by Rev. Sun Myung Moon
Founders Address
April 10 to the 11th 1990
World Media Conference
Moscow, USSR
It is a great honor and pleasure to convene with you this historic 11th World Media Conference in the city of Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. The theme of this conference is "The Advancement of Global Communication and Cooperation," and I feel there is no place more appropriate to gather for these discussions than right here in the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, it is an added pleasure for me to open these proceedings because we are simultaneously conducting the Third Conference of the Summit Council for World Peace, and a gathering of the Association for the Unity of Latin America. Both of these excellent organizations are also committed to the quest for world peace.
For me to come to Moscow is an emotional experience. I would like to express my appreciation to the Soviet government, especially the officials of Novosti Press Agency. You have welcomed us to your great capital in a most hospitable manner. My wife and I, and our entire family, are moved by your kindness. I am sure that all of the guests in this room who have come from every corner of the world, including former heads of state and government, will join with me in expressing our deep gratitude to our hosts in this country. Would you join with me in giving them a round of applause?
I was recently asked by members of the Soviet media regarding my views on the importance of a spiritual renaissance as a precondition to social, economic and political progress. I would like to take this opportunity to elaborate on some of those views. I believe that such a spiritual renaissance is vitally important. To achieve it, a deeper understanding of the human situation is necessary. This calls for some reflection on philosophical and religious topics. It may not directly concern either communications or media, but for me it is the fundamental understanding necessary to secure true peace in our world. Furthermore, it is the essence of my life-long search, discovery and teaching.
God's Original Ideal
When we observe our universe, we recognize that every being exists through the union of paired elements. This is true on all levels, beginning even with the mineral realm. Molecules are made from the union of a positive ion and a negative ion. On the level of plants, existence and reproduction requires the union of stamen and pistil, representing the male and female aspects.
The pair system is even more obvious on the level of animals. Fish, birds, mammals and all animals exist as male and female. Finally, the supreme creations of God, human beings, are either men or women. The first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, were the original ancestors of mankind. What is the purpose of the pair system? Why did God create in this way?
The Creator divided all things in male and female so that they might unite through their give and take of love. Through the action of love, each species multiplies and extends its lineage.
Human ambition is limitless and infinite. Then, what is the true goal of this infinite desire of man? For woman, it is man.
For man, it is woman. Man and woman can find true love only through each other. In history, differing views of life, the universe and God have presented unresolved problems. The solution to these problems is to be found when true man and true woman unite with God in true love, creating absolute oneness. This is the source of absolute value.
Man exists for the sake of woman. Woman exists for the sake of man. Each is to be the object of love of the other.
God is a being of absolute love. He wanted to create objects of love, human beings, upon which He can pour out his love. In doing so, He would naturally look forward to the return of that love from men and women. In this way, God would feel infinite joy. Adam and Eve must be united in love themselves first, in order to become perfect objects of the love of God. Therefore, a period of growth and maturity was necessary before Adam and Eve could stand as the mature human couple resembling God and receiving and returning His love.
The pattern of true love is not that of being served; it is to serve others. When God himself initially created his object of love, He invested every ounce of His energy--100 percent of His being. This established the pattern of true love. In other words, the tradition of true love as total investment was established by God. At that point, true love became the center of the universe. And even almighty God chooses to be obedient to it.
When God created, He totally spent Himself. He made of himself a vacuum. In the atmosphere, when a low pressure area comes into being, high pressure air is automatically attracted. Whenever someone serves others to the absolute degree, energy rushes in to fill that person up. Therefore, all the love that God has given to create His perfect object must ultimately be returned to Him by men and women.
Only love transcends all barriers. When you are united with God in true love, you have dominion over all of God's creation, both physical and spiritual. When you live completely for others, you are reaching the very essence of God's own being. God's vibrations become your vibrations. God's feelings are naturally transmitted to you. Living this way, you become a resonant body of God's heart and love. As much as two tuning forks resonate together, you and God always resonate together.
That is the ultimate, original state of the human being. When you achieve that state, the love of God becomes your love, the life of God becomes your life, and the blood lineage of God becomes your blood lineage. The world which God created becomes your world. We are to share the love of God with all things in heaven and earth. We are to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven with the heart of parents.
Man's Separation from God
The law of cause and effect is clearly evident in history. Whatever you have sown, you will surely reap. Adam and Eve, the first human ancestors, engaged in sexual immorality and the abuse of love while they were still growing. This was the fall of man. God wanted them to grow in purity until He blessed them in heavenly matrimony, becoming the foundation of God's true love, true life and true blood lineage. Humanity, descending from this perfected and blessed Adam and Eve would naturally become the sons and daughters of God, enjoying the love of the Creator, and living in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in the spirit world.
