Prayer and Action

Sun Myung Moon
April 15, 1979
Belvedere, NY
Unofficial Translation

Excerpt from Japanese language The Importance of Prayer

You should create a good problem: be a heavenly troublemaker. Rev. Moon came to America as a good troublemaker. That's why America doesn't like me. After her independence, America has become the first class nation in the world and built a prosperous society and culture. However, I came to shake this nation up, as with karate chops and kicks. Americans resent my disturbing their peace. But I did not come to destroy America, only to warn this nation that there is danger ahead. If there will be a dam break, someone has to warn the people and bring them out of disaster. You know there is a big battle coming so you must ready yourself in body and spirit.

Have you prepared your mind and body and spirit readying for such a danger ahead? After you go, first you can ask God to come and help you with anything you lack. Then God will say, "My child, I am right behind you." If you seriously pray in those circumstances, God will encourage you, saying, "Go right ahead." God will be convinced thinking, "This man and this woman are resolute and firm. They are totally committed."

For, if God is assured and confident about you, an avalanche of help will come to you. In my case, by just thinking about some problem and not even praying about it, already God knew my thoughts and fulfilled what I was thinking. I have such experiences. God went one step or several steps ahead of me. When I discovered that my thinking had been fulfilled, He smiled and said, "See what I did?"

You need to build up the basic attitude, atmosphere and foundation for prayer. Otherwise, no prayers will work. In order to gain them, you must go out to your Home Church area and knock on one more door in order to save one person, even if people spit at you with contempt. That is more valuable than sitting for hours in a dark room praying. Prayer is only needed after you have exerted all your energy and it was not enough. Then, you can ask God praying, "I gave all I had. Please come to help me." When you can do it, then you don't have to ask God, but can tell Him to relax.

Do you think God prays sometimes? Let's think about this. Think about your father or mother. Sometimes without thinking a parent murmurs to himself or herself, "Oh, I wish my son would do this, or be that way." God does that, too. That is His prayer. God is murmuring about you, about me and about the Unification Church. He says to Himself, "How is it going for the Unification Church today? Oh my son and my daughter, be bold and strong and then press on. I am always behind you."

This is an emergency and He is engrossed in His concern. That is God's prayer. You don't even have to sit down to pray; you can just talk to yourself as you go, whispering and murmuring to God, saying, "Because God and Rev. Moon proclaimed that this is an emergency time, I must do this and that. I should do more for such time as this." That's prayer.

In practice, you may pray first, and then go out for action. But, in my view, prayer and action are one. So, for your case, praying and doing at the same time is your life. Praying and waiting is not your life. If you pray unconsciously in everyday life, then undoubtedly you are becoming sons and daughters of prayer. You give your last ounce of energy but it is not enough. Then, ask God for assistance and your prayer will be answered. If that were not the case, how could we ever subjugate Satan? Satan has given unending anguish and heartbreak to God for 6,000 years and if there were no way we could finally subjugate him, then there would be no end to it. There must be a way. 

The Importance Of Prayer

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
April 15, 1979
Belvedere, New York
Translator: Bo Hi Pak

Everyone harbors hope; there is no one without hope. How each one can accomplish that hope depends not upon heaven but upon the individual. There are two ways of doing so-through your own power alone, or by receiving cooperation from others. If your desire is extraordinary and great then your responsibility is also great. If you cannot fulfill it on your own, you need help from outside.

When you start elementary school your purpose is to finish with a good record. In order to finish with good marks your own effort plus the effort of your teachers is needed. The same is true of junior high, high school and college life. It is not easy to fulfill 100% of your desire at each level of study. What kind of attitude is needed? First you need total concentration which leaves you time for nothing else. If you think about playing and meeting your friends first, you cannot fulfill 100% of the goal.

From this standpoint let us analyze the life of believers. What is our goal ? It is to become sons and daughters of God. There are many kinds of sons and daughters: An adopted son is a son; also there may be a rebellious son, a son of filial piety, and a son who is mediocre. In this situation becoming a true son and daughter is difficult.

In order to become a true son or daughter you must concentrate on the goal 100%, looking to the True Parents constantly and thinking of nothing else. Just becoming good sons and daughters to your natural parents is not easy, but how much more difficult it is to become absolute sons and daughters of God. When you call upon God, your Father, He does not answer right away. Even though you call upon God, if in your innermost heart you are not sure whether He even exists then God would not answer.

What is the fall of man? It is nothing more than departure or separation from God. Man has been separated to the degree that he has nothing to do with God. We are going back to restore that original union. We can use an analogy from our world. Perhaps because of an unfortunate incident a child is separated from his parents at a very early age. After he is grown he may have occasion to meet his parents, but they will be total strangers to him; he will not know who they are. This young man must have some assurance that this man is his father, and at the same time, there must be some witnesses to testify to the fact. Even if he knows they are his parents, there is still some conflict and feeling of estrangement between the two parties.

In order to become a true child to your parents, you must inherit their desires. Between the two there should be only one desire; their road in life should be your life, and your desire should be theirs. Parents give their heart and soul to the children, and the children must do likewise. When you are in one union, even though there are two separate parties there is still only one goal and one desire and purpose. Then the fulfillment of each becomes the joy of the other. Fulfilling a task becomes the common joy of father and son. When you continue that way of life for one year, ten years, a whole lifetime, there is total unity between parents and children.

Today our task is to discover the true desire of God, because as believers our goal is to be sons and daughters of God. What we eat and drink and where we live are not part of God's central concerns; these are things everyone does. In the Bible Jesus said not to worry about where to dwell and what to eat, that this is what nonbelievers worry about. You must seek God and His righteousness first. What is His kingdom and what is that righteousness?

For us as Unification Church members, that kingdom and righteousness is the fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. When Jesus spoke of God's kingdom, he wasn't referring to just one nation; God's righteousness isn't limited to one nation's righteousness, but includes the whole kingdom that God designed. For instance, the American people's righteousness is secondary to that of the kingdom, not primary. If the righteousness of a whole nation is secondary, then clearly your own personal desires are much farther down the line.

God's kingdom should engulf the nation, and the family and individual should come within the scope of that nation. Imagine that this large circle is America; within it are circles for the society, tribe and family. The shapes are the same and they differ only in size so they can all be contained within the large circle. The crossing point of the axes is the center of each of the circles. There may be a big nation and small nation, but the same vertical line cuts through them both. Everything is centered on that axis, and that alignment can be connected to one primary desire.

An individual trying to achieve the highest goal does not have to leave his own country or society or family; he must actually go to each of them and penetrate each stage. Another way of depicting this is to picture you as a locomotive pulling a family behind you, plus a society, nation and world. All of these can be aligned behind you. When you move, the train of the family, nation and world and spirit world moves behind you.

Does this concept apply in the context of today's America? This is the so-called "me generation," and among other things it means that America is totally isolating herself from the rest of the world. God is trying to fulfill one harmonized world, and so when anyone thinks in selfish fashion he is a traitor to God's own desire. Americans say they don't care about their country. There are people of all five colors of skin in this country, and if they only care about their own race then in God's sight they are the most traitorous foe. They are causing barriers to emerge between the races, which is totally opposite to God's will.

I want you to understand that God's will always centers on one focal point for everyone-for the family, nation, world and cosmos. That's the way God designed the world. What is that center? That central principle or axis of the universe is the father­son relationship. In any family there is a father­son axis and everything else surrounds that. When one family assumes the father position, other families assume the son's position.

Any corporation operates the same way; the president is in the father's position and the employees are in the children's position. The concept should be that the employer is working for the sake of the employees and each employee is working not for his boss, but for the wellbeing of his own corporate family. A head of state is in the parental position and the people are in the children's position. A true central figure should be thinking like a father would think. Without that parental heart anyone in that position is a false central person.

The criterion of comparison is whether he is better or worse than your own father. The people should love the central figure of their nation like their own father, because after all, their own natural fathers are also in the position of children to that per son. Those fathers would expect their children to love the head of state and the nation more than their own fathers. With this viewpoint the children can participate in patriotic action even to the extent of giving up their own lives and sacrificing their own families. Above the president of the nation should be someone in the position of president of the entire world. The head of state should be loyal to the president of the world to the same degree. Almighty God resides above that man, and he should be loyal to God in the same fashion that everyone is loyal to him.

Why should it be like this? From the individual to God there should be one central connecting axis, with the result that everything in between is like a bridge between the individual and God. In any company operating under this principle the president would serve his employees like a father would his own children. The employees would work for the wellbeing of the company just as children would for their father, and naturally such a company would prosper and be righteous.

What about the Unification Church in light of this principle? The Unification Church is bound together by the father­son relationship, but our purpose is not to advance the wellbeing of the Church. We are here to accomplish something greater for the sake of the world and cosmos. I always teach you to sacrifice yourselves to help the nation and God, never to live for the prosperity of the Unification Church. If we truly practice this ideology then it has to become the central theme of the world. Then we can use the Unification Church as a ladder, going all the way to the top with the same principle. You are working toward being tribal messiahs, then national and world messiahs, all the way to God.

When I was searching after the Principle I spent many agonized nights in prayer, and the central theme of those prayers was to understand what the central axis and core principle of the universe was. Ultimately the answer came that the central axis was the father­son relationship, which I have just explained. When we live up to that principle then we are going to bring a world of peace and unity. Since the universe is organized this way when you look horizontally at other people you are seeing no one else but your brothers and sisters. You are linked together because you have common parents.

If the younger children serve and love their elder brother more than their parents, would the parents be jealous? No, they would smile ear to ear to see such an exchange of love between their children. I know you love me and love God, but when I look at you I want to see whether you have that love among yourselves. That becomes my joy and something beautiful to behold. In order to become true sons and daughters you must first love each other more than your parents; that is the most beautiful gift you can give your parents. If you are loving in that way then you are positioning yourself closest to the parents. Then even if you don't know Principle intellectually, no one could say you don't know the truth.

In the Unification Church we have a common rule about who is the true member of the Church; he is the one who truly loves his brothers and sisters. Not only I think that way, but company presidents, national and world leaders should think that way as well. God Himself is that way. Do you think there are different principles working on each different level? Would you welcome this principle of love if this works in every different situation?

To become sons and daughters of God you have to move the heart of God and entice His love. If a person leaves for a faraway place, would he be separated and not have anything to do with this theme? Whether a poplar tree is at Belvedere or New York, it is still a poplar tree. Wherever you go, this principle shall remain as the standard. If you want to dive by another principle, I say to you, go ahead and try to find a better one. Do you agree that God's kingdom and righteousness shall be built by this father­son relationship?

When this relationship is expanded horizontally it is known as the subject object relationship. Right now I am subject and you are objects. When you are united in that relationship with others, even a piece of chalk can be very precious. In this relationship everything you do is rewarding and serves a purpose. Of itself studying is nothing, but when you take the central position and have a purpose, studying becomes very important. Instead of saying you hate your books, you really love them.

No matter what you see in this universe, when you think it is related to you in this subject object relationship, everything becomes very important all of a sudden. With this point of view you are a dynamo and ambassador of the love of God and there is nothing that is not lovable or precious. There is happiness and harmony wherever you go when you are a subject of the love of God. I don't think God could think up any better way than this.

Our job today is not to seek what to eat or drink or where to live but to seek God's kingdom and His righteousness. Now we know where to look. God is not unaware that you need food and shelter, but He knows that when you take care of the important things first then everything else will be taken care of. You have to decide to win the love of God first.

Words are cheap and this sounds good, but how far are you from realizing this? When you look at yourself you know better than I do where you are in terms of realizing this. Is the realization of it quite far away or close at hand? As an ideal this sounds good, but living it is another thing entirely. Maybe you think you are not cut out for such a life because you can see many, many problems to be solved. The problems of the family are as big as the family; the problems of the nation are as big as the nation. The problems of the world and universe are as big as the world and universe. How can you cope with such vast and complex problems?

The easiest thing you can do is just give up, right? But that's no solution. If your capacity is not adequate then you must seek the help of others. Where can you get the necessary help and guidance? Is there anyone to turn to? Now we have come to the topic of today's message, the importance of prayer.

The most important thing in prayer is the attitude of the person who is praying. The most essential thing is your commitment to go toward this destiny without reservation. If anything wants to block you, you have to be decided that it will never stop you. Unless you have that commitment first, God will not waste His time trying to help you. He has always been deceived in history, so what God needs to see is proof of what you are and how strong your commitment is. You may tell God you are totally committed, but He will shake His head and think, "I have to wait three more years and see." If God sees that something isn't quite right in you, He wild wait before sending down His help. God needs to be sure.

God is foolish if He gives His help freely but then at the end of several years the person is all in pieces. If I were God I would also wait and see. Suppose you were God; what would you do? You may tell God, "You see I am living as a Moonie and I will die as one." Then God will notice and look more closely, but no matter how firmly you pray, without this basic commitment nothing will happen and you will be wasting your time. A decisive attitude is the key.

Do you think I made a commitment to God that I would never change, not for fifty years or the rest of my life? I prayed first for the absolute faith which could say, "Even if not a single person in this world can believe, I will believe and follow in whatever incredible course You give me." Second, I asked for absolute knowledge and wisdom. Third, I asked for absolute love. I prayed for these three things throughout my life, and now in looking back I see that they have been fulfilled, even when I didn't know it was happening. There is no other power that could go beyond the boundary of race and nation. Since God could give me this absolute wisdom, I could search and find the Divine Principle and the truth about the world.

An attitude of absoluteness is the basis for everything. Nowadays most of you think in terms of when you will get married, thinking that you are getting older and older. If this worries you then your absolute commitment is starting to shake. Instead of shrinking, you can make your commitment much thicker by thinking, "Marriage? That doesn't bother me or change my commitment. " When you face great problems and agony, after you finally overcome them your faith will be like iron. When you can see the kind of obstacle that might confront you, you can clear the field.

Suppose you have been married for some time and are deeply in love, but then suddenly your wife or husband dies. Would all of heaven and earth crumble for you? That might be the very moment you could curse God for taking your loved one away, but instead you can thank Him for His grace in giving you a situation that will strengthen your faith. Then your belief can become stronger instead of weaker. God is a parent, and if He takes a loved one away it is not because He hates you but for some greater reason. If you can accept it and have faith in that purpose then you are ready for another challenge.

In our Unification Church faith the most beautiful word is indemnity; through indemnity we can pay the debt of sin. You can think that no one else could stand such a burden of indemnity, so God is asking you to pay instead as His champion. You can accept it with a thankful heart. When you compare the time you spend without the person you loved with the millions of years your generations will live, your payment of indemnity is small in comparison to the blessing God will give you and your descendants. If the death of your loved one was really accidental and not direct intervention of God, yet you pray with this attitude of gratitude, then God will feel that He has really found an extraordinary child and His blessing will automatically be yours. Your attitude will decide the amount of blessing.

Are you ready? If an extraordinary grief or tragedy hits you, are you ready to thank God and ask what is next? You know the law of indemnity; you cannot expect only good things and then curse God when unpleasant things happen. With knowledge of indemnity there should be nothing you cannot bear. That is the attitude of those who truly know God. When you first join this Church your eyes might be bright and filled with fervor, but after three years your eyes get a little duller, don't they? No? Ten years later? It is easy to say no, isn't it? But do you really have confidence?

Prayer is an absolute necessity. You may kneel all the way down to pray, but the most important thing is that you create an environment of commitment first. Unless your basic attitude is ready, no amount of prayer will be useful. In the Christian world today many people pray every day, but do you think they pray to destroy the Christian churches? No, they pray for prosperity, but the churches are crumbling nevertheless. Do you pray for the sake of the Unification Church? You don't have to pray for the Unification Church; pray for the big things-the nation, the world, the liberation of God. What you are really doing then is praying for a cross even bigger than the Unification Church.

If you pray for yourself or for things smaller than the Church then God will not answer because He is not interested in listening to such boring prayer. When you talk about the nation and world, He gets excited and starts looking for ways to help. This is training for how to love greater things. If you really live like that then even if you don't have time to pray God will still back you up.

In churches today people pray for their denominations, their social security check or their family problems and their pet. God's ears hurt when He hears those prayers and He will plug His ears. If those people prayed for God to use their church to help save the world and liberate God, He would perk up and be amazed because God is a person just like you. When you only talk about yourself in your prayer, God is thoroughly bored and nothing will happen. But if you pray for His righteousness and His kingdom, He will be caught up in your passion.

In order to fulfill bigger things you need an adventurous mind willing to take risks. Then God will tell you not to worry, that He is right behind you. If you throw yourself into overcoming the stone walls and persecution before you, God will take up your battle for He knows who is just and who is unjust. But first God will watch, giving you a chance to knock your opponent down with your own capability. This is the same thing a father and mother would do. If you come running to God to ask for help before you even confront your enemy, He, like any parent, will be ashamed to hear you and will send you back out again. Create a good problem: be a heavenly troublemaker instead.

I came to America and became a good troublemaker, and that's why America doesn't like me. America has built a prosperous society, but I came to shake this nation and Americans resent my disturbing their peace. But I did not come to destroy America, only to warn this nation that there is danger ahead. Someone has to warn the people and bring them out of disaster. You know there is a big battle coming so you must ready yourself in body and spirit. After you go first you can ask God to come and help you with anything you lack. Then God will say, "Go ahead. I am right behind you."

If you seriously sit down and pray in those circumstances, God will encourage you. As soon as proof of your commitment comes to God, an avalanche of help will come to you. I have had the experience of thinking about some problem and not even praying about it, but already God knew my thoughts and went one step ahead of me. When I discovered that my thinking had been fulfilled, He smiled and said, "See what I did?"

You need the basic attitude of sincerity as a foundation of prayer. Otherwise, no prayer will work. More important for creating that atmosphere is to go out and serve one more person, knock on one more door, receive more persecution. That is more valuable than sitting for hours in a dark room praying. Prayer is only needed after you have exerted all your energy and it was not enough. Then you can ask God to come help. When you can do it then you don't have to ask God, but can tell Him to relax. The prayer for all seasons is the prayer for God's kingdom and His righteousness.

Do you think God prays sometimes? Sometimes without thinking a parent murmurs to himself or herself, "Oh, I wish my son would do this, or be that way." That is God's prayer also. God is murmuring about you, about me and about the Unification Church because this is an emergency and He is engrossed in His concern. That is God's prayer. You don't even have to sit down to pray; you can just talk to yourself as you go, whispering and murmuring your concern. That's prayer. In our case praying and doing is our life. Praying and waiting is not our life.

If you pray unconsciously in everyday life then undoubtedly you are becoming sons and daughters of prayer. you give your last ounce of energy but it is not enough, then ask God for assistance and your prayer will be answered. If that were not the case, how could we ever subjugate Satan? Satan has given unending anguish and heartbreak to God for 6,000 years and if there were no way we could finally subjugate him then there would be no end to it. There must be a way.

The power of prayer works wonders, but prayer must be serious and done with one united heart, not a divided heart. When the moment of engagement comes, it is a most serious moment for both men and women, but in the Unification Church it is different because you leave it to me. Do you realize what a formidable job it is to pick your own spouse? In that moment you become dead serious, but prayer is even more serious than that. If you pray with that attitude then it will be answered. If your parents are on their deathbed it is a serious moment, and the words you speak then are urgent. There is no way you could doze at that time. Your prayer to God is more serious than that.

Prayer is like a covenant between you and God, a promise. Once you make a contract, you follow through and then it will undoubtedly be fulfilled. That is the attitude I am talking about. You must not be disappointed when prayer is not answered immediately. Some answers come late. At other times you should not be overjoyed when prayer is answered quickly. That is not necessarily the best thing.

Because you are surrounded by the world there are many stages to go through horizontally and vertically. The answer to prayer does not come from you but down from heaven and it takes time to reach you. There have been many foolish people who received answers to their prayers up to a point but who didn't go the final inch, and when they weren't satisfied they betrayed God. When you pray for the world you may not see things changing immediately around you, but far away the communist world starts to crumble. The impact of prayer can be felt in a faraway place. If you are in the Abel position, the answer comes from Cain and takes time to reach you.

You must think that your prayer today may not be fulfilled until thousands of years from now. I pray such prayers. I am not praying just for this world today; I am praying for 1,000 and 2,000 years from now. If that prayer makes a bridge between that time and now then the Unification Church will continue to flourish even a long time after I am gone from the earth. That kind of prayer is needed.

If many of you pray that kind of eternal prayer, the world will start to shake and the impact be far-reaching. The root of that prayer is your tears, sweat and blood, and out of it beautiful flowers will blossom. When Jesus prayed on Gethsemane he was deadly serious, shedding tears, sweat and blood. All day long you must be in a prayer mood, not just one hour, but 24 hours. What prayer position do you prefer? The best is to kneel and lower your head. You have to restrict your body's freedom, as though it were bound. You will feel pain, but overcome it because you must be serious. Then God will know your attitude. That is a necessity for prayer. Without prayer Jesus and the saints could not have done the great things that had an impact on the world. When you resort to the power of prayer you can have hope because you never know when the fulfillment will come.

My prayer is centered on the culmination of the third seven year course. You may think I relax when I am alone, but there is no moment of relaxation because my mind is always concentrated on the completion of the third seven year course. You must understand the importance of prayer and have conviction that prayer will be answered. Through prayer you can receive power.

Through prayer you can receive visions into the future and guide yourself accordingly. You will know what kind of difficulty is coming and how to divert it and overcome. If you know how to steer yourself then you can do big things, and prayer alone can pioneer such a path. It is more important than eating. I go out to nature because it gives me a better environment for prayer, and I love nature for that reason. I love the quiet of midnight. I don't say much about the visions I receive, but if you receive them then don't you think I do too? That kind of new world can only be reached through prayer. In that position you can taste love. This world is desert­like, but the world created through prayer has a climate where love can thrive.

You must learn how to generate your own power. You cannot expect that I will always pull you and push you out. You must make yourself self propelling. In order to do that, prayer must be the diet of your life. Whether people recognize your efforts or not, you must do your duty enthusiastically because you have a covenant with God. Day and night you move on; there is no pause. That is a living testimony.

Every several years my topic of prayer changes, which shows progress to a new era. In a prayerful mind I know precisely what time it is in God's timetable. That kind of preparation is necessary for self perfection, and you must learn it through the power of prayer. Do you pray in the way I taught you today, for His kingdom and righteousness? Pray that this country can become a center of God's righteousness. Your country has seen many fervent patriots, but you must pray with more fervor than any of them. If your concern for this country is greater than God's then this country will survive, but other wise it will crumble.

What is our goal and destination in the Unification Church? I am leading you where God desires for you to be. It doesn't make any difference whether it is difficult or easy because whether there are many obstacles in front of us is irrelevant. The important thing is not just getting there, but getting there in the shortest possible time. If we go quickly then there is less danger, but when the process is stretched out there are many opportunities for disaster and we must not allow that.

This is a transitional period; we are entering into a new era, a new plateau and history of faith. Therefore, this is a critical moment for you and God. Last night I spoke to the department heads about the true meaning of home church. Home church is the greatest gift God and True Parents can give mankind. It has never existed before and will not again in the future. When you make this gift yours by fulfilling it, you will definitely become a son and daughter of God. I have prepared this precious gift for you for my entire life of sixty years and now I freely give it to you. You can make it yours in six months. This is an incredible opportunity.

