Challenge and Victory

Sun Myung Moon
Circa 1973

We are both men and women here. The path of life for women is obviously different from that for men. What women feel is different from what men feel. Within the life of any individual, there is a difference between his childhood, youth, middle age and old age. Not only in human life is this true, but also in nature. We see four seasons coming one right after the other. If you were to insist that you would always live in summer, and if you never prepared for the winter, you would have a problem when winter arrived. In the winter, those who don't think of the coming spring and confine themselves in snug, warm rooms will be uncomfortable in the spring. Can you insist on wearing winter clothes when summer comes? No, you need to change your clothes to suit the season.

This is exactly how it happens in our lives. Those who belong to the summer of life -- which is the prime of youth -- want to have eternal youth. But that is not possible. It's natural that there must be change. But are you not inclined to insist on remaining the same age? You are afraid that by changing, you will somehow decline. You know from experience that you don't always go up. Every day your mood has ups and downs. After having passed through the day, if you find that you have had more ups than downs, then you can safely say that you have had a good day. If you have had more downs in a day, you will say that you have had a bad day. You may think that you want to have no downs at all in your life, but that cannot be.

In the world of change, how to digest what we encounter and make it something good is always the question. More than anyone else, young people are faced with constant changes, because their dispositions are like that. You seek stimulating things, and you want to have variety all the time. If you can digest the problems and changes and still want to have more, that's all right. But if you don't have this digestive power and yet desire to experience new things every moment, that's not possible. You as young people must learn to manage your own problems. You do not know the future before you, so you need to learn how to go through the path of life in such a way that you will be able to think of every event positively, so that you can continually grow.

If you say you hate to undergo disciplined training because you don't like it, or that you just can't stand it, you have been defeated already. You must have the attitude that you want to face whatever comes with great expectation and interest. You must not look through just one point of focus, but look around at your situation in all four directions. Looking at the Hudson River, you know the deep water runs silently. But upstream there have already been many events: sometimes the water swirls in a deep eddy; sometimes it pounds down on the rocks, as in the waterfall; sometimes it rushes past big rocks or runs over small pebbles to be gathered into the ocean. As you may have seen in the movies, if you are faced with a very rough current when in a boa t, you cannot just look immediately in front of you, but you must set your gaze far and wide, and you must be quick to manipulate the boat. Otherwise it will be wrecked on the rocks right before you. In your life, too, there are waterfalls; sometimes the water will even form walls or cliffs in front of you. So you must dodge quickly past one place or steer directly through the waves in another.

You must be prepared for the wave. If you are riding the wave, however hard you may struggle not to be carried on the current, you cannot resist it. If your destiny is to float on the current of the Hudson River, you must flow as it does. You may very possibly be like the waterfall or the water running past the rapids, but you must not become discouraged by the roughness of your course. If you are trained on this course, things to come will become easier for you to handle. If you take interest in what you are going through, and if you are thrilled to find new adventures, then when you are faced with even greater difficulties, you can tackle those with more zeal and capability. But if you are unwilling to confront the problems occurring around you and are afraid of them, then you will not be able to turn the experience into training to face new problems. Only by having gone over the rocks and waterfalls can you lead yourself to the heart of the ocean.

There are many ways of life: the life of an ordinary man, the life of a sacred man, and the life of a great leader. When you are asked which one you want to become, all of you, I am sure, will answer, "I want to become a great leader." But a leader cannot be made overnight. Such a person has to endure many trials, and with often desperate effort he must persevere and be ready to face still more.

Those who have been faced with life-and-death situations -- not once, but continuously -- know how to give themselves in everyday life. Suppose there is a great general. Looking into his past, we find records which show that he fought in many battles, was sometimes defeated and sometimes victorious. As many experiences as possible would be important to his record. But if that general in time of peace would not be willing to live sacrificially for his nation, his fame would quickly fade away. His attitude must be that of a patriot; he must always be ready to give his life in the face of need.

We must look at how the water runs down from the mountain top. It will encounter many obstacles. If we compare our lives to that stream of water, where are we? When we look at the world as a whole, the world situation is somewhere in mid-course -- not quite reaching the deep ocean. Before its coming to the ocean, the world may one day be at Niagara Falls. Can the drops of water say, "I hate to pound down the cliff "? At the top of the cliff, you must get ready and say to yourself, "It's thrilling, and I want to jump down from this cliff and reach the ocean as soon as possible." If you are eager, then you will succeed and attain your purpose. When you survive having gone over a Niagara Falls, then every other person who is faced with the waterfall will come to you. Many people may try to give the new ones advice, describing how difficult a job it is to crash over the cliff -- but you with experience are the only one qualified to do so.

In the world under the Roman Empire, Christians were faced with iron bars when they tried to advance. But if Christianity had not been persecuted by Rome at that time, I don't think Christianity would have progressed to today's level. If there is only a low dam, then a strong current of water will overflow it. Because Christians had more onward determination than the stopping power of Rome, Christianity overflowed and flooded the Roman nation and the world.

When you are tired you doze off, but you yourself are not aware of that. You may try hard to resist your sleepiness, and you may mean not to fall asleep, but you do so just the same. If these two small openings for your eyes close, then all the rest of your body will come into harmonized action, and you fall asleep. Every cell of your whole body will cooperate with that one action. When you doze off, all the parts of your body do so. In order for you, one individual, to survive adversity, you must feel that the whole universe, not just your relatives and neighbors, will come to your aid. If someone pulls out one hair of your head, does that part alone feel the sting, or your whole body? Every human being is a part of the universe, so if one part fails, the whole universe will ache over that failure. If you succeed in a mission, you must not think that the success belongs to you alone. A river is the accumulation of raindrops, though out of the water some portion must evaporate.

You must want to ride the current that beats against the rock, and with that force you can go ahead, joining the mainstream until you reach the mouth of the river; then you can join the ocean. In God's providential course of restoration, there is also a mainstream. Would you join that great river, or one of the tributaries? Everyone will answer, "The mainstream." But unless you can flow past all the obstacles in the tributaries, you cannot meet the main river. Our life itself is something like a river. You are here going through training, seated side by side; but once you are scattered and sent to your different missions, then you will be like small streams running through your own courses to reach the mainstream. Would you as a drop of water try to join other raindrops -- or would you rather absorb other drops of water into yourself, to form a mainstream yourself? Even if you may have to be tributaries for a while, I want you to be the one to gather other drops of water until you join the main current.

We cannot foretell if all of us here will meet at the mouth of the river. We do not know if we all will reach the heart of the ocean. If you are faced with any power stronger than your own determination, what will you do? If you are faced with a power greater than your own strength or spirit, will you be absorbed and surrender? It is not easy to answer.

Sometimes, people are small-minded. If a difference of interest occurs between two of you, you may become angry with each other and argue. Then someone else may want to reconcile the conflict between you and say pacifying things to you both; but you will only become more fierce toward each other. If you had a broader mind and would let the other go, that person would cling to you and want to solve the problem. You should be of such a broad mind that you can smile and return to the work waiting for you. If you are like water trying to surmount a wall, you will be eager to rush over it as soon as possible and join the larger body. Time will solve the problem. If you can pass on from the difficult place quickly, you will succeed. Tell the other drops of water, "You may stay there, but I must rush on."

When you are scattered all over the country, you can write back and forth. Some will say in their letters, "Oh, I am faced with troubles, and all this is not what I expected. It's a most difficult job to witness to the people." It is very likely that those who receive letters will be influenced by that. In the life of faith, we must not fix our glance on what is happening only at the moment, but look far off into the future, toward the goal where God is hailing us. We must never be settled in one place.

As you go along, you must always be able to add something to what you are. If you pass by a village and there is a great fight taking place, you should get into it, reconcile it, and then go along your way. In that way you can help solve others' problems, and you will also pave the way for others following you.

You have seen many successful people in the history of America. In their backgrounds, they have many adventures. The more they have had to overcome in their lives, the greater people they are. If someone has had even one more such experience than another, he is a little bigger person than the man with less experience.

The harder, the more challenging the situation is, the more progress you will make. Do you realize that? You are so anxious to be successful, but if you have no zeal to fight through the way to success, you will not meet it soon. You may say that in order to go to San Francisco, you must ride in a bus, an airplane or a train. But you must have no such fixed notion. If you really want to go to San Francisco, you must be able to walk there.

When I was imprisoned in North Korea under the Communist regime, it was right in the prison cell that I learned that lesson and became resolved to fight forever against evil. I was confident that I would win over it. I said to myself, "However strong Kim Il-Sung's power may be, if I am well trained in prison and go through hardship here, I will be able to be victorious over anything." I was ready to eat any food they gave me -- or even to starve. In North Korea, the winter temperature is very cold. Even though I was wearing only thin clothes without any lining, I could bear the cold. The labor in prison started at 8: 00 in the morning, but as early as 4: 00 they would call us out in the open air and check to see if we had anything hidden inside our clothing. Out in the cold air, people would shiver -- their trembling sounded almost like thunder. In that situation, I would always say to myself, "Even if it gets colder, I will not surrender to it." I did not feel cold at all. I trained myself by giving thicker, heavier clothing to other people, and clothing myself in thin clothes. I would look for heavier work, and say to myself, "I will succeed in doing this, or I will die." With that seriousness, I fought my circumstances.

How many times did Peter answer Jesus affirmatively? It is easy to answer now. If one of your eyes is put out in battle, what will you do? If one of your limbs is cut off, what will you do? If you lose all four of your limbs on the battlefield, will you still go on? In the face of a great task, you must be ready to sacrifice everything. A raindrop beginning at the mountain top and running down through the stream to the great river is faced with many obstacles. You must be prepared for adversity while doing great things. You must be ready to die for the cause you have undertaken, or else you are foolish to say you are following the way. If you are resolved to deny yourself and give up your very life, you will never be afraid of any difficulty. However strong the enemy's fortress may be, you will never be intimidated. You will be contemplating at least how to die a brave death. Are you like that? If you are prepared to die, you will not die, and victory will be yours. You must be resolved first of all to deny yourself.

