Section 1. What A Unification Church Member Is (Part 1)
1. The Background Of Members Joining The Unification Church
1) The Background of the Will
Think about it once. Think, what wind caused you to jump into the Unification Church? (157-90)
Think about when you joined this church. You did not just come by your will. I know that. There is a bloody history of tears here. (123-28)
2) We Were Called Here Carrying an Historically Extraordinary Mission.
When I look back on myself, who took charge of me? When we look back on our own personal, historical courses, we will realize that we ourselves didn't prepare anything substantially that made us worthy to be called for the providentially historical and extraordinary will of God. The more we feel this, the more we cannot deny that we were called and should believe that fact firmly without any doubt. And we should be grateful to God for calling us despite our inadequacies. Also, we must not forget the fact that a pitiable history of death was necessary to the process of God, so noble and high, coming and establishing a relationship with our humble selves.
Until we were called here, you should know 1) that Abel's blood cried out, 2) that Noah's 120 years of sorrow dwell there, 3) that history was suffused with the sorrow of Abraham who in order to serve God left his homeland and suffered as a wanderer, 4) that it was filled with the sorrow of Isaac who determined to be a sacrifice in front of God and to be obedient to Abraham, 5) Jacob's heart of longing for his homeland with a heart centered on wanting to restore the people of Israel during his 21 years in Haran dwelled there.
Furthermore, 6) there was the sorrow of the Israelites who suffered for 400 years in Egypt and on the way to the blessed land of Canaan many of the people became ill and died during the 40 years in the wilderness, 7) the second generation who remained went into the land of Canaan and centering on the concept of the new temple went through numerous indemnity conditions in order to receive the Messiah, and they were invaded by foreign peoples and experienced the sorrow of a people without a nation.
All that sorrow was there. And 8) you should realize that there remains the sorrow of Jesus who could not accomplish his mission even though he came to Israel which was a tributary state of Rome in order to meet the day of hope and he should have fulfilled his historical mission to subjugate Rome. And that is not all. 9) You must know that from after the time Jesus died until now, for two thousand years there was so much sorrow in the history which shed so much of the blood of our Christian forefathers.
You should know the limitlessly high God connected all these things to your lowly self. You must never forget the solemn fact that your connection comes on this foundation paid for with blood, through these conditions of historical sorrow, these requisites of sadness. We must keep this kind of heart and I must know that in choosing me, although I am inadequate to be chosen, God had a hidden will to bring to fruition through me the historical price.
We should know the fact that you and I with our pitiable histories are needed because God became pitiable and history became pitiable. Therefore, in the center of our minds and hearts, we must have an earnest enough heart to multiply all the strength we have, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand times, and to give all our loyalty and filial piety to God, and even if our life finishes to not die, You must clearly know that if you don't have that kind of mind, you are a traitor to the Will of God, a traitor to the hope of our historical ancestors, and a traitor to the mission of this age.
The more you realize through what process that noble high God had to come to set up a relationship with your humble low self, the more you should realize that even with dressing up properly, kneeling down, folding one's hands in prayer and bowing thousands and ten thousands of times to God, you are still inadequate. God called me because I am needed for the fight of goodness. Therefore I must not be a deserter who enters the fight of goodness and turns back. I should rather decide that I would rather die as one of the believers of Unification Church. This is the attitude we should have and we should realize with confidence that we must be in this situation.
One must make a determination which compensates for one's inadequacies but with doubled or tripled determination, and compare oneself with a person who has all the necessary requisites. As much as one feels his inadequacy he should double or triple his determination. We should realize that we are in this kind of situation as believers of Unification Church. (22-88)
3) The Fruit Born by the Achievements of Our Ancestors
You must realize that even though you don't know it, behind you there is a foundation of the achievements of your ancestors who came and went, and you don't know it but because among the many tribes your ancestors achieved more, their achievement accumulated over and over again, and you are the people born as the fruit of it. Because the people who are gathered and called this way are the people harvested as the fruit of the achievements of their ancestors, and are the tribe which God has gathered into one among so many tribes, the fortune of the nation gets ruled by how the people with such backgrounds move. (22-90)
Today the fact that you are related to the Unification Church is not centered on just a couple years or couple months of your life. This place is a historical place and a place of hope. It is the place with a historical relationship which could in reality be the starting point your life. Then if throughout your life you didn't see the history, and you weren't related to it, how could you become connected to this historical relationship? And also how could you have this historical relationship of connecting to the Unification Church? That is due to the level, whether is be large or small, to which you made an effort to match the direction of your mind to the same direction of mine as your ancestors and to match it with the direction of the flow of the age. That is to say, according to how much you tried to become close to it, you could connect that much more closely to the Unification Church
When seen from that viewpoint, today the situation you are involved in is not made by some individual named Mr. Kim. It is made through historical relationships. Today my being is wrong and is randomly put together, but among the historical relationships, many of our ancestors were loyal to the purpose of history and thereby made a foundation of merits which could unite with that purpose. It is due to the relationship of those merits you were chosen today. (21-105)
4) We Are the Presidents of Good Ancestors Corporations
What are you right now? Historical fruit. Aren't you? Fruit is fruit, but you are the fruits who are centered on historical tribes. Get it? You met me because you have good ancestors and because of those good ancestors' achievements. It's not because you wanted to meet me, nor because you are so great. No matter through whom you were born, that ancestor is related to part of the public history of Korea. Even in an evil nation there are more evil things and less evil things. Therefore regardless of how evil a nation may be, there is a less evil side. Heaven works in history centered on the less evil side.