Home church should be the subject of your prayer. Pray with a parental heart for your home church people as your children who are struggling in hell. Your heart as a parent must be grieved and desiring to save them. If you don't have that feeling then you are in a dire emergency; you must open your heart to parental feeling of love toward your people. If you don't have real love for them then push yourself until you do. No one has to teach a parent to love his children. If you feel like a parent to your home church then your love will be the same and no one will have to teach you.

Just finishing elementary school takes six years of daily attendance. Do you think home church is comparable even to elementary school? It is the school for becoming a messiah. Think of how important it is. Even though you might attend it your entire life, you must give your heart and soul because you could not have any better school. Even though you have only 360 homes, God will treat your efforts there as though you had given them for the entire universe.

In America there are about 70 million homes, and if each person had 360 homes we would need 200,000 members to cover all America. If the entire Christian population accepted Divine Principle and wanted to do home church, what would happen? There would be no room for you! There is nothing more important for you than this. Test your own power of prayer: take one person and pray for him fervently, constantly, without telling him. Pray tearfully for his wellbeing and then that person will feel a magnetic attraction to you. He won't know why he feels drawn to you.

If you receive in your prayer that you will meet a person at such and such a time, when you go there then that person will come. If you are dead serious then these things will happen. Hypnosis can transfer a person into another state of consciousness, but how much more can prayer change lives. There is no distance or limit to its influence because the power of thought travels everywhere. You can mobilize the entire spirit world by the power of prayer. You have experienced that I will work through your prayers and tell you certain things. There is no limit to the power of prayer.

When you have the right attitude in prayer then miracle after miracle will happen. The most important part of a launching pad is the foundation. At takeoff it must not break under the heat and pressure. Your prayer is like a missile firing and you need a solid foundation. You must not pray from greed for yourself. That prayer would be harmful to you. Public prayer as a public person will cleanse you and elevate you higher and higher.

If you live with this high sensitivity to spirit world, you will sense what is forthcoming. Your perception will be keen and you can prepare for the future. You should know that you are like two people in one. Your inner man is like a mirror, clean and bright. When the inner and external men are not synchronized you feel anguish. but when they are perfectly aligned you feel joy and power. This is happening every day within you. When you see a person your inner man can tell you what kind of person he is, and if you hear a person's report, a sixth sense tell you how truthful it is. When someone walks into a room, I can see whether he is bringing good news or bad.

Don't neglect this inner man but consult him all the time. When you are higher spiritually you are always there, always speaking with this inner man. You have a spirit man and he wants to talk to your physical man. You may not have any intention of saying anything yet suddenly you find your mouth moving. That is not you but your inner partner speaking. Even the rats of a ship can sense when a ship is in trouble and run away, but how much more should man, the supreme creation of God, know when life or death is coming? Shouldn't you be alerted when a certain destiny is forthcoming? For your inner and outer man to become one you need the power of prayer.

I have a family but I seldom pray for them. My prayer is anguish for the nation and world and cosmos. God will concern Himself with my wellbeing because I am concerned with God's. If I only paid attention to my family instead of to the world and God, my family would get sick. I don't concern myself with my family's wellbeing; I concern myself with the Church and God's work and I know God will take care of them in the meantime. This is the principle of give and take.

Those who want to do more for others will receive more; those who want to go down will be lifted up. Don't pray empty prayers. Now you know the power of prayer. Everyone needs to experience these things spiritually. You must know whether the things you do will succeed or fail. You know that certain things will succeed because you feel pulled in that direction and are eager to go ahead. Your body is like the receiver of a radio. Free yourself from self­centered thinking, and then mighty things will happen to you. You must open that valve.

You are entitled to ask for God's power, but only for the sake of His righteousness and Kingdom. Then He will come down. Pray and act; you will feel different from yesterday and you will know the power of prayer is in action. Today is just the beginning; pray to tell God that you are just beginning and need His help. Make a showdown with God every day. It shall become second nature, and without being conscious of it you can live that life all the time. Let's do it then.

Let us pray.

The Importance Of Prayer

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
April 15, 1979

From the Book: A Life of Prayer, 1991 HSA-UWC

Reverend Moon gave this sermon at Belvedere, New York. In it he describes his own attitude to prayer. Following are excerpts.

The most important thing in prayer is the attitude of the person who is praying. The most essential thing is your commitment to go forward without reservation. If anything wants to block you, you have to be decided that it will never stop you. Unless you have that commitment first, God will not waste His time trying to help you. He has always been deceived in history, so what God needs to see is proof of what you are and how strong your commitment is. You may tell God you are totally committed, but He will shake His head and think, "I have to wait three more years and see." If God sees that something isn't quite right in you, He will wait before sending down His help. God needs to be sure.

God is foolish if He gives His help freely but then at the end of several years the person is all in pieces. If I were God I would also wait and see. Suppose you were God; what would you do? You may tell God, "You see I am living as a church member and I will die as one." Then God will notice and look more closely, but no matter how firmly you pray, without this basic commitment nothing will happen and you will be wasting your time. A decisive attitude is the key.

Do you think I made a commitment to God that I would never change, not for fifty years or the rest of my life? I prayed first for the absolute faith which could say, "Even if not a single person in this world can believe, I will believe and follow in whatever incredible course You give me." Second, I asked for absolute knowledge and wisdom. Third, I asked for absolute love. I prayed for these three things throughout my life, and now in looking back I see that they have been fulfilled, even when I didn't know it was happening. There is no other power that could go beyond the boundary of race and nation. Since God could give me this absolute wisdom, I could search and find the Divine Principle and the truth about the world.

An attitude of absoluteness is the basis for everything. Nowadays most of you think in terms of when you will get married, thinking that you are getting older and older. If this worries you then your absolute commitment is starting to shake. Instead of shrinking, you can make your commitment much thicker by thinking, "Marriage? That doesn't bother me or change my commitment." When you face great problems and agony, after you finally overcome them your faith will be like iron. When you can see the kind of obstacle that might confront you, you can clear the field.

Suppose you have been married for some time and are deeply in love, but then suddenly your husband or wife dies. Would all of heaven and earth crumble for you? That might be the very moment you could curse God for taking your loved one away, but instead you can thank Him for His grace in giving you a situation that will strengthen your faith. Then your belief can become stronger instead of weaker. God is a parent, and if He takes a loved one away it is not because He hates you but for some greater reason. If you can accept it and have faith in that purpose then you are ready for another challenge.

In our Unification Church faith the most beautiful word is indemnity; through indemnity we can pay the debt of sin. You can think that no one else could stand such a burden of indemnity, so God is asking you to pay instead as His champion. You can accept it with a thankful heart. When you compare the time you spend without the person you love with the millions of years your generations will live, your payment of indemnity is small in comparison to the blessing God will give you and your descendants. If the death of your loved one was really accidental and not direct intervention of God, yet you pray with this grateful attitude, then God will feel that He has really found an extraordinary child and His blessing will automatically be yours. Your attitude will decide the amount of blessing. Are you ready? If an extraordinary grief or tragedy hits you, are you ready to thank God and ask what is next? You know the law of indemnity; you cannot expect only good things and then curse God when unpleasant things happen. With knowledge of indemnity there should be nothing you cannot bear. That is the attitude of those who truly know God. When you first join this Church your eyes might be bright and filled with fervor, but after three years your eyes get a little duller, don't they? No? Ten years later? It is easy to say no, isn't it? But do you really have confidence?

Prayer is an absolute necessity. You may kneel down all the way to pray, but the most important thing is that you create an environment of commitment first. Unless your basic attitude is ready, no amount of prayer will be useful. In the Christian world today many people pray every day, but do you think they pray to destroy the Christian churches? No, they pray for prosperity, but the churches are crumbling nevertheless. Do you pray for the sake of the Unification Church? You don't have to pray for the Unification Church; pray for the big things: the nation, the world, the liberation of God. What you are really doing then is praying for a cross even bigger than the Unification Church.

If you pray for yourself or for things smaller than the Church then God will not answer because He is not interested in listening to such boring prayer. When you talk about the nation and world, He gets excited and starts looking for ways to help. This is training for how to love greater things. If you really live like that then even if you don't have time to pray God will still back you up.

In churches today people pray for their denominations, their Social Security check or their family problems and their pet. God's ears hurt when He hears those prayers and He will plug His ears. If those people prayed for God to use their church to help save the world and liberate God, He would perk up and be amazed because God is just like you. When you only talk about yourself in your prayer, God is thoroughly bored and nothing will happen. But if you pray for His righteousness and His kingdom, He will be caught up in your passion.

In order to fulfill bigger things you need an adventurous mind and be willing to take risks. Then God will tell you not to worry, that He is right behind you. If you throw yourself into overcoming the stone walls and persecution before you, God will take up your battle for He knows who is just and who is unjust. But first God will watch, giving you a chance to knock your opponent down with your own capability. This is the same thing a father and mother would do. If you come running to God to ask for help before you even confront your enemy, He, like any parent, will be ashamed to hear you and will send you back out again. Create a good problem: be a heavenly troublemaker instead.

I came to America and became a good troublemaker, and that's why America doesn't like me. America has built a prosperous society, but I came to shake this nation and Americans resent my disturbing their peace. But I did not come to destroy America, only to warn this nation that there is danger ahead. Someone has to warn the people and bring them out of disaster. You know there is a big battle coming so you must ready yourself in body and spirit. After you go first you can ask God to come and help you with anything you lack. Then God will say, "Go ahead. I am right behind you."

If you seriously sit down and pray in those circumstances, God will encourage you. As soon as proof of your commitment comes to God, an avalanche of help will come to you. I have had the experience of thinking about some problem and not even praying about it, but already God knew my thoughts and went one step ahead of me. When I discovered that my thinking had been fulfilled, He smiled and said, "See what I did?"

You need the basic attitude of sincerity as a foundation of prayer, Otherwise, no prayer will work. More important for creating that atmosphere is to go out and serve one more person, knock on one more door, receive more persecution. That is more valuable than sitting for hours in a dark room praying. Prayer is only needed after you have exerted all your energy and it was not enough. Then you can ask God to come help. When you can do it then you don't have to ask God, but can tell Him to relax. The prayer for all seasons is the prayer for God's kingdom and His righteousness.

Do you think God prays sometimes? Sometimes without thinking a parent murmurs to himself or herself, "Oh, I wish my son would do this, or be that way." That is God's prayer also. God is murmuring about you, about me and about the Unification Church because this is an emergency and He is engrossed in His concern. That is God's prayer. You don't even have to sit down to pray; you can just talk to yourself as you go, whispering and murmuring your concern. That's prayer. In our case praying and doing is our life. Praying and waiting is not our life.

If you pray unconsciously in everyday life then undoubtedly you are becoming sons and daughters of prayer. If you give your last ounce of energy but it is not enough, then ask God for assistance and your prayer will be answered. If that were not the case, how could we ever subjugate Satan? Satan has given unending anguish and heartbreak to God for 6,000 years and if there were no way we could finally subjugate him then there would be no end to it. There must be a way.

The power of prayer works wonders, but prayer must be serious and done with one united heart, not a divided heart. When the moment of engagement comes, it is a most serious moment for both men and women, but in the Unification Church it is different because you leave it to me, Do you realize what a formidable job it is to pick your own spouse? In that moment you become dead serious, but prayer is even more serious than that. If you pray with that attitude then it will be answered. If your parents are on their deathbed it is a serious moment, and the words you speak then are urgent. There is no way you could doze at that time. Your prayer to God is more serious than that.

Prayer is like a covenant between you and God, a promise. Once you make a contract, you follow through and then it will undoubtedly be fulfilled. That is the attitude I am talking about. You must not be disappointed when prayer is not answered immediately. Some answers come late. At other times you should not be overjoyed when prayer is answered quickly. That is not necessarily the best thing.

Because you are surrounded by the world there are many stages to go through horizontally and vertically. The answer to prayer does not come from you but down from heaven and it takes time to reach you. There have been many foolish people who received answers to their prayers up to a point but who didn't go the final inch, and when they weren't satisfied they betrayed God. When you pray for the world you may not see things changing immediately around you, but far away the communist world starts to crumble. The impact of prayer can be felt in a far-away place. If you are in the Abel position, the answer comes from Cain and takes time to reach you.

You must think that your prayer today may not be fulfilled until thousands of years from now. I pray such prayers. I am not praying just for this world today; I am praying for 1,000 and 2,000 years from now. If that prayer makes a bridge between that time and now then the Unification Church will continue to flourish even a long time after I am gone from the earth. That kind of prayer is needed.

If many of you pray that kind of eternal prayer, the world will start to shake and the impact will be far-reaching. The root of that prayer is your tears, sweat and blood, and out of it beautiful flowers will blossom. When Jesus prayed on Gethsemane he was deadly serious, shedding tears, sweat and blood. All day long you must be in a prayer mood, not just one hour, but 24 hours. What prayer position do you prefer? The best is to kneel and lower your head. You have to restrict your body's freedom, as though it were bound. You will feel pain, but overcome it because you must be serious. Then God will know your attitude. That is a necessity for prayer. Without prayer Jesus and the saints could not have done the great things that had an impact on the world. When you resort to the power of prayer you can have hope because you never know when the fulfillment will come.

My prayer is centered on the culmination of the third seven-year course. You may think I relax when I am alone, but there is no moment of relaxation because my mind is always concentrated on the completion of the third seven-year course. You must understand the importance of prayer and have conviction that prayer will be answered. Through prayer you can receive power.

Through prayer you can receive visions into the future and guide yourself accordingly. You will know what kind of difficulty is coming and how to divert it and overcome. If you know how to steer yourself then you can do big things, and prayer alone can pioneer such a path. It is more important than eating. I go out to nature because it gives me a better environment for prayer, and I love nature for that reason. I love the quiet of midnight. I don't say much about the visions I receive, but if you receive them then don't you think I do too? That kind of new world can only be reached through prayer. In that position you can taste love. This world is desert-like, but the world created through prayer has a climate where love can thrive.

You must learn how to generate your own power. You cannot expect that I will always pull you and push you out. You must make yourself self-propelling. In order to do that, prayer must be the diet of your life. Whether people recognize your efforts or not, you must do your duty enthusiastically because you have a covenant with God. Day and night you move on; there is no pause. That is a living testimony.

Every several years my topic of prayer changes, which shows progress to a new era. In a prayerful mind I know precisely what time it is in God's timetable. That kind of preparation is necessary for self-perfection, and you must learn it through the power of prayer. Do you pray in the way I taught you today, for His kingdom and righteousness? Pray that this country can become a center of God's righteousness. Your country has seen many fervent patriots, but you must pray with more fervor than any of them. If your concern for this country is greater than God's then this country will survive, but otherwise it will crumble.

What is our goal and destination in the Unification Church? I am leading you where God desires for you to be. It doesn't make any difference whether it is difficult or easy because whether there are many obstacles in front of us is irrelevant. The important thing is not just getting there, but getting there in the shortest possible time. If we go quickly then there is less danger, but when the process is stretched out there are many opportunities for disaster and we must not allow that.

This is a transitional period; we are entering into a new era, a new plateau and history of faith. Therefore, this is a critical moment for you and God. Last night I spoke to the department heads about the true meaning of home church. Home church is the greatest gift God and True Parents can give mankind. It has never existed before and will not again in the future. When you make this gift yours by fulfilling it, you will definitely become a son and daughter of God. I have prepared this precious gift for you for my entire life of sixty years and now I freely give it to you. You can make it yours in six months. This is an incredible opportunity.

Home church should be the subject of your prayer. Pray with a parental heart for your home church people as your children who are struggling in hell. Your heart as a parent must be grieved and desiring to save them. If you don't have that feeling then you are in a dire emergency; you must open your heart to parental feeling of love toward your people. If you don't have real love for them then push yourself until you do. No one has to teach a parent to love his children. If you feel like a parent to your home church then your love will be the same and no one will have to teach you.

Just finishing elementary school takes six years of daily attendance. Do you think home church is comparable even to elementary school? It is the school for becoming a messiah. Think of how important it is. Even though you might attend it your entire life, you must give your heart and soul because you could not have any better school. Even though you have only 360 homes, God will treat your efforts there as though you had given them for the entire universe. In America there are about 70 million homes, and if each person had 360 homes we would need 200,000 members to cover all America. If the entire Christian population accepted Divine Principle and wanted to do home church, what would happen? There would be no room for you! There is nothing more important for you than this. Test your own power of prayer; take one person and pray for him fervently, constantly, without telling him. Pray tearfully for his well-being and then that person will feel a magnetic attraction to you. He won't know why he feels drawn to you.

If you receive in your prayer that you will meet a person at such and such a time, when you go there then that person will come. If you are dead serious then these things will happen. Hypnosis can transfer a person into another state of consciousness, but how much more can prayer change lives. There is no distance or limit to its influence because the power of thought travels everywhere. You can mobilize the entire spirit world by the power of prayer. You have experienced that I will work through your prayers and tell you certain things. There is no limit to the power of prayer.

When you have the right attitude in prayer then miracle after miracle will happen. The most important part of a launching pad is the foundation. At take-off it must not break under the heat and pressure. Your prayer is like a missile firing and you need a solid foundation. You must not pray from greed for yourself. That prayer would be harmful to you. Public prayer as a public person will cleanse you and elevate you higher and higher.

If you live with this high sensitivity to spirit world, you will sense what is forthcoming. Your perception will be keen and you can prepare for the future. You should know that you are like two people in one. Your inner man is like a mirror, clean and bright. When the inner and external men are not synchronized you feel anguish, but when they are perfectly aligned you feel joy and power. This is happening every day within you. When you see a person your inner man can tell you what kind of person he is, and if you hear a person's report, a sixth sense will tell you how truthful it is. When someone walks into a room, I can see whether he is bringing good news or bad.

Don't neglect this inner man but consult him all the time. When you are higher spiritually you are always there, always speaking with this inner man. You have a spirit man and he wants to talk to your physical man. You may not have any intention of saying anything yet suddenly you find your mouth moving. That is not you but your inner partner speaking. Even the rats of a ship can sense when a ship is in trouble and run away, but how much more should man, the supreme creation of God, know when life or death is coming? Shouldn't you be alerted when a certain destiny is forthcoming? For your inner and outer man to become one you need the power of prayer.

I have a family but I seldom pray for them. My prayer is anguish for the nation and world and cosmos. God will concern Himself with my well-being because I am concerned with God's. If I only paid attention to my family instead of to the world and God, my family would get sick. I don't concern myself with my family's well-being; I concern myself with the Church and God's work and I know God will take care of them in the meantime. This is the principle of give and take. Those who want to do more for others will receive more; those who want to go down will be lifted up. Don't pray empty prayers. Now you know the power of prayer. Everyone needs to experience these things spiritually. You must know whether the things you do will succeed or fail. You know that certain things will succeed because you feel pulled in that direction and are eager to go ahead. Your body is like the receiver of a radio. Free yourself from self-centered thinking, and then mighty things will happen to you. You must open that valve.

You are entitled to ask for God's power, but only for the sake of His righteousness and Kingdom. Then He will come down. Pray and act; you will feel different from yesterday and you will know the power of prayer is in action. Today is just the beginning; pray to tell God that you are just beginning and need His help. Make a showdown with God every day. It shall become second nature, and without being conscious of it you can live that life all the time. Let's do it then.

Let us pray.

Spring Season Of The Providence

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
April 1, 1979
Belvedere, New York
Translator: Bo Hi Pak

This morning I vividly felt spring at East Garden, with the birds singing and the grass turning green. Now we don't need the tent we have in winter and the sky is our ceiling. When the sun comes out it will be even better.

All of you here have different characteristics, some tall, others short, some thin, others not thin. Some people like spring most of all, others prefer summer, and others winter. In most cases, which season do you think people prefer? Why spring? Perhaps Americans like spring best because it represents a well, as in wellspring. You can say people prefer spring because it brings new life and flowers, but most important of all, spring brings variety and change. Spring is the symbol of hope.

There are many changes in our lives in all seasons, with some changes for the worse, like sickness, but spring brings changes full of hope. Of course, spring is the season of flowers blooming, sending out their fragrance and beauty. The birds and butterflies dance around. Even the smallest insects feel the activities of spring and they dance around too. What will the worms do since they have no wings? The worms will wiggle and wiggle.

Do people fly or wiggle around? People find joy in spring by observing the things of creation joyfully welcoming spring. For whom are those things of creation singing and dancing? How could they be singing for God if they don't have spiritual senses to communicate with Him? The things of creation rejoice for the sake of men. Then who should men rejoice for?

Mankind includes both men and women. Although spring brings variety and change and hope, all of the activities of the flowers and birds and insects have the common purpose of rejoicing for love and for life. Do birds sing early in the morning because they are hungry or defending their territory, or because they are calling for love and for their mates? In the springtime the voices of the birds sound especially clear and happy. In spring all creation becomes full of joyful vitality, but truly everything is singing and dancing for love.

What about people? Would a lone man or woman singing out loud when no one is listening feel happiness? A song is basically expressing a call for love. What kind of song do people like most? There are basically four kinds of love songs -- the meeting of love, love of living, sorrow of parting, and heartbreak of missing each other. Life itself is embroidered by these four songs about love. All four categories of love are woven into the human stories in drama, movies and shows on TV, sometimes with tears and sometimes with joyful laughter.

There are different characteristic kinds of love -- that of parents, of children, of the nation, of the world and of mankind. In religion we are talking about one more important love -- love of God. The expression of love of God is most profound in religious life. I'm sure if you could converse with the birds and ask which season they like most, they would answer, "Spring." The butterflies and other insects would undoubtedly love spring most as well because spring is the season for songs of love; it is truly the season which activates all love.

Have you ever wondered why God made the flowers so beautiful and fragrant? All the flowers blossom in spring because God knew that in spring all things of creation would be rejoicing; God prepared such beautiful, fragrant flowers to enhance the celebration of all things. In spring you sisters want to wear nice dresses and put on cologne or perfume. Then you want to go somewhere and sing a song of love. When you talk about love even a shrunken, wrinkled old lady will become very beautiful. When you talk about love even children wake up. When you talk of love, everyone feels some injection of vitality.

Is there some word which will comfort a very hungry person and make him forget his hunger? Talk to him about love. Do you prefer to eat first and then talk about love, or to share love first and then eat? Love is really a vitalizing, activating force in human life. When we talk about love here, no one dozes. Your eyes are sparkling and you feel enthusiastic and your faces are like blooming flowers. God feels His most beautiful flower garden is at Belvedere on Sunday morning.

Have you a song of love? Do little children feel love? They know about love because they can miss their mother and father; they also cherish their toys and that too is in the category of love. Children communicate with their toys and sleep with their baby bear and so forth. Then they also want their parents to play together with them. Toy shops have lots of stuffed animals of all kinds -- bears, rabbits, mice. Children learn how to relate with all things beginning with their toys.

When you ask people what kind of life they would consider ideal and how they would like to live, people often say simply they would like to see springtime all over the world, with fragrant flowers blooming. Singing of love and whispering love seems to be the ideal. In order to sing of love you need a partner because the world of love is a reciprocal world. If anyone wants to live as a single person all his life, he is retreating from the world of love. There is a weird trend expanding now in America, where men actually want to marry men and women want to marry women.