Why do I tell you this? When our circumstances are difficult, we must be determined to face these and win over them. You must know that you are going to be defeated in the long run unless you consider your circumstances and become able to either adjust or maintain your course through everything. How to digest and conquer your environment is the question. Don't ever try to escape from life, but feel challenged and persevere on your way. On an uneven road, ups and downs are to be expected; but where there are peaks, there are valleys at another time. When you find yourself in a dungeon, you must expect that in the next moment, God will bless you with the most grace.

You must imagine yourself in a race, feeling that kind of determination. Resolve to have more strength than any enemy so that you can win over whatever the obstacle may be. I always told myself that I could eat less than other people and do more than other people, sleep less than other people and wake up earlier than others.

When you are faced with difficulties that look really hopeless, you may feel as though you are going to perish indeed; but there is always a way out if you look for one. Even in the prison cell, I would teach young people. I learned how to make fire eve n when I was alone on the mountainside. I know how to feed myself with wild herbs. I always imagined that I might be faced with any difficulty; then I studied to learn the secret of overcoming that. If you have vowed before God for any great cause, you have to keep your promise.

Try to focus on today, on this very moment; and if you are the victor in your heart right now, you will be victors after going through the entire course. So, you must be alert in winning the very moment you are faced with for the side of God.

God's True Nation

Sun Myung Moon
Circa 1973

In the history of every nation there is rise and fall. Sometimes a nation reaches a peak of its culture, and sometimes it declines. Everyone wants to be proud of his own nation, his own culture or tradition. But are even those high points of culture up to the standard that we can be proud of throughout all eternity and before all humanity?

The world as a whole is not the ideal place to live in or to want to be proud of. If God exists, we can certainly say that this world is not the ideal world in which God intended us to live. We know that God is the ultimate, absolute Being, and His standard must be the same. Then, are we pleasing God by our thoughts and actions? There are smiles and laughter in the world, but since the fall of man these smiles and laughter have not really pleased God. Whether you are happy or sad, experiencing success or failure in life does what you are doing have anything to do with God's providence? To reach the ultimate standard, all things should be connected to God.

We see children playing on the streets, running about, laughing and shouting. They look so happy, so innocent when compared to adults. But still they are born of stained lineage, of a heritage of sin. (Romans 3:23) And if innocent children are in such a condition, what can we say about adults? Our source of happiness must be in God, but we are alienated from God and live in sadness and misery. We should think and act in connection with God's will, but the opposite is true. We are living this way as individuals and as families. And those individuals and families form the world.

This kind of world is not pleasing to God. If God exists, He is sad about this situation and would want us to live in an ideal world. In fact, we can be sure He will make one for us. But the whole population of the world is separated from Him, so in restoring the world into an ideal one, He cannot do it all at once, but only little by little. He wants to work on the individual base, trying to locate a person who is entitled to such a world. He will then restore a family, a nation, and at last a whole world beginning with that one individual who can meet God's standard. First of all God must locate one person, one single man, a central figure. Finally this one person will be known and influential in the whole world. The project is not a simple one; it may take many years. God needs time to develop His providence. He works gradually, restoring people one by one and family by family. When He restores one person, it may appear that He's working with that man alone. Or we may think that God is interested in just one particular family or nation.

Sincere Christians today pray earnestly and strive to lead a life of faith in order to insure their own salvation. That has required the full effort of Christians. Once their own salvation is secure, then Christians try to save their families. We are accustomed to doing that much, but not far beyond that. We did not realize that if we really struggled to win our nation under God's will, our families and ourselves would be included in the scope of that salvation. By setting our goal at a higher standard and pursuing a broader scope, lesser levels would be already included as saved. Today Christianity is declining in the world, and this is the cause. Christians have not restored nations as the solid foundation on which God can work. Again, Christians today expect that when the Lord returns, he is coming to save individual Christians. But when the Lord comes again, he will establish a whole nation of faith and restore the entire world.

In the days of Jesus Christ people had the same expectations. Many religious people of that time thought that God had prepared 4000 years of history to send Jesus to the Jewish people in order to save Israel. They expected and desired that when the Messiah came, he would take revenge on their enemy nations. According to their interpretations of prophecies, they believed they would be the leading nation of the world and all others would come to their knees before them. They never dreamed that when the Messiah came he would want them to sacrifice themselves and their nation for the sake of the world. If they had believed that, Jesus could never have been crucified.

If you were in God's position, would you prefer to save one nation or just one individual--or the whole world? The answer is clear. God wants to save the whole world. Now, are Christians thinking that way today? If not, is there any other religion which is seeking to save the whole world? There may be religions whose goal is to win the world, but in that case they want to subjugate other religions and have all other people come under that religion. But there is no existing religion which intends to save the world at the cost of itself or at the sacrifice of the people of that religion.

As you know, even in the Communist world, the ideal is to unite the whole world into one, which is to be the happiest world for people to live in. But we have seen the fact that in the Communist world itself there is a rupture between Soviet Russia and Red China. If it is impossible for them to be united into one within their bloc, it will also be impossible for them to form one world under their ideology. Even though Communism as an ideology advocates the unity of all people and making the whole world into one, Communist nations cannot put the ideology into practice. To really bring about world unity, it is necessary to respect the value of the view of other people, but in this case each country wants to dominate the other. That is how the conflict came about. Russia dreams of the sovereignty of her people over others, for example; but in order for them to make Communism a worldwide ideology, the Soviets must be ready to sacrifice their own people for the sake of the whole world. That is why it will be impossible for them to bring the whole world under their ideology. If the Communist people had been ready to sacrifice themselves in order to make their ideology a worldwide one, transcending the tribal and then the national levels, they would not have failed.

In the democratic world, also, there are difficulties. The United States has so far been the leading nation of the world, working to equalize the conditions all over the world by aid to other countries. But since she is withdrawing from parts of the world for fear of being herself weakened, other countries are not quite carrying out their missions. The founding ideology of the United States was Christianity. If the people of the United States would put themselves in the position of Jesus, and pray to God, "Let the whole world be saved, even if our nation may have to be sacrificed," the United States would continue to be a great nation. Then this nation, even though it might be faced with disaster, could be resurrected as Jesus was, and would be able to save the whole world.

Recently we have seen the policy-makers in America thinking of the benefit of this country alone and having nothing to do with the outside world. They wouldn't seem to mind if other nations perished. The United States has been the one in history until now to stand in the forefront in terms of trying to save the other nations from corruption and danger. But since the United States is withdrawing from that position, we can see no other nation taking that place. If there is a God at all, He would look for a nation, even if a small one, in which the people would be ready to save the whole world at the sacrifice of themselves. If the people of any nation were armed with that kind of ambition, that nation would become the leading nation. God has got to make that out of them. But is there any such nation existing in the world today? No.

In the process of creation, God poured out all His being into the universe He made. That is to say, He sacrificed Himself in creating. In the course of restoration providence, also, those in the position of the subject must be ready to pour out all their being to those in the object position. So to save our families, nations, and the world, we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves, our families, and anything we have. We may reach the conclusion that the Kingdom of God on earth can only be brought about by that kind of attitude, not by the desire to bring all other people under our own sovereignty.

You must be ready to love your family more than yourself, love your relatives more than your family, love your nation more than your relatives, and love the world more than your own nation. It may be easy for individuals to sacrifice themselves for their families. Each family member may be ready to sacrifice for other members of the family. Among families it may not be too difficult, because good families would be ready to do that for others. But between nations it will be very difficult. Toward neighboring nations you may have a good feeling, and you would be willing to give up to some extent your own for the sake of that other nation. But beyond that point, when there are great differences in customs, traditions, and history, it may be difficult f or you to want to sacrifice your nation for those other nations.

There is no religion which teaches sacrificial spirit today of the quality which can embrace the world. If this kind of life cannot be lived by human beings, God has no hope to be able to restore the world, because He cannot change the world by Himself. God must work through man. If no one is ready for that task, God cannot save the world. But wherever God could find such a person, such a family, such a nation, such a religion, He would be very pleased, and He would work through those people and that religion.

We must be ready to sacrifice our nation in order to save the world. We must be willing to sacrifice our families to save our nation and the world. And we must sacrifice our own selves to save our families.

When you have won victory on the individual level, when you have saved yourself by bringing your body to obey your heart centered on God, then what will you do? You must reach the level of sacrificing yourself for the world by working through your family and your nation and leading them to live the same way. You are inclined to think that after you have perfected yourself, you are going to be the boss in your family. But you are forgetting that you are living with the purpose of saving the whole world.

Even your family has that purpose; it does not exist just for yourself. Then what would you do to make your family a success in God's sight? It is not enough that husband and wife love each other. In loving each other you must be doing that for the salvation of the nation and for the salvation of the world. In order for you to be able to save the whole world you must know that you must be able to sacrifice your nation, and your family for the nation.

We are taught that we have to make an offering to reach God. That means that what we are going to save at the cost of the offering is greater than the thing we are going to sacrifice. When you are going to save your family at the cost of yourself, you have already obtained something greater your family. And when you are going to save your nation at the sacrifice of your family, you will have gained the nation, which is greater than your family.

When you make an offering before God, would you offer Him leftovers? You would choose the best thing out of what you have and would want to give Him that. What you cherish most will be your offering. When Noah spent 120 years of the prime of his life in the business of building the ark, he was offering the best part of his life to God. Abraham was in the position to have to offer his wife to God, then even his beloved and only child. For him it was more difficult than to sacrifice his own self when he had to offer his son. Moses experienced the same course. When he was going to receive the Law, he fasted for forty days and went through many difficulties and hardships. He was ready to sacrifice himself, his own life, in making the offering before God.

The same is true with God. He would ask us to make offerings, but on His part too, He has to give something for the salvation of man. He has to sacrifice the man who makes the offering. That means God barely has won that precious person Himself, and already He has to sacrifice him. We know that after choosing and preparing a nation to receive the Messiah, God was ready to sacrifice that nation for the sake of the world. People, however, did not realize that fact. They thought that the Lord would com e to save their nation and put it above all other nations and that God would help them to have that position.