Therefore, you met me because of a relationship in which you resemble your good ancestors' characters according to the law of heredity which follows your blood lineage relationship to your good ancestors' achievements in the public area centered on goodness. Don't think you met me because you're so great.
Not even one of your eyes belongs to you. If anyone looks at his own face, he will see he resembles his mother or father or grandfather. At least one part of him resembles them. If you analyze all this, the blood lineages of thousands of generations of ancestors are all mixed up. Any cell, everything is made like that. If your ancestors took away everything that was from them, you wouldn't have anything.
So you are the presidents of good ancestors corporations. Everyone has to obey the president's order. That is how it is. Then does that president have to be great, or not qualified? He has to be great. Then what sort of president is a great president? One who doesn't run counter to the historical tradition of the past, who stands in the front line of the present ages' activities, and who can be a model for his descendants is a good president. (46-152)
5) The Cooperation of Ancestors and Resurrection Through Second Coming
Then you, who are in such position, are you, as one who has been chosen into such a historical relationship, living in such a way that you can in your life show off properly the light of this historical relationship? (21-105)
Long ago at the time of Jesus, through Jesus' coming to the earth, in the same way that the spirits who had lived and died before then could go from the form spirit realm of the spirit world into the life spirit realm of the spirit world, through the condition of your being on the earth your ancestors have entered into a special realm of benefit by being able to come to the earth at this time. Do you understand what this means?
Because you are in the position to become a life spirit if you become a victorious branch of the lineage since you have come to know this will, your ancestors are cooperating with you. In this way you must become the base on which thousands of generations of ancestors can return. At Jesus' time, it was an age of cooperation from the spirit world in order to be resurrected to the life spirit stage conditionally, but now the spirit world unconditionally cooperates for resurrection to the divine spirit stage.
There is no greater blessing than the fact that this kind of age has come. Do you understand what this means? In other words, the spirit world is cooperating. Therefore from now on the work of finding the tribe will go faster. Because we have a historical relationship, because we have the condition for cooperation, it will go faster. If on earth we do work which can bring about returning resurrection, what a holy thing it is. If in your ancestry you have patriots or an exceptionally virtuous woman, or a filial son, and if you call them in prayer, they are to come. Because now your ancestors must cooperate with you. It is like that now. They are upside down now. (14-22)
2. The Proper Attitude To Joining The Church
1) The Purpose for joining die Unification Church
Everyone, when you joined the Unification Church, did you join because it was good, or did you join because it was bad? [We joined because it was good.] You joined because it was good? [Yes.] Did this place prepare rice cake and then ask you to join? What was offered when asking you to join? What was offered when you were asked to join? Not rice cake. You were not asked to join to guarantee your success in your career.
When you were asked to join you were offered God's public pledge. You were offered God's public pledge. Why did you join the Unification Church? You joined for God's public pledge. What is that superior pledge? It is not money or knowledge. It is love, the love which can govern money, the love which can govern power, the love which can govern knowledge. What is the pledge that God, the world of angels, God's creation, and also humankind, without any exception, would like? What is that? It's a pledge about the universe. (83-190)
What is the purpose for which you came here? You did not come in order to solve some environmental problem. You came here to clarify the fundamental problem of humankind, to stand in front of the Absolute Being and to be recognized and confirmed by the Absolute Being. (11-224)
Everyone, what is the purpose for joining the Unification Church? Was it to learn the principle of indemnity? [Yes] It was to learn the principle of indemnity, right? [Yes] It's nothing else. The principle of indemnity can't be unknown to be sons and daughters of God. You joined to learn the principle of indemnity. I am the teacher who teaches the principle of indemnity, aren't I? [Yes] I have the responsibility to teach you and to make you practice it.