In East Garden do you think the male birds sing a song of love to each other and the females likewise? Does that seem natural? What kind of song could two male birds sing to each other? How awkward and dry that would be! If you ask to buy two male lovebirds at a pet store, the salesman will wonder if you are all right. If you bring them home and expect them to sing, do you think they will sing a song of ecstatic joy? When God sees such a thing He will wonder if you are crazy.

Here in America there are many bachelors living the single life in their apartments. What kind of song can a bachelor sing to himself? His song would not be just lonely, but despairing. I feel sorry for the building that houses only bachelors and for the flowers that have to bloom for them. You laugh, but there is a certain truth here. Do you women want to sing for your four walls, or would you rather sing wherever there are loving people who will appreciate your song? People long to be in the place where the song of love can be meaningful and understood.

Is there any limitation on the time and place you can express songs of love? Do you have to be well dressed or on a well lighted stage or have on makeup? Will you women have rules for your husband that he must brush his teeth and shave and put on cologne before he can kiss you? Definitely Mother doesn't have such rules. Imagine an extreme situation, as when a husband and wife have been separated for a long time and the husband is returning after a long journey. He has no time to clean up, but when he walks in the door will his wife insist that he has to wash before he can greet her? Would you women mind if your husband were very smelly at a time like that? Love makes you blind. Love can transcend anything because it is the supreme power. When a man and woman like each other in a reciprocal way we call it love.

How is the relationship between men and women different from love between mankind and God? You want to be alone with your mate when you express your love, right? How would you like to have a third person observing that scene? What kind of love relationship is there between God and an individual? Will God shoo everyone else away?

God can love both men and women, so which would He prefer? If God had to choose between loving a man and a woman, one would accuse if God went to love the other first and a great squabble would start. Do you think God didn't imagine that this problem would arise at some time? Put yourself in His position; where would you start? Should He have them choose straws? How would God determine the sequence of love? The beautiful solution God decided upon is that He comes down only when the two are loving each other with ecstatic joy. The Principle of the Unification Church is very clear: when your mind and body join as subject and object then the dwelling of God is with you. When man and woman are united in reciprocal action of love, God dwells there. When you are single you are incomplete; only when you are united with your partner in harmonious love, walking and having give and take, can God fully dwell with you.

The best expression of Divine Principle is two people working harmoniously together. That is the basic teaching, actually. When you walk you want to walk together with the person you love. Would you have two different minds, or one united mind? Two destinations or one destination? Your destination is the love of God. When spring comes and all creation is activated, what is it for? Love. What is the center of that love? All things of creation center upon man, and together they all center around God. Man has lordship over all things and he rejoices over God.

Ultimately we conclude that springtime centers upon the love of God. Do you feel spring? Then you may thank God for all the things of creation and say to Him, "Here we are singing a song of love together. But when did You have a chance to sing a song of love?" How will God answer? Do you think God has a stage and special room set aside where He can really express His love?

How many Gods are there in heaven? There is only one God, and if He has been singing a song of love for millions of years by Himself then He must be a crazy God. Where can God find His object? That is a grave problem. God can only find an object for His love in men, but because of the fall of man that object has shattered. Imagine how lonely and heartbroken God must have felt all these years. In that situation, does God feel wonderful and renewed every time He sees the spring season come? He must think, "Is it another spring already? Are the flowers blooming again and the birds singing?"

Spring is a burden instead of a joy to Him and He can't bear to listen. The fragrance of the flowers and singing of the birds would be painful to Him. God created all these things as an expression of His love and all of them are perfectly fulfilling their purpose. However, God can only say, "Where is my love?" If a handsome, rich man marries and prepares a fabulous mansion for his bride, taking meticulous care with every detail and hiring servants, but then his wife betrays him and runs away, how would that man feel when he is in that house? When he looks at the mansion he prepared, he would feel only unbearable pain and he would rather destroy it than look at it. You can imagine that the worst crime you can commit is the crime of love, by which you bring despair and heartbreak to someone.

When we compare God's position to that of this heartbroken man, can you imagine Him singing a song of love? God has felt many times as much pain as any abandoned husband or wife. Everything was prepared in great glory and beauty for His children, but His house has been empty and never filled with love. When you are betrayed by the one you love then all the things you prepared for that person become not only meaningless, but a painful burden. With a loving heart God prepared the whole universe for man. When man betrayed God, all the things He had so lovingly made became only a source of pain to God instead joy. Can you imagine?

Without knowing how man has betrayed God and without knowing His heartbreak, men are trying somehow to live with love among themselves, singing and dancing in different ways, like the frantic gyrations of disco dancing. When God sees men trying to enjoy love without having God as their partner, what would He think? God would be choked with wrath. God's position is almost like that of a husband whose wife ran away to some stranger. After loving her so much, what feeling would that man harbor in his heart toward her? He would feel tortured.

When two lovers sing and dance it is a joyous expression. If two people are really caught up in love then it wouldn't matter what kind of song or dance they did, whether belly dance or snake dance or disco. I have no objection to dance halls as long as the lovers going there to express their love are approved by God. It would be fine for younger people, but even more exciting for older people! True love supports that kind of thing.

The worst kind of crime or sin in the sight of God is the violation of true love. That is Article One in the constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven. What kind of punishment is deserved by the men and women who violate this article? Should their act be ignored, or is there no room for negotiation and compromise? Is their sin greater than that of murder? The violation of the law of love in the Kingdom of Heaven is the worst crime and even an execution would not be adequate retribution. Would every cell of the body be resigned to that punishment, or would they complain that it was unfair? Then where is that absolute love? When God created law for His kingdom, He made violation of love the worst crime.

I hope that this will sound serious to you Americans. Does it sound logical and workable? Do you want to support and live that principle? Do you have absolute love?

I would like to recommend that you blessed couples stay together as much as possible when you have the chance, even going to the bathroom together and whispering love to each other there. Share the equipment together and when you finish clean one another up. Would God look down and exclaim at how ridiculous and repulsive you are? No, He would be excited and uplifted to see such love. God's number one rule is that true love is absolute and in that case it doesn't make any difference where it is expressed in the bathroom, in the garden; anywhere is fine and that love will bring ecstatic love to God.

If in order to promote such absolute love you end up in jail for several years, what does it matter? It makes your life more romantic and dramatic. There is no prison anywhere which can confine true love, no regulation which can stop the march of true love. Any law trying to do so shall melt away. Those who are trying to proclaim and practice such true love in the twentieth century are called Moonies.

People might look at your humble dress and pale faces and think you are really wretched people who do nothing but work all day on MFT (Mobile Fund Raising Team) or knocking on peoples' doors. Externally they might see that, but inside the motor is running and you have a big heart going after true love. Nothing under the sun can compare with the value of your heart. You should have pride; even though you may not be the most beautiful kind of person physically, you possess true, burning love centered upon God. You are princes and princesses of love and of heaven, and you shall have such a person as your husband and wife.

The person who conquers the universe with his true love is going to be your mate; he will be a king of love. He will be the only absolute king of love in your life; he will be your subject and master and for him you will write poetry and songs of love, pouring out your heart. God is almighty in that respect, and He has the ability to make each of you a king of love so you shall have such ecstatic joy as this. God is the king of kings of love and He is eager to see each of His children becoming kings of love, each creating his own empire of love where God can dwell.

No matter how much earthly power or authority a person might have who is trying to stop this love, he shall be destroyed. It is the law of God that love must prevail on earth. There is not much true love in the world today; instead it is corrupted and dirty and stained, but we are declaring a revolution to clean the world and bring it back to true love. That is the declaration the Unification Church is making today. True love is so absolute that when a husband and wife make their covenant with each other they shall be recorded permanently by God.

In the garden of Eden God gave only one commandment, declaring that Adam and Eve should not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What He was telling them was not to misuse love. That was the only commandment God gave, to keep pure. Love was the only thing God had to protect. You all know that though you are young you are from varied backgrounds, many of which are unacceptable. You must feel total abhorrence toward such an unprincipled past and want to get as far away as possible. Put up such strong barriers that your old life cannot encroach on you again.

Are you still just thinking about cutting off the past? If you haven't definitely cut off the past, how can you ask for the blessing? Do you think such a person should be considered for the blessing? The heartbreak of Adam and Eve's fall was enough for God. You cannot crucify God another time by violating love. You must truly be reborn and be obedient to God's law of love.

When God makes a rule are many special exceptions made? No, this principle is absolute. How much do you think God loved Adam and Eve? Even though He loved them wholeheartedly, when they violated His law and ate the fruit God had to cut them off and chase them out of the garden of Eden. Losing your purity is far worse even than dying. If we are flexible in that standard, it would be like the stained, corrupted Adam and Eve inviting God to come live with them.

If we can go over that history then for the first time God can enjoy springtime. My topic is Spring Season of the Providence. That spring will come when we go over the hill of that ultimate test. How many of the 240 million people in America, including the people in the White House and Congress, are going over that hill? Is there even one? Now this morning you know it is a grave problem. You see the reality according to God's standard and see the greatness of our life here. Until now many of you never realized the seriousness of it.

This is true for all four billion people on earth. Is there anyone trying to follow this, let alone actually live it? Is there a couple who live with absolute true love such that nothing can part them, who realize the value of true love? No one has been longing for the springtime more than God. Do you think it has arrived? A person who cannot live up to the absoluteness of God's law cannot cross the absolute barrier which God erected after the fall. When Adam and Eve united with Satan and died spiritually, God set cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way so no one could reenter the garden of Eden. When a couple with absolute love emerges, God would like to protect them to an absolute degree.

In the Unification Church do the blessed couples value their love with this absoluteness, truly living up to this standard? The True Parents' purpose in blessing them is so they can become pioneers in this love, but often instead of living up to that purpose and living this love they talk about their position and authority. They forget their responsibility and try to reap authority instead.

When a couple with the absolute standard of God's love emerges, they will truly be the king and queen of love and the entire universe will bow down to them. Even God will bow down. History will bow down. They will be practically worshipped, not only by single people but by other couples. Everyone will see in this couple a royal monument of love. The Unification Church gives blessing, aiming to harvest the fruit in this springtime of providence, being admitted past the cherubim with fire to consummate the goal. When you receive the blessing but you cannot fulfill, a grave responsibility will be yours. The consequence of any mistake will not remain with you alone but will be passed to your entire family, including your ancestors. This is the seriousness of the kingship of love. From this standpoint all things shall be judged.

When you have this absolute love consummated, however, and kingship and queenship is sealed in you, then even if you march to the gates of hell the door will open. There will be no place you cannot conquer and nowhere you cannot go. Everywhere you go you shall bring springtime. Love is not consummated for your own sake; it shall be shared with the people. Centering upon love you must attain kingship such that no one can topple you in that area. You will have one father, one mother, one husband, one wife.

When you look at American society according to this standard, you can see what a terrible thing Satan has accomplished here. American families are in shambles. When you have this kingship of love, however, you can bring your tribe and race to the door of heaven. Where on earth will we see the spring of the Providence of God? That particular spring is actually at hand. I declared that spring and the new calendar of heaven and earth in 1977 on February 23. That started the year one of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It was declared by the instruction of God. Of course Mother and I must go first. With that standard I am looking at Mother. Each day I must check, and if there are certain areas lacking I must educate Mother and raise her standard so she will graduate with an A+.

This is the Principle, that the man or king should bring that absolute love first. After he sets the tradition he must recreate woman. Therefore, Adam must set the kingship of love, and then Adam and Eve together shall be perfected. Who has the established world reputation for seeking liberation from men? American women. No matter how you try to claim your human rights, first you must claim your right to true love. You live to establish your love rights. If people ask why Reverend Moon is persecuted, you can reply that it is because he wants to protect this love right.

Americans criticize without understanding me. Americans who are smelly with corruption try to criticize me, but don't worry. The entire creation and the whole universe is coming forward to support me. You can see that the people who hate and oppose me think they can succeed, but it has been the pattern that those opponents have been taken care of by God and they went to spirit world. I am going to proclaim continuously this principle of the love of God, this absolute standard. No matter what, there is no compromise or negotiation. The mighty power of God is pushing this movement forward and there is no way it can fail.

Ask the rising sun what it hopes to see here on earth. It will reply that it wants to see a man and woman who are absolutely perfected in love, and that's why it has been shining for thousands of years. If you have a way to ask the birds who are whistling in the morning, they will say they want to see the day when the kingship of God's love is established here on earth. All things of creation are uncorrupted, so they will have the correct answer if you ask them.

Anyone who tries to go against that rule can never prosper, whether it be a nation or family. There is no way they can survive. The only power that will ultimately succeed in this universe is the kingship of love. My teaching and conviction centers around this kingship of God's love. I shall fight and die for this purpose. There may seem to be only one roadblock after another and no way to forge ahead, but there is no such word as impossible for me. I have forged ahead step by step. This is why I think God has to love me. Anyone who takes exception to this, raise your hand please.

If you ask Satan about this, he must answer, "Well, I have to say yes." Logic is logic and principle is principle. Once you obtain this absolute kingship in the love of God, you enjoy absolute freedom. Whatever you do will give joy and glory to God. If you do something weird, it becomes very funny to God. If a heavy man is riding his slender wife like a horse, God will look and say, "Urn hmm. Beautiful." You have total freedom once you secure the right of true love.

Usually you walk on two feet, but you can walk on your hands and use your feet like hands instead if you want to. There is limitless freedom in love. I want to bring Mother to that world where love prevails. When we look at the reality compared to that highest possible standard, we see how far away we are and how corrupted the world is. Trying to bring this world back to that standard is truly an awesome task. Do you want to go that route? Think about it now. It will be very difficult, but would you still go?

The work of MFT is nothing compared to the consummation of true love. Being criticized and cursed, getting no sleep and going hungry is nothing compared to the journey you are going to make. When you are angry at someone who has scorned and spit at you, then remind yourself, "I am going to obtain the kingship of the love of God." When you remind yourself of this highest possible goal, there is nothing you cannot endure. When you see that goal, then you can endure. Do you want to try? It is very difficult.

Why don't you do this the easy way; in the next five years the foundation will be complete, and when you come back everything will be much easier. Who wants that five year vacation? No one? Are you really sincere? Why is it so important for you to make a pledge that you really desire to do this? Because it will bring money, power or knowledge? No, only for the true love of God.

No matter how you look, if someone asks you where you are going, you can answer that you are striving for kingship in the love of God. Your ambition is entirely different from the world's. If a dog is following you, barking, you won't have to make the dog be quiet; a universal power will do it because the characteristic and motivation of the entire universe is centered on the desire of God. Nothing that opposes such a movement shall be tolerated by the universe.

I don't have any official title like ambassador or president, but when I walk this land thinking of the kingship of love I know that the entire universe supports me. This is why all kinds of commotion follow me wherever I go. I cannot be ignored. After the fall it was as though man had lost one eye, his spiritual eye. Now all of a sudden a two eyed person has appeared. All the one eyed citizens see he is different from them and call him a monster. We are talking about things entirely different than the world has ever thought about.

Suppose some spy comes to report back to his boss about what I am doing every morning at Belvedere. He might report that I hit some brother or sister who was in the front row, but that for some strange reason he likes it and others tried to get his place so they can be hit too! Imagine what would happen if a minister in church went down to the first pew and hit one of the congregation; that would be the end of church! Yet every Sunday you compete with each other to sit up front! No matter what I do, you know I am talking about the kingship of true love.

I have a handsome hip, but it is even more beautiful if it is hit with a club of love and swells up in a big bruise. In God's eyes it is even more beautiful if it is carrying a lump of love. Love is freedom and any action expressed in love shall be accepted. Democracy claims all kinds of freedom, but without true love democracy actually is bondage. The more people enjoy their "liberties" the more they are bound.

There is no way to describe God without a sense of true love. When you do certain things as an expression of love, even hitting someone, it is acceptable. What a dramatic life we lead! Even the criticism of other people sounds like the barking of a dog far away. In the meantime we pursue true love, and we will become kings and queens fulfilling that love.

The cherubim with their fiery sword represent an impenetrable curtain which no one can pass unless they embody the love of God which can break down that wall. The cosmic spring of the providence of God is here. We shall see the spring of heaven come to this world, and when we penetrate this barrier we will liberate ourselves from the fallen world and enter that realm. You have learned the secret weapon for penetrating that barrier. I came to this world to teach this to whomever is willing to learn.

The test I took and the hill I crossed over was no ordinary hill. It was the most severe kind of test, but by crossing over I laid the highway. Your hill, even though it is of the same kind, is much smaller. With just a little extra energy you can do it. Before I did it no one could even dream of crossing over, but now you can do it. The way to go is crystallized now and you an see clearly. Crystals have a certain distinct shape and pattern of facets, whether big or small. You will be a smaller crystal, but of the same shape I am. God's hill was incredibly big. God crossed over the biggest hill to reach out to meet me, and I crossed over my hill to search for you. Your hill is a microcosm.

Eventually those hills will be flattened and no more will remain to be crossed over. The way to cross over that hill is Home Church. The springtime of home church shall be the springtime of the cosmic dispensation of God. The time for home church is at hand. The people who are anticipating the spring are like the early birds who know even in the cold weather when spring will come. Those people will respond to Home Church. There are people who are awakened and they will rejoice together in the song of spring.

There will be a blossoming of heartle; angels will be flying around and spiritual flowers with their fragrance will bloom. God's throne will be set in that garden and there He will write a poem about the first spring. You can anticipate God's visit to your garden and have a melody ready for God's poem and then you can sing together. When you are intoxicated with the song and the love of God you will forget yourself and dance around, and when you are doing the dance you realize you have become Ah-man. You will dance in the bosom of God. You and God will become totally one and there will be no separation there. There you can truly echo God, saying, "Ah-man."

We enter that world in total freedom. When that world is ours there will be nothing save ecstatic joy. No power under the sun will be able to separate you from that realm. Even if I am telling you a lie, you wish that it were true. But it is not a lie at all; it is the absolute truth, and how much more do you wish it were true right now? If you know that world can be reality and know it is at hand, how much more will you do? If that is the case, you want to jump farther and run faster and your whole body shall fly like a bullet, knowing that that goal is at hand.

With this realization everything becomes your counselor and encourager; the song of the birds will cheer you on. Everything you see will be your teacher and engender a greater feeling for the love of God, the wide plains, the peaceful crane flying with big wings, the blue sky overhead. Everything will give you added incentive. With that kind of ideology you will write new poems and songs and masterpieces of literature. You will create a new culture with that love. In the activation of springtime the love of God finds fulfillment in the family. At home you wouldn't see your grandmother, mother and father all looking in different directions. Everyone will be looking at each other, ready to exchange the love of God.

Whether young or old, love activates everyone. I am the kind of man who has this crazy dream. Do you feel good? I think you wish your stomach were full more than you wish for this love. Is your denial really from your heart or just lip service? Our world is full of falsity and artificiality. Are you real or artificial?

Knowing that the springtime of the dispensation is at hand, do you want to have lordship of all creation and become true husband and wife, truly fulfilling the kingship and queenship of love? Unification Church women should develop new vision which can see deeper than just the external appearance of men, and be able to distinguish the men who have real spiritual backbone and determination. That is what has value. The external will vanish away.

If you want to expand the value of your love you have to do extraordinary things, the more extreme the better. Then you can have extraordinary give and take of love. We must look forward to the day when God can say, "Here is my spring. I have found the true lovers. Grass, birds, flowers, rejoice and sing because finally I have found my loved ones who have kingship of love here on earth." That day is our dream.

We must help God to be a God of hope so that He will not see only despair and pain here on earth. In the shortest time the world shall come under the kingship of God, and when God has real hope of that He will truly be joyful. Just think, you are sons and daughters of God; He is our living God and Father. He has been brokenhearted for 6,000 years, without even one good day or hopeful spring. Don't you want to be the son of filial piety who can welcome that Father to the cosmic spring? If you have a longing to live for that goal it is a great blessing for you and the greatest success of your life. Nothing else in your life could be more extraordinary or precious than to find this truth and the place to practice it.

This is the garden in which True Parents, the true husband and wife can be found, in which children can be reared and the true world will be born. The Kingdom of Heaven shall be here. Only love has ultimate power and rules there; no other power can rule that kingdom. It shall be truly the world of equality; people of noble position shall be lowered and the poor people raised up. Do you think that is possible? If such a place is available do you want to run to it no matter what the difficulty? How courageously would you go? With what conviction? Your criterion should be that you will have greater conviction than even God Himself. Do you think God will scoff that you are trying to compete with Him? No, He will exclaim with excitement at what a son and daughter He has and cheer you on. When God gets excited you know that spirit world gets excited and is all ready to assist you. They are all excited because they know that springtime is at hand and the children of God are making ready the dwelling of God. The invitation is ready, the flowers, songs and costumes and everything is ready. In stormy weather when a plus and minus are created there is a tremendous crash of electricity. I am talking about a gigantic lightning bolt of love that will ignite a fire that will consume Satan. Well, your applause is very nice, but those who want me to wait and see how they will live this, you can applaud now.

From here do you want to go to breakfast or to Home Church? Do you want to rest or go to Home Church? You might have been sick and tired of hearing about Home Church every day, but after today's sermon it is a beautiful word, isn't it? Do you really feel that way? Do you love home church more than your watch or dress or yourself?

No matter how loudly you shout your slogan, if you do Home Church out of duty you will never succeed. Only when you do it out of the intoxication of love will you succeed. The Home Church arena is where you can obtain the kingship of love. Put everything inside Home Church, and put Home Church everywhere so that wherever anyone touches you they will feel Home Church. When every cell shall be part of the kingship of love then there will be no more hills. Once you become Ah-man that accomplishment shall be eternal and no more Ah-man shall be needed. Until you come to this point you need prayer, but after you go over that hill you won't even need prayer.

When you reach that destination you won't need me or Mr. Pak or even God because they will always be with you. Only love prevailing; love is all. Today is April 1 and one-third of the year 1979 is over. April is going to be an important month. In the Oriental tradition #4 is a bad number, but as soon as we restore number four in Divine Principle it will be an important number. This will be a critical, decisive month. What we do in 1979 shall have its breakthrough made in April.

You know where to go; you know the destination. You now have all the things you need to know. The remaining task is to fulfill and make it yours. Shall we do it? Thank you very much.

True Parents Day And Our Family

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
March 28, 1979
World Mission Center
Translator - Bo Hi Pak

When we talk about "parents" we usually mean the natural parents who gave us physical birth, but here we mean the True Parents who will give us eternal life. You all know that the dispensation of restoration was necessitated by the fall of man. Without the fall, there would be no need for salvation. The people who fell were not just figures in history, but the first ancestors of all mankind, and that means that God has never had the opportunity to fulfill His ideal in all of human history. Consequently, history has been proceeding on the side of sin and the ideal of true parents and the family of man has never been seen. Neither has man's ideal of the ideal person and family and ideology been seen here on earth.

Because of the fall of the first ancestors, history has been running on the side of despair, but even after the fall of man God could not abandon man. Originally God created man as His children, and since God was the Father of mankind, even after the fall He could not abandon man. For God's part, if Adam and Eve had just vanished, He could have recreated them. If they had drowned and vanished, God could have recreated them, but that was not the case. They were still alive physically, but their original life was gone.