What is God's desire and our desire? That is to restore the nation which God can claim to be His. In order for us to be able to do that, we must eliminate the evil condition. At all costs, even at the expense of ourselves, we must establish the kingdom of God on earth. We are living for that purpose. The whole earth will be our country. In God's sight there are no national boundaries. We have to unify the whole world under God's will. With all nations put together, they will be one people in God. With all those people in cooperation with each other, we are going to build God's kingdom on earth.

To do that is your mission as well as mine. You are just individual people, but you must be proud of being representatives of all the people of the world as citizens of the kingdom of God on earth. You must have that ideal, that thought, each one of you. Above all the worldly sovereignties, God's must be the ultimate one.

If Adam had not fallen, the family multiplied from him would be the world. He would have played the role of the first ancestor of the citizens of God's kingdom on earth.

In the course of restoration, every one of you must be thinking of yourselves as a starting point. You are going to be blessed in marriage and give birth to your children, and you will be the true ancestors to your descendants. From then on all will be citizens of the kingdom of God. Christ comes again inheriting God's sovereignty, and with him as the core, you must be able to spread that blessing out, establishing the kingdom of God on earth. The whole earth being our land, the whole population of the earth being our people, God's sovereignty will reign over all mankind.

You must strongly believe that you women are the representatives of all women on earth, and you must put yourselves in the position of mothers to the descendants of the people of the world. With true faith, men are the representatives of all the men of the earth. The whole earth will be God's, the whole population of the earth will be citizens of God's kingdom, and the sovereignty of this world will be God's sovereignty. We must pray for that day and fight for it with gratefulness.

We have the glorious kingdom as our mission directly ahead of us. We are going to sacrifice ourselves for that cause, and we are destined to become the joyous citizens dwelling in the love of God. And for that cause let us march on.

Children of the Heavenly Father

Sun Myung Moon
Circa 1973

Because of the human fall, we have not seen God in the true sense. We have not had the true God, in a way. We have not been living with the true God. If we as mankind could have been one with God, with God as our Father, abiding in Him, living with Him in the greatest love, how happy we would have been! And on God's part, how happy He would have been to live with His true children. He, being the Highest in every sense, could have been overjoyed, with unimaginable happiness. He would have lived with us in the ultimate love. Have you ever stopped to imagine how He would have smiled and danced and been delighted to see us? It is our great loss not to have been able to live with such a Father, from whom everything good and happy starts. But we have n ever experienced such a sensation to the fullest degree.

We experience the love of parents over us. Our parents kiss us on the cheek, embrace us and console us in times of sadness. We have experienced these things but not to the full extent, and not in the true sense, because every sensation can come in its fullest degree only from God. What we have experienced in the world apart from God is not from God, but dominated by Satan. Have you ever stopped to think who it was who made the first smile in the whole world, the first laughter in the whole world? Of course, there were Adam and Eve, who could have been joyful if it were not for the fall, but who was the one to be joyful at the time of the human fall? Satan. Not God. Satan was happy after he took away God's sovereignty over man and was able to have all mankind under his dominion. The smile of Satan, the laughter of Satan was horrible when he took control of man. Following the fall, history proceeded for the most part in accordance with Satan's will. Our forefathers worked and did things in such a way that they pleased Satan more often than they pleased God.

If you really felt that, if you seriously considered that horrible reality, you would be almost choked by it. You would want to abandon this world, to fly away to another world. Do we have an inch of land that we can claim as our own, as God's children, where we can be joyful and happy? We don't have such a place. Though we might want to leave this earth, we have to restore it to its original condition.

If we leave the world as it is, we may as well hope that God will not come and abide in this world with us. You should feel like stopping Him from coming to this dark world. If you are really the children of God, you will feel that way, because everything is opposite from His desire.

God, however, on His part, always wanted to come and abide with us, helping us, saving us, but we men of sin, we children of disobedience, have prevented God from loving us and living with us. How sad God's heart has been! If there were a single man, who in the place of all mankind would sacrifice himself to save the world, to erase the sin of other people, desiring to be a victim for the sake of God, would God be pleased with him or not? In that case, would He have rejected that man or said to him, "You are one of them; you are a stained, sinful man. I don't like to look at you. I don't want you to help me in any way"? Would God have said a thing like that? As lofty and pure as God may be, He needs someone to help Him in His restoring the world. So God would be grateful to have found that kind of man, and He would ask that man to do certain things for Him. But to find such a man has been very difficult.

What if that man would say to God, "I've sacrificed myself for your cause; you must recognize me," insisting that God would acknowledge him? How would God feel? Man is so greedy. We want to have things more than we have earned. But if that person of central mission were thinking that way, saying those things to God, if I were God, I would tell him, "Oh, now you have proven that you are also of the Satanic tribe. I don't want to have you." God must have felt that way toward such people.

Don't you remember, when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, "If it be possible, if it be possible, let this bitter cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt." If Jesus had not included in his prayer, "Not as I will but as Thou wilt," God could never have accepted him. That is the secret of being God's son. It is to be utterly obedient to God's will. Only in this way can you make God happy.

In the world of evil, there is only one road for God to go. That's the road of sacrifice made by the man of sin who is willing to get rid of whatever he has in order to receive God. How do you feel after hearing that? Sad, serious? You are here ready to receive God, but God wants you to sacrifice yourself even before being told to do so. That's what kind of person God would want you to be, because He wants you to surpass the standard of fallen men. Because of that His heart is sad. Unless you are ready to sacrifice yourself before you are told to do it, God cannot come to you. If you live like that, God will be proud of you before Satan. Unless we do that, there is no way for us to restore God's authority and dignity as His children.

You must make a hopeful prayer to God, "Oh, Father, I don't want to be a foolish child, to be unwise. I want to know your heart. I am here ready to sacrifice myself, so why don't you come and abide with me." For that prayer, God will be proud of you.

And you can even pray this: "Father, I will be responsible to restore this world, and I can do it, believe me. You don't have to come and help me. I don't want you to come to this world of suffering to help me. You stay there and watch me." With that kind of prayer you can console God's heart. Then how would God respond? He would tell you, "I am coming. I must come and help you. Even if you want to stop me from coming, I have to be with you. I want to be with you, right in the midst of darkness." God would say that to you. Then when you are pursuing your mission, ready to fight your way through all difficulties, you will suddenly find that God is already there before you, having prepared everything for you and paved the way ahead of you.

God is the God of love, of parental heart. In that case, if you were God, wouldn't you do the same for your children? When you live like that with God, you become the greatest of His sons, since you have moved your Parent's heart. You will have restore d God's dignity, and He will be proud of you.

I have thought and thought and finally found that this is the only way for the sons of filial piety to please God. You will be grateful that God has come to earth because of you. You will be able to make God happy, warm and proud. And you will be proud of each other and satisfied with yourselves.

I imagine all of you pray hard. Hungry or full, satisfied or dissatisfied, you are always praying hard to God. But the degree of your fervor will decide how much your prayers will be answered. In praying, too, your attitudes will differ from one another.

I am sure, when you pray to God, there are some who are confident that their prayers will be answered. But some of you think, "I want to do so much for Him, but first He has to answer my prayer." God would not want You to change the way you are praying just to suit Him. However, He would want to have you pray harder and more earnestly. When you pray, it is something like this: Suppose that God is looking in this direction, and your voice comes praying so hard and diligently. His concern will be drawn to answer your prayer. God is looking closely at every one of you, and He will find that someone without even praying is doing things in such a way that his prayer is already answered. Then God's attention will be drawn to that person.

If He has two children, and one is praying so hard even though he was not told to pray, and the other is only reluctantly praying after being told, to whom would God be drawn? I don't think there is anyone among you who does not know the answer.

Suppose there is one child who would nod to his father after being told to do something. But there is another child who on his own initiative has already found out something and would come to his father and ask whether or not what he had discovered was t rue. Which of the two would delight the father more? Again, one child may be aware of what is happening around his father, but another child is so anxious to become involved in his father's world that the first thing in the morning the child would think, "Is Father up? What are his plans for today? " To which would the father's heart be drawn?

There may be still another child who can't help but wake his father up because he has thoughts of some wonderful plans himself. He would knock at his father's door or just rush into his room and wake him. But the father would still love that child.

If you were in the position of the father, would you love a child who just clings to you for 24 hours without even letting you sleep? If you are loving and concerned about your father, even if you irritate him and even if you prevent him from doing anything else, he is forced to be concerned with you and love you in return. The same thing is true with God, our heavenly Father.

I am going to tell you a story about my son, Hyo Jin. He is a very active boy. He runs so fast that he trips over things. One day he fell and skinned his legs, and I found them swollen and bleeding. He was such a tiny boy. I asked him, "Does it hurt you?" He was bleeding, but he told me, "It doesn't hurt. I'm all right." I have never forgotten that scene. Instead of crying, the boy comforted his father.

Among God's children who are working hardest there are two kinds. Some would want to serve God because they are anxious to be loved by Him. They are contented and satisfied to enjoy the Father's love. But other children are worried about their Father's cause and know He is eager to reach out and find other children. Such a person would tell God that since He has lost so many children, he wants to bring them back to Him. Would you say, "Father, wait for me. Even though I may be away from you doing this work for a while, don't worry about me"? If you went out in search of your lost brothers and worked very hard and didn't return to your Father for a long period, would your Father be discontented with you? It is clear that God would love you more if you are the child who would want to go out in search of the lost brothers and sisters and bring them home.

Suppose the child working to restore the lost children would even die at the front-line, would the Father be angry because His son had disobeyed Him? He would be so proud of him. He would cherish the heart of that child and love him all the more. So you should do things without being told to do them and without complaint. You must be more serious than He is about carrying out what He has in mind.

The Father's love and patience are with the child who is always ready to help Him in any way possible, and who would go anywhere for the sake of the great task to be carried out. He would long to have that son around to take care of His children and great-grandchildren. In that way His love would be multiplied through this person.