So you who practice it will suffer. It's simple. Suffering is something to be thankful about and it's a good thing, right? [Yes] So, when you were suffering with starvation, did you laugh like this, "Ha ha ha"? Did you appreciate it? I imagine you didn't appreciate it and didn't like it. You will appreciate it in the future. (153-151)
2) Things that Happen After joining the Church
When you first joined the Unification Church, maybe you felt like your body was going to float in the air. You have experienced it, right? You just felt good. You felt good without any reason. Do you know why that is? It's because the foundation for your body and mind to have give and take had been established.
According to our principle, when subject and object become one, then God who is a larger subject has give and take with their unity as a partner. Then because of the action of that kind of high-level power, one can feel a strong sensation such as one never felt before. A feeling of happiness comes from the power of strong action which is ideal power. It's not just vague. It's all by the principle. By the principle. (27-226)
When you first listen to the lectures after joining the Unification Church you feet like you're floating and walking on air. You don't even know your legs are touching the ground. Your heart feels so happy that you don't have to cat; you still feel good even if you get cursed, and you still feel happy even if a bump forms on your seat. (172-161)
Everyone, when you first came into the Unification Church you were so happy you kept grinning, didn't you? Did you come in crying with sadness? However you joined, you joined but you could feel your heart swelling up and beating and even when walking in the street you would smile like someone feeling a cool breeze pass by. So people would say it was strange. By watching carefully, it could be seen there was something excellent here. It's okay even if the church building is a board shack or some kind of a cave. They are all to come if I'm here. (24-72)
Have you experienced that kind of thing? Haven't you? When you were joining the Unification Church, you were overwhelmed by hope, right? But looking at yourself standing in the middle of, if you call it fate, fate, and, if you call it relationship, relationship, at a point which is barely touchable by a pincer in the middle of the flow of history, you might doubt whether it is false. I was the same. But you cannot help but recognize it even though you try not to because heaven gave the living evidence which cannot be denied even though you try to. You don't just feel happy or feel appreciation without any reason. (17-33)
We started with happiness when we Unification Church members joined the church and faced the will for the first time. You would have felt everything in the world was made centering on you. You would have felt that the more blessing you received, the more everything resurrected centering on you, and everything formed relationships centering on you.
Therefore you might have experienced the feeling that when you are happy then the creation is happy, when you are sad then the creation feels sad together. At a time like that, the world doesn't look evil even if it really is; the world doesn't look sad even if it really is. One lives a life of pledging to fulfill tomorrow's responsibility and tomorrow's hope believing that happiness can take over the sad world. I believe you have experienced those things. (34-129)
You have to restore the heart you felt through the will. Don't you think so, too? Even students who go to school want to stop at the church before they go home once they join the Unification Church. You would have all experienced it. Why is that? You caught a disease. You have been sucked into the realm of fortune of thousands of years, the first time one could finally greet the springtime in six thousand years. It's not the fortune of a couple of years. It's the fortune of thousands of years. You became that way because you gathered at the one time you could ride the fortune of thousands of years. That heart is extremely precious. When you trample on that you are trampling on history and trampling moral laws. (51-263)
So, do you want to come to the Unification Church? After you hear sermons of the Unification Church, your feet, which were going towards home, automatically come to the Unification Church. You know going back home after school is a duty, an obligation, and a responsibility, but if you just hear sermons of the Unification Church your feet, which were going toward home, automatically come to the Unification Church.
If you look at the building it's dilapidated, and it's deep in the valleys of the mountains, but if you go there you think, "I want to eat and live here and not go. I like being here." Then the Unification Church is real. If you want to be here, then what's next? You should want to live. You should have a mind to live as brothers, by uniting with each other with God's eternal love. If that doesn't get accomplished the ideal world won't come. (63-62)
If you believe in the Unification Church it's like that. If you believe in the Unification Church you think you will receive many blessings, but actually things get twisted. Thinking carefully about it, it seems that things will work out well, but rather they get twisted. Why is that? Because that is love. Therefore it has to get twisted. If you believe and attend the Unification Church, and you are greedy for say a level of ten of something, and you get as many as a hundred, and again you want a hundred then you will walk a twisted road forever. If you are greedy for ten then you should pluck out ten things. By plucking out those things, by attacking that external greed ten times, you are promised the inevitable consequence that you will become intimate with internal God, you will receive blessings from God.