What was that fall? If what had been lost by the fall could be replaced, we could easily get spare parts. If God could replace what went wrong, there should be no problem. However, the fall was not a material loss but a loss of heart, a loss of the core truth of creation. Genuine, pure love was entangled in the action of the fall. That love by which God wanted to have Adam and Eve blossom in the ideal was the hinge upon which the perfection of everything in creation would turn. God had dreamed of the blossoming of the beautiful flowers of love in Adam and Eve, and their fragrance would fill the earth. That was how God wanted to receive His joy and glory. But by the fall that love was hurt.

God intended to have total unity in love between Himself and man so that there would be no boundaries between them and they could rejoice and live eternally together. That was the life God had planned for man. Therefore, God was waiting for Adam and Eve to bear the fruit of love. A fruit is actually the seed itself; the core and purpose of a fruit is to bear the seed inside. Inside every seed are two identical pieces joined together, and the life force is contained in the embryo of the seed. That embryo contains the essence of the parents' love, of God's love, and the life force. Everything is contained in that life package. The two pieces surrounding that embryo are needed to allow the seed to germinate and to give nourishment so life can spring forth.

Fallen man still has the shape of a seed, but the embryo has become misshapen so that there is no life force and no love source there. Fallen parents gave birth to the fallen generation and many children have been born on earth. Their shape is the same as the original, but the embryo, the life essence, is missing. If man is born with the embryo still intact and pure then when life blossoms and grows, the embryo can only grow in the direction of God, just as a compass needle always points to due north. No one has to teach an original man without sin about God because instinctively he knows the direction of life and of God. There is no other direction for that particular life to take.

When you were growing in your mother's womb, did you worry about whether there would be air for you to breathe, or whether there was enough sunlight? In the same way, when original man was born on earth he had no worry about whether there was God or what direction life should take. Automatically he grew in the right direction. The life source of the embryo was the package of the true love of God it contained, and the life developing from that embryo automatically became a subject of love. But by the fall the essential embryo was destroyed.

After the fall man became a seed without an embryo, so even though he was born he was like a ship without a compass, not knowing where to go or how to live. This describes the fallen generation. Even the lesser creations like the birds can detect the coming of the seasons without a calendar, and they naturally fly south in winter and north in spring in a most orderly manner. If man was to be God's supreme creation, how much more sensitive should man be in perfection? God gave even the birds some special sensitivity to know the seasons so they could order their lives without deviation. The end result of the fall was that man collapsed in confusion and despair over love and ideology.

Everyone is looking for true love and the ideal but they don't know what direction to take so they try anything, even seeking answers through drugs and free sex. People are confused about ideology and think that maybe communism or socialism would be good, but no matter how much they search, without having true love as the focal point of their lives they will not find what they seek. True love means both human love and the pure love of God together. Your parents had human love, but the love of God was not at the center of it. For that reason it lacked the element of true love. Here we are talking about the true love of parents plus the love of God.

Restoration means that we are going to establish an order for true love and ideology of the ideal. This order and standard, or discipline, must be restored. The ideal should be fulfilled in true love. The communist ideology is based on materialism, not upon God at all. Democracy is an ideology centering upon man, not God. What was the original ideology that God designed? True lovism. True love will provide the solution for everything, but where can true lovism begin? It can only begin in an environment without the fall. The fall brought man down from true lovism and the fallen world is the world without true love. You may think the ideal world must include three meals a day and journeys around the world, but without true love that will never be the true ideal for man.

Why do we need true lovism? True love can make you a seed with an embryo of life. In order to become a true heavenly seed, the embryo must contain life from God. When you are restored to be that kind of seed, all you have to do is plant the seed and it will blossom and multiply many other true seeds. Each seed contains genes which determine what it will become. A pine seed cannot become a poplar tree. When you plant a pine seed, don't expect corn to grow from it.

What ideal are you trying to obtain? What is true lovism all about? True lovism can be called ideal humanism, or Godism. Many people in the world today talk about humanitarianism, but that is still fallen and without God. When you add the word ideal, that means God has been put back into it.

Why are you gathered together here in the Unification Church? When we stand on the side of men and talk about this ideology we can call it "ideal, true humanism." When seen from God's point of view, it becomes true Godism. You might ask if I mean there are a true and a false God, and the answer is yes. The false God is the one who has had to deal with fallen man; He is a pitiful, miserable God, not the God of the ideal world. Is the fallen generation happy ? Do you think the God of the fallen generation is happy? God has been miserable, a parent who has to deal with dead children. He has been the most unhappy parent you can imagine.

All the Christians in history have made many requests for God's help. Were they wealthy, happy children, or poor and miserable? They were miserable and that's why they asked God to give them food and shelter. That kind of thinking was not God's main concern and He did not pay much attention. But when God hears requests for His true love then His ears open. No one in history prayed that kind of prayer, however. Many church leaders have asked God to help them defeat the heretics and make their church prosper, but no one prayed for true love with such a longing heart that they were willing even to sacrifice their church to fulfill it.

God really wanted to hear that kind of prayer, but for 6,000 years He has been hearing material requests and pleas for protection instead. So many ridiculous prayers are prayed that if I were God I would plug my ears. No one understood that God was heartbroken.

We must know where true love comes from. It must come from a true father and true mother. That's the logical conclusion. If God is working for restoration then logically He is looking for someone who can bring a channel of true love to earth, which is indeed the concept of true father and true mother. Then where will they come from? If God had every freedom to remake them, I am sure He would quickly do so. But that is one thing God cannot do-He cannot abolish His first son Adam because, after all, Adam was created as an eternal being.

Two parents may have 100 sons and daughters, but if they lose their first child then they are miserable even though they still have 99 others. It has been God's destiny to restore the first son back to the original state. That's how the word "restoration" came into being. When God sees the world filled with men and women, He sees them as nothing more fallen Adam and Eve. God had to pick and refine people from all those on earth in order to have the true Adam emerge. You are fake Adams and fake Eves. Do you feel good? You say with fervor that you don't want to be false Adam and Eve, so now go ahead and deny yourselves to that same degree. Do you really feel your old self is no good?

Most people think they are all right but that everyone else is no good. You may be in the shape of Adam and Eve but you don't have true life. What you need is true love and true life. When they can be grafted into you, you shall be restored to become true Adam and true Eve. You should say A­man, not A­men. Then you sisters should say A­woman. When you mean more than one, then it's fine to say A­men, but when you talk about yourself, it should be A­man and A­woman.

The very person who can be the first A­man is no one else but the Messiah. That is his role. In Japanese pronunciation, "messiah" means the house where rice is cooked. In Korean pronunciation, "messiah" means "what time is it now?" For you, the Messiah is nothing more than A­man. History has continued on and on, but the real A­man has never been seen.

Even without knowing the whole truth, the churches talk about the Messiah and his return and the end of the world. Everyone thinks the Messiah must come on the clouds of heaven, having a wonderful time, and expect him to lift the Christians up in the air. They also say only Christians shall survive at the end of the world, that billions of others shall be judged by fire and brimstone and burned up. There are many conscientious people who scorn that doctrine and criticize the Christians for being selfish. They can't accept such a God who would be so cruel as to allow that to happen. Listening to the two arguments, which side do you think God would take?

How can you prove whether God will side with the non­Christians? We can prove it with the word of God. We can answer that question through the Scripture, John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." God did not say that He gave His son only for the Christians. God loved the world; how could He destroy the world then? Was He talking about the restored Kingdom of Heaven, or about the fallen world where His generations were suffering?

Christians have thought they had a monopoly on God and no one else was entitled to salvation. When I repeat that God loves the world and that He will not destroy it but save and restore it, they call me a heretic. They place great significance in their denomination, and when I say such barriers must be demolished and the churches must sacrifice themselves to save the world, they again call me a heretic. If God would ever call me a heretic and say that these Christians are right, I tell you we would lose nothing because there would be no God in heaven.

Religion must be logical and common sense. Do you need A­man? What is the essence of the number one man? Is he the one who is superior in the boxing ring? What is his qualification? Because he is such a super person he probably wouldn't need food or need to use the bathroom, and in order to climb to the second floor he wouldn't need stairs, right? If you think you need him, would you want him close or distant from you?

If God really wants to save this fallen world He will make the A­man very attractive to the fallen generation. What kind of person would you visualize as A­man? You white people would like him to be white and you black people would like him to be black, right? He should be a mixture of white, black and yellow, shouldn't he? The important thing is not the color of his skin, but his content. True love and true ideal must be the content of that A­man.

Human history has been proceeding with one main purpose of recreating one A­man, using all historical men as material to reach the final pinnacle. God has been molding a model, making it more and more perfect, bit by bit, progressing toward that perfect A­man. When we look at the history of God, we can see in the Old Testament era that God was molding that man into a servant. There are four major steps for men to take-to be a servant, adopted son, a true son, and father. In the Old Testament era God was striving to make a true servant. For 2,000 years God used all the rabbis and teachers to make one true servant, who was John the Baptist.

God's feeling was that John the Baptist was the true servant, and if he fulfilled his responsibility God would elevate him to the level of adopted son, to whom He would send His true son. But the covenant was that this adopted son must give his absolute loyalty to this true son when he came. If this adopted son was willing to give even his life to this true son, then he could become an adopted A­man. Life­giving loyalty was needed. John the Baptist was to love Jesus who was God's masterpiece, truly the A­man. God labored for 4,000 years to bring him to earth, so in God's sight Jesus was His most precious treasure. From God's point of view it was most important that John the Baptist give his life to Jesus.

God knows you men need true love and a true ideal. In order to secure that ideal your usual horizontal love affairs would not do, and neither would your way of loving your parents or brothers and sisters. That's why God required the strictest standard that you should love the A­man most of all. When Jesus came he declared, "He who gives his life for my sake will find it. He who would save his own life will lose it." Do you think that standard has been bent since Jesus' time, or is it the same now? Is it true to say today that we who would lose our lives for God's sake will find them? Is that your commitment?

Jesus declared that the person who loved his own wife or parents or children more than he loved Jesus was not worthy of Jesus. Do you think there is truth in that? Did it mean that once people accepted Jesus as the Messiah they were free to get married on their own? What about you then, are you the same or different? What happened to John the Baptist 2,000 years ago; did he love Jesus more than his own family and nation? Did he pass or fail God's test? Should you be better than John the Baptist or not? In order for you to be better than John the Baptist I am chasing you out to the wilderness. If I am chasing you out to raise money in the wilderness, then if the Messiah is rejected by the nation you can welcome him into the wilderness and build the Kingdom there.

John the Baptist had gathered many disciples of his own, so when he knew that Jesus had come as the Messiah he should have brought his own disciples as his treasure and given them to Jesus. If Jesus returned them to John then John should have insisted. But did that happen? Wouldn't it be smarter to keep what is valuable to you in your pocket and give what is unimportant to Jesus?

The best way to be linked to true love is to give your life for it. When your life is connected to it then true love will flow into you. If your head is cut off then Jesus will replace it for you, but when you look closely you will see it is Jesus' head you have now. By giving your life you can become Jesus. Then God will see that you look like His son, and will welcome you with the same love. If Jesus is a pine tree then you will look like a pine tree, not like anything else that you were before. When two people have an ideology and concept of love that are identical then they are identical.

You need A­man don't you? Now at the end of their prayer some people will say A­man and others will say Woman.

If John and Jesus had become completely one, then John would have become an adopted son and all the Jews behind him would have followed Jesus. Then like a locomotive Jesus could have taken them all straight into the Kingdom of Heaven. That was God's plan, but the reality was very sad. John failed to believe in Jesus; the rabbis and priests and scribes and all the people failed to believe in Jesus. Finally they plotted together with the Romans to nail Jesus on the cross. Do you think the crucifixion was God's will? Do you think He put the true man here on earth again only to be killed on a cross? God's work was restoration and recreation, so He wanted to create the A­man and A­ woman first, then A­children and finally A­kingdom of God. But did Jesus live or die? Was the will of God fulfilled fully in his time? No, the Second Coming had to be announced.

Through the history in the Bible we see that God has been working steadily according to one principle from the beginning to the end, so mankind is destined to welcome A­man one more time. Do you think Jesus Christ will return, or that someone else has to come? For 2,000 years after Jesus God has been using all men as material, trying to mold one more final model of a true man here on earth. Therefore, it is most logical that the Messiah must return through the country and people who have received the most tribulation and shed the most tears.

That A­man must come as a physical person here on earth, a true man who will recreate true woman, because that was the order of the original creation. lt. is not God who will make the true woman, but the true man. Why? In the Bible we read that God made Adam, but then only pulled a rib from Adam to make the woman. That actually means that God made woman by using Adam as a model. If God comes to take American women and push them out into tribulation and suffering, will they submit to it? Are American women likely to reject this and crumble, or are they more likely to accept it wholeheartedly? You may think they will accept, but God doesn't think so.

God sees that becoming A­woman is not an easy task because she must go through a tremendous ordeal. That woman must have absolute blind loyalty to A­man, so God looked for the country with that kind of virtue. Can that virtue be found more easily in the West or East? When God takes that woman to have her made into A­woman there should be no flaw.

God instructed A­man to give A­woman a hard time because in the garden of Eden it was Eve who did not obey God or believe the commandment and whose cunning way united with Satan and betrayed Adam. Therefore, in restoration woman must be given a hard time and still unite with whatever God's will is. Then A­woman is made. Do you think that is an easy thing to do? When that A­man recreates A­woman and they have children and make a home, then they would become the first True Parents in history. Would you like to meet the True Parents? Why? What would you gain?

The Unification Church is working for the salvation of the family, the building block of the Kingdom of Heaven. So far Christians have thought that salvation was only for individuals, and that each person had to win his own cubbyhole in heaven. If the Unification Church is the place where you meet the Parents then you have to pay for all the historical sins and clean away the back debt of mankind. Only then do you become a perfect John the Baptist, and then you must unite with the true A­man. Even when the True Parents are finally installed, they cannot instantly make you into a true son and daughter. You have to go through several stages; first you become a servant, then adopted son, then true children. When you meet the True Parents, what would they do? Chase you out to the world, letting you become a true John the Baptist.

That person cannot go out to the wilderness with skepticism, grumbling, "What kind of True Parents are they? The Divine Principle is very good, but why are they making me suffer?" But I want you to know that is the beginning point. When you meet True Parents you go back to that position and start out all over again, returning step by step, going through every level. First you become a servant, then an adopted son. The relationship between an adopted son and his stepparents is normally a difficult one and the son has much difficulty. But through the Principle you know the failure of men in the past, so you are willing to go this road nevertheless, without complaining, desiring to become true sons and daughters. Only those people can pass. The words Jesus spoke 2,000 years ago form the very credo you Moonies follow today.

Why do we need True Parents? In order to restore and have the true ideal and love, True Parents are essential. Once you reach that ideal, no matter how strongly people insist there is no God, it won't bother you because you know by experience there is a God. Do you have such antennae? We have special antennae so we can communicate the special love which others cannot detect. We can experience the true happiness others cannot taste. Do you only want to come for celebrations to cut the cake, but not go out to labor and sweat? Many people, even among you here, can't figure out why you should go through suffering when you could easily have your own families and your own lives.

I was smart; I didn't willingly suffer without any reason. But there was no other choice. It was simply my destiny, the law of cause and effect in action. Because mankind is fallen, without going through that route there is no way we can taste true joy and true love. I am quite smart, and if there were some other way I would have found it. I am talking about finding the universal love which can be welcomed anywhere, even in the dungeons of hell. Hell will be melted into heaven by this love, but there is no easy way to get it. Even though there is a great deal of opposition, we have a great power of love which will submerge all the opposition in the water of love. That's the only way we can finally overcome it.

Then we bring the water of love to hell to wash it out. Do you live in the Old Testament era now? the New Testament era? In the Old Testament era the servant is carrying the load of God's dispensation, while in the New Testament era the adopted son is carrying the dispensation. In the Completed Testament era the sons and daughters are undertaking the burden of the dispensation. Presently there are three levels of life in society; the nonbelievers belong to the Old Testament era, even now in the servant position the Christian world is living in the adopted son's era, and the Unification Church is living in the era of true children.

The responsibility of true children is the supreme one because they are going to inherit the responsibility of the parents. We are going to stop the crumbling of the world and bring it back to God. God has three major headaches here on earth. He must take care of communism; He must awaken and revitalize the Christian churches, and finally He must stop the degradation and immorality of the young people of the world. Who is doing it? One master Satan is influencing all of this behind the scenes- communism. The communists are working to weaken Christianity because they know that religion is the greatest threat to them. In order to weaken the free world they are corrupting the young people.

The focal point for the destruction of the tree world, the churches and the young people is the family, so once the communists destroy the family system, they will win everything. In one family in America you can find all kinds of religions and beliefs; because there is a chaos in ideology there is no unity and so love is going in all different directions. When the Messiah comes, however, and brings the central ideology, it will form the backbone of the individual, family and society, and then no power at all can destroy them. Even the communist power will not change them. All of Christian doctrine not be able to remove that ideology and free sex and carnal desire will not change it.

Once equipped with this Godism, no one will be shaken, regardless of what enticements are offered. Will women be enticed by handsome men then? Didn't you do it to Adam in the garden of Eden? The weakest creature is woman and she is more susceptible to the degradation of sin. Suppose you think you are beautiful and everyone envies you, but then all of a sudden I match you with an ugly man as a husband. Would you be proud of introducing him as your husband? Even though externally he is not handsome, you can be proud of him if he has the central ideology of God and if he possesses true love. Then he is far better than any movie star in the world. Your destination is not the handsome face of your husband; it is the ideology and spirit and true love he has.

An electric bulb has a filament inside, and the more crooked it is the brighter light it will give; a straight filament will give only weak light. A man who is sturdy in the love of God may look unattractive, but once the switch is on he will light up the entire world. Light is the important thing. When you become a divine spirit you no longer see the physical body; in spirit world the intensity of brightness of a person's spirit will determine his attractiveness, not his external appearance. The men who are pursuing God's ideology and trying to obtain the true love of God are the noble men.

Now it's the men's turn. They may think I am not qualified to say anything to them since I have such a beautiful wife, but I never prayed to have a beautiful wife. I said it didn't matter what shape my wife was, even if she was so big I couldn't reach around her. If God told me to love her and mold her into A­woman, I was ready to accept her and do my best. If that had happened would you have been pleased? Then the men would have thought they could be blessed to anyone except a woman of Mother's shape. That's why, even though I didn't care what kind of wife I had, God cared very much. He wanted His children to think that the ideal woman was Mother, and any sister who looked like her would be the best wife. That's why God gave you such a beautiful Mother, not for me but for you.

Why are the True Parents coming to mankind? Is their goal only one nation? What was the goal in the garden of Eden in the beginning? The family. The basic unit of happiness is not the nation or world, but the family. The ideal family is more important than the ideal world. In this one unit of the family you must fulfill the ideal man and ideal love. The father's position is the ideal man's position and the mother's position is the ideal woman's position. The man's position is the ideal son's position, and woman's position is the ideal daughter's position. Our goal altogether is the ideal, Perfected family.

The ideal would never be ideal with arrogance, and in order to eliminate arrogance a true love must be found which can melt everything together. Then nothing will be separated. If someone pulls the son, the entire family will go too because everyone is welded together. Is your family like that? Right now the family is mixed up and separated. You should be able to say that your father is greater than the President of the United States. A parent must be able to say that even though his son is crippled, he is better than any Harvard Ph.D. Why? Because true love connects them. That is first and foremost.

the heavenly four positions the father, mother and children are welded by true love into one unit so that their positions are interchangeable, moving around and around. Then who is the center of this circular movement? God. There is a distinct rule in the true family that God is center, no matter what. Everyone goes toward God and nothing else comes first. Would a true father want his son to love him first before God, even for a short time? Would he be a true parent then? No, everyone would encourage each other to love God most.

Why couldn't husband and wife feel they were the closest, even just for a while? No matter how often father and mother may be living in different places on earth, if they are united in God they cannot be apart in spirit world. Though they are apart on earth, if they are united in the love of God then they will reach the same destination in God. Then they will become intensely close as husband and wife because God's love will be manifested in their own love. As much as they love God, God permits them to love each other in spirit world, even many hundred times fold. Even though they are separated. if they are truly loving and serving God then they shall be given hundreds of times more closeness as husband and wife in spirit world. They shall be royalty of love there.

When you meet your husband at God's throne, you shall meet him as a queen of love. Love for God shall ultimately unite kingship and queenship of love on the highest possible level. That is why on earth we should want our spouse to love God more than loving us. That's the way parents and children should think as well. We talk about true family in the Unification Church, but someone might misunderstand and lose faith by thinking they are not being given a chance to make their family because husbands and wives are often sent out on separate missions. If you are thinking that way, you are mistaken. This is the way you are going to be elevated into true kingship of love.

Even if you are never with your husband or wife here on earth yet your love for God is intense, God will melt you into one for eternity, far more than if you had lived an ordinary life with your family here on earth. You are becoming an extraordinary person by living for God your whole life, longing for your family to be together. But once you are elevated to the eternal world you shall be welded into the most glorious family.

You shall always remain a subject of the love of God and feel the intense presence of His love and ultimately move yourself to the position of God. I walked just this path. I started out in the servant position and then served in the position of adopted son. then son and finally parent. Who gives the diploma so you can graduate from one level to the next? Not God but Satan. You serve Satan's world until they can say you are far better than any servant in the satanic world and there is no one else who can meet your standard. Then you move on to the adopted son's position. There are many physical adopted sons on this earth, and you must pass all the criteria to be number one. Even though your stepparents hate you intensely, giving you nothing but grief, they should not be able to melt you. You should serve them and ultimately melt their hearts. Then they will sign your diploma saying that you are beyond their level and there is nothing they can criticize. When they surrender, you graduate to the next level.

At that point you are eligible to join the Unification Church. At that point you may think you have reached the final destination, but then I chase you out to witness and fund raise. I am in a position to give you the worst kind of tribulation and hardship, but if you endure with loyalty and filial piety then finally I have to say to God that I surrender to you. Then you have met the standard of true son and will be elevated to the parent's position. That is the principle of restoration by indemnity.

The more you receive persecution and harshness yet endure and love. the quicker you will get to heaven. God has to allow you to go through that. Don't misunderstand; God is not punishing you out of hate, but so that you can win over Satan by your own will and be separated from him. God wants Satan to be forced to say goodbye to you on every level because he has no more accusation. If you ever want to turn around and go back, Satan will chase you out because you don't belong in his world any more. That's what God wants.

When we look at the entire world in the scope of the dispensation, we see that we in the Unification Church are one family, including all five colors of skin. In order to live eternally with the True Parents in the ideal world, you shall elevate yourself to the true son's and daughter's position, but here I see that you are at many different levels. Some are at the servant level, some at the level of adopted sons, and so forth, but everyone should reach the goal eventually.