There are various types of heart. Some fathers would tell their children, "You must love me and no one else, and you must serve me and no one else because I am your father." But there are other fathers who would tell their sons, "Instead of loving me and doing things like this for me, why don't you go around and do things for others, because I love them as much as I do you." That kind of father is the real father. When you are unwilling to sacrifice yourself, if this father would drive you out even to death for the sake of his many other children, that father is the true father.

After you have finished your work here on earth, when you go to the next world, if 'You tell God that you would not want to go to Heaven but would stay in hell to help the people there, then God would bring Heaven down to you for you to live in. Don't you think He would do that? Then if you would insist on His letting you live in the lowest society, He would smile and say to you, "Son, you are a very smart boy." In that case, even though you were not obedient to God, He would still be proud of you. You would be an example of utter goodness.

He would tell you someday, "You don't have to go out to society. When did I tell you had to go out and witness to the people? Why don't you stay here and rest?" If you would object and protest and finally go out to society, would He punish you? God, in trying to save the whole of mankind, would want you to have this attitude. He would want you to desire to be this kind of Christian.

That's why in the Bible we read many paradoxical things. In one place you are taught to love your Father with all your heart, all your might, all your sincerity. That's the first commandment of God. Later we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves. Taken together, these commands seem paradoxical, but if they both are carried out, you can win the whole world.

When God tells you to love Him more than anyone else, it means that He wants you to carry out. His will at all costs. So it is natural for you to love your neighbors and to love your brothers and sisters as you would yourself. If you are to resemble your Father, would you love just one person who will satisfy your personal aims, or would you love all the people of the world for His sake? God loves the great combination of all people -- including the people of the past and future generations. The broader the scope of your battle is, the more you are loved by the heavenly Father.

If you want to come to the position to be loved by your Father, your relationship to the world will change. Suppose you pass by the scene of an accident where someone has been injured. You would feel so sympathetic, as though that person were someone very near to you, and you would like to help him in any way possible. You would want to tell the people standing around also to be sympathetic. If the other bystanders are only watching and doing nothing, you would be so anxious, as if that person were your own child. You would put him into your car and rush him to the hospital yourself.

Or you may meet a wonderful person who is accomplishing great things in the world. You would want to talk with him and encourage him. You would be grateful to God that you had met such a good person, and you would want to be associated with that person and get to know him heart-to-heart. You would feel like placing yourself in the position of the parent to that person, and you would want to endure for him; you would pray to God that what he had done would be received by Him, that his sins and the sins of his ancestors would be forgiven. You would feel one in heart with him, in joy and in sorrow.

You should love the world in such a way that you would ask God to bless a prosperous country all the more and guide it to become the leading nation of the world: "I want to see you being joyful over this prosperous country after having poured out so many blessings here." On the other hand, if you see a poor people in an underdeveloped and underprivileged nation, you should feel the zeal swelling up in your heart to make that nation see the sunshine someday. You would want to elevate the standard of living in that nation, because you hate to see your Father in anguish over the suffering in that nation. You would be eager to make it equal to other nations. You would desire these things without reservation.

Then, what must our desire be? Our desire is to become the children of God, doing everything in His place before His orders. Our desire is to become the kind of people the sinful history of mankind has never seen before.

Would God want you to laugh and be happy before He made you happy? if you have had the experience of raising children, you know the answer well. Suppose a father and mother quarrel with each other and are so unhappy, never laughing or smiling. They are in a terrible mood, but their children, innocent ones, would come to them, smiling, laughing and dancing about trying to make their parents laugh. Wouldn't they laugh? Even though you may want to stay in a bad mood, to remain angry, when you look at you r children who are trying to make you happy, your heart will burst into laughter.

Which is better -- to have your children unhappy and to try to soothe their hearts, even when they are sad because they know you are burdened, or to have your children want to make you happy? Wouldn't you like to have children who will try to cheer you up? Our desire is to become that sort of children to God.

In order to be that way, first, you must be doing things before you are ordered to. Second, you must be so aggressive that you want to act by yourself, even without the help of your Father. You will tell Him: "Father, please stay where you are. I will be responsible. I will do my part. Please wait until I can return this accomplishment to you. I am doing this for your sake and for the sake of my brothers and sisters whom you love dearly." The third thing is, as I just said, you must desire to do things for the sake of your brothers and sisters all over the world because they are equally loved by God. If you feel that way, you are His restored children whom God loves the most. He would praise you, and He would like to give you anything. He would be proud of you.

When He gives praise and everything good, you may say: "Father, now that you have given all this happiness and these blessings to me, they are mine, aren't they? " He would tell you, "Of course they are yours." Then you can do anything you like with them. You would want to give all your blessings out to other people, thinking, "Let all that I have received belong to my brothers." God would be happy with you.

If you do this, you will be the sons and daughters of filial piety to God. He lost His love, His happiness, His peace and His whole creation because of the human fall. Therefore, you will want to return to Him through others the absolute happiness, love, and ideal He has given you.

If you take that position, you can attract the heart of the heavenly Father. You can have the true love of God in your possession, and that is the core of everything. If He found that kind of son empty- handed after having given out all that he had, the Father would tell him, "I am yours. You can have me." With this in mind, you can interpret the whole Bible.

If you would walk your path in this manner, God will turn to you to be with you. You can meet Him wherever you are. However low the place where you are situated, your Father's attention will be focused on you there. The kingdom of God in which He takes delight will be right there in your heart wherever you are.

You must be keenly aware of the fact that you are not born for yourself. You are born for the sake of the whole world; you are living for the sake of the whole world; you are ready to die for the sake of the whole world. If you live this idea to the fullest extent, then you will already be carrying out what your Father wants you to do. Then the whole creation will want to belong to you, and God Himself will be yours. Even if you didn't want them, all things would volunteer to come to you and belong to you.

When you feel, "I am born out of my Father, and I am already a part of Him, and I want to be with Him and do everything for Him forever, " then you are already in the position to be loved by Him and to inherit from Him. Even when you die, you know that you will live in the other world in spirit, and He will love you all the more.

Then what would you lack?

If you are in that position to be always with your Father in spirit, then you are going to live with Him wherever you are, all through eternity. So asleep or awake, whatever you are doing, don't ever think that you are alone. You are always with your Father, and your Father is always with you. 

Heart

Sun Myung Moon
Circa 1973

It is important for you to know about heart in order to love each other. "Heart" is a very difficult word to translate from Korean to English. What we mean has a deeper meaning than is conveyed by the English word. It means to be loving, caring, sensitive.

Heart is the source of love. God has an ideal within Him, just as we have an ideal we long for within our hearts. God's ideal can be realized through man. Then what is the vehicle through which man can express God's heart? In order for us to realize God's ideal, we were created masculine and feminine. Unless male and female beings come together and are united, there is no way for God to express His love ultimately. Unity is the measure of your love, and the source of joy in marriage. If you have your counterpart entirely one with you, working with you toward one goal, joy comes about. When you are happy, there is always you, the subject, and someone else, the object, with whom to share. In direct proportion to the degree of your love in being one with each other, your joy increases. The core of love in the true sense is something magnetic, and once you are united you can never be separated. So love means to be united internally and externally. Unless you find oneness, you cannot find joy. When you are one with a person, you don't want to be parted; you want to be with each other for eternity. You never tire of each other.

Which comes first, unity or love? You can love yourself when your mind and body are in harmony with each other. If you love yourself when your desire and actions are going different directions, then your love has little meaning. When your mind and body are united into one, then your love will be eternally protected by God. Unity is the beginning point of love, the point where love can come to abide. This is God's ideal. Unless God can find persons whose quality is in accordance with His ideal, He cannot be happy at all. He has no one He can love.

Since this Principle is the core, we in our movement seek unity first. And then we talk about heart and love. Then only can our ideal be realized. Before the ideal can be realized, there must be unity, and then love.

When God created man, His ideal, Logos, was expressed in a male being and a female being; and in their unity, God's love was to be enjoyed by them. To repeat: God's ideal exists. To fulfill it, unity must come about; then love will develop. When your two eyes are focused on one thing, your vision plays the proper role. If your eyes focus on two different things, you can't see anything at all. Likewise, when any subject and object are united to fulfill their function, love will be expressed there.

When you quarrel with a brother or sister, then God, as the Parent, cannot love either of you. If you have your own children, you will know this is true. As a leader of a group, would you love the members of your group when they fight with each other? Where there is harmony, there is beauty, and where there is beauty, love can come. In Matthew Chapter 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Being sons of God means being loved by God.

When two fingers want to grasp something, they must come together. If two hands are clasped, the very deepest places in both are opened and joined together. When any two people love each other, they want to embrace, not turn their backs on each other. Remaining united is also the expression of love, so when you love each other, you will not separate from each other. If there is no love between you, you may come together anyway, but you will be easily drawn apart. But where there is love, its magnetic power will keep you together. To be united means to be perfected in function.

Between nations, too, if any two nations are united, God's love will be there, and they will be blessed with good fortune in their partnership. There is an Oriental saying that where there is harmony in the family, everything can be done. Where there is unity and harmony, the love of God is present, and the ideal can be realized there. In the ideal family, the husband and wife must be one. The children must become united with each other, brothers and sisters, and all together they will be in harmony like a symphony orchestra or a beautiful painting. With love there, no other power can intervene.

So we can come to the conclusion that if and when you want to receive God's love, you must be united. If that is done, you are already living in the Kingdom of God on earth. From there, the straight path to God is reached.

If anyone is asked whether he wants to receive God's love, he will answer in the affirmative. What should you be doing if you really want God's love? As an individual, your body and mind must be united. That is the basic thing. Then God's love will be with you. With that done, you can proceed on to be united with other people, and then the degree of God's love with you will be deeper and broader. Have you ever had the experience that your mind and body were entirely one in achieving some purpose? Have you thought it possible in the real sense? You try hard, but your thought and action are sometimes far apart, sometimes a little closer, and then they are separated again. The relationship between them zigzags all the time. There is a Korean saying that our mind fluctuates and vacillates from morning to night. "Mountains never change, but the human mind is always changing." So before wanting to be loved, you must have unity within yourself. In this world, everybody wants to be loved by others, without first trying to become one with them by understanding their hearts. No one can ever receive perfect love with that approach.