Worldly people don't bring you what we call "blessings"; worldly people bring what you say you hate. In that way, you should not accept living in a relationship with an environment where worldly people can laugh and like it; rather you have to break off from those things. If you don't break off from them, then they will bite at you. They will all bite at you so that you don't break off with them. That's why a contradiction appears. If this kind of thing doesn't happen, then we can assume the conclusion that the religion is not a religion seeking a true path. You should know that God and we are heading different directions. It's not just that. God stands in front of us and He fights with Satan who ruined and made a failure of God's providence and also blocked our road of life for six thousand years. (51-32)
3) Attitude To Have After Joining The Church
If you were called and started on the road of the will through Reverend Moon, then you have to know, as a person who is called, for what you are called, where you are going, and if you decided to go like this, then what portion of the way you have gone. If a person has once determined something, he has to make his decisions centering on that determination. "Yes" or "no," you have to answer it.
It's also the same for me. I promised in front of heaven. . . "I will certainly go this kind of way, so even if my friend betrays me, even if my parents betray me, or even if my wife and children betray me, I will go. If my people betray me, and if the Unification Church itself which I belong to betrays me, I'll go even sweeping it away." I have been going like this from the day I was called. I'm also going that way now. I'll be going tomorrow, too. It's better to go the way quickly. The slower you go the worse it is. There are tens of millions of lives on a train to hell and they are all falling into hell. (99-223)
Today, you, the people who joined the Unification Church, are learning the principle. You are learning the principle centered on Adam's family; you are learning the principle centered on Noah's family; you are learning the principle of the time period of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and you are learning the principle of God who has been carrying out the providence behind the scenes through history until now.
But you are beings who just follow. Therefore you have to walk the way without a break following the principle.
Through it, you should think "I'll establish and save Adam's family, I'll save Noah's family, I'll save Abraham's family: I'll even teach them, not just save them." Since you have been called and have the whole responsibility to take care of the world mission in this black world, you should stand in a position which allows you to point out the things that were wrong to Moses when he was leading the people of Israel. (12-196)
If you pledge something after joining the Church, by what standard are you going to do it? If your pledge in front of the will was done with a true heart, then since it endured a long time, it would have grown a lot internally even if it didn't show so much externally. In Abraham's time Abraham didn't know, but saints in the spirit world and world of angels were cooperating with him. If there is a person who pledges himself and is loyal to God, then even though he is living in this era, he doesn't end as a person of this era: he will be an historical person. Also, the work that he is doing is historical work. In the words, "It is historical," everything is included. (12-107)
4) Things to be careful of after joining the Church
Today you are going on the road of faith and your know the noun called "religion". . . If you joined the church then are you qualified to accept the good things of the Unification Church. Are you qualified to manage those things? One who cannot manage it, cannot have a relationship with the good world. Can you be responsible? One who can't be responsible can't make a relationship with the good world, either. Do you get it? [Yes] Therefore humankind must be responsible and manage the responsibility. After that, when its good and someone likes it, that will bring about the consequence of goodness. We should know that. (151-208)
One doesn't become a person who can be called by God, that is, one who can carry out God's responsibility, in a day or two. That kind of person should be a person who can remain with God's heart even while suffering starvation and shedding blood, but this can't be done in a day or two. It takes more than three or four years of time. (17-12)
These days people who joined recently are trying to smell out something like a hunting dog. And though they're smelling things, they're not trying to smell normally; they're walking around like mongrels with their mouths dragging and they're only trying to smell dung. If people have joined the Unification Church, then they should try to solve the problems centering on me. What are they going to accomplish by mixing with good-for-nothings. It is useless to hang around with those good-for-nothings.
I am saying this because the time to establish a new attitude is coming. Therefore you have to have a new attitude as a believer, as a believer of the Unification Church. The most important thing here is to have a firm faith about the center. Before you have that belief, no matter how much you make determinations, it is of no use. What will happen to me when I run into some incident while going on this way? Try asking and answering this to yourself. (27-114)
You who are calling yourselves believers of the Unification Church, if you have determined to fight with style for heaven with brave spirits, then you must not trade that with anything at all. You should be able to say "No," even when someone says he will give something any human would like; "No," even when someone says he will let you rule any kind of realm: "No," even if they threaten to kill you.