God created the physical world as the servant world, the angels as the adopted son's world and Adam and Eve as His true son and daughter. You should be able to command lordship over all things and even be able to command the angelic world. When you join the Unification Church you do MFT work first so that you can exercise your lordship over all things. Then you go to restore the adopted son's level, and ultimately come back to the family. Why do you need a family? That is where you can taste true parental love, in the true love of God and eternal ideal. The base for the Kingdom of Heaven is the family. The base for the true ideal is the family. The base for the true love and happiness is the family. In this family there shall be no more fighting between father and mother and there shall be no more tragedy of love.

Parents should not show their tears or fighting to their family, and in the ideal separation would be unthinkable. Divorce would be like cutting your own body in half. In order to separate the two of you, you would have to remove God out of your lives first, which would mean digging up all the love inside of you and throwing it away. That would be self­destruction, and who would do that?

You would like to have your family be God-centered, wouldn't you? Home church is the base for you to practice this particular way of life. Then later you will go back to Your relatives and install the ideal in the midst of your physical family. Everyone of you is now going through the tribal level since I have finished the nation and world levels. When you penetrate the tribal level you can go right to your family. This is where Jesus could not fulfill, so this is your starting point. You are going to love this tribe, your home church. You will be persecuted for that and yet you must love them unconditionally. By meeting that criteria you will ultimately love your family more than your tribe. Your tribe must bear witness, and signatures from 360 homes will be given that you are a son of God.

When you have your own family God is going to say that since you loved your home church tribe so much, you should go ahead and love your family more than your tribe. You must love your family more than you love anything else because they represent your tribe, your nation and world. That's the foundation of heaven. Once you reach this family level, there will no longer be any need for you to leave them. The basic atom of society is always the family, so the nation cannot disregard the family, the building block of heaven.

Now in the process of restoration we sacrifice our families, leaving them behind to work for the world, but once we restore our families that phase is all over. The person who cannot serve his parents or brothers and sisters would not be any good for the society or nation either. You should be able to receive a diploma signed by your household which states that you are truly a loving person. With that diploma you can go out to serve the society and world. In the future world, if you reject your parents and go out to society, there will be no place you can set your foot or be accepted. If your own family cannot welcome you then certainly society will not.

The family is the base for God's love to be connected to you, and from you to society. If you lose that base then how can you expect to have any other? When this ideology of the family prevails in America, this nation will be the greatest of all. The Unification Church is now providing discipline and training for young people to become this kind of pious son and daughter who can love the world, yet parents are trying to kidnap their children from the Unification Church. From the point of view of true love they are the worst criminals. They are like Judas on the level of family, betraying the ideal family.

Anyone who rejects the ideal nation on earth is truly Judas on the world level. That is what communism is doing. On every level we can find a Judas Iscariot, and when you enter spirit world, the ultimate Judas is none other than Satan. When we can win over all the betrayers on each level, we shall bring down the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

In the Unification Church, therefore, there is no barrier between white and black, for anyone who is separated by race cannot make this family. The entire world is heading toward the focal point of the family. The purpose of the entire dispensation of God was to build that ideal family here on earth; that was the entire purpose of each religion and all history. Initially we are setting the conditions for such families to be restored, and step by step we will actualize it. That will be none other than the Kingdom of Heaven.

Why did you come to the Unification Church? What is your goal? First, to find a God­centered ideology in your head, and true love in your heart. Then you will live in a true family. That's the purpose of everything. When we have an international holiday like Parents Day and you come to celebrate, the focal point is always the ideal family. You know the depth of your yearning and determination to fulfill the ideal family. If you have that desire then you are entitled to celebrate Parents Day; otherwise you are not.

Here you are trained in home church, the formation level. Next you move to the growth level, and will finally end up in the perfection level of the ideal family. We are ultimately going to restore True Parents Day and proclaim it all over the world. You celebrate True Parents Day with True Parents in the center, but in your home church area you shall be in the parents position and your 360 homes will come celebrate around you. As far as your tribe is concerned, the day you meet your husband or wife will be your tribal parents day. When that day comes your door will be open 24 hours and your home church children will come from every direction to celebrate. You will have lots of food and enjoy the day together.

Once your Cain home church is completed there is one more step-you will go to your home town and form your Abel home church centering on your relatives and family. Then you shall be truly elevated as messiah. Once you come to that point you will not have to do the difficult work of MFT or witnessing because you will have graduated from all that.

Your children won't have to have MFT training or witness door to door. There will be no more separation between God and men because their sensitivity will automatically lead them home. We will do all the difficult tasks from human history that need to be finished instead of leaving them to our descendants. We will hand down the glory, not the indemnity. It is a great blessing and a victorious declaration that we can do home church so that later on we can return to our home towns and become tribal messiahs.

Once you walk that path and live it in actuality, there will be no room for Satan ever to come near you with accusation. Unless you fulfill home church yourself, however, your mission will be handed down to your children with even greater suffering. Then there will be two separate worlds, the world of those children who must do home church in place of their parents, and the world where people are rejoicing over the true family and true ideal home. God does not want to see that division happen.

There is no doubt that MFT and home church are tough jobs, but I want to see you welcomed in your home towns and living in happy families. Do your utmost to bring the completion of that goal. Those who will do it, raise your hands please. God bless you. Let us pray.

State Leader's Conference, March 27, 1979

Reverend Sun Myung Moon

You look well, don't you? Everybody looks fine, prosperous. This is supposed to be a prosperous year, so you should look prosperous. We gathered together, all the European leaders, national leaders of the major countries, the state leaders, the 12 task forces leaders and the MFT leaders. The backbone of our movement is gathered here. So each one in this particular group of people must realize that you have an incredible responsibility upon your shoulders. You must come to this realization. How do you think-you have been doing in your area now that we have gathered together in a little less than two months since our last meeting? How have you done in fulfilling your responsibility? In another five days, one quarter of the entire year of 1979 will be over. What are we doing going at this pace? Very soon we'll be over one half of the year, three quarters of the year, and finally one year will be over. So as the days advance, our responsibility gets heavier.

That means we must exert added energy and longer hours. As time passes, we must apply ourselves to a greater, more dedicated degree. By the time we Realize our entire energy is needed and throw ourselves into the mission, it is too late. While you're going around looking for an easy way out, or a better place to live, or a better place to do things, it's too late. You always must think that when Father instructs you, you have an absolute obligation to respond to it, live it, work on it.

First, God draws lines. Then, parallel to those lines, Father draws lines. When Father draws lines, you will cover every portion of the line, drawing the line together with Father. When we say "Principle", or Divine Principle, we're not talking about choices, we are talking about one way.

There is no deviation, no choice; only one way to go.

When Father initiated the year, there was a motto for this year. Father gave you a motto and set instructions for the year. You must write down the instruction and live every word of it. This is the absolute standard. What then is the motto for this year? The Home Church and the Completion of the Kingdom of Heaven that's the motto. These are not simple, easy words; the words themselves have a tremendous connotation, meaning, capacity, and magnitude. You have to post that motto on the wall. Every day you are checking yourself whether you are living up to that particular logos, particular motto.

So many times Father gathers everyone at this conference and issues instructions, you are doing something else -- the instructions are one thing and your actions are something else. That's not right, and that is certainly not the way you can. receive the Heavenly Blessing. When Father issues an order or instruction to leaders, that order should be explained to your members without any exaggeration, without any deviation -- the explanation going all the way to the grass roots of our movement. So, when Father issues the motto, the meaning of the motto should be completely absorbed by our leaders. The leaders take it down to every member. Each one of them must inscribe the motto in their heart.

I don't want you to misunderstand. We're not gathered together for something convenient for your sake or your own activity. The planning is done not by you, but by the heavenly decision. Then the decision must be carried out with you being the first one to initiate it. This year we are going to set the tradition. So far, Father has been rather relaxed with you, and rather forgiving, but from this year on, we are going to set the tradition. Actually, when Father completes a conference here in headquarters, then each one of the leaders should digest the instructions, write them down and mimeograph them the very next day so that each of your members will be reading Father's instructions. Have you done it? Those who have done it, please raise your hands. What about the rest of you? So that means people down in the grass roots don't even know what Father wants to accomplish this year. Then how would you think God can bring down the entire host of heaven?

Or how can spirit world come down to assist you? How can you ever expect that to happen, knowing you're doing something entirely different from Father's own wishes? What obligation does spirit world have to come down to assist you? Think of it. Let's say in one nation, the president of that particular country issued a decree or order, and all the cabinet members and all the eschalon of the government are doing something else? How could that nation stand? Is there such a country on earth? What about one company, any corporation where the president of that corporation wanted to drive that particular company in a certain direction, but everyone else is doing something else. How could that company survive? If your own way would work, then why should Father bother you? Rather, Father would let you do your own way. There would be no need to meet, no need for instructions.

So the instruction remains as an instruction, while you are doing your own thing and the grass roots membership don't know about the instructions and are doing their own thing. So three different sections exist.

What is the subject of your prayer? The subject of prayer must be centering upon the annual goal, yearly goal. When there is an annual goal, then you divide it up into a monthly goal, and every leader is going to see to it that the monthly goal is fulfilled -- that's the leader's responsibility. This should be the way. Since the members are not ready to fulfill that much, you are the ones who will actually set the example and lead. The membership, is responsibility. So, if you are doing your absolute best to fulfill Father's wishes, Father's instructions, then you have done your share -- you have fulfilled your responsibility.

How can you make excuses? Without even trying Father's way, how can you say, "Well, Father, that doesn't work?" What kind of excuse can you have? What would you say to the spirit world? I want you to understand, you are responsible for one nation, or a segment of a nation. Father is responsible for the entire universe. What God has mapped out is Father's overall plan, which is instructed to you. If we plant a poplar tree, the in the German branch and the American branch should be the same -- one tree should be the same all over. There is a basic pattern to be unified. You are not fulfilling Father's wishes, because his instruction was not carried out. You are always making excuses and trying to do things your own way. Do you understand? There's no secret to success in our movement. It always parallels how much time, how much energy, heart. and soul, you devote to it. No matter how many years you continued what you have done in 1978, you would not win. You have to revolutionize yourself.

When you compare yourself now as a leader of the Unification Church to yourself when you first joined as a new comer, I'm, sure you did more witnessing and actually reaped more crops in that initial period as a very young member, than now. Why? Because in those days you were bubbling with enthusiasm, you were very simple and single minded. At that time, you were burning. You didn't have your own way, you just wanted to be so sure to follow the central way -- whatever was instructed. After you've established a long time membership in the Unification Church, then you've created your own concept or your own way of Unification Church life. You've created a method, your way. And you made habits in your life. You think what Father is saying is always an impossible thing, so you'll just listen for a few hours. When you go back, you will do your best, way. That has been the way so far with most of you. If that is the thinking, then who is the center of this movement, the. central person?

You are becoming the center of the movement. Instead of following some absolute instructions, instead of trying to follow the heavenly will, you are becoming the center of your own movement.

When you were very young in the movement, the newcomer, the brand new baby, you had no will of your own. You were very genuine, very pure. At that time, you were absolutely burning, so spirit world could work with you. The important thing is how to get the support from the spirit world. You alone cannot do it. When you are instructed something by Father, then you must pray and put your heart and soul into it. Day in and day out you are trying to sweat for it, shed tears for it. Then spirit world can be mobilized. Unless you give your 120% of yourself, don't expect spirit world to come and assist you.

There are so many instructions out. You have been given the instructions. What have you done? Show Father. So without following the instructions, no matter what, the further you go, the further you are retreating instead of advancing. So there is no way to revive that tree, unless some other living branches can be grafted onto it before the tree completely dies out. Father is thinking that we must have some new igniting, rekindling revolution among the leadership. We must change the attitude of leadership. So Father thinks the leaders should become front line soldiers and the secondary personnel, second level of leadership, should do the liaison work in headquarters. So after going out to the front line, you are actually working more than the person you have been instructing. In other words, you are competing with the person who used to receive instructions from you to make a better record. Then there must be hope to create a new, fresh movement. So, what's the purpose of this conference, after you spent so much money to come here?

Father is now setting up a new strategy, or principle, or policy, that the state level, state-oriented movement, is gone. Now, the city oriented movement is coming in. Do you follow? Even the national leaders' era is gone. Father wants to concentrate more task forces in a special city. Each city would have city to city competition. So far, the dignity of the national leaders and state leaders, blocks any achievement. Father thinks it's, far better that a brand new person without any preoccupation, just wanting to do the things instructed by Father, plunging into the mission 100% whatever Father instructed, would be a far better attitude. What would you think? Father gave such an important annual goal in our January First meeting. Now, the members, even after the month of March, do not know Father's goal, what Father has in his mind, what his heavenly directions are. So why are you here? Do you think that spirit world and God should come down and assist that kind of leader? Give him a miracle every day? When Father says you meet such a person, then you meet him. When Father says you do such a thing, you must do it. Do you think those people under you, those weak members under you would do it, even if you could not or would not do it? You think they would fulfill? How could they move the country or move the world? Think seriously. So, when you know Father's instructions, you are going to either live or die for the mission.

There is one subject Father has been praying about for 21 years without ever missing a day. Everyday, Father would put every bit of energy, and all his heart and soul into it. What kind of prayers, show down prayers, do you make? When Father gives out the motto on New Year's Day, then that becomes your subject of prayer, that becomes your action plan of the year. That's the only way you can improve and prosper. Otherwise, you have no way you can make headway or advance. You may think that Father is really hitting you in a very painful place. The most important mission Father has is to get rid of the title of leadership, the preoccupation to be a leader. In order to do that, Father might bring the leader to MFT, a front line soldier, to get rid of the idea of being a leader. "Yes, Father, There is no such a thing as my will. Father, whatever your will, I will do it. Father, give me a mission, give me the instructions." That is the training you need. That is the discipline you need. Father will have a plan of discipline. Otherwise no matter how many times Father will say, "Do this, do that" it will just be a waste of time. If Father is simply watching you, trusting and hoping that all things are going well and rosy, what will happen? In that case, Father is foolish.

The 1-1-1 motto has been a motto for a long time. If you as a leader were to go out and witness to one person, then already our growth in membership each month would number as many as in this room. You should keep adding, energy.

All right, this month I will go this much; next month, I will go definitely to the goal; next month, I will go beyond the goal. There must be some bubbling enthusiasm, some snowballing, some steam gathering. In that way, you see clearly you are not dead, but are moving, living and excitingly winning. Do you have that kind of spirit?

When you are very hungry, you are craving food. Do you have a craving for members, for fulfillment of your mission that is greater that your craving for food when you are hungry? What do you think? When Father speaks, you may feel, "Oh, that is another indemnity, another beating around the bush". But don't you know this road is your destiny? Live, or die here. Because if you don't do it here on earth, you have no chance anywhere else. This is why Father is very serious. This is not the oriental way, Father's way, or Korean way; this is God's way, the Heavenly way. You must understand. You are waiting for the sunrise every morning. You know that sunrise is coming from the east. By the same token, you are always waiting to receive Father's instructions. Who are you? What are you? What have you been doing? You are here to assist God and assist Father, and your members are assisting your mission. That is a question of destiny. Father's goal is not for any geographical location, or any one continent. There is no different way, there is only one central way of life. Father is trying to convert the entire world to that way of life, and you are destined to go that way. So, Father is the commander-in-chief, you are like the regiment commander, battalion commander. Although you don't know the cosmic direction, the universal direction, all you have to do is obey the orders of the commander-in-chief, that's your supreme duty. Now, without doing it, how can you be responsible for the mission?

So, today the most important thing in the order of business is that once you receive the instructions, that becomes absolute instruction. You know you are going to fulfill it, you are going to give that instruction to your members, so that everyone will know Father's instructions. Now you follow Father's instructions first, and fulfill it, then you can creatively do this and that, and it will be accepted. But before you go into that, you must fulfill 100% what you were instructed to do. Is that true? Do you think that is the correct way of thinking? Yes or no? So, we have to change our old way of thinking, completely liquidate it. So, in this time there is a total overhaul of the leadership. There are no leaders anymore. The leaders are going to be trained. All will receive the training, and we're going to give the toughest training from very early. Those innocent new members will order you. You shall be in a position to obey. You might say, "What are you talking about, I'm a state leader. I've been issuing orders, and you're trying to order me? It doesn't work, nonsense". When Father orders something, and you don't take it seriously, then how would you take the orders from these young members? Would you take them seriously? Think of it. The response was perfect. How can you eat with a peaceful mind and how can you sleep at night, when you know you have not fulfilled your quota, your mission? How can you live? How can you stay well?

You can do nothing, then you just have to sit down, your knees bent, tears running down, praying, just trying to give your repentance. Such prayers, long hours of prayer, the midnight prayers, all night prayers, are so painful. You might begin to think, "God, let me go and fight instead of sitting down here and praying. Let me go fight and win." That's another way' to inspire yourself. You're a big headed people and you have so many excuses. "Well, it just doesn't work", you might say. So how Jesus must have had such a heartbroken feeling, in his time, when he said, "Unless you are like a child, you shall not be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven". Little children, no matter how the father and mother treat them, are innocent and follow their father and mother. They are at least trying to do exactly what their daddy and mommy told them to do. So, after you joined the Unification Church, did you act as adults or more as a child? Answer Father. Child? So, therefore, you're. like a big man in the movement and a big leader, an adult, so how can you expect the spirit world to come down, and assist you? Father him-self is still like a child in front of heaven, when he stands in Front of Heavenly Father. That's why spirit world moves.

Father needs men and Father is desperate, that's why spirit world is mobilizing to come down and have mercy upon Father. So if you are taking it easy, how can the spirit world declare the emergency to you? This is the Divine Principle way of life, of teaching. Spirit world will not move unless you're fulfilling your commitment with your effort exceeding beyond the Satanic level. When you succeed beyond the Satanic level to an unreachable level, then spirit world will, come down, that's the simple principle. Why can't spirit world come down before that line? Because God needs heavenly forces that will set the standard higher than the Satanic world. You know Satan is doing so much and God's people can only do that much or even less, how could God say, "These are my people, these are my champions"? God would be ashamed. That's why spirit world would not come down and assist you. You don't take it seriously, but walk proudly with your chins up. How could your have such nerve?

This is an emergency. You come all this way to see, and hear Father. Father is not going to deal with you like this all the time. I want you to understand. You are leaders, you are representing Father. How much do you know Father? How much do you know? You only know as much as you know yourself. You cannot go beyond your own perfection, for that is as much as you are able to perceive. Do you know what Father is doing? Do you know how Father's striving now? What is Father's entire effort directed toward now? Many times when Father does a certain thing, the result is revealed ten years later. Because Father's directions is given, you must make your life parallel to it. Do you know when Cape Kennedy launches the moon shot that the rocket is actually aimed in entirely the opposite direction as the moon is located? Do you understand? But still that rocket is aimed at the moon, and will indeed go to the moon if the rocket follows the course. People who do not know anything about science, might say, "What kind of nonsense is this? The moon is over there, and you're shooting the rocket toward that direction?"

Do you have confidence that you're going to succeed the mission of restoration -- that you will be the heir to the history of restoration? Do you have confidence that you know everything? That you can succeed within a few yards of it, or a few miles of it? Do you have confidence, yes or no? You don't. You don't have any confidence, because your don't know it. It's true. It doesn't make any difference how many Ph.D.s you might have, how many college degrees you might have -- your Ph.D. has nothing to do with the dispensation of restoration. This is why the history of restoration, the dispensation of God, has not been touched, looked at or understood, even though there may be millions of scholars. How many times do you think of who Father is? Is Father only the one person to be criticized by the media? You just don't understand. At least one thing you could do: although you may not know Father fully, you do know the significance of Father and when Father instructs something, you should determine to give your 100%. to it.

Since you do not know, you might make a mistake. You have no confidence that you alone can do it. That's why you do your best. But sit down whenever you can grab a moment, and pray, "God, God". You should go out with the sunrise, work all day and come back at sunset, saying "God, thank you. I just hope I didn't make a mistake today. I'm coming back safely, thank God." You must live like that. You should feel like the little virgin girls, who is just being introduced into a bridegroom's room. This is entirely unknown territory, an unknown venture. How scared you are. That must be your case. There are such unknown things you are trying to tackle, that you are very humbly scared to death. Think of it, you did all kinds of free sex, mixed up with all kinds of men and women. When the time comes, should you go right into a bridegroom's room, thinking that you will be well accepted and welcomed? Do you think that kind of way would work?

So far, you are not even par with Father's instructions, not even near Father's expectations. It's so ridiculous, some of the reports are incredibly low. You should be shedding tears, gallons of tears every day, trying to live up to Father's wishes, still unsure whether or not you will be accepted. That's the kind of state you should be in. That's why God gave up billions in Christianity and took up the Unification Church. So God has the simple reason that He must offend the Christians to bring them back to His Will. God is willing to offend America in order to make the Unification Church rise. God might offend the entire free world, the entire Communist world, but He would still want to save the Unification Church. God has absolute reason for it. Have you thought about it? Certainly not! You must feel ashamed in front of God. You just have not been serious.

Father always brings his notebook because Father wrote down the instructions in a prayerful mind. Do you think Father gave you instructions just so you can beat around the bush? That means you don't even take your notebook for the instructions. You never take it seriously, you never take your instructions seriously. do you think the spirit world must work, for such a student? Then, if spirit world can assist such a person, the spirit world itself is fake, it's not real then. There's no way that the real spirit world can assist such a fake person. When Father sees clearly your real state, where you are standing, Father is heartbroken. How can Father pray? Do you want Father to say in the prayer, "Oh these wonderful sons and daughters of God, give them ample blessings and miracles"? Do you think Father has nerve to pray like that? Think of it. think of how much instruction you've been given; now much Father has been pouring out the way of achieving your goal and expounding on the way you can fulfill your mission. How much did you really get seriously to it?

What Father has been doing is an incredible thing -- so incredible no one can understand. Father does so many things early in time, ahead of time: the Korean situation, Japanese situation, so many things, you would find it hard to believe what Father has been doing. Ten or twenty years pass without any understanding, Then ten or twenty years later, members say, "Father, we just realized how you've been doing just the right things." Members come to be over forty years of age and say, "Father, now I truly come to realize who you are and what you've been doing." But then all this time, up to forty years that particular person wasted all that time. His age is forty and he says, "Father, forgive me, I didn't understand you." it's too late. Same thing is happening to you now.

Father declared three seven year courses, that's twenty-one years. After the declaration of the dispensation of the three seven year courses, do you think Father would have a Sabbath day, with even one relaxed moment? Father has to move the world. Those people who don't understand what Father is doing say, "Father, why don't you take care of the church, why do you worry about something else totally irrelevant to our movement? Why do you waste your time and your money?" People always criticize Father, including the closest disciples. And your are doing the same thing now. When a few of you get together, you say, "Oh, why is Father wasting money and time for such a thing? It would have been a lot better if he gave us that money and we do a little better job in the states." What about the world? Who is going to really take care of the world?

You are the state leaders, and when your ancestors look down at you, they will be heartbroken, saying, "How can you be a state leader, sleep comfortably on the bed, eating three meals a day?" So, in a different season, you should have a different seasonal boot, a different seasonal suit. You are the sinner of sinners. When Father gave such serious instruction, you had all kinds of time and energy doing things for yourself, while the instructions stayed in your notebook. And you know the Biblical story of the Prodigal son. The Parents instructed you to do certain things and you have not been doing that, but fooling around somewhere, wasting time and money, smearing the honor of the Parents. So the greatest problem is you, YOU. Not the spirit world, not the satanic world, you are the problem. Spirit world will only be activated depending on what you do. If you were not a leader of the Unification Church you would be better off, but you are already an assigned leader. This responsibility is not only the responsibility for you but will be shared with your posterity, your children and grandchildren.