When you have made your mind and body united, then you have nothing to do with Satan. When your mind and body are one, you resemble God, so God will play the role of Subject to you, as a perfect object. Try to feel it. You must be able to feel God's love actually being with you when your mind and body are in harmony. When they are quarreling with each other and you are divided within yourself, God will be far away.

If you can love one person, God's love will be there in proportion to the depth and size of that love. If you can love many people like this, God's love will come in proportion to the greatness of that love, to the depth of that love. Good people must be able to win others, not in such a way as to conquer them, but to love them, and to bring them into greater harmony and unity. Unity is the first thing you should desire. And if you love anyone at all, you should want to love him with your whole heart, even at the cost of your life. Then you can overcome hell. If you are not united, if there is disharmony, hell is there in your mind.

When you love someone, you always find that person is sacrificial toward you. There is already unity between you and that person. To bring that about requires sacrifice of individuality. Our purpose in uniting with others is to receive God's love. Then God's ideal will be realized.

Suppose there is a married couple, and they have some differences and distance between them. Would it be all right for the wife to take her position and call to her husband, "Come to me and you can become one with me," while the husband insists on his wife coming closer to him to be united with him while he stands solidly in his own position? That will never do. When you hold selfish love, then true oneness in God's love can never come about.

Then what is true love at all? This person does not have to go to the other to unite with him or vice versa, but both, when they come closer and closer can meet at one point between them. This can be true love. In other words, by both of them denying themselves, they can really unite with each other. And that is the standard of true love. Just one harmonious wholeness will be there. Love alone can make things round, harmonious, circular or spherical. In true love nothing can invade or interfere. Both parties must be obedient to each other, both must be willing to be united with each other. Together they will enjoy harmony and beauty. You may say, "Oh, no, I hate the word obedience. Why do I have to obey my husband or wife? I want to be freed from that bondage, and I want to be a free person." But in true love, obedience, loyalty, surrender -- everything is possible, and you are not humiliated by it. You want to be controlled by your love.

In true love, then, there is a heavenly dictatorship of one to the other, and you want to live in this way throughout eternity. That is the intrinsic nature of love. You can be open about everything, let go of everything. This is glorious love, and the husband and wife do not think of themselves individually. Together, there is new meaning and significance. But that love doesn't originate from the man or the woman. It comes from no one else but God, the absolute Being of love, the highest dimension, the Source and Origin of love. And it can come only on the basis of unity.

The same theory can be applied beyond the family level. If there is unity among nations and the people of the world, then God's love will surely abound in that. Again I must say, there must be unity, and then God's love will appear. Then God's ideal will be realized. Not only among people is this true, but this principle applies also to the relationship between man and nature. To love nature is to become one with it. You must feel a closeness to nature. If you are the reflection of God's love, then nature is attracted to you. That love is the starting point of everything.

Suppose you want to write in a notebook. While you write, yourself and the notebook are one. If you love that notebook and pour out your whole soul and energy into it, then inspired writing can come out of it. You must have a strong feeling of this. Before you do anything, you must contemplate that thing and be sure you are one with it, or with that purpose. Then you can begin united in harmony, and the love of the work you are doing will be realized as the idea is actualized. In looking at things, you don't want to just vaguely gaze at things and see them with your eyes alone. If you focus your deep attention in looking at an object, you can penetrate into that object and it will become yours -- you are in it and it is in you, in complete oneness. If your glance is focused fully on one point, from there it will broaden its scope, rather than just being cast about at random. When two meet at one point, they will go on together forever. Thus we can become aware of the world of spiritual dimension instead of this horizontal three-dimensional world alone.

If you meet another person and are united with each other, from then on something new is created. In that case, even though you are by yourself, you are not alone. Always you should live and act from a triangular base God, your mind and body. Those three must be one. Your mind knowing and feeling that, senses that you are not alone. Then you are never lonely. Your body feels the same sensation. In that case, can you ever be dishonest, can you ever be false, when you realize God is always with you?

This is the whole nature of our conscience. When your mind is telling a lie, then your mind is cheating your body. Or when your body is disobeying your mind, then it means that you are also cheating God and cheating the creation, your parents, your brothers and sisters. Your mind and body being the core of your world, if those two are in strong oneness, you can become one with God, one with your parents, one with your whole family, one with your nation, and one with the whole world. If you are honest, you want to become one with each other and to unite your mind and body. If you are dishonest, you separate yourself, and you are destined to ruin.

This formula must be deeply rooted in your mind. Asleep or awake, whether you eat or study, you must always remember this. Then you are already receiving God's love. In order to be able to overcome unhappiness, you must be able to achieve unity. That's God's strategy to win the human heart. In order for you to win someone's heart, you must apply the same understanding.

When your mind and body are in perfect oneness, you can even hear your mind singing, and you feel light, as if you are flying or dancing. When you look at the world, it is so much more beautiful. It's as if you have eyeglasses of unity, and you are looking at things through God's eyes. Through those eyeglasses, everything in the world is beautiful. There is no ugliness.

Suppose the Son of God gave you a handkerchief. That handkerchief is worth more than gold, more than life, more than anything else in the world. If you are a real son of God, whatever the humble place you may lay yourself down, it is a palace. Then our clothing is no problem, and the place we sleep is no problem, because we are already rich. We are the princes of God. What kind of attitude must be created in ourselves? We will not feel hunger or thirst, difficulty or persecution, or anything which people in general may think hard to endure. On our way there is happiness, joy, and love. If you have God's love reflected in you, you want to reach out to every corner of the world, because God's mind is like that. If you have that attitude, the people around you will be attracted to you like iron filings to a magnet.

If you witness to people and you fail to convince them, it's not because God is not present, it's not because the people are evil, but it's because of yourself being without love. Then you must become a person capable of bringing unity. If you are united with someone, there will automatically come love, like air flowing into a vacuum. If your mind and body are really one, you feel God's love there like an electric current. Then you forget about fatigue, forget about hardship. You can experiment with living like that, and it will prove true. When you want to speak to the congregation, you want to have God speak through you. You must have your mind and body unified, or God cannot be with you. And before speaking to the people, you must repent if your mind and body are separate. Pray before God in repentance, shedding tears, and in deep prayer you must beg God's forgiveness, and then you can start talking. In that case you can be the spokesman of God. God may speak through you. The first step is for your mind to become one with God, and then your body will become one with your mind. In that case, God can work through you. Go on and try it, and it will prove true to you.

So you must have unity first, because without unity there is no love unity first, love, and then God's ideal. You must think with God, say things with God, and plan things with God. The base of those three elements unity, love, ideal -- is heart. Heart is the deeper expression of the mind. Starting from heart, unity, love and ideal are all realized. We are told that everything starts from God. The core of oneself being heart, everything starts from there centered on God. Since our heart is the core, then God is the object to us. We seek Him. But in relationship to God's love, our heart is in the object position, receiving His love. When heart and God are put together, they love each other. We must know that the basic thing is our heart, our infinite heart. Creation came about from God's heart, a heart of love.

When those three are realized -- unity, love, and the ideal -- there is no distinction between the three. Unity is love, love is unity, the ideal is unity, the ideal is love. Then why are those three ultimately one? Unity came about on the horizontal level first. Two elements are one, and then God's love can dwell there. In this way we have a vertical relationship, also. Love will be the director of the three. Then the ideal can be fulfilled.

To repeat this, there must be unity on the horizontal level between the two. Then God can become one with that unit. You can have both a horizontal relationship and a vertical relationship, and those three will be put together with perfect love. They will be in ideal harmony throughout all eternity. When you dance around in joy together, you don't make a distinction between your place and your partner's position. There is no distinction between you. You can stand in his position, and he can stand in your position. There is unity, love, and your ideal. But knowing this alone cannot do anything. If you really understand, put it into practice.

When you say about anything, "This is mine," you must love that thing and must be able to realize your ideal through it. If those three are accomplished in you, you cannot be anything else other than a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. Is that clear to you? You must always be thinking of unity, unity, unity. When you see, see unity. Eat unity, smell unity, hear unity. Everything must be unity first, and then love and harmony, and then the ideal.

Three Stages of Judgment

Sun Myung Moon
Circa 1973

Judgment of Words

It is our duty as fallen men to pass through three stages of judgment -- judgment of words, judgment of personality, and judgment of love or heart.

All through history, mankind has been in search of the truth, true words. The truth is the standard by which all the problems of mankind can be solved. We know man somehow fell in the beginning, and to fall means to fall into the bondage of Satan. So in order for us to return to the original position, we have to overcome the bondage of Satan. For fallen people, there is no other message which is more hopeful and desirable than the message of restoration to the position before the fall. To be restored is, in another sense, to be liberated from satanic bondage-and this is the gospel of gospels for fallen men.

Then, what is judgment? Judgment is the measurement of all our actions according to the original standard. If our acts cannot come into accord with the original rule or measurement, we must be judged or punished. With any government, there is the ruling party and the opposition party, with a balance of power between them. If one of the laws is set up to be amended, then both parties must agree. In the universe there are God and Satan. Between the two there stand men and women-some are more on God's side, and others are more on the satanic side. But in judging the people there must be a standard of judgment accepted by both God and Satan. People more on the right side can be claimed by God, and on the other side by Satan. In worldly matters too we have a certain standard or rule. If we compare something to that measurement, and if it is above the standard, then it is called successful, for example; but if it is below the standard, then we call it a failure. If it is a total failure, so that it cannot even be compared by measurement, then there can be no judgment possible. Neither God nor Satan can claim this total failure.

In the course of restoration there must be the standard rule. If you are going to find one in the Bible, which must it be? For instance, with any mountain there are peaks and valleys. Centered on one peak, there are two sides; God is on the right side, while Satan is on the other side. There is a difference between the high peaks and the low peaks. All through history, when we examine the courses our ancestors passed through, the process is something like going up a peak, then down, and then again attaining a certain height. In that way, mankind of the past have been generally climbing up. There are many peaks of various heights. Those who belonged to the Old Testament Age began to climb up, and on the peak they decided whether they were on God's side or the satanic side. Then they made another hike to reach another peak of greater height. The climber begins right at the foot of the first peak, and he passes on what he has attained to the climbers after him. The Messiah is the person who would be waiting on the highest peak, and those who have attained the peak will be welcomed and praised. But the Messiah himself has to know what way they have had to go through.