Only when someone does God's will should you say, "Yes;" Humankind are fallen people who must break through the stronghold of Satan. If it doesn't end at one, then go up to ten; if it doesn't end at ten, then go up to a thousand. But humankind don't know this. Thank you for joining the Unification Church. But you must throw away your personal desire and ambition from that day on. You should start this task after burying the desire and ambition you have. It's that way when seen by the providence. Jesus did that, the many prophets called out to heaven with their jaws set even as their blood was being shed by their enemies spears. You must take deep into your hearts the determination of those who said, "Father! Release your sorrow!" (8-60)
Don't be disappointed that you joined the Unification Church. If you joined here, all the laws and order of love established by all the logical conclusions that Reverend Moon talked about are here. Then it is true that it is certain that you must go this way forever and settle here forever! [Amen.] That kind of person is a true person. Then you understand the true appearance? [Yes.] Now you must go forward and not forget. (139-227)
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Section 1. What A Unification Church Member Is (Part 2)
3. What Is A "Family Member"?
1) What a "family member" is in the Unification Church
We Unification Church members call each other "family members," right? What does the word "family member" mean? If you translate the Chinese characters then it means "the mouths that eat meals." So a family member is a brother you eat meals with, it's a family member you eat meals with. (14-164)
What do we call our church members when the Unification Church members gather? We call them family members. Don't we call them that? [Yes] What is a family member, a family member? It's not just a mouth that eats meals. Then what is a "family member"? You have to have a brotherhood relationship, you have to be born clinging to the same heart of your parents. Only by that you can be a family member. (155-211)
Today our Unification Church uses the name "family member." But you also call the members in your families at home "family member." Then what are we centered on that makes us call each other "family member"? We are calling "family member" centering on the love of God, on God's precious relationship and connection of wanting to love the human race, and centering on the ideal of the creation that God was seeking from the start. (25-287)
We are the family members of the Unification Church, as you know well. If we talk about family members, of course everyone has different assigned positions, but regardless of the environment or the situation one can't avoid going on a united course of life as the others in terms of life style and feelings. If there are a father, a son, and a daughter, then they do different tasks but their field of emotional life is the same. We know that one can be in the position of a child to his parents only if one can feel sad when the father feels sad even though the children's situation is different than his. In this viewpoint, we, the Unification Church members, say, "We are family members," but the original way the family members have to go, of course that way will unite with the purpose of going the way of the will. It is important to unite like that, but the emotional life should not be different.
Especially family members have to unite when the family is in a position where there can be difficulties. If the parents are sad, then the children and the family members living together will also be sad. If you want to solve that sadness, then you must take the position that you don't value anything more than that, not even the position you are assigned to or the work you are doing is more important. If you consider them more important, you can't say you are united with your parents. And from that point we cannot help but consider that your emotional life is separated from theirs.
But if no matter how much your external environment changes, you cast that all aside, and even if those things disappear, if you stand in the position where you can feel together with your parents the pain of their bodies and their minds because of the sorrow that they are going through by uniting your mind and will with theirs, then even if the family possesses nothing, has nothing to do, and has nothing to brag about, in reality a new thing to brag about is starting there. You can go a totally different way from this point. You must know that when you determine and start from there, a new way appears such that you can go over even the point of death appears.
We commonly call each other family members. Then if you look at it centering on family members, it's goes without saying that this is true for parents' sorrow, but it's also true for children's sorrow; the children's sorrow is not only their sorrow. The children's sorrow directly connects with the parents' sorrow. It doesn't matter if there are lots of kids and lots of other members. The whole family becomes involved if one person in the large family is struck with sorrow. They become harmonized there. Centering on sorrow they become one, not two.
We come to know that being united is something to brag about; it's the power of the family; it's the origin of the life of the family. If you think of one family member's sorrow as his own sorrow, if there are ten members and all ten of them think that way, then those ten members can't unite. Even if those ten members want peace or happiness or rest, there can't be any rest among them. If some person wants to rest peacefully, even if he finds his own peaceful rest, that can't be the foundation for the whole to rest peacefully. If there are ten places to find peace for each of the ten persons, that becomes the foundation for uneasiness and the basis for trouble or unhappiness between them. We know this through our lives and through the stories of our members about the situations of those around them. Viewing it from the position of being a family member and thinking about it centering on this content, we can see that we are different from worldly family members.
Worldly family members, those family members can be considered happy if they found the way of happiness in which they live together for their whole lives and help each other and comfort each other, unite in heart by that. In life they might be a family member or a family which brags much more than other family members or families. But the concept of family member which we talk about is different. We don't say family member centering on the world; we say it centering on the Heaven. We say it centering the parents of heaven. They are not the parents who rule one time period. They are the parents who govern history and rule history, and rule this era. Also they must rule the time after this, which is the future.