When Fattier said, "Married couples, this is an emergency, your wives must go out in the front line". There was all kinds of side talk, after talk, and back talk. But actually, Father has done it first. Father has done it. Also upon his instructions the entire family has done it in Korea, and in Japan. So why shouldn't you do it? Are you different? You are the special class? You are immune? You have to go the same dispensation, the same route. There is only one way. Are you awakened now? Yes or no? If Father were an itinerary worker, Father could not stand what you've been doing out there. It would not be tolerable.

When Father first landed in America and came to New York, the New York center was a one room center, a small cubby hole, Father announced, "I want to make an impact of our movement on the entire city. In a few years, we are going to move the city, move the country". Everybody laughed at him. But your attitude is just the same as the attitude of those people when Father first arrived in America. Your attitude is not any different. Father is not a dumb or foolish person. Father is not mediocre. So, Father instructed so many things after he came to the western world. How can Father harvest all these things this year? This is the time for harvest, but where is the harvest? If nothing materializes, then the very person who gave that word, gave that instruction, should take up the punishment. So then, God will say, "You as instructor, as the person who commanded them, did you do your responsibility fully?" And Father has done it. And certainly Father has done it. In order to be in his position, Father has done it. Father is desperate -- really desperately going. No matter how many people may leave, the will of God must march on. This dispensation must abide. Father cannot let the dispensation down, no matter what. Do you understand? Do you think the restoration of the church, of the nation, of the world, would come automatically by your sitting comfortably in the living room? You must pay the price. If there's an impossible thing, make it possible. Then, who is going to be the price? You are the price. You must pay yourself. That's the way God sees it. That's the way Father sees it. Father knows clearly how God wants him to instruct you. That's so absolutely clear. When you're elevated in spirit world, you might say to Father, "Father, why were you so weak with us? Why didn't you push us out?" I know you will be cursing him, if Father didn't do this.

Of course, Father didn't want to say these harsh words to you. Because we've been meeting so often only several months. Once in a while, Father certainly wants to give you kind words and a kind welcome. Father's a human being, a parent. Then why must Father do this at the outset of this meeting? Just look at the world around you. Look at this free world -- the shape of the free world, the shape of this nation. Do you see it? Are you observing it? Yes or no? Who is going to take up the responsibility? So, we must wake up, wake up now! Give up your titles, give up your own position! You must feel that you are the innocent child. So national leaders, gigantic looking national leaders, that's not what Father wants. You're almost like a ghost house. We'll begin doing the conference. Do you think that you still need instructions from Father? Why do you need it?

We're going to fight against Communism. We're going to come against the injustices of the government and other churches. There are so many gigantic powers around us that are trying to destroy us. Don't you feel inside "I won't stand for it"? If you have the feeling that "My Father is being tormented, Heavenly Father is being given a hard time. He's heartbroken, then how can you stay in a peaceful sleep? When you're instructed the toughest thing, would you say, "Oh no, how can I do. it? It's impossible!"? If you think in that way, you cannot become any bigger than you are -- you can never grow. God instructed Father with many impossible things. But Father would never say, "Oh no, God, I've done enough." But rather, "Yes, Father, I will do it and I'll fulfill it!" God knows Rev. Moon has done everything that he can possibly have done here on earth. Father can go to Heavenly Father and know that Heavenly Father will accept him. "I know Heavenly Father will praise me. I know there is a report to make proudly, not shamefully." But Father does not want to rest.

I want you to understand, when you become a father, maybe some of you are already fathers, you'll have children. On that day you'll certainly realize by your own children, that you have not fulfilled God's mission fully, that you are the men of failure. What miserable things to be seen by your own children! And your wives will be miserable when they see they cannot present themselves proudly saying, "Yes, your daddy has fulfilled the Father's wishes." When you cannot give that kind of will to your children, you are miserable. Have you awakened? You don't mind Father sending you down to the front line of MFT? Those who have really done the absolute level of Home Church, please raise your hands. Do you think Father is doing the Home Church as a hobby, because he simply likes it? Without doing that dispensation, there is no Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

If there were 10,000 doing the Home Church in New York, then we could save New York. Ten thousand people divided up and really netted out, could make all kinds of networks. If we created a network of the Home Church in New York, working under one command New York would be saved. We will know who are the Communists, who are the criminals, who are the evil elements, in the communities. The police have no information really, so we would be in a position to educate them. And politicians, are naive -- they don't know what is really going on here, so we could educate them. Father has been preaching this since three years ago. How could you know what an incredible age of dispensation this is? Although you don't understand completely, you could demonstrate one great virtue: obedience. The Kingdom of Heaven hinges upon your ability to fulfill Home Church. Whether we can demolish and clean up the satanic world depends on Home Church. Home Church is the one way we can win.

I know this is the most difficult dispensation we have ever faced. If ever I plant a tree, I'm going to plant a tree that's the most difficult tree there is under the sun. That's going, to be our kind of experiences.

If Father is living and in his own lifetime there is slacking off, then what would you expect when Father is gone? Who's going to lead this movement? Who's going to straighten these things up? Even though you may have to drop out or be sacrificed, the tradition must be set firmly into the ground during Father's lifetime. Is that true? Is it easy or difficult? That's why we do it. That's why we are responsible. That is why God is sympathetic. That is why the spirit world will come down and help us. We don't have money or power, but we are competing with the powerful people, competing with the rich people, rich country. We still want to win. It's an impossible game. We are trying to win that impossible game. That's why God is sympathetic. He knows how difficult it's going to be. Your mission is actually very simple: to bring in one new member every month. Father has a thousand things to worry about, but you have only to worry about one thing -- one member per month.

Do you think this kind of meeting is needed every month? Every time? the meeting should be held with the people who obey Father. Those people should come and receive these instructions. Then this meeting would make sense. Now, there are some unnecessary people gathered here. Father doesn't like this kind of meeting. Father fears that the people who are here irresponsibly spread ridiculous rumors and defeat the purpose of the meeting. Those people who truly bear and digest Father's message 100%, can come. Should we just finish the meeting and go back home now? You know the third seven year course is near its end. Father needs leaders who are centered upon Father, for the sake of their country are saying "Father, I'm ready to sacrifice. Just give me any mission; I'm ready to go." Is there any such person here?

You know there are all kinds of governmental persecution continuing here in America. They're trying every possible way to revoke our tax-exempt status. After the defeat of the Fraser committee, it seems the American government felt their big nose was flattened. For the sake of revenge, the IRS is trying to give us a hard time about our tax status. We have done nothing wrong! After years of investigating, they couldn't find anything. How about the American Citizens here? Can you answer this question: If Father were a white man, would they display such evil and wickedness against this righteous movement? Such incredible things are going on behind the scenes. Continuation of this kind of action will eventually destroy this nation and the entire free world. In other words, they are actually resorting to self-destruction. This is America -- the place where Father invested so much money and manpower trying to save this country.

Father had instructed the Japanese movement to undertake an extraordinary condition for 120 days, from December 1978 to April 8th, 1979. They have been desperately fulfilling it and have now come to the end. Father had said "You can do it. The only time you would not give enough heart, enough soul into it, is the only time you would fail. Otherwise, you will succeed." That's what Father instructed. Today the Japanese leaders pledged to Father, "Yes, Father, we shall do it. We will never let you down." You know nothing about this theory. You must sleep in the van, work in the van, eat in the van. That's what the Japanese family is doing. Japanese members are knocking on the doors. Although they were so tired, they just kept going, going, going. When the master of the house opened the door, he found a person sleeping at the door and called the police. The police caught our member. For whom is that member working so hard? For you for this country of America. America, 36 years ago, was the enemy of Japan. Why should Japan work that hard for America? Because they know God and have met Reverend Moon. Without Rev. Moon, would they ever dream of working that hard? They are not in debt. They have not spent a penny. They have not bought anything, yet they go around like the world's most indebted person. Working with an iron will, Father chased them out, even pushed them out.

In Japan, the members have been wearing the same underwear for seven years, mending it year after year. After wearing it for seven years, one pair of underwear has been mended so much, they couldn't go' to the bathroom in broad daylight. In Japan everyone uses public bathrooms. Our members don't use the public bath, because they don't want to show such poverty to the public. So they go late at night or early in the morning so nobody sees them. At night, they come and wash their underwear, for the next morning they will wear it again.

Father knows that this is going on in Japan. What kind of sin or crime has that person committed? The only crime that that person has committed is to have met Father. Do you think Father is going to spend that money randomly, sprinkling it around? Absolutely not! You are indebted! You are indebted. In view of such sacrifice, you should feel that you have no freedom to eat, no freedom to sleep. Compared to Japan's pure hearted sacrifice, what you are doing is a sin, even a crime.

Father normally goes up to his room after midnight. After Father has retired to his bedroom, he seldom goes to bed. He just sits on a couch, or a hard chair, putting his head on a desk. That's the way he sleeps. The next morning, when Mother wakes him up, she is absolutely flabbergasted. She says, "Father, you need a few hours of good rest, you cannot go on like this." Mother worries about him. Every day that happens. Why does Father feel he must not rest? The moment Father sleeps is an hour when so many people around the world are praying. Father wants to be awake to answer those prayers, or to pray for them. As long as Father is concerned about them, or remembers them, then these people are not sorry doing their mission. As long as Father remembers these people, their effort is not in vain. They are comforted. That's why Father can't go to bed freely.

Father is now sixty years old. His body is different. There is a biological process: the age of sixty is sixty, not forty, thirty-five, or twenty. Look at Father's leg, you may not see it, but this is not a normal leg. When you push it down, it goes in deeply. That means Father is carrying a bad leg. It is so bad, that when you push into his leg with your finger, the hole stays there. But Father keeps going. Father knows that he may die this way. But if he would die this way, it would be no problem; he's ready to die in battle. How about you? Father's scolding his own leg. Mother knows that so well and is so concerned and worried. That's the way Father goes. That's the way Father wants it. That's why spirit world has to sympathize with Father. Spirit world cannot stand still. You are young people aren't you? So many nights without food or sleep, you can still go on. That's the privilege of youth. Father has lived his youth that way. If you would live your youth in the same way as Father did, you would not lose.

God prays. God not only prays to you but to your generation. You must feel that I am not going to be indebted to God. God must be indebted to me. I don't want to be indebted to God. I want to prove that as long as my life remains.

You must create motivation. Without motivation, there is no cause and therefore, no effect. The spirit world works precisely on that principle. You must do something to move the spirit world. Otherwise, spirit world would never respond. That's the principle, the principled way of life.

Heaven And Us

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
March 25, 1979
Belvedere
Translator - Bo Hi Pak

In Oriental philosophy, the word "heaven" connotes huge and noble things, while "earth" connotes small, lowly things. However, this distinction came to exist because of the fall of man; if there had been no fall there would be no such difference between heaven and earth.

When we speak of heaven, we speak of God; when we say earth, we speak of human beings. If God is all alone, He cannot be fulfilled, so He needs to come together with human beings. The purpose of creation can be fulfilled only when love is fulfilled, and love cannot be fulfilled by one alone; there must be two, in the relationship of subject and object.

When love is fulfilled, both the upper and lower areas are fulfilled equally. Because of the fall, love could not be completed, so there are many different barriers which separate heaven and earth.

When the highest point comes down and the lowest point comes up, they can meet in the middle. Man fell, not God, and God cannot go down to the point of the fall. Thus man must be able to bring himself up, uniting mind and body. The most important thing for man, then, is to know God and to conquer his ignorance of his situation. Thus God has been working to bring people out of darkness so they can know God's true nature.

Two major efforts to advance mankind have been made. They are science on the external level and religion on the internal level. What is the destiny of science and religion? They meet at the point of the fulfillment of love. Here we are not talking about human love but the love of God. All efforts to discover God will ultimately reach the one point of the true love of God.

In each entity there are two aspects-an internal and an external. They must meet at one point. To truly become one they must know each other, so mind and body should share knowledge of each other. In order for science and religion to unite, they must understand each other. Each person has his mind and body in horizontal alignment, side by side. God's mind and body are in the same position. Here on earth man should have unity between his mind and body, and in spirit world God also should have such unity. Man's mind and body meet horizontally, while God's unity of mind and body is vertical. Thus we are going to reach God not only through religion but also through science.

What does God need to realize joy in His mind and body? The same answer will apply also to people. What makes you joyful and happy? When your plans or ideals are realized, you are happy. The realization itself is not enough, however; it is the coming into oneness with a subject or abject in reciprocal give and take that creates happiness. Then what makes God happy and what is the work of God? His work is the perfection of human beings; that would be God's goal and masterpiece. That is the point of ultimate joy and goodness, at which both God and man will say, "That is the best there can be" That is the point of love-not secular, carnal love but the original, pure love of God.

I want you to understand that unless your mind and body are united, your are not eligible to meet God. We have two eyes but they have one focus and they produce one image, not two. That focus is always between the two eyes, not in front of one or the other. Sound waves enter both ears, but the nervous system coordinates those impulses into one sound.

When a person's mind and body are totally united, their focus is upon God. When God's mind and body are united into one, what is their focus? It is people. When these focal points meet, they discover that they are alike. When they discover their likeness, they can stimulate each other in give and take and fellowship.

What is the common goal that excites them both? It is love. Therefore, unless God finds love, He cannot find completion; and unless man finds his ultimate goal, which is the true love of God, he cannot achieve completion either. When God focuses upon man and man focuses upon God, and the two are united, the entire universe is united. In human love, the nervous system focuses to transfer sensation to the whole system. If the mind is willing to live this way but the body is lethargic and doesn't obey, then the mind body alignment is askew. Then the person is crippled, just as if he were missing an arm.

It is most important that we focus our life. You should understand that the focus of the entire spirit world is God and that of the physical world is man. Can you imagine that God would arrange His creation in a sloppy manner? I know that God organized it to focus upon one point both on earth and in spirit world.

There are two aspects to everything in the physical world: positive and negative. Within those positive and negative aspects there are also internal and external elements, or mind and body. Once positive and negative electrical charges meet, you can't tell which is which. Likewise, you can't tell where positive starts and negative ends in a magnetic field. But there is action in the magnetic field and energy is created.

By the same token, men and women are different, but they are not enemies. Instead, each focuses on the other and how to win his or her love. Every nerve and all five senses focus on love. In the secular world today, many people don't look beyond the fact that men and women can meet and love each other. But that is only the beginning point, like flipping the switch.

Once an electrical switch is flipped, energy from the power plant can start to work wonders. In the same way, men and women together start to work wonders when they tap God's power plant. When you know this, living really becomes a joy. Electricity can light ups a palace. but also a smelly countryside bathroom. Would the electricity refuse to light up such a place? Electricity works universally, once it is hooked up.

Would nerves refuse to provide sensation for dirty, smelly feet, or the blood refuse to circulate through arteries and veins there? Would ocean water say it has no connection with the polluted water in New York harbor? The oceans all over the world are part of one body of water. In the same way, once love is activated it can go anywhere in the universe.

Most young people would like to travel the entire world with their husband or wife, and then later with their own children. Wouldn't a king like to see the beauties of the world accompanied by all his subjects? We envy the freedom of the birds who can take off for other parts of the world without needing passports. The barriers in our world such as immigration restrictions and nationality are manmade, so once we can get rid of those barriers, we will live in one world with as much freedom as the birds.

Would ducks from the north discriminate against ducks from the south? Would they refuse to marry each other? It doesn't matter where they are from, as long as they are ducks!

I am constantly telling you that you have to serve others and focus on other people, because by doing so you create unity. If 1,000 people are focused together, they generate great energy and power. A good athlete has to focus his energy and distribute it perfectly in the pursuit of his sport. The pushing force and the pulling force must be harmonized to create tremendous power. The greater the power of give and take, the greater the wonder it can create. Is God great or tiny? God can stretch His arms from pole to pole, embracing the entire universe in give and take. We know God is a great God, so logically His creation-man-is supposed to be great, also.

My eyes focus at one point, yet my vision carries across the entire world. Your line of focus can be extended as much as you want. Your ears "focus" within your brain, but actually you want to hear universal sounds. You inhale and exhale air through your lungs but that air can travel all around the world, linking you to it. In daily life we are dealing with one universe, one air, one water, one sunlight and one land.

Do you want to focus upon your husband or wife without being interested in your society, nation and world? A man and woman who attain unity should try to focus on the larger entities, such as society, nation and world. The greater your vision and the greater the distance you focus on together, the greater your life becomes.

Has anyone before thought like we Moonies? We say that as individuals we represent the entire universe. Furthermore, you even think God looks like you, not that YOU look like Him! This short brother here thinks he is big enough to embrace all of America and the world. This would be impossible to achieve through physical means, but through love he can do it. There is no nationality in the world of love because love travels all over, like air. Can love reach all the way to God? Love will penetrate God's system and reach His heart.

If God's love were locked up in a vault with many locks your love could even penetrate that vault. That means your love is the greatest secret key of all. Everyone is focused upon love and even God hangs onto it. All things of creation cling to it as well.

Everyone, whether Eastern or Western, young or old, likes to possess beautiful things. When we consider what is the most precious treasure in the universe, we conclude that it is love. Even the spirit world would concur.

If you use true love as the key, every door can be opened. Do you think this is true in spirit world as well? If there was no such thing as true love then there would be no way to unite God and mankind for eternity. Since the human fall, the heart of God has been sealed shut. Would offering Him money or lovely jewels open His heart? If you offered Him the largest diamond, He could point to a mountain of diamonds that He already owns.

Many people think knowledge is almighty, but will that open the door of God's heart? God will say, "Is that all you know? I made it all" If you have great worldly power, can you command God to open His heart? What does God yearn to have? Not money, knowledge or power, but only true love. Love has an almighty, uniting quality which can govern and be governed. It is absolutely flexible.

If you know someone is pinching you because he truly loves you, you want him to pinch you harder! Love can digest both extremes of happy and painful things. The one thing that can dominate the entire creation is true love. Do you agree?

Love is communicated even without language. A puppy knows whether you love him or not. Likewise, a bird can feel love; even the trees and grass can feel love. If you love a deadly poisonous snake, it too can feel your love. Love is supreme. If you had a little chunk of love, would you hoard it in a pocket close to your heart, or would you sprinkle it around the world so that it would multiply and make you a millionaire of love? In order to become a millionaire of love, you might have to shed gallons of sweat and tears. Would it be worth doing even then?

You can reach God only with love. He is the center of the universe, so whoever possesses more of Him will be the richest person. Then no matter how much sacrifice is needed to obtain Him, you can do it. Without sacrificial love you cannot make God your prisoner. God is like a gigantic fish and love is your bait. Cod loves love so He will swallow as much bait as you offer Him. When you sow true love, you will harvest love and God is bound to be close by.

Unification Church members are fishing for God so we sprinkle our bait everywhere. God is a gourmet of love so He knows its exact taste, whether sour, sweet or flat. God knows a hook is hidden inside that love but it doesn't matter to Him because He is confident He can digest that hook too.

You enjoy certain tastes, and in the same way God prefers a certain taste of love. I want God to say that Moonies' love is the best love He has tasted in 6,000 years. You cannot make tasty love out of small, individualistic love; that is bitter love. But when you have love that wants to save the world and serve others, God will savor it. God may be gigantic and awesome looking, but once He tastes that love, He will melt and be like a child. Then He will want to go wherever you go.

Why were you born? Furthermore, why were some of you born as men and others as women? Was it to eat meals? The lowliest statement a person can make is that he lives to eat. Some people seem to think they were born to study, but what a narrow life that is. It is beautiful, eternal and good to say we are born to love. Every life here on earth today is the fruit of love. You can say you participated in the love of your parents, your grandparents and so forth. You were born at the place of love and the motivation for your life was love. After you were born, you received the love of your parents.

Why do your parents love you? Why do all the animals love their offspring? It is because children are the witness to their parents' love. Cause and effect both spring from love; because of this most awesome truth, parents have to love their children, not only in the human world but also in the animal world. Children who live in the love of their parents are very happy children.

Today in America there is something called a generation gap, with parents and children thinking they will live their own separate lives. This means they have lost the home base of love and they have nothing to return to. God designed the family to expand its pure love to the society, spreading one color of love all over the country, then to the entire world.

The children who are born and live in love at home can become patriots in their nation and even saints in the world. The same principle works on these different levels. Just as water in New York is the same color as water in Norway, the makeup of the whole human world is the same. When you fulfill the criteria of love in your home, you can live the same criteria of love in the nation and the world. People should be born in love, grow and mature in love, and then die in love. We continue to live eternally in that love with God in spirit world.

This world is a training center where you learn by stages how to love the world. You graduate from this school when you go to spirit world and there you can experience love for eternity. Perfected love can be compared to a perfectly round bowling ball that knocks down all the pins. But the love of those who fail in the workshop of love is like a square shaped or lumpy ball that doesn't roll properly. True love is perfectly round and can go anywhere and can find its way in any situation. Even if that ball travels in an erratic pattern, it will always hit the final target. If I can think of all this, don't you suppose God has thought about this even more?

Love is round, shining, beautiful and tender. The more you touch it, the more you like it. Therefore, love is good. Naturally you want to receive love from your parents, and you must receive the same amount of love from your society, nation and world. Would you like your love to be confined to only your parents or to expand to the whole world? Will you receive love if you just tell people to love you?

The origin of love is God, who is always taking the initiative to give love to the world. You are in a position to take the initiative also. God is thrusting love downward, and you are thrusting love upward; the idea is always that each takes the initiative. Without question, love is good but to make your love truly good, you have to have the power to encompass difficult and bitter things. You should be able to embrace both extremes, loving not only America but also the enemies of America.

Would you lose anything with that kind of love? No, by practicing this love you come to resemble God. It is natural to like the people who also like us, and if there had been no fall then that is all anyone would need to do. But because of the fall, that kind of love is not good enough; now we must have the power to embrace the people who hate us.

What is the difference between Satan and God? Satan moves only in one direction but God moves in all four directions and embraces everything. Thus we must have the capacity to love evil people as well as good ones. That was the teaching of Jesus.

A healthy person can digest anything he eats, even dried corn. If some kinds of food make your stomach ache, then you don't have enough digestive power. You Moonies should have the capacity to digest everything. To develop such capacity, you should look for the things and people whom you hate and who hate you the most and learn to embrace them. Once you have digested the worst, then everything else is no problem. If you are a logical person, this is an obvious conclusion.

The jobs that no one else wants to tackle are the things you should willingly take up and come to enjoy. Then when God sees that you just keep loving these things, He will say, "You have been there too long. Come on up here,' end you will rise up higher and higher. If you are going to love the world, should you first have fun and take lots of vacations, and then love the world in your spare time? Imagine a woman beautiful enough to be Miss America yet who forgets herself and works all the time for the sake of the world. Such a beautiful woman might receive marriage proposals from many distinguished men, but she would say she didn't have time for that now.

