Hak Ja Han September 17, 1991
Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia
Japan Convention Tokyo Bay NK Hall, Chiba, Japan
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished president of the rally, members of the Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia, and my fellow women leaders who have gathered here from all parts of Japan:
Today we stand at a turning point on the road marking great and historic changes. I offer my heartfelt congratulations to the Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia for its rapid growth in the live years since its inauguration to the point that now you are able to host this splendid rally.
In little more than forty years since you emerged from the ruins of a devastating war, your nation, Japan, has accomplished the greatest economic turnaround in the world. This feat, which may well be termed a miracle of modern times, is now the envy of people throughout the world. More laudable still is the fact that, even while achieving such amazing industrial developments, Japan has endeavored to sustain the traditional values particular to the East and has shown a great commitment and effort in family and social education. Underlying such wonderful success is what you women have done, as kind and self-sacrificing mothers and devoted wives. It is you, more than anyone else, who made your families healthy and strong while you nurtured and watched over them. Since it is your work as women that stands as the basis of this success, I as a woman also feel proud.
Leaders of the Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia! The world is now on the brink of a great historic transition period. The wartime policies of communism caused bloodshed ravaging millions of human beings. In the seventy years since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, communism came to rule more than half of the world, plunging all humanity into the pits of fear and anguish. New leaders finally have lowered that red flag, and we are watching it disappear into the mists of history.
This shows that the worldview based on atheism, with state policies that deny God, has come to ruin. The philosophy of conflict, struggle and hatred has revealed its limits, and the one-party dictatorial structure of communism is now faced with its own demise. However, this event leads to an important realization: The downfall of communism does not mean the victory of the free democratic world. Just as communism, which went forth asserting economic equality, was brought to its end by the collapse of its own economy, the free democratic world, which is crying out for the ideal of freedom, also is nearing a breakdown of society through the severe confusion of values. Corruption, sexual immorality, violence and addiction are multiplying under the shadow of so-called freedom. They are causing the dissolution of that free society.
The Cold War era that lasted for more than forty years after the Second World War is drawing to a close. It was a game with losers on both sides and no victor. It makes us realize that now is the time for a new salvation to reach both the communist world and the free democratic world.
Capitalism and communism originated from the West and were based on material values. They have revealed their limited ability to satisfy the true desires of human beings, who are made of both a spirit and a physical body. We are living in an age when the central role of eastern society, with its emphasis on spiritual values, has become absolutely necessary. Historically, the Asian continent has served as the cradle of spiritual civilization, and the time finally has arrived for the East to fulfill its global mission as the prime mover of spirituality. That is why this age has come to be called the Asian-Pacific era and why it is another great historic transition period.
Most respected women leaders! I believe that this society was able to do an excellent job of protecting its historical values during the past half century. While the industry of Japan developed and the nation became economically affluent, women voluntarily declined the opportunity for special treatment. Instead, they protected their families with devotion and sacrifice. In truth, the most important of all traditional values is the set of values centered on the family.
There is an old saying to the effect, “When one’s family is harmonious, all goes well.” What this means is that the family is the basis of peace. And the most important factor in forming such a family is true love. The word “love” has various meanings. However, I’m speaking here about true love, which refers to the absolute love centered on God. In other words, true love is to love even someone who seems impossible to love, and thus, in true love you have no choice except to love even your enemies. Furthermore, true love is the sacrificial love of even giving one’s own life for others. Therefore, in true love the antagonisms and conflicts among individuals and among societies or nations are completely transcended and dispersed. With true love we can achieve true peace.
True love is the motive and power behind creation, reproduction and development. To put it another way, physical energy, once it is invested, is consumed and finished. In the case of true love, however, the more you invest, the greater it grows, and it comes back to you with even more than you gave. Only in true love can the idea of eternal life become a reality. Families and societies that practice true love never come to ruin; they continue to grow.
In this regard, the teaching of my husband, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, to “live for the sake of others” is the basic guiding principle in the construction of a peaceful world. The origin of such true love is God and God created humankind to realize this true love.
When God created human beings, why did God create them as man and woman, each to become the object partner of the other? It was because of true love. It was so that, in the midst of that true love, the husband can share love with his wife and the wife with her husband. When the husband and wife share horizontal love with one another in this way, they come to possess the love of God, the origin of the husband and the wife.
Simply put, through the horizontal love between a man and a woman, human beings can form the connection of love with God vertically. To put it another way, a man and a woman marry, rooted in true love, in order to possess each other’s world horizontally and to possess God’s love vertically. They own the Creator and all created things because true love entails the right of inheritance. Human beings attain their original desires through the horizontal connection with each other and the vertical connection with God.
Based on this viewpoint, only man and woman together can encounter God’s love. Man and woman have equal value in that they possess God’s love only as a married couple that is united as one body. They stand in the position of the object partner of God’s true love. Human beings and the Creator thus come to have equal value centering on true love.