As we, who are attending the parents of heaven, think again, we must know that the parents of heaven are facing the fallen human race. We know we ourselves are not liberated from the realm of the fall. (60-14)
2) The Background of Deciding the Phrase "Family Member"
Today we use the phrase "family member" in the Unification Church. Don't we? What is this phrase "family member" centered on? It is centered on Jesus. Then was there a family member centering on Jesus? Is a mother a family member? Is a mother who didn't stand on the same road with Jesus a family member or not? Would she go together anyway, or go separate ways? [Go separate ways] What if the father is in that situation, would he go together, or go separate ways? [Go separate ways] Brothers, father, tribe, nation, and church will all go separate ways.
In spite of being the family which should be willing to die with Jesus, to go on the same road with him, was there a family member like that in the family that Jesus grew up in? A family has a father and a mother, a wife and a husband, and children. In the words of the Unification Church, this is "the four position foundation." That is Jesus' family. Then was there a family member whom Jesus could love? Did Jesus love his mother? No, he couldn't. Did he love his father? His father was a stepfather. Did he love his brothers? No, he couldn't love his brothers. Then who did he love? Although He came as the author, as the main character of love, when he tried to love his father and his mother more than anyone else, he couldn't.
Because the original Adam and Eve could not be educated about love by God, Jesus tried to teach about that love to his father and mother saying, "You have to love like this." But his mother and father didn't listen to the words of Jesus. In teaching love, it had to be done from a position of having passed through the ancient laws of Judaism to the fulfillment of the ideal of the temple. Because Jesus came as the main character of love as the representative of God, the father, the husband, and the brother, Mary's whole family should have attended Jesus as a representative of God. Jesus should have called Joseph like he would have a child, "Hey, Joseph!" It should have been like that. Joseph was not a father to Jesus.
Also to Mary, he should have spoken to her like to a child, "Mary!" It should have been like that. They were supposed to be educated. They were suppose to be educated? By the standard of the human heart, they were in a parent and child relationship, but by the standard of the heavenly heart, since Jesus was the subject, his brothers and his parents, everyone, had to be educated by Jesus according to the duty of love. He should have educated them saying his father and mother should live this way, his brothers should live this way, and among my siblings my object should be this and this kind of woman.
But did Jesus educate them like that? Is there a word about that in the Bible? Leaving out the whole leaves and taking just the sprouts, they are clamoring to go heaven. They are playing a strange game. When did Jesus love his father? Was there a father that Jesus wanted to love, a mother that Jesus wanted to love, bothers or neighbors that Jesus wanted to love? No there weren't. That's Jesus' sorrow. Also were there people, or a church, or a nation, or a tribe, or a family, or an object that Jesus could love? Were there? He couldn't escape from dying because the nation rejected him, his people rejected him, the church rejected him, the tribe rejected him, his relatives rejected him, his parents rejected him, and his brothers rejected him. He died when he had lost everything and was totally frustrated, but he died for "me"? He died because he wanted to? There are a lot of these false groups in the world. They killed him but they say he died for them. . . They are all insane. So our Unification Church has to fulfill the relationship of the family member. (51-187)
You call a person who joined the church a family member; how precious that is. I have said it before, but what kind of person is a family member? The phrase "family member" is centering on whom? It is not centering on yourselves. It's centering on Jesus who was beloved by God, the only value in the whole world that can't be traded even with the whole cosmos, the only son who came as a actual body with infinite treasure. It was impossible for God not to love him. If God's love was to appear, then it could appear through him, if God's way of triumph was to appear then it was through him, and if the standard of the origin of heaven and earth was to appear, it could be only through him. He is such an Absolute Being that nothing of God could appear without going through him.
We can only call someone a "family member" centering on him. "Family member" is not a phrase centering on the believers of the Unification Church. We say "family member" centering on the kind of relationship of value, and the personality like Jesus. If you look at it centering on Jesus, the older people are Jesus' parents, the people in the same age range are elder and younger brothers. We call it centering on Jesus who is the only value, who is in the position of infinite treasure. (17-19)
What is the "family member" that we talk about in the Unification Church? It's a phrase we call people who are standing in the position of true children who inherited the will of Jesus; it's a brother; it's a family. Then with our family members, with our brothers, how should we go the way? Jesus, in his life growing up since being born. . . Of course Jesus had brothers. He had brothers and parents