Jesus is the fruit of the truth, of God's Logos. He has attained the highest peak in the spiritual sense. Jesus said, "The Old Testament -came about for me; everything and every word from God is for me." (Matt. 5:17, John 5:39-40) He said on another occasion, "I am the way, the truth and the life." (John 14:6) The way is the truth and the truth is the way and life, too. The truth is something God exalts, while Satan is jealous of it. The truth belongs to God. God must love the law He has set up and He is going to love it through eternity. Then what must be the mission of the truth? The mission of the truth is to guide the people through their way. The Principle of Restoration is to connect all the ways trodden by the Old Testament Age saints with the New Testament Age saints, through the present. We are going to make the zigzag road a straight one, so that we can show to the people the standard of how to reach the highest peak. The shortest way is the straight line, and the mainstream and the final way. That's what the word "principle" means. What kind of principle is this? What is the Divine Principle?

The Divine Principle is the measure or the way -- the guide -- that will take us through the path to reach God, and to the original position before the fall. Without going through this way, fallen men cannot reach the original position. This is the measurement, ruler, and fundamental guide. Mankind has walked a tangled way away from God, and we must return through the same path. But we are going to straighten it out. Suppose you had a rope or string entangled with knots. If you just use your strength and pull hard on the ends, would the knots be undone? No. If you spent hours of your time, would that alone solve the problem? Time and energy poured out in blind, random efforts would not do anything. In praying before God, also, if you just pray blindly to Him to give you something or to help you to do something, He can never help you. There must be a rule or standard to be met.

Suppose again there is a very good man, but he is a blind man. Without his knowing how to use a sword, would God give it to him? There is the danger of his grasping the blade instead of the handle. God would not give it to him. If He did, He would be a blind God. Everything must meet its standard. The Divine Principle is the measurement by which God can liberate fallen men. You will be liberated into true words, the truth. You will be liberated from the darkness into the light, where you can see the relationship between God and yourself in precision.

In America you ride in cars every day. When you are in a hurry, you want to speed up. When you go at full speed, there is danger. If you want to speed without danger, then you have to have had good practice beforehand. In handling the steering wheel, is there flexibility? Can you move it just as you please? Not an inch of freedom is there. The wheels of the car must be round; if they are bent, driving will be dangerous. If the four wheels have a will of their own, and some won't turn as they should, what will happen? The air pumped into all of those four wheels must be the same amount or they will not move together properly. If you want to go at full speed, it means the wheels will have to make many revolutions. I know that you may dislike repeating things, the same old things. But when you want to keep a diamond glittering, you have to polish it. If you want to keep this room clean, won't you clean it once, twice or more each day? The same applies to learning the Principle. You must learn the truth well, in every particular.

Have you ever stopped to think how many times in your life you will be talking with people about the truth? When you eat food, it becomes more delicious as you chew it fully. If you just chew once or twice and swallow it, do you know the real taste of the food? With a thing of value, you must repeatedly practice with it and try to know the taste of it, and it will give you more and more. So repetition does not fatigue you. You must know the truth well. The first standard of judgment is that of words. If you do not pass the standard, you cannot be released from bondage.

Judgment of Personality

The second is the judgment of personality. However hard you may struggle to walk fast on a certain road, if you are going the wrong way, you have to come back. Where does Satan lie in ambush? He is always close to the main road, the true way. Because he wants to snap you up and stop you from going along the right road, he comes to attack you without warning. So, you must prevent him from stopping you from going on the way. However well-practiced, however well- equipped you may be, if you are attacked by Satan on the way, that is the end of it. You must have a technique to prevent Satan from stopping you. You must have the personality to win over satanic temptation. You must be more able, stronger than Satan in every way. You must be alert to see where Satan lies in ambush. Have you ever stopped to think of that? Satan is everywhere -- and you are vulnerable to his attack. You must know how to locate him and find him out. When you are strong enough not to be tempted or fall into the hands of Satan, you can win over him; but you must know Satan waits for the time when you are about to fall into the pit, when you are in the most difficult situation. That's the moment Satan comes to press on your throat.

When you fight on the battlefield, the enemy lies in ambush. Most likely, he comes to attack you during the night -- when you don't expect him. Spies will come, but if you have wide-open eyes, they will run away. When you are in slumber or relaxation, or when you are in distress or despair, that's the time of satanic attack. For instance, you are frustrated and say to yourself, "Oh, I have worked one year on the mobile team, can I go on like this?" That's the very moment Satan will attack you. Satan would say, "You are my prey at this very time." All you have accomplished before will be gone. It would not take one of the strong Satans [evil spirits] to attack, but the smallest and weakest one can press on your throat and you will be spiritually killed. Isn't that true? When you are in distress, frustrated, you must remind yourself of the fact that this is the very moment when the weakest of Satans can attack you. When you are not witnessing, not doing church work -- when you are thinking only of good food, fine clothing -- when you are in that kind of mood, that's the very moment you are liable to Satanic invasion. When you miss your sweetheart, that's the very moment Satan attacks you. Those are the hooks on which Satan can drag you back. When you doze off, that means you are in a lax mood. That's the very moment Satan will come and snatch you away. When you cannot help being tired and frustrated, try to go somewhere away from the observation of others. Meditate, pray there for three days, and after doing that you will look at your brothers and sisters working so hard and think, "What am I?" In distress you will think, "Can I be loved by God? I must work." Your conscience will tell you. You will be aroused to new vitality. You pray in repentance, and feel again like going out to work. That's better.

Many times when I was in prison [in North Korea] I would appear in handcuffs before the judge; and on my way from prison to the court, on the street I would sometimes meet members from my church. I would wave my hands at them in hilarious joy. And when I waved my hands, the handcuffs jangled -- the noise of it still resounds in my ears.

I swore then I would never die before realizing my mission. I would demonstrate my determination, and I would never stop before that day came. I would be strong enough to endure all difficulties. And when I was released, I would work again with more zeal. I thought even prison was my training course, and that afterward I would be a stronger worker for God. When you picture the prison life, don't ever imagine the prisons in this country. That prison was far below your level -- untold misery -- almost like animal life. If I were to describe it, you wouldn't understand. We had a handful of rice, almost rotten, each day. We missed good rice and food, and yet we had to work on, mining and loading heavy bags of chemicals. And after we were exhausted and were to receive our handful of rice, on the way to eat some of us would die. Others were so anxious to get rice that they would even take it out of dead men's mouths to feed themselves. At those times I would say to myself, "Even if hardships are doubled and tripled, I will never fail." Even in the Communist prison, I worked so hard that they had to give me a prize for achievement.

I am sympathetic with you. You are in the prime of your life. You want to dance with your sweethearts; you want to enjoy your life in the worldly sense. There are many good things teeming in this world for you. But you have been awakened to the fact that someone must do this job, not just myself. This heavy world is falling to destruction. Some power must stop it. The whole earth is covered with war and misery, and you are living on that earth. Along with it, you know you are going to come to destruction. The merry-makers -- those without the knowledge of what is happening -- may look happy. But those who know that the world is collapsing cannot help but want to stop it. Some people are indifferent. But would you just stand by and watch the world end? Wouldn't you want to do something about it, even if you had to die or be killed to do so? There may be many casualties, by tens and hundreds of thousands, but if you are not prepared to die for the cause, you cannot live to save the world.

If you are ready to die ahead of others, all of you; if you have that attitude, you will not die and you can save the world. But if you are like the disciples of Jesus who denied him upon his death, you will fall away and the whole world will be left unsaved. Would you become like Jesus' disciples? Jesus' disciples were in fear of Satan and they were overwhelmed by satanic power. Satan took them away -- all twelve disciples, who in Jesus' lifetime had served him. Then, what happened to Jesus? Satanic hands were on him, but he died a physical death, not a spiritual death. If your spirit is not dead, if you have the same zeal and ardor upon your death, there is a way to be saved and resurrected again.

If you have to die, and if you die a courageous death -- without leaving shame to your descendants -- then you have the chance to be resurrected and work through your descendants. Jesus was attacked by satanic hands, but he was not defeated by Satan. God, who is more awesome than Satan, was on his side, fighting for him. You must know that. God is on the side of righteousness. Have you ever stopped to think, How long can I work? Will there be a time when I will be utterly frustrated? " To be shot to death is a simple thing, but to be tortured spiritually, to have Satan cut off every limb arms and legs -- would you bear that torture?

If you are resolved to live for the cause and die for the cause, you are already being resurrected. You are transcending life and death. In that case you are on God's side and God is on your side, because God is also the being transcendent of life and death. God is our Friend and our Co-worker. Those who have God as their Co- worker must be courageous. God is not only your friend, but your Father. You are going to be the incarnation of God. God belongs to the whole universe, to all humanity. He sent many saints and prophets to work for the great cause and they were killed and martyred. That means God's hands and arms and all limbs were cut off. He has been enduring pain all the way. But He is still intact from satanic invasion; He is sane and whole and all-powerful and almighty. He is living in me and I am the incarnation of Him. Would you not be proud and stand as firmly as He is standing? Then, with that quality, will you say you are tired after a year, after five years, ten years, twenty years? Will you be tired of doing this job? When will you be exhausted? Never? In a word, you must think you are born for this life and this is your destiny.

You cannot but go this way. Then, your attitude must be different. You must be accustomed to eating humble food, being clad in poor clothing, being sheltered in tents and outdoors -- you must know the taste of enjoying your life in this way. I began my work while you were not yet born. At your age I had accomplished much. But I thought there was a tremendous amount of work that I must accomplish during my lifetime. I knew that. I was never proud of my having done as much as I had. I was always anxious to accomplish more and more. I was in haste every moment. Do I look frustrated? Do I look tired? I am not tired. The farther I advance forward, the more strength is accumulated.

