Sun Myung Moon
January 30, 1977
Excerpt
Word and Deed
Belvedere, New York
Unofficial Translation
In the Unification Church we call each other brothers and sisters. How do we become brothers and sisters? People commonly say that we become brothers and sisters by the word of God, through the Divine Principle. But which would you want, just the Divine Principle itself or a character that is already living the Divine Principle? When you really live and complete the Divine Principle, you will develop a character of love.
"Word and Deed" is my topic today. To be a person of noble character means that your words and deeds are united by one common principle, in which you speak and act in complete unity. Still, we can see many people who speak one way and act another. If you look at a noble or godly person from the standpoint of his words, however, you will find that they are united with his deeds; and if you look at him from the standpoint of his deeds, you will find they are united with his words. No matter which angle you look at a godly person from, you will not find contradictions, but rather harmony and unity. How about you? Are you completely one in word and deed? If you can claim to your own wife, to your nation, and to God that your words never contradict your deeds, you are indeed a completed, perfected man.
We must also consider what those words and deeds are centered upon. If you want to become a man or woman whose words and deed are united, where do you place your emphasis and what kind of foundation must you live? Unless your emphasis and foundation for your life is clear, your direction of life is unstable, vacillates left and right, or is disturbed by forces around you.
God's Love as the Center of the Universe
What emphasis can bring you higher value? Nobody can deny that the most supreme way of life, the supreme unity between word and deed, begins with the emphasis of love. When you speak your word from the central point where God dwells, your word is no longer coming out from you but from the unlimited storehouse. Upon reaching this special position, you live, act, and talk with the feeling of ecstasy and a sense of being elevated to perfection. No matter what you do, it is no longer your own deeds or your own words. Everything you do, you do it as a transmitter of or bridge to God's love. Once you taste God's love, your life and relationships will be joy and inspiration. As you enter into the realm of God's love, you will enjoy a full life that varies widely, and enjoy the excitement corresponding to these full and wide-ranging life experiences.
Our time here on earth with this physical body is our opportunity to perfect our love and our spirit. We need our bodies to demonstrate our love of God. That is why our bodies are important. That is possible here on earth while we have a physical body. Once you take off your physical body and are elevated to the spirit world, you need millions of years to make one inch of spiritual advancement.
While we have spirit and body together here, we can create a miracle because our bodies can demonstrate our hearts and extraordinary change can come about. But once you lose your physical body and become only a spirit, your opportunity is gone. Then in order to act, you have to come down and work with somebody on earth. If even your own body does not respond too well to your mind sometimes, what will happen with someone else's body? It is very clumsy and awkward to accomplish anything. Once we clearly know the truth about God, the more we live a sacrificial way of life, the better it is for our own achievement.
If you invest your body and your words for the sake of God, then every word you speak flies like a bullet, with purpose and result. Do not speak empty words. Do not complain. Complaints are words that waste your energy.
If you use your body for your own sake, your work will not remain, but if you invest yourself for the sake of others -- witnessing, doing things productively -- your deeds will remain. Starting today, analyze how many empty words you have been speaking and how many words you could speak productively for God instead.