If the first created man and woman had fulfilled love in this way, they would have become true parents and the starting point for the realization of God’s love. Unfortunately, however, humanity’s first parents never became True Parents, who were supposed to stand in the place of God as the substantial embodiments of true love. Still, the ideal of True Parents has to be realized, and the origin prepared through which true families, societies, nations and the world centered on true love can be accomplished.
Therefore, beyond simply the age of a global village where we are geographically close, the future world must usher in the age of the global family, where we are bound together centered on true love. Rev. Sun Myung Moon has lived not for his own sake; he has lived for the sake of God and humanity because he knows the absolute way of true love. In spite of all the persecution and hardships he endured, he ultimately laid today’s worldwide foundation of the Unification Church.
As the wife of the man carrying out such a global task, because I am connected to this victorious foundation centered on true love, I shared the pain of the head of the family together with all of my family members, engraving it even within my bone marrow. Furthermore, no matter what hardships I faced, I did my best not to give in to them and to keep a smile on my face, thinking of my husband who would feel alone without me.
My life goals naturally came to be centered on true love. I lived for the sake of others in my effort to find true happiness through the woman’s role in the love for parents, the love for husband, and the love for children. My life became one of living more for others today than I did yesterday and more tomorrow than today, being more grateful and making more effort each day. Furthermore, I believe the reason I can successfully fulfill my role as a mother and raise my thirteen children well, is that my entire family is united, centered on God’s true love. This is because, in any given family, when God is with them, the parents and the children all can share the love, life and hope of God.
Distinguished leaders of the Women’s Federation for Peace in Asia! The coming era is to be neither the age of conflict, defined by two nations, the United States and the Soviet Union, nor the age of the confusion of many nations. Instead, it must be the age of God’s world, centered on God’s love. This era of dominating the world based on the survival of the fittest in terms of economic power or military power must pass; now we need to realize one world based on Godism. Godism teaches us about the true love of God, through which the East and West, North and South, and all cultures, races and philosophies can be melted into one.
Godism has to start in Asia and construct the realm of the Asian-Pacific civilization. Such things as antagonism, conflict or struggle will disappear from Asia when it is centered on Godism. Asians need to set an example of how to achieve world peace through practicing true love by living more for the sake of the whole than for oneself.
Because Japan has received the blessing of riches from the world, it ought to follow a path, based on the spirit of true love, of living for the world. By regarding the pain of the world as their own pain and the problems of the world as their own problems, the Japanese people will live for the world in self-sacrifice and service, and they will become leading figures in establishing world peace.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon established the Interreligious Federation for World Peace and the Federation for World Peace on August 27 and 28 of this year in Seoul, Korea. Despite the fact that all religions on earth have the mission of bringing humanity together centering on the one God and uniting humanity through true love, the truth is that in the course of history they have split into hundreds, even thousands, of sects. They have been engaged in conflicts and struggles among themselves, and they also have confused human beings about the path of faith that leads toward the true God.
In view of the historical facts that innocent people have been accused in the name of religion, and that bloody wars have broken out in the name of God, we realize that if religions cannot unite, the world representing the internal aspect of humanity cannot become one. A peaceful world on earth will grow more and more distant. In light of this, the fact that organizations bringing together world religions have been inaugurated this year is a grand, historic undertaking.
In addition, the fact of the matter is that the League of Nations and the United Nations, which were formed to resolve the problems that arose after the First and Second World Wars, have been inadequate. There remain many serious problems that have not been addressed in the past forty years of the era of the Cold War, which can be said to have been the Third World War.
Matters such as the resolution of racial and cultural conflicts, closing the severe gap between the rich and the poor, conservation of nature, and establishment of true ethical values are the challenges that need to be newly tackled and resolved by modern humanity on a global scale. Based on this viewpoint, the founding of a new international organization called the Federation for World Peace, focused on the new philosophy of Godism and true love, brings forth substantial new opportunities.
Taking it a step further, the Interreligious Federation for World Peace and the Federation for World Peace, which represent the mind and body of humankind, have embraced the common goal of world peace and together have built a mutual foundation upon which they can cooperate with one another, suggesting the imminent construction of world peace. Rev. Sun Myung Moon has already prepared, in the environment of the real world, all the important preconditions for world peace.
Most esteemed women representatives of Japan, now the time has come for you to be the people who practice true love by giving for the sake of Asia and the world. Today we are ushering in a great, historic transition. It will emerge as an important opportunity for Japan and Asia to play an active role in the world.
I hope that you will broaden your consciousness and way of life so that Japan will stand clearly as the mother of Asia and the mother of the world, and thereby stand at the forefront of constructing a new Asia and a new world. This is the destined mission that history has placed in your hands to fulfill today.
When Asia embraces the true love of God, the future of Asia is boundlessly bright. Furthermore, this world promises a future of hope in which the eternal order of peace can be firmly established. I pray that you will devote yourselves earnestly for peace in the new Asia and for the future of the world.
Thank you.