People think, "If I live this way or that, I will be happy." We think we are happy because we are living a certain kind of life. Then, who set up the standard? The definition of happiness -- can it be right? You must say, "I did not set up the standard of happiness like that, so it has nothing to do with me. I have to create a new standard or definition of happiness." If you define happiness to be eating humble food, being clad in rags, being sheltered in a humble place, that is your standard of happiness for the time being. The people whose definition of happiness is like this will never fail in life -- and in the end they can enjoy the utmost happiness.

Longer life on earth does not promise you happiness. Even though your life may be a brief one, if you have worked hard and have been recognized by God, upon entering the other world you will be welcomed and you will enjoy the flourishing and glorious life there. So, in this life, the question is how hard you work and how much wholesome fruit you produce. So, you must work at the risk of your life and at the cost of your life. If you go on like that you are sure to achieve victory. If you die without succeeding in your mission, God will be sorry, because He knows that you have been doing that at the risk of your life. Wouldn't God, in the position of Father, if He knows His son is going to die soon, want to give him something to help in any way possible? If you have that attitude, God is anxious and ready to help you. If you are confident enough to carry out 100 things, but you are qualified to carry out only 30, God is anxious to fill in the other 70. If you are doing this for your Father, wouldn't your Father be ready to help you? Our Father, with love, is, in a way, weak before His children. With love, He is ready to do anything you ask.

Then, what is the judgment of personality? If you are well-equipped, and you are the incarnation of God's Word, then you will be intact from satanic invasion. Satan would attack you on the individual, family, national and worldwide levels. If you are attacked on the individual, family or national levels and you do not fall, you can advance more rapidly. If you are always on your toes, going forward all the time, when he beats upon you, the moment his hand is gone you will dash ahead with even more speed. So Satan will have to give up. Then he has to retreat and leave you. He will say, "However hard I try I cannot defeat this person." Are you like that? Would you want to be like that at least? If you want to be like that, can you accomplish it standing still? You must try hard. Satan will use on you the same cunning methods he has been using on our forefathers, past saints and martyrs. Now he is attacking you with that same power, but you must be more powerful and wiser. Then he will give up and leave you. After going through all these difficulties, when you attain the goal, God will find you there and will tell you, "Now I have found one who resembles me. You have gone through all trials and are here intact from Satan. As the victor, you resemble me, and you are my son." In that way you will pass the judgment of personality. That's the standard. God made everything a success, from the very beginning up to the present moment. If you resemble God, you will continue successes, and you must attain the goal and render glory to God.

You must have such a personality with which you can never fall prey to satanic temptation. Before death, in the face of death, Jesus extended his arms and said, "Kill me," and at that instant he was not killed, and spiritually he was resurrected. If you are determined to lose your life for God, no Satan can kill you. You have eternal life there. Are you like that? If you are not like that, God cannot bless you. If He does, the blessing will be snatched away by Satan. But if you are so determined to face death without fear, then God will bless you and it cannot be taken by Satan. That is how to win in the judgment of personality. Win over all the temptations coming from Satan, and go to the standard where God can bless you. That's how it was with Jesus.

Judgment of Heart

The third judgment is that of heart or love. Have you ever loved a person in the true sense? Without that kind of love, you cannot be proud of yourself before God, before the past, present and future. You yourself must have loved to that extent.

The term "to love" means to love someone else in the object position. Love starts only when you have a person in the object position. What is the true standard of love? There are many kinds of love in the world: love between friends, between husband and wife, between parents and children. The question of love often brings a quarrel in the family. The wife may think her husband is loving her less than he used to, and that's the seed of the quarrel on her part. On the husband's side too his wife seems to be reserved in devotedness, and he is so greedy as to want utter devotion from her. Why is it so? It is because love should be unreserved. And if you are self- centered, if even a little bit of ego is there, we cannot call your love total. You must deny your whole being in loving your spouse. If a particle of you is left there, your love is not a wholesome one. Love must be like that. So if you find yourself self-centered, you must shake off that particle of yourself in your love.

How wonderful love must be if it is as pure as that. So true sacrifice [of oneself] must accompany true love. That sacrifice will be willing sacrifice. With this standard of love, you can win any individual, family, nation and the whole world. I must ask you again, have you ever loved a person with that kind of love? If not, you are not qualified to receive God's love. You cannot dream of receiving His love. Before wanting to have God's love, you must practice loving other people to that standard. You must long for not only your sweetheart, your lover, but you must miss every lost child of God with love of that kind. Until you are worn out in tears, until your legs are fatigued, until your whole energy is exhausted in search of that person, you must long for him. You must invest your life in that person; and your life will be multiplied in that person. You must plant your soul in that person and your heart will be multiplied. You must be loving people with that kind of love. Have you ever loved God with that kind of love? Without that kind of experience you cannot call yourself a whole human being.

In that case, you must be very humble and say to God, "I am not qualified for your love. Please don't come near me. I am not pure." If you are self-centered in love, you will just want to have God's love for yourself, and you would want to possess love of others. Then you are a robber of love. In order to love in the true sense, you must purify your love. As Jesus said, if your eyes would sin, if your nose, mouth, ears and limbs are used for impure love, you must feel like plucking them out or cutting them off. You must know that you are not qualified even to love the most unlovable man or woman. It is a very serious question.

I will become more serious. And you will have to cry. When I think of God, I am truly sympathetic with Him. Wholesome, perfect, absolute God always has to look at a world full of people who are spiritually disfigured, disabled, and crippled in heart. He is ready with beautiful, pure love to be poured down on us, but we are not ready to receive that kind of love. We are not ready vessels for the love to come. But He is ready to give us more and more love. Thus, He is a Being to be pitied. He has that pure kind of love for men; He is ready to save mankind despite all the hardships and disillusionment. For God to meet one man, the Messiah, to locate such a person as His true son, has been His desire throughout history. There have been multitudes of persons in the world who have been willing to receive God's love, but there has been no one ready to love God -- except the Messiah. Our heavenly Father has been betrayed even by the many saints He has sent to the world, and by individuals, families and nations -- by the whole of humankind, the whole world. His heart is aching and torn to pieces. We must restore Him to happiness. We must never cease to work until we return to Him with joy and happiness.

I would tell Him not to worry about anything. I am in His place to work for Him until the last one of all humanity has been turned back to Him. I feel that I am responsible for the totalization of all the betrayals committed by past humanity and all those saints who failed their missions. Thus, I have to return glory to God, to clear away His resentment and sorrow and disillusionment.

All through human history, God has been planting His love in human hearts, on the individual, family, national and world levels. God has never been able to reap all those loves; but we are here to reap, and by harvesting them we can return all He planted to God. You must be awakened to the fact that you are the totalization of the fruit of history. When you are harvested into God's hands, with all the rest of humanity, God gains your fruit. You must plant the heart of God into many people and have them multiply it to embrace the whole world.

How many people have you been loving with true love? Have you ever loved people with the heart of the Father, in the shoes of a servant, shedding tears for the people, sweat for the earth, and blood for heaven? Do you really understand what I mean? You must ask yourself always, "Am I loving people with that kind of love?" With the love you have been receiving from God, you must go on loving all the rest of mankind. That's the heart of love. Unless you reach that standard, you are liable to the judgment of heart or love.

When you meet a person, you must think of the person like this, "I am here for this person." You must feel that what you have gone through, all difficulties and hardships, are for the sake of this person, will bear fruit in this person; and you will never let him go until he has returned to God. If you are in the position of absolute plus, then absolute minus will come about. So the question is always you, yourself. Have you ever awakened during the night, opened the window and looked out in meditation, thinking of your brothers and sisters, missing them and feeling compassion for them? Have you ever climbed up a mountain in the early morning and prayerfully looked down at the whole world and asked God to save it, feeling that you yourself were responsible for all mankind? You must be ready to help the people, save the people, and die for the people.

Are you qualified heirs to God? Can God rely on you, to leave everything in your hands? That's the measure of love coming from God, It's a grave question. There is a set standard of love from God, and you must reach that point or go beyond it. Otherwise, you cannot come to God and embrace Him and call Him Father, and you cannot be received by Him. Unless you reach that standard, you are liable to judgment in the heart or love of God. Are you qualified to be received by God? He will wipe away your tears, your agony and the rest, and He will take you to the most sanctified place to change your clothes and give you all the glory He has. In the end, there will be a day in which the whole human family will be restored under God as the Parents.

The kingdom of heaven on earth is the dwelling place of those who have won in the judgment of heart. We will erect the heavenly kingdom on earth with our own hands. If we have that kind of love, God will come and abide in us and live among us. If every moment, in the process of loving, you feel that your love has not been enough, and if in repentance you want to have more love to be distributed to others, then the heavenly kingdom cannot but come through you. If you feel that your love is not enough, and you are tearful and struggle harder, then in the world of that kind of heart, the kingdom of God can come.

Third National Conference of 1974 - Unification Church And One World Crusade - Los Angeles, California

We Have Moved the Destiny of the World

Sun Myung Moon
December 21, 1974
To American Unification Church leaders
Excerpt
Los Angeles, California

During these three years we truly moved the destiny of the world. I am now bringing the victorious outcome and triumph back to Korea. I want to bring the representatives of the world to this triumphant homecoming. So I am inviting the American president, Neil Salonen; the Japanese president, Osami Kuboki; and Marcin Porter, representing the entire Europe. All the Korean missionaries are accompanying me.

What I did in the past three years is the spiritual level. In the next three years you are going to make the physical level. Do a Day of Hope tour in your own state. I want to see fifty Reverend Moons. People will say, "Reverend Moon... Day of Hope... I can't stand it... We have a small Reverend Moon!"

This particular campaign with me in the forefront will not be conducted in any other country. This happened once in history, and you participated in the event. Now the American people must exceed my effort.

Even to death we cannot forsake the mission. That is the only way we can lead in this land and set the true tradition in America. In order for this nation to flourish as it has, there have been so many sacrifices throughout history.