You are intelligent men and women, so which route would you take in order to win the love of God-unselfish or selfish love? If you totally practice unselfish love for ten years, I guarantee that people will think you are truly the image of God. You will have the key to solving every problem people have. You may think this sounds very colorful and dramatic but when you try to put it into practice, it is very difficult. Anything may seem easier than loving the impossible people of this world.

If I know how difficult this is, why have I dedicated thirty years of my life to it and why am I still pursuing it, after having been persecuted and criticized everywhere? The goal is to have love that will penetrate the entire universe and you know that cannot be easy to win. We are talking about love that can shatter the bonds of earth and go straight to the throne of God. Will God just smile quietly when that love hits, or will He be knocked out? When God is hit by that love He will tumble over and over; nothing could be compared with the expression of His joy.

Was my decision to go this route the right one? Now that I am almost 60, do you think I have regrets about my youth being wasted on something worthless? You have the freedom to go to movies and such, but when I was your age I didn't have any freedom.

On the foundation I have laid, you can be grafted to me so no matter how imperfect you are, you are like a limb of the tree. I have won the ultimate battle so by being grafted to me and following my standard, you know you are protected from going wrong. You are the bud which will blossom. Can my buds belong to you? No. Since you are branching out from me, you must produce your own buds and blossoms. You cannot claim that my flowers are good enough and that you only have to reap the benefit of my blossoms. You must fulfill perfection as branches and produce blossoms yourselves.

When you create many blossoms, you draw energy to that area and then you will send out new branches. If some branches are exceptionally energetic, the tree will grow in their direction, but when everyone works with equal power the branches will be balanced and the tree will grow straight. This is why I want each of you to do equally well. Thus you can't shirk your responsibility when everyone else is fulfilling theirs.

If one main branch dies and falls off, the tree starts to lean to the other side where there is still activity in the healthy branches. In the human body, healthy blood is welcomed wherever it circulates, but when it is unclean, it is just a burden. The best thing for a tree is for someone to chop off the dead branches and graft on healthy little branches.

One branch of our tree is Korean, another is Japanese, another American and so forth. I am observing which branch is more energetic and powerful. If one branch is not doing too well, I will graft another little branch there to strengthen it.

Who is better able to endure hardship-cultured people or primitive people? Most cultured people have almost zero endurance, while primitive people have 100 percent endurance but no culture. God is very fair in not distributing culture and endurance together! When I came to lead the American movement, I had a tough time because the Americans had their own yardsticks to evaluate me with. Cultured people think the night is for sleeping, for instance, so they thought my way wasn't right for them. Some people insisted they needed eight hours of sleep and three meals a day on time. But these criteria become obstacles when we are fighting the revolution of true love.

In the midst of war, you can't have beautifully laid tables and grand food. But when you finally gain true love, it is the most cultured thing you have ever seen. I brought many Japanese and Germans to this country to show Americans how to endure; people in these nations suffered much during and after World War II. When I told them to compete with the American members, the Americans thought it wouldn't work because these people didn't know the American nature. But when the result came in, the Japanese and Germans were the winners and the Americans realized they had to change their outlook.

I pointed out to the Americans how the Japanese did the best even though they didn't know English. The Americans didn't like to hear that so they would sometimes say, "l wish those Japanese weren't here!" Even now, that process of education is still going on. If you Americans are the leading citizens of the world and very cultured people, I want you to be the winners in endurance also, so that is how I am training you.

Is it easier to give culture to people of great endurance or to train cultured people to endure? Once the cultured people are awakened and make up their minds, they can quickly develop endurance. But to raise up uncultured people takes a long time. That is why I came to work with Americans. In the process people accused me of brainwashing, but it doesn't matter.

I want you cultured Americans to dig down and endure 100 percent and then rise up to change the cultured world. Then America can be the hope of the world. America has grave problems, even though it thinks it has the greatest society in the world. American culture today is moving backward toward primitiveness, with people like the hippies leading the way. Someone should teach them the proper way of gaining the endurance of primitive peoples, and then they can learn to create a new heavenly society. I came in the nick of time to do that.

American youth has no clear direction to follow at this time, but when they look for a place to drop anchor they are attracted by the Moonie ideology. They recognize that a nation based on it has to prosper and then they can have hope. But even though they see it is good, they sometimes decide not to follow it because it requires too much sacrifice; they want everything to come easily. Some say that if they could only do what they liked, then this would be the perfect ideology for the world. But if we ever compromise our basic way of life, then everything will disappear. There is no way we can become like the world and still be the light of salvation.

People may hear the Divine Principle and think it is fine, but wish Chapter Two wasn't part of it, or they wish that the Second Advent was still on the clouds. I could make some people happy by altering the Principle. Do you think God should give up the difficult parts of this ideology? If God were willing to do that, then we could too, but God will Just go His own way instead of compromising. If people can't adjust then there is no solution for them. Even if all of you say you cannot go this way, I will still go my own way. If America totally rejects me and refuses to live that way of life, will say farewell and go to the primitive people who know how to endure. What would happen to America then? This nation would crumble far below the level of primitive people. It is our destiny to accept and live this ideology.

I don't want you to become like primitive people, but to learn their quality of endurance and use it to lead the world. You must decide that you will go on with iron will for seven years, and then everything will be over. Don't crave the American standard but live for seven years in the lowliest places. This thinking is like a diamond wrapped in dirty rags-you don't have to worry about anyone trying to steal it because no one will ever suspect what you have. Is this more real to you than eating when you are hungry or sleeping when you are tired?

If you could only lose by living this way then no one would join, but you know that no matter how much you suffer, you will not only win in the end but will recoup many times more than you invested. This is the secret of winning people's hearts without fighting physically and shedding blood. The more you live this life, the more you will become the central person in society.

The most dazzling example of this is Jesus Christ. He was a miserable, suffering, persecuted young man who died when he was only 33. Today one can travel around Israel in just a few hours; it was in that tiny country that Jesus taught. Furthermore, he was executed as a treasonous criminal. The fact that one man died in such a tiny country 2,000 years ago would seem about as important now as one little insect breaking its leg in this country; yet that one "insignificant" life was the root of an entirely new world culture. No other individual has had such impact on the world.

Is our tradition and teaching the same thing that traditional Christianity is teaching today? Is the distance between the New Testament and the Old Testament greater than the distance between the New Testament and the Divine Principle? In my own lifetime, I have had impact on the entire world. I came to this country to warn America that it would crumble if it did not return to God. This would be parallel to Jesus going to the Roman Empire and warning of its doom unless they accepted God. I am doing more drastic things now than Jesus was able to do in his time.

Jesus had only a few disciples, but today many young people of all different races follow the Principle and are working to build the Kingdom. The world has even tried to kill me but am I a man of failure or success? Even now after 2,000 years there is a great rift between Judaism and Christianity, but today in my lifetime, Christians of all denominations are accepting me as a prophet and supporting my cause. It is an amazing thing.

Koreans gave me the worst persecution and the established Christians were the fiercest. But when I last visited Korea, many people were saying that there had never been such a hero as Reverend Moon in the 5,000 years of Korean history. Imagine how much the dispensation has advanced when the Christians who persecuted me are now convening to declare their support. It is true that Korea has one of the most vibrant Christian communities in the world. Also, Korea is a buffer zone between the communist world and the free world. While the whole free world economy is shaking, that one tiny nation is growing faster than any other.

At one time many Japanese hated me fanatically but now Japan's leaders see that Unification Thought alone provides hope for their country. Now Korean and Japanese scholars are gathering to declare that the Unification teaching provides the only hope for Asia. You are in your twenties and thirties. Imagine how America will change by the time you are in your forties. If you continue the pace of your work today for another ten or twenty years, you know you will cover many miles and really have an impact on this nation.

With CARP we have created a heavenly tornado on the East and West coasts; one campus after another is in turmoil now. Change never comes unless you shake people up. Every campus has its own communist organizations which always try to stop our meetings. The professors' organizations divide into Cain and Abel factions over us. War is being waged.

Today many Americans are focused on the Unification Church and some ask if there is any way to get Reverend Moon out of this country. They think that then all the Moonies will go back home. Are they right? Today I am declaring that until the world becomes one, this focus upon the Unification Church will only keep growing.

Not only America focuses upon me but in each nation, every small thing I do becomes news. Did I cause such an extraordinary thing, or did God'! Together we did it. By doing this, will I survive or falter? Will I be victorious? If I won't take responsibility, will you? If I ever became a communist, I would be the worst one, but luckily I am a champion of God, promoting the love of God in the world.

Today's topic is Heaven and Us. What is this "us" all about? We are the focal point. When we start businesses, we are the focal point of the business world. When we start a school, we are the focus of academia. In home church, we are making history. Whatever we do, we become the focus. People have never heard of anything like us, because this is the first such religious group in history. But God loves it, spirit world loves it and people of the present and future will also love it.

How do you know the spirit world focuses on us? There are many phenomena today that testify to that. You are not alone when you fundraise because the spirit world is working with you. Did you know that Confucius and Buddha and Mohammed are our MFT members? Not only that, but God joined our MFT!

How many focal points would you like to have? If your focal point is the love of God, then actually you are focused on everything, 24 hours a day.

I recently sent Bo Hi Pak to Korea to get government approval so that we can start the Sun Myung Moon University there. He told them that people will come there from 120 nations and that there are Nobel prize winners already on the planning board. When they heard my plans those officials were astonished. Do you think it can be done?

One asset you have is that you are young. If you work just like I worked, there is no limit to what you can do. What is our overall focus? It is God. Every Sunday morning I emphasize one thing-true love. Everything in the universe focuses upon true love; that is the source of life. In the spirit world the love of God is the rising sun.

Once you possess the true love of God, you will be the focus of the world wherever you go. I am intently pushing you out so that you can quickly become the focus of the world. You will experience how much God has suffered in restoring mankind. I want you to understand how much God endured. If you had the power of almighty God, I'm sure you would have crushed the world a long time ago. Now you know you have to be patient, no matter how long it takes. Our weapon is education, so instead of destroying people we will raise them up.

God saw and heard much wickedness over these thousands of years, yet He has been patient. By the same token, you have to be able to endure the criticism of the world. We must win the love of God; only that one thing matters. God has been the king of patience in history and so we must be princes and princesses of endurance. God gave His only begotten Son and saw the world kill him, but still God was patient. That is the endurance of God. Do you want it? You must have infinite patience and endurance if you want to gain true love.

I have received overwhelming criticism but I don't want to remember any of it. I want to forget within 30 minutes any accusation that comes. God has been forgetting the evil things and remembering the good news. I can always be grateful and thank God for the opportunity to participate in His hardship and learn His endurance. With that power alone can we understand God and become like Him.

How much has God trusted people? In all biblical history man has failed God and has been untrustworthy, but still God trusted. Without trust there is no way God could continue the work of restoration. How could man continue to try if God did not trust him? Thus when we learn from God, we must learn how to trust other people even though they may fail us a thousand times. Even though they lie to you, still trust them. Even though they cause you pain, still trust them.

Thank God that you can participate with Him in trusting unconditionally since you yourself have been untrustworthy. When you meet someone who is difficult to trust, you can thank God for the opportunity to practice His trust. God wants so much to love man that He gives everything unconditionally. By imitating the God who is infinitely loving and trusting, we can learn that wonderful way of love. When God sees someone who is trying to practice this way of life even while he is living in hard circumstances, God wants to show great mercy to him. You can win His heart and He will shower His mercy and grace on you.

In home church you are persecuted many times. Your roster will be your record of persecution but God comfort you and be right there with you. Persecution is a necessary ingredient. In many cases when your people are rude and curse you, you come back to the center feeling depressed. But instead you should be jubilant over what they have given you that day.

By enduring their hostility you will become a universal person who can go to both hot and cold places, high and low places and be welcomed there. In that way, you will become a central point. You love to see me because I am such a central point. I am almost 60, so wouldn't you ask me to sleep late and let a younger person give the sermon on Sunday? No? How cruel you are! When I leave New York to go abroad, you feel America is empty because the focus of love is temporarily away. I am always trying to be the focus of your love and I always focus my love upon you. This is why I am generous with you and forgive you all the time, giving you another chance and trusting you.

The twelve months comprise one circle of seasons. There is always balance there, with six months up and six months down, six months left and six months right. One place is hot and the other cold. Each season reaches a peak and then changes. You cannot say you want only spring or only enjoy hot weather. Most people don't like winter but you have to live through it. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, and at least three disciples collaborated with him; their betrayal was equivalent to the three months of winter. You must pass through winter to welcome spring. Winter is essential because without it nothing can be prepared for the spring.

When water freezes it expands and through that process the hard shell of a seed bursts and is ready for spring. God is truly a great scientist. When you see isolated aspects of the creation, you don't understand the greatness of the whole picture; but when you see the whole picture, you can see the wisdom of having a season like winter. In the Unification Church now we are completing our winter and getting ready to welcome spring. Then we will go on to blossom fully in the summer and bring the harvest in autumn. When the seeds are harvested, we will enter winter again and be ready to be tested again. Then the cold will beat fiercely on us but the life in the seed will remain intact, waiting for the spring and summer. New life will come.

You are persecuted and ill-treated but the life within you has been activated, hasn't it? Are you ready to come out in the spring? Americans think that their nation will always prosper, but that is not so. While Americans are enjoying spring, summer and autumn, you are building up the power to survive the coming winter.

The Unification Church is full of hope. We will not be a great movement unless we are hardened and tested, but then we will be strong and able to prosper anywhere in the world. In order to be a healthy person, you must be able to live in and enjoy all of the seasons. In the same way, you should be able to serve all four different categories of people-like spring, summer, autumn and winter. You can say that you need all four kinds of people, just as you need all four seasons.

That is why Jesus selected twelve disciples, all of them very different. Jesus focused his love upon each person and then they became one united group. You should be able to serve and focus on twelve different people in harmony.

In one day we can see signs of the four seasons: morning is like spring; daytime is like summer; evening is like autumn and night time is like winter. In order to make a full circle, your movement must be both up and down. You cannot go just one way. We should know how to go both up and down because God does both. Satan, however, only knows how to go up; ultimately he will fall all the way down. When you encounter tribulation and suffering, don't think that you are destroyed. As much as you must go down, you can come up again that much higher. That is the method God wants to teach you.

Together with the spirit world we are going to focus on the eternal love of God. As Moonies we have a tremendous capacity: we can focus ourselves no matter where we are because we have the true love of God. People see us now in a bad light but as soon as they see that their focus is wrong, they will change.

If you totally serve and sacrifice for others, you will become a central figure wherever you go. If you live like that, you will be elevated into heaven as a central figure. Your eyes should search for the places where people are in misery; your thinking should be focused on how to liberate hell; your ears should want to change the sad sounds of hell; and your mouth should speak the glad words of salvation.

Look at the world through God's parental eyes and speak words of salvation. If you live like that, you will be a victorious person; you will be approved as God's son or daughter. This is a task more urgent than anything else. You should get to the point where you forget the calendar, forget night and day. The place where we must do this is home church.

Therefore, be proud of being persecuted. When you are walking on a windy, rainy day, soaking wet, be proud of it. When your shoes are broken and you have to stuff them with cardboard, be proud of it. When someone curses you, be proud of it. My only worry was that America might ignore me, but it hasn't. Since you are like God and like me, your worst worry is that people will ignore you.

If you can say that you will go this way without failure, raise your hands, please. Thank you. God bless you.

Return To Hometown

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
March 18, 1979
Belvedere
Translator: Bo Hi Pak

Where is your hometown? When the original human ancestors became fallen, they departed from their original home, which was the ideal world. When we say "ideal world" we are including everything that is good. Anything we want to possess belongs to that ideal realm. What do you want to have? You want your parents to be the ideal parents. You also have brothers and sisters, neighbors and a society. and you want all of these to be linked to the ideal.

We can basically divide ideal things into three categories: ideal world, ideal man, and ideal God. You might say that God is perfect from the beginning, but the fall brought the death of His children: how could God feel joy when He saw that His children were all dead? How could there be ideal parents if there were no ideal children?

God became a sad God, and mankind wandered in despair. When God is heartbroken and man is in despair, all things of creation are caught in between. They also lead a tragic existence because there is no one to give them joy. Because the creation did not fall, it is in a position to reject fallen mankind. Creation knows that only original man has the right to govern it, that fallen man has no right to exercise dominion. But all things of creation have been exploited and damaged by fallen man.

A tragic history has unfolded in human society as men have competed and fought and tried to take advantage of one another. Evil originated with the two human ancestors and has multiplied to every corner of the earth. The brothers of the next generation were enemies, and there was also separation between parents and children. Men are destined to he united and live in harmony but they became separated because of the fall. History has recorded only division among men, yet we are destined to unite. Therefore, there is a movement organized to unite men in their original state.

Many leaders have tried over the centuries to unite their tribe, or nation or the world under their ideology, until today we can see basically two ideologies in the world. In the reality of today's world we see nothing but despair and restlessness, but even under those circumstances people are still longing for and talking about unity and ideals. Even in past centuries when people enjoyed relative peace in the world they still harbored a desire for a higher goal and ideal. Today many people think we have reached the end of the world, yet still they talk about hope and the ideal.

What is the solution for this world? There is some road teach to the hometown or birthplace for the individual, hut whether in East or West there must be one central formula for every individual to reach that ideal. There must also be some pattern and formula for a husband and wife to reach the ideal together. Next there must be a pattern for the family, for the tribe, the nation, the world, and ultimately for God.

Today's America is very modern and cultured, but there are still some people who are isolated from modern styles and live a backward way of life. They don't care too much about the outside world, and they think that their way of life is the best. On the other hand, people who have the best the American culture has to offer feel that they are living the best way of life.

Imagine that some people from each group were to meet and discuss the ideal way of life, explaining why theirs was the best. New Yorkers might boast they would never live anywhere else because they can buy anything in New York, see plays and concerts every day, live surrounded by skyscrapers, and have the most modern life. The country man might say he is scared to death to live in the manmade jungle which is New York. "How foolish you are to ride up so high in a little box hung on a cable; you never know when that cable might break! How can you stand all the noise on the streets? This is hell! People are always so restless and hurrying. What a life!" he would say.

The country man gets up leisurely, climbs the mountains and watches the rising and setting of the eternal sun, breathing the fresh air. He drinks water fresh from the spring, but the city man drinks water purified with chemicals and pollutes himself. Country people don't need much cash in their pockets, but city people cannot live without money every day. City people are always taking advantage of each other. Each side has its points in this discussion, and neither will be persuaded to change their minds. Neither side can settle their argument and show that the other side is wrong.

If this issue cannot be resolved between people of the same nation, how much more difficult would it be for people from different nations and cultures? Is it easy for the various people of the world to come to the same conclusion? We are talking about one way of life for the individual, family, nation, world and God, but where can we find it? How can we know whether there is such a thing as the ideal? The key word is "true"-true parents, true children, and so forth, but what is "true"? What would guarantee that something is true?

What is the truth you need most when you are hungry? Is the truth a sizzling steak or dried corn flakes? When you are very hungry you appreciate the taste of whatever you have to eat, and even it you have only a dry piece of bread you savor every crumb. But if you are already full and then are presented with a thick steak, would you appreciate it more or less than the bread'> If you don't appreciate that steak all the time then it cannot be truth.

Perhaps the bread came from a nasty, grudging neighbor, but the steak came with your mother's love. When you were hungry you eagerly accepted the bread, but when you were full you rejected the steak. Also, if you ate the dry bread when you were hungry, you digested it thoroughly and got its nutritional value. But if you were full and forced yourself to eat the steak anyway, you would get stomach trouble. Where is the true value then? Nothing has absolute value all by itself. Everything is interrelated and has harmonized value. The value it has in creating harmony is what must be determined.

Whether you are in the East or West, past, present or future, there must be one common denominator which determines truth. For something to be true it must bring joy to both sides; for instance, the steak must bring joy to both the giver and the recipient. The subject and object together create the harmonized value of anything. You cannot say dry bread has no value; for a starving man that bread is priceless. But if you don't need the steak, or if you will suffer from eating it, it has no value for you.

Truth always fills some need and brings the common good and creates a joyful feeling. The truth of whether something is good or bad cannot change with circumstance. What do the individual, family, tribe, nation and world all hunger for? What is needed by all these? Money? Power? Knowledge? They all want love. But love is a very confusing word also; there are many mixtures and kinds of love. L is long and wide so it means love is long and wide; O means it is OK, big like the ocean; V means love is the very thing you need; E means love is eventful and includes all the earth. Do you like love because its letters are good, or because its meaning is good? What is the meaning of love?

I am an Easterner and you are Westerners, so am I talking about love which is different from yours? When you Westerners think of love, you imagine something that is different in quality and quantity from the love imagined by Easterners. Does true love vary from place to place? What is the base of the ideal-material wealth, big cars, technology? When God created Adam and Eve were there cars, planes and computers in the garden? What was the base of the ideal in the garden of Eden? Four elements existed there-God, Adam and Eve, angels, and all things of creation. Would you like today's world or Eden better?

The conveniences of today's way of life are enormous compared to what Adam and Eve had in their primitive setting. Did they have rich dining rooms with silver and china, great mahogany tables and elegant manners? They had no formalities. If they were hungry then they just ate together when they felt like it. You might say they led an uncultured, primitive life. Today we talk about restoring the world and returning to the garden of Eden; do we mean returning to the primitive way of life? Did Adam and Eve have the fashionable clothes we see today" The only fashion they had was fig leaves!

Did Adam have a nice shaving kit and toothbrush? Maybe Adam and Eve smelled like hell! But still we talk about the ideal in the garden of Eden. There was no government to print money or run schools, no theaters and culture, no law, no highways. But Adam and Eve had one very important thing-they liked each other and were happy together. God wanted to feel joy with them whenever they had give and take. God desperately needed Adam and Eve, and they desperately needed Him. Adam and Eve desperately needed each other as well.

If they had a great deal of joy when they were young then when they got old and neared death they would still want to be near each other. Even in spirit world all three would still need each other absolutely. This one point would never change. No power could separate them, and even if they were separated a greater power would reunite them. If any power tried to infiltrate their unity, they would make a determined effort to fight back, wouldn't they?

The essence of the value of their lives lay in their unity and togetherness, so anything trying to curtail that life would be rejected. Equipped with the power of unchanging love Adam would be completely welcomed by Eve, and with that love Eve would be welcomed by Adam. In that love God and man would be totally melted into one.

If Eve hadn't washed her face, yet still wanted to show her love to Adam, would he push her away until she had washed? Could true love be conditional in that way? Love goes beyond appearance and cleanliness. If Adam and Eve completely forgot things like cleanliness and just wanted to show their joy and love for each other, would God be upset with their lack of formality and culture? If God evaluates love only according to external appearances, something is wrong with Him. True love has the power to transcend appearance and formality.

I have heard that when parents visit their child's elementary school the child is most proud when the parents are well dressed and dignified. The teachers also like more refined people. But does a prosperous appearance determine the degree of love the parents can give their children? Children who receive true love from their parents will run after them to embrace them, no matter what the parents look like. That is a much more heavenly expression of love. Which one would you like? When you have true love you are parallel with the original nature of love. Any love that parallels God's love we call genuine love. Today's God is not really the true God because He is heartbroken instead of joyful. Until we can reach that true quality of love between God and man, certain things remain to be achieved here on earth.