However, before Adam and Eve matured and received the blessing from God, while they were still teenagers, the archangel tempted Eve and engaged in fornication with her. In this way, the archangel became Satan. By engaging in relations with fallen Eve, Adam also fell. This is how the beginning of human history was sown. Today, we are reaping the consequences: Immorality is rampant. Teenagers, in particular, are the victims of widespread sexual degradation. Modern society in the advanced nations is little different from Sodom and Gomorrah of biblical times. God abhors this immoral behavior. We must fear the wrath of God. His punishment is imminent.
The Struggle of Good and Evil
God is the center of goodness. Satan is the center of evil. The history of humanity has been the history of struggle between good and evil--between God and Satan--working through men and women. But the respective strategies used by God and Satan have been exactly opposite. Satan, being arrogant and greedy, always attacks the side of goodness. God's camp is always hit and suffers, but this gives God the opportunity to bring justice. The side of good is vindicated and occupies new territory. Satan's side must withdraw and decline.
For example, in World War I, the belligerent nations were ultimately defeated. The same was true in World War II, where the Axis powers, after initially attacking, were finally defeated by the Allies. Every exploiting power will ultimately decline, while whoever suffers persecution for the sake of good will ultimately be raised up by God.
My own life is representative of this. I have been struggling for the sake of good and the cause of God, but the opposition has been relentless. Years ago, I was tortured and beaten, and I have been imprisoned numerous times. One would think that my movement would die out and be forgotten, but the opposite has occurred. I have built a worldwide foundation, and have continuously advanced and prospered.
Conscience: Teacher and Parent
Every human being, throughout his life, has a most precious teacher within himself. Nevertheless, that teacher has been mistreated, trampled upon, and abused. That teacher is the human conscience. Your conscience always speaks out for your own benefit, trying to connect you to true love. Like a parent, your conscience urges you to be a good, unselfish individual, and guides you to do the will of God. But within each person there is also a rebel who always goes against the conscience. That rebel is the physical body.
The body has trampled and abused the conscience miserably. When one becomes aware of this, can he take the side of the body which has been the enemy of his own conscience, and which has greatly damaged his own life and personality?
Your conscience should be your constant internal teacher and parent, leading you to complete unity with the ultimate parent of mankind, God. The conscience, then, is the agent of God within you, and may even be called a "second God." Do you think you should be sympathetic and protective of your body, the enemy of the conscience? Or do you think you should control and confine your body and vindicate your conscience? Your body only goes after carnal desire. When it is hungry, it steals and satisfies itself. It always seeks for comfort, and wants to take advantage of others. The body has its own realm. To conquer the realm of the body is an awesome responsibility which every person must undertake.
When this is achieved, the mind as the vertical self and the body as the horizontal self are completely harmonized into oneness, and a person reaches perfection, united in love with God for eternity.
The Role of Religion
God is the source of true love, true life, and true blood lineage. Since we human beings originate from this source, we must also have true love, true life and true blood lineage. However, because of the fall of man, tragically, man never achieved the position of being the child of God. Instead, men and women have received love, life and lineage from Satan.
Due to the fall of man, love today is basically self-centered. That self-centered love does not originate from the mind, but is centered upon the body. The body is where Satan's activities are conducted. The body is Satan's dancing place, the mooring post of Satan. The mind represents God's position--the plus position. But the body, which should assume the object or minus position, tries to make itself another plus, and continuously teases or fools the mind. In human life, it is crucial to correct this relationship.
Therefore, God established religion to rehabilitate fallen man. Through religion, God is teaching people how to strengthen their God-centered mind, and reverse the body's dominion of their life and personality. That is why religion oftentimes demands fasting, sacrificial service and a meek and humble attitude. These are methods for reducing the power of the body and causing the body to submit to the mind. Normally, in religious life, it takes about 3 to 5 years to change from the habit of a body-centered life, and create a new spirit-centered way of life.
Furthermore, the Bible says, you must pray without ceasing. This is vitally important because Satan controls the environment of the fallen world. Satan tempts and distracts fallen man from all directions 24 hours a day, while God is only able to work from one direction, the vertical direction of the mind.
The Restoration of God's Ideal
In the eyes of God, the fallen world is the world of spiritual death. His will is the restoration of that world of death into the world of life. Restoration is another way of saying salvation. When the original ideal state has been lost, it must be restored. When a healthy man becomes sick, a physician must come and bring him back to his original health. By the same token, the God-intended original ideal was lost. Therefore, the work of God is to restore this fallen world to the original sinless state.
In order to accomplish that task, God sends the Messiah. But before the Messiah comes, God prepares a certain chosen group of people to be ready for the Messiah. This is what the Bible calls the orchard of wild olive trees.