Of course, white people sacrificed in order to gain this nation; furthermore, many innocent Indian people were sacrificed that this nation might come into existence. In the sight of God, Indians belong to the Asian race, and God's law of restitution is in action throughout history.

According to the law of restitution, the ultimate fulfillment of the Heavenly Kingdom must see East linked with West, and Western people linked with Asian people. So from God's viewpoint, it is significant that Reverend Moon has come here from Asia to proclaim the new ideology that will encompass the entire world. With the spirit world working, some people are mysteriously affected. They are drawn to Reverend Moon and this crusade.

They are drawn to you. Even when they think something is wrong with them, they still come. Whether people listen or not, when I lecture, I will do my absolute best, with tears and sweat.

Sometimes, I have an overwhelming headache, so that I feel I cannot speak one more word. I could be diplomatic... pleasing people by letting them go.

No. I am here to establish a record, to set the tradition. So I know the right result will be brought by the Heavenly Father. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, there is no night. When I feel the mission to increase the Heavenly Kingdom, I don't care what time of day it is -- night, mid-night, or early morning. I just pour out my heart. Do you think God will say, "Well, we have a job to do, but since it is night, let's go to bed"? God will not say that. He will continue. Sometimes I feel sorry that I cannot continue even more than I am doing now, without even one hour's sleep. Though I work twenty hours a day, I just want to do more. The other four hours seem to be wasted!

I have done my very best and still my responsibility is not fulfilled, there is only one thing I can do: give up my life. Then I'll say, "Father, this is my final measure of devotion. You asked me to give this final measure of devotion and I am always willing any moment of the day." Then, Father will take care of the mission.

I never worry about the outcome of a project. I am concerned about whether or not I am pouring out my 100 percent effort. Then I know God will take care of me in the end.

At the beginning of this course, if I have anything to say to you, it is that I want you to join in this crusade to find the safest position to live, work, and die.

So let's have a grand new year. This most meaningful year of 1974 is consummated. So let's have a bubbling enthusiastic start of the New Year. So 1975 will be a different year.

In this third course we shall restore the dignity of Heaven. So far we've always been helped by God. This time, let's bring the comfort, the glory, and the victory to God, to decorate His throne.

I want you to become the people who 'possess God, who dwell in the Father. That is my objective. You may ask, "Why have I come from my own country to this foreign land? Why do I have to sacrifice so much, denying even my own family?" It is because you want to find God and stay with Him.

The more we sacrifice for the purpose of the Father, the more we do on behalf of the Father, the more God will hold us close. I love each one of you very dearly and deeply. I am not going to give you anything other than the one Father whom I serve, to whom I am devoted and dedicated. To this same degree I want you to become dedicated to the Father, dwelling in Him.

If I wanted to leave a will to you, my will would ask you to live as I did, to love and worship God as I did, to possess Him completely, and to succeed in my mission more than I did.

We want to leave something for posterity. Do you have something, a record of achievement, which your posterity in future generations can see? If your answer is "Yes," no matter what happens to you, your posterity will never decline. You will have a great future through your own children.

Science and Absolute Values

Sun Myung Moon
November 22, 1974
Royal Lancaster Hotel, London, England
Third International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences

Photo date and location unknown

Honorable chairman, distinguished scientists, eminent professors and scholars:

I sincerely welcome all of you who are attending the third International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, sponsored by the International Cultural Foundation.

As I am sure you are aware, two previous conferences have been held, the first in New York City in November 1972, and the second in Tokyo in November 1973. As the founder of the International Cultural Foundation, I have desired and done my best to create and maintain throughout these conferences an atmosphere in which an open and unreserved exchange of opinions could take place. And I have been greatly pleased with the fruitful results of these conferences and with the participants who have contributed so much to them.

The development of science and the issues now facing humankind

At present, ever more serious problems continue to develop and confront humankind. The solutions to these challenging problems call for and indeed require both localized approaches and a global approach. Therefore, we demand the wisdom and knowledge of the many distinguished scholars who are gathered here at this conference.

As a scientist myself, I have been observing with keen interest the development of science and technology. I know that science and technology and what we call the "scientific method" have had a farreaching impact on human life. Through observation and study of the world of reality, science has extended and expanded our perception of this reality beyond our physical senses.

For example, we are now cognizant of bacteria, which we can detect using a microscope. Some of us journey to the moon, directed by computers whose astronomical speed of calculation baffles the human mind, while others talk about making such travels an everyday possibility.

To our naked eye, the earth still appears flat, but science has compelled us to admit that it is round. A diamond appears to be solid and we were once amazed to know that in fact it is a scattering of particles in mostly empty space. On a more abstract level, the transition from reality to extended reality is illustrated by the transition from classical to quantum mechanics and from the deterministic model to the probabilistic model, both of which are equally confusing to non-scientists.

Although the progress in science has provided us with a tremendous amount of information, we still suffer from our inability to internalize this information and our inability to fully comprehend its deeper implications. This inability has led to much anxiety, confusion and uncertainty as we lose our firm reference points. As a result, we feel we are in a state of imbalance with scientific progress due to the suddenly expanded reality.

The necessity for cooperation, with a global worldview

Meanwhile, when we think of the strong probability of our finding in the spirit world the answers to the disharmony and imbalance that attend the limited human function of thinking, it does not seem accidental that Zen meditation and its practice recently have become controversial objects of scientific research in the West as well as in the East, where for centuries they have been practiced and valued. The study of extrasensory perception has drawn the attention of quite a number of scholars in the academic community. The discovery that a dolphin can intelligently communicate with human beings deserves notice. Along the same lines, it has been observed that plants respond to the love and other emotional states of human beings. These discoveries suggest that our present view that the animal and plant worlds are lacking in consciousness and reason may be flawed.

Thus, we may now envision a universe in which a harmonious coexistence is brought about between human beings and other creatures, a universe where human beings, the center of all things, turn the whole universe like a wheel in ultimate harmony and oneness. Other issues worthy of notice are the roles of the educator and the medical doctor. They may be drastically affected by the ability of the computer to process enormous amounts of information accurately and promptly. Some scientists have hinted that the future study of elementary particles and cosmology may alter our concepts of space and time.

A study conducted by the Club of Rome informs us of potentially disastrous events in the near future due to pollution, population growth, scarcity of natural resources and rapid industrialization. Recently it has been found that atmospheric ozone is on the decrease, caused by repeated nuclear testing. As you all know, the presence of ozone in the upper atmosphere is vital to the survival of life on the earth, since damage to cellular molecules by the sun's ultraviolet radiation occurs in the absence of the ozone layer. Solutions to these problems cannot be arrived at through the efforts of scientists alone or by the efforts of any particular individual, group or country. The Club of Rome study clearly indicates the finiteness of the world's resources and ecosystems, and also makes clear the absolute necessity of a global approach and cooperative effort for proper and complete solutions to the world's problems.

These problems call for a worldview, accompanied by an attitude of sacrifice and cooperation among all peoples of the world, transcending the interest of any one community or nation. Such a spirit of cooperation will be attained only when all human beings come to view themselves as members of the same human family. This revolutionary change in human consciousness to embrace such a worldview has long been needed and is vital to humanity's survival today. In many educational systems throughout the nations of the world, the merit of competition and the survival of the fittest, achieved only by the winners in the competition, has been overly stressed. This has long been a plague undermining the healthy human endeavor to lead humanity into a world of peaceful coexistence by bringing them to feel themselves as members of one human family.

Now humanity somehow has begun to feel that in educating people the emphasis needs to shift and that cooperation has to be taught as vital for survival. In light of this viewpoint, the goals and philosophies of education will have to undergo a profound transformation.

In the past, we have accepted the contribution of science and technology to the enrichment of human life without deep reflection. Now we begin to wonder. Some disquieting questions come to mind. Are we happier in our technology-enriched world? Are we more sound ethically? Are we becoming more humane with love and concern for one another? Answers to these questions are not found simply by analyzing statistics, because the human being has many aspects that are not discretely quantifiable.

In any discussion of quality of life, these non-quantifiable factors play a major role. As illustrations, let me cite love, ideals, the joy of creating, belief in God and numerous other value areas. The question of the preservation and development of these humane aspects of life remains the greatest theme of our research.

The way for science to meet today's challenges

In light of this theme the question of interpretation and proper use of the vast amount of information generated through scientific research and discovery becomes a profound and serious one. Our attitude that tends to overemphasize the value of science may need reexamination. After all, any scientific truth is tentative -- the truth in one generation can possibly be invalidated in the next. Consistent experimental results, derived from a model built on the basis of a limited investigation, constitute scientific truth. However, in the course of building a model we go through the processes of idealization, simplification and approximation. As a consequence, we may have an approximate understanding of truth and not the absolute truth. Science has grown so big that it sometimes seems beyond the realm of human beings.

Science needs to be strictly thorough, accurate and detailed in determining facts. In the process of utilizing its accumulated information and achievements, science needs to remain positioned as one of the areas of human creativity. It needs to stay within the human realm so it may be used, controlled and appreciated just like works of art and music.

When we reflect on the history of the human race, we see there have been new frontiers in every era, some culminating in the development of literature and others in the blossoming of medicine and the various sciences. Yet in the past, development of science and technology has been aimed mainly at the conquest and exploitation of nature.

Today this very science compels us to set up a new ethical standard. The new ethic ought to concern itself with the problems of love for nature and a reexamination of human values and the need for cooperation among human beings. It must attempt to set a new view of value and a new ethical norm that can bring about an ideal world of harmonious coexistence among all creatures on earth.

The development of science and technology has certainly raised issues that invite us to reflect seriously on what is essential for us to remain human and to preserve humaneness in our lives. I strongly believe that the aforementioned ideal world can be made possible only when every field of science and technology is mobilized for the benefit of humankind and when a cooperative spirit of human activity guides those who work in those fields.

I ardently desire and expect the answers to come from you. This will surely be realized by assembling the results of your respective researches together with your opinions and wisdom. From the very bottom of my heart I beg you to play the role of the bridge that will connect and lead the present world toward a world of higher dimension and absolute value.

Thank you for your attentive listening!