eden are coming to fruition at this historic time of harvest on the worldwide level.
Original true love is perfect as is. It does not change over the ages. The original form itself is truthful, unchanging, eternal, and absolute. However, the human ancestors became the origin of false love by falling during the growth period while they were still in the state of imperfection. The human civilization built upon this foundation of selfish, evil, and false love cannot be sustained as is. It cannot work. If it persists humanity will face ruin. What good are external development and material wealth when the foundation of family is crumbling, and our deep problems will be bequeathed to our descendents? Historical mistakes and violations must be resolved fundamentally. What is needed most urgently is a revolution of true love initiated by True Parents. We cannot expect happiness and a peaceful world without the presence of fundamental changes. The problems of today must be resolved by a True Parents-centered, True Family ideology, and God's True Love ideology.
Dear respected leaders, I hope that you will research and evaluate seriously the peace movement and ideology of True Love that I have planted throughout the world. The True Love and Pure Love movement for the youth, and the True Family movement of true love, which transcends nationality, culture, race, and religion, should not be looked upon as a sectarian phenomenon.
A peaceful nation is needed before there can be world peace. The precondition for peace in a nation is peace in the family. Power, wealth, and knowledge, which worldly people have ordinarily desired, cannot be the necessary and sufficient condition for peace and happiness. True happiness is not proportional to how much property one owns and is not dependent on the external degree of comfort. One can attain true peace and true happiness when such things are accompanied with true love. Genuine peace and infinite happiness can only be gained when we serve others with true love and when that love is returned.
Dear respected leaders, I know you have brought forth tremendous accomplishments, advancing human welfare and social development in each area of your endeavors through exceptional dedication. And, of course, you should continue to make even greater contributions. However, humanity now faces grave peril. Remedies from any one specialized area will not be sufficient. As leaders, you should become the conscience of the age, and should lead by actively providing examples to guide and create true families which are the prerequisite and fundamental basis of a peaceful world.
The first stage of the marriage Blessing of the 360 million couples, which I will officiate this Saturday June 13th, is one of the fruits of educating about ideal family throughout my entire life. Those participating in the Blessing ceremony have already promised God that they will be the people who will form true families by becoming true couples and true parents, centering on God's true love. I am boldly carrying out the historic revolution of true love for the realization of world peace through the True Family Movement.
Dear leaders, what can be more urgent than to save humanity from its path of family destruction? Again I urge all of you actively to join with the True Family Movement for the sake of world peace.
I sincerely wish for God's true love to come to you, your family and your nation.
Thank you very much.