The orchard of wild olive trees represents a certain sphere in the fallen realm which God can still direct and control. After this has been prepared, the Messiah comes. The Messiah then cuts all the wild olive trees in the orchard of God, and grafts into them the true branch of life. In this way, the wild olive trees all become true olive trees. They are returned to the original state of man.
The religious people of today are these wild olive trees in God's orchard, but even the most devout religious person must still seek the Messiah because he has not yet received the true lineage of God. The Messiah comes as the True Parents of mankind, restoring the position of Adam and Eve. Therefore, in order to be connected to the true lineage of God, each person must unite with the True Parents, and become a recipient of true love. By doing so, each person can become a true son or daughter of God. In this way, the Messiah brings salvation to humankind.
The Messiah, in the position of True Parents, must root out the trees which have grown from false seeds, subjugate Satan and connect mankind into oneness with God in true love, making all people true sons and daughters of God. In this way, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth can be created, where men and women will finally be able to enjoy true freedom.
What is the way of unification? Let us consider the first human family. First of all, there is God. Secondly, there is Adam and Eve. Adam is masculine, and Eve is feminine. They compete with one another to secure the love of God first. If they are selfishly motivated, there will be no unity. However, if they are unselfishly motivated, Adam will say, "I want to reach God first solely for you, Eve." The woman will be overjoyed. She, in turn, will say, "I only want to reach God for your sake, Adam." Then the husband will be fully satisfied. There is no struggle; there is unity even in their competition.
This is not only the way husband and wife can be happily united; it is more than that. It is the very key to the unification of all people.
God-Centered Worldview
Throughout history, God has been working through the human conscience. In spite of God's efforts, however, every attempt made thus far to restore man into the original starting point--the heart of God--has failed. It still remains for someone to liberate humankind from this satanic environment and lead a successful search for truth and true love. That is the mission of the Unification movement.
Godism is a God-centered worldview, whose essence is the ideal of true love. Godism has two distinct missions: Bring unity between God and man. And bring unity between mind and body.
Since I have discovered the solution to these two fundamental problems--the unity of mind and body, and the unity of man and God--I must proclaim this truth as clearly and effectively as possible without any hesitation.
When you follow this teaching, I assure you that you can definitely conquer the carnal desires of your body. You can become 100-percent united with your mind. Then you are eligible to become the true object of God and establish a true love partnership with God.
Whenever two people are bound together by true love, they are entitled to three important rights: First, the right of inheritance. Second, the right of dwelling together. Third, the right of participation.
Take for example the relationship of husband and wife. The husband might be the president of a great nation, while his wife might be a woman of very humble origin and very little education. If they truly love each other, however, they are equals. They own all things in common, live together, and participate on an equal level.
In the same way, when man and woman are connected to God through true love, they will also enjoy the rights of inheritance, participation and living together eternally with God. When you reach this depth of heart, you will constantly experience the presence of God, and God will truly dwell among men.
True Parents
True love always travels the shortest distance with the fastest speed. Therefore, true love coming from God to the earth travels the shortest distance--a vertical line. The love between man and woman also travels the shortest distance, forming a horizontal line. When the vertical true love meets with the horizontal true love, the crossing point must absolutely be 90 degrees. There is no other way these love lines can intersect.
Who is God? God is the vertical True Parents centered on true love. He is intimately close to each of us because He is our vertical parents. When we welcome the perfected human ancestors--perfected Adam and Eve--as True Parents, we create a 90-degree crossing point between the vertical true love of God and the horizontal true love of True Parents. We have two sets of True Parents. From them we receive true love, true life and true blood lineage. This creates one world totally resonating with true love.
The Soviet Union
Ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful to have the opportunity to share with you these reflections on the nature of God and humanity. I am also very happy to be here in the Soviet Union. My heart truly goes out to the people of the Soviet Union. Many of you have gone through unbearable suffering, and that saddens me. I love your country and your people very much. I clearly envision a moral and economic renaissance for the Soviet Union that will dramatically affect the entire world. I will do all I can to encourage and support that renaissance.
You are undertaking a new Soviet revolution, but this should be a revolution without blood or bullets--a revolution of the heart and soul.
I have been speaking about the importance of the family. But I want to tell you that in the depths of my heart, I feel that the Soviet people are a part of my family. I assure you that my wife and children feel the same. Also, I assure you that members of the Unification movement worldwide will do their utmost to work together with you for the future prosperity and well-being of all humanity.
I believe the Soviet Union will play a key role in God's plan to build a world of lasting true peace. This vast union of nations, which stretches from the Far East, with its border on my country of Korea, to the very heart of Europe--birthplace of Western Civilization--has a natural destiny to be a bridge between Europe and Asia. We must regard ourselves as being all members of one global family living in one global house.
May God bless the Soviet Union and all its people.
Thank you for coming and participating in this historic conference.
Thank you very much.