Ultimately restoration is working toward one final conclusion: one common principle of genuine love which shall be the standard of each individual, couple, tribe, nation and world. Today we are talking about returning to hometown; are we returning only as individuals? No. We are not talking about an individual's birthplace, but the home to which all mankind are destined to return. That is the ultimate home and ideal, and everything from the individual to the universe must return there.

Shall we return with money? With honor or knowledge? With power? What is going to be our gift? If a person leaves his home town empty handed and then goes on to get an education, start a career and win honors, when he returns to his hometown he has become a legend. He is pointed out as a successful man in life. When he returns home would he tell his family they shouldn't come near him because they are too lowly? How would you Americans react to such a man? Even if he is an important, successful man who exercises authority in the land, it isn't acceptable for him to ignore his family. It isn't acceptable because he has gained everything but lost love for his fellow man.

If that great man comes home and loves and serves his parents as he used to do, if he wants to love and comfort his brothers and sisters and neighbors then he would be remembered as a great man. Suppose his mother was a bedridden invalid who had to be taken to the bathroom, and he insisted on doing it himself, sitting up with her at night and comforting her, all because she was his mother. Is that a great deed or a trivial one? The lower down he goes to serve his loved ones, the higher he shall be raised up.

There is a great distance to go for fallen people to return back to their original home. One type of couple only wants to be happy by themselves when they return to their original home and doesn't feel concern or obligation to anyone else. Another kind feels they cannot be happy all alone, but wants to go on to higher and higher levels and make others happy by enabling them to return home as well. Which type would be welcomed by the universe? It is not easy to live the second type of life because the farther you go the greater are the difficulties you must overcome.

Restoration involves an about-face first of all. We have to go in the direction opposite our old way of life. and then tackle larger and larger goals. Even if a person turns around, starts the road of restoration and accomplishes the individual level, what he has accomplished has no value of he decides that one step is good enough and he goes no further. It would have been better if he had never started. If he gives up after reaching the second goal, that has no value either. It only has value when you tackle the ultimate goal and strive to reach the ultimate home.

History is waiting for the man who will not only do an about-face but will penetrate all the way to the ultimate home. What are you doing here today in the Unification Church? True Moonies are the people who will do an about-face and go all the way to the final home. They are determined to go this way and will never be bothered by opposition. For what reason will we return? Because we want to meet the ideal God, not the suffering God, and meet ideal parents, ideal brothers and sisters, and ideal mates. When you start this path you may be defeated or you may be victorious, but the ideal always exists in the victorious way. Ultimately the ideal is love-that is our ultimate destination.

History has been aiming this way from the beginning. Jesus came to complete the journey, but still it has not been complete. It would have been easy for Jesus to return home alone, but that would not be the ideal. He should bring his family nation and entire world to that goal. That's what made his path difficult. What is the most important necessity for us to return home "First, a burning desire to love God, a consuming longing to meet Him. Our question is not whether God exists; we know that He exists and He is love, and we want to love that Father. We want to meet God in a heartistic relationship so that nothing can ever separate us.

In the ideal Adam and Eve are truly brother and sister and nothing can ever separate them. Even if this entire world is offered in exchange, neither could ever trade that love away. When they are united in that bond and tradition and become parents, then they are true parents of unchanging and eternal quality. The formula of the heavenly tour positions must be possessed by the individual, family tribe, nation and world. The greater the distance you go, the stronger this bond should get. Unless it gets stronger it will be broken or cracked.

In order to accomplish that we totally invest ourselves without reservation. The heavenly tour position exists as the center, the core. Because of the fall it did not exist in the beginning, but by throwing ourselves into the center we will create the core. I came to America to teach and give myself to the center, and the people who join with me will become the core. Even if the world were smaller, this principle would still work the same. There is no easy way to fulfill the central role; it can only be done by bearing the cross. By doing so as an individual and family you are creating a bigger realm which can suffer together with you for a great cause. Thus we widen the horizon.

Do you know how much money I need to do the job'! I feel I must earn enough to feed all America. I want to embrace and be totally responsible for all Americans. I also want to feed all mankind. How could I do that as one man? The formula is simple: I sacrifice my family to feed the tribe, sacrifice the tribe to teed the nation, and sacrifice the nation to feed the world. When you keep expanding this formula then eventually you reach the entire universe.

When we talk about returning home we mean returning to the place where all mankind can find happiness. We need a bridge from the individual level to the cosmos. The bridge is built by the individual's sacrificing himself to go into the center of the greater circle, and then making that greater circle an even greater sphere. Every realm should join with the next higher level and enlarge to form the next realm. Thus, each individual can expand to cover the entire universe. Once the smaller realm is engulfed by the larger one, it is benefited whenever the larger realm is benefited. The greater universe includes all levels of existence, and each level contains the heavenly four position foundation. Jesus came to achieve this ultimate goal, and today the Unification Church mission is to go this road also. Whether you are Western or Oriental, white, black or yellow doesn't matter; everyone has to go this central way of life.

God is always on top, but He comes down along a straight line to each level and takes His position in the center. That line is the center of every level. That line shows God's true way of love, and wherever it moves it becomes the center of all existence.

The straight line is the line of love. God travels only on that straight line and there is no wobbling. The fundamental relationship is that of father­son, and when that is broken down then there is no more straight line acting as a pillar. The parent who has true love represents God's trunk line; therefore, the true son is always in a position to follow that line exactly. When parents demonstrate true love their children have no right to say it is only their parents' thinking and they want to go their own way. The vertical line is father and son, while horizontally the husband and wife form the central line. Normally Adam and God together represent heaven. and Eve and children represent earth. In Western culture children feel closer to their mother, and talk about Mommy and Daddy instead of Daddy and Mommy. That derives from this principle.

Ultimately these relationships form a circle. God goes with His son, Adam, and the children go with Eve, their mother. Usually a grandfather pays most attention to his son and grandson, while the children feel closest to their mother. But everyone tastes the dove of the parents because it continues all the way around and maces a circle. That principle is applied in restoration and the four position foundation.

All men are in a position to represent the father also they represent the position of husband. For a wife her husband is the Abel husband, and all other men are Cain husbands. In addition, men represent the position of son. Men have the roles of father, husband and son. On the opposite side, woman represents three distinct roles-mother, wife and daughter. Everyone has these relationships. Your own family is your Abel family, and the rest of the world is your Cain family. It is because of the fall that Cain came into being; in the ideal world there would be no such thing as Cain because all would be in one loving sphere.

Initially we were meant to expand our love from the center outward, but because of the fall we start from the outside and work inward. If there had been no fall then the core would have come first and been expanded. Because of the fall however, there was no core, so we start from the outside and try to work into that core. Abel is in the position to give true sacrificial love. When you sacrifice for the sake of the Cain world would you do it on a one to one basis. or would you want to sacrifice for the sake of the entire Cain world? When you work on a worldwide basis you can restore the entire world at one stroke: When you go all the way to the other end and come back to the center then you have covered the entire universe.

Men go one direction and women another, so when they meet in the center and create a family, logically they can say that their family represents the entire universe because they have already given themselves for the sake of the universe. The fallen world doesn't have this core, however; though the shape is there, it has no content. In the Unification Church we are operating on the cosmic level and wherever we move there is always confrontation and controversy, but when we unite with the core then the rest of the world shall appreciate it. Every individual is moving toward this world.

I want you to understand your individual position. You may think that you simply become a Moonie, wait for blessing, have a family and that's it. But that's not the end of it. Next you expand your family onto the worldwide scale and give it for world restoration. After ten years perhaps you have covered only a little bit of territory and think that you will never cover the universe by the time you are old. But you can sympathize with God. It took God 6,000 years to find one true Adam, so how much more difficult would it be to create Adam and Eve's family, society, nation and world? Not everyone can do these extraordinary tasks; though everyone must do it, we know that individual capacity is limited.

God knows your time and physical limitations, so He set up a good deal for you. God does 95% and gives it to you, providing you do 5%. Furthermore, He made an agreement with Satan-provided man does 5%, it will equal 100%, and then Satan cannot accuse. Satan insisted that it be done according to the principle of restoration through indemnity, with no short cuts, and then he agreed to accept it. The whole world came under Satan's dominion, so he has Adam's body, and even Jesus' body. Satan said that if anyone would do more than Jesus did and set a higher standard then he would accept that person without accusation.

Adam and Eve became fallen because they could not love God more than they loved themselves and they obeyed their own carnal desires. But since I know God's principle, I will never be subjugated by this body, but will be guided only by the love of God. That's the standard we need. Furthermore, I will love God more than anything else-more than my life, more than my family, more than anyone. The world has had fallen love and life, so we deny that love and determine to have the true life and love, no matter what. This is why Jesus' teaching begins with denial of the physical world. He said that anyone who loved Jesus more than he loved himself or his family would be worthy of Jesus. That's the central ideology of Christianity. Jesus came to proclaim new life, new values and new love, so it started from a denial of the old. Your old love for your parents, wife and children cannot be accepted.

Always we find what seems to be contradictions in Jesus' teaching in the Bible such as "For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Jesus proclaimed the greatest revolution. There have been many revolutions in the last 2,000 years, but he brought a revolution of life and love. Jesus made statements which made it almost certain he would be crucified. He said that anyone who loved his family more than Jesus was not worthy of Jesus, and that meant denying everyone. So everyone opposed him for encouraging division of families. People said Jesus was destroying the family bond and social ties.

Today the Unification Church is receiving the same criticism, but actually we are in an entirely different situation. In Jesus' time the family system was much stronger; today American families are breaking down anyway, yet still they are blaming me for disrupting families making me the scapegoat! God has to reestablish new life and new love at the right time in history, so God is making our job easier by allowing families to break down on their own. We don't have to break down the old ones, just make new ones. The American family system is in real danger, with parents separating and children running away. It is easy to build new structure when the old one has already been torn down.

America is a representative Christian nation; it drew the Abel­type people from all over the world and planted them here in one nation. Now that nation has become a vacuum. The brilliant culture of white people is crumbling and families are disintegrating. People feel lost, and are starting to think that maybe the minorities in America have a better culture since they stick together and still have family ties.

White people are the most agitated, wandering and looking for answers in new areas, marrying people of other cultures in their search for something they can feel good about. Now all of a sudden they hear me teaching about one family of man and a world without nationalities. I bring a new creed and discipline and morality for family life. This one voice crying in the wilderness is saying things that sound logical and people are eager to receive them because the atmosphere in America is ripe for a new revolution of love.

You are the children of the established generation in the United States, and in their own way I'm sure your parents tried to love you. Now you have dedicated yourself to the work of the Unification Church and the white community is upset, trying to understand why Reverend Moon could succeed where they could not. They are trying to find out what my technique is, and they cannot discover it, so they say you were brainwashed. A tornado doesn't care how expensive your beautiful home or car was. There is a tornado of the new life and love which is blasting everything out of their already weakened foundations, moving them from one place to another. In their place we will build something new. That heaven is what we have been waiting for 6,000 years.

I did not create that tornado, however. A power greater than myself generated it, and I am merely riding the tornado. My secret is that I know precisely the rhythm and destination of the tornado so I can go one step ahead of it. Do you think God is scientific, that He has a pretty good brain? God is offering a partnership to His children, saying to them, "I have suffered so much for you, and I don't mind suffering a little more, but if I do 95% then you have to do 5%. Do you agree? Your 5% will involve changing to a new life and new love." God is offering beautiful new clothes to His children, who are wearing rags, but the problem is that you can't see what He is offering and you cling to what you have. God knows you will be benefited 1,000 times by His offer, but you don't have a glimpse of it so you don't believe it.

You need to make a commitment and be able to say, "Yes, Father, I see and I will do it." Once you see clearly, would you hesitate to give up your old things" God knows you will have a difficult time believing, so His plan is to give you one example, Reverend Moon. If I had the respect of the world you would not understand your course, so God put me in the worst possible position of suffering. Yet under those circumstances I was not defeated, but rose up and won. In this respect I am a successful man and no one can compete with what I have overcome. Could the President of American duplicate it?

God is showing you how I could win even under the worst circumstances because God was with me. Now God is saying that if you uphold the same cause that I am committed to, His power and strength will make you as successful as I am. It doesn't matter to God what color you are, or what country you live in-as long as you apply this principle, God's power will raise you up as much as He has me. God is issuing that decree to all people everywhere in the world.

I am the most mysterious phenomenon in American society today, and no one can figure me out. When you work hard and pray, you meet me in your dreams. particularly when you are facing the most difficulty and suffering. If power lines carried this energy from me to you, they would form a system so gigantic that it would make IBM look like a peanut. But in my system no wires are needed, and each individual is a receiver who can automatically tune in. You can listen to me and see me, and distance doesn't make any difference. Do you think God is with us? If so. we have the solution. Then all I have to say is that you should go out and die for the sake of the world because you have nothing to fear. What is there to be afraid of?

You think America is a civilized nation, but today it is a manmade jungle. You know this is a dangerous world. [ came to create a new breed of Americans because I know that if this nation can be recreated then the world can be recreated. I asked God for young people who can be raised up to be God's champions and change the world. Have you changed? Are you new people? How new? God is using me as a sample or example for the world to see, and He told me where to go. He told me how far to go in each direction, but He set certain limits which I must not cross over. I can cover all the territory within that boundary, and it is the responsibility of every individual to do everything outside that boundary.

I gave up my own parents and family and nation. Actually I have been opposed by my parents. family and nation, so you also must take that route. The difference is that the opposition I received from my own family was a thousand times more painful that what you receive. Those who persevere under these circumstance and follow with the utmost commitment shall receive the benefit of it. Those who depart can receive nothing. I have received every possible accusation and been called every bad name. In America some people even think I am worse than the Mafia. People describe me as a monster who eats women without even chewing them.

On the other hand, I am also given the highest possible reputation by people who call me a saint, and even say I may be the Messiah. There are two kinds of people making up two kinds of reputation for me, but there are no lukewarm people. The opposition is so persistent they are almost like Moonies. Even the New York Times and Washington Post have shown repentance, but to the very end those other people will not change. They want to see me fight them back one to one. They are offering us many temptations to fight them, but we have no time to waste on fighting on their battleground.

We are like marathon runners with a goal to reach. The spectators may be shouting their ridicule and curses, at us, but do the runners have time to stop and fight with them? No, it sounds like music in our ears and we keep running. Then after we win the gold medal we will go back and greet them. When we go back then they will be flabbergasted and unable to speak. You won't have to explain how wrong they were because they will see that their opposition makes no sense. That will be your real vindication.

The victor won't have to punish the whole world-he will just pick up one person and defeat him three times, and then the rest of the world can repent. Our battle with Congressman Donald Fraser showed the world that I am a winner, and let the world know that God is with us and I am innocent. Unless I had won all the spiritual victories and received the gold medal from heaven, this kind of victory against the Congress would never have been possible. By defeating Fraser I could teach the world a lesson.

We also confronted the Senator from Kansas, and finished that battle in two weeks. We let Congress know what a mistake it is making, and eventually we will let the American President know what an awful mistake he is making. As God's champion I have already covered 95% of the territory, and all you have to do is the remaining 5%. God is hoping for you to hang on with iron will and finish your 5% responsibility. God is hoping that your 5% will be a much more severe test under opposition so that you can really prove yourself and God can give you a medal. Then he can give you His unreserved blessing, something even greater than what He gives me. You should be such fanatics about doing home church that your 360 homes draw up petitions to the government to hold you back because you are at their doors so much every day.

America is a nation of all races and colors, and in order to oppose you they will have to unite together. You must pray for such incredible opposition to come that people will club you and chase you down. When the people discover that you really are innocent and are living for the sake of God, they be remorseful over the evil they did. Then it will be your turn to say, "You have been united in opposing me and Reverend Moon, and now you realize you are wrong. Would you now unite even more strongly to do the work of God with me?" Then they will be glad to do it. When they realize the evil they have done in uniting to oppose you, will any additional opposition come once they decide to support you?

We shall be superior to the standard of' Adam, who fell. We shall be superior even to Jesus, who was crucified. Jesus proclaimed this revolution, but he became a victim and was murdered. But we will hang tough and survive to declare victory. You are Americans who have rights under your Constitution to live according to your religious beliefs If even a Korean man is still going strong in America, you can certainly go on without fear.

What weapon do we have? At every level of our existence we crave the true love of God. That love is our weapon. There is no other way we can light. We give our heart and soul in serving and loving people, shedding tears and sweat for brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents all the people who are extensions of our own families. Home church is your foundation, and in order to make it firm you have to stamp on that area one time, three times, ten times, a hundred times. You must feel that you are launching a satellite that is going to the moon and sun, and home church is your ranching pad. In order to launch a rocket, you need a strong launching pad which can withstand the fiery heat of takeoff.

When the time for the launch comes I will push the button, and your liftoff will be so loud, bright and powerful that all America will shake and even the whole world will recognize it. Even one launching at Cape Kennedy makes news, but in home church there will be simultaneous launchings every day. Looking down, God will see all the missiles launched and flying to hit His heart. The steering mechanism of the rockets is the vibration of love and we are following it right into the heart of God. If you make a small mistake in steering, you will miss the target entirely, but once you hit the bulls-eye you will stay forever in the heart of God.

Wherever the love of God is burning there is peace and joy and excitement, and you will hold the title to that world. In that world husband and wife can embrace and say, "We've finally got it!" the wife will tell her husband she is so glad he hit her and made her go on, and that she can finally be here. You will even be grateful for my spanking too!

Are you in exciting work? Can that ultimate joy be compared to walking down the aisle to a wedding march somewhere else? If you live your own way and marry on your own, when you finally enter the spirit world you will be a wanderer who does not know where to settle. Satan will stride up and order you into his realm. But when we live this way of life we don't need anyone to guide us because we know we want to land in the heart of God. When you are going to meet your father do you need a guide to point him out?? Does someone have to help you find your own husband or wife?

We are strange in a way because no one else thinks of that way of life I am not that handsome and I don't look that smart, but I have been living this way of life. No matter what the world says or does to me, I have no time to fool with it. I am always going forward, day and night. I am only concerned that everyone is going toward the goal, and when I meet you I am concerned about how to make sure you are going straight. In a sense I am throwing you at the goal, so when I toss you I want to hit the bulls-eye. I am always concerned about strong discipline, and even at home I often speak about it to Mother and my children.

Mother has the additional duty of bearing children, and it is not easy to give birth to many. I understand that she is careful and hesitates before doing some bold thing, but I always push her ahead anyway.

The one principle that always works is that of hanging onto the rocket. You must be bold. When I am launched and you hang on, you will reach the same destination. You know you are on the right track, so are you going to hang on?

We are all destined to go to spirit world, so when you arrive there who would you look for? If all of a sudden you find I am in the dungeon of hell, what would you do? Would you say you will go where your love is and come to hell with me? If I am in hell then you cannot avoid going there. But if you arrive and are excited to greet me. when you lift up your eyes from bowing you will see it is actually heaven. Wouldn't that be more exciting and dramatic instead of just going straight to heaven when I am not there? If you possess the true love of God then you have the supreme power which can transform hell into heaven. I love love.

I have been going around the entire world, and finally in 1976 I stood on the pinnacle, with the whole world shooting at me. I came to America and predicted certain things. Do you think they were fulfilled? I predicted 1978 would be our worst year, but that if we went over that obstacle then we would come back with the power that would shatter the communist world. Recently the vice premier of China came to America. In Korea we write his name, Deng Tsiaoping, in Chinese letters. His family name means "climbing up", so that is good, but his first name means "small and flat." He was received with pomp, fanfare and headlines in America. But after he returned to China, it started a war with Vietnam and that giant country of China was miserably defeated. It was exposed as a paper tiger, and its reputation was damaged.

In Korean "carter" means "fussy", or "busy with this and that." The meaning indicates being restless and always up and down. There is no decisiveness and righteous conviction in this Administration because it is only worried about popularity.

Now that 1978 is over and 1979 is begun, whatever we do should have impact, and whatever you do shall accumulate as your monument. We can hit the world and it will tremble. We shall gain victorious result so you need lots of spiritual gunpowder and bullets. Is it better to have a rifle with a long barrel or a short one? If it is long enough then it will touch the target and there is no way you can miss! This is how I think. You might think this is not common sense, but nothing is impossible with God. But even with a gun, unless you have enough gunpowder the bullet will get stuck halfway down the barrel. What would you do if that happened? I always think of every possibility, so my plan is to have another charge within the bullet, and when that explodes the bullet will finish going all the way.

Moonies are impossible people, and wherever I throw you, you can get out because you have your own gunpowder inside. With one stroke we shall hit the bullseye, which is the ultimate heaven. Your method of shooting would use up millions of bullets and still not hit the target because you aim in all directions. So I have designed a mechanism for you in which the barrel will not move and all you have to do is pull the trigger. There is a trigger for the family dispensation, national dispensation and world dispensation. Unless you know this much at least, you won't know how close you are to the final destination.

When you know where you are, you have hope to cover the rest of the distance. If you are crawling through a very tight, cramped tunnel, your back and legs hurt and it will take a millennium to get out. But if a flood roars along behind and pushes you through, would you appreciate that water? If you are going home do you want to make the journey last a thousand years or one year? No matter what, no matter how wounded you are, you never deviate from the goal of the love of God.

Maybe you are hungry and cold and miserable, and you regret seeing your youth pass by. But if Unification Church life became routine then you would never get to the end in a million years. This is a revolution and you have to finish it in one stroke. Why did I make such a commotion and generate controversy? Why did I hold so many rallies? I am a topic not only in the religious world but also in the worlds of business, culture and education. I am making an impact on every aspect of American life so that American history can never leave me out. No one has ever seen one man come to this country and make a foothold in all areas of life in such a short time.

I did not come to accommodate or negotiate with America, but to penetrate through it to the other end. To do that I needed speed and impact. Am I drowned by the American culture, or do I stand above it because I have penetrated it already? We do not live the American culture here. You sit on a hard floor to hear a sermon and after three hours you don't even know if it will end soon. The rule of thumb in regular American churches, however, is that no soul is saved after fifteen minutes.

Home church is your world. Go ahead and duplicate the world of God in this small area. Love them as much as God loves them. When you do this, the 95% God created through me will be given to you for free. To inherit this, you must walk the way of life I have walked, for even a short time. Then you shall truly be lord of all creation and a triumphant person. With that accomplishment you shall return home.

You will report to God that you received the 95%, and added your 5%, and now you can bring the full 100% to God. Then He can declare that you have won the victory and are worthy to be His son. Satan will bear witness also. He will say he has done all

kinds of evil against you, but you won over it. Then God can give His entire Kingdom to you.

When you go home the entire village will celebrate with you. What kind of dances would you have at that celebration? Maybe disco? Why not create heavenly discotheque? You can dance so long and hard that God will give up first, and then you collapse after Him. When you revive again you be a capsule of the honey of God's love. You will be so intoxicated with that love that you will forget about sleep and work because you are melted in that love.

Before you reach your destination you must taste both death and life. Would you mind? Will you cover that distance with enthusiasm and excitement" Who wants to go there? Is home church good or bad" Home church is good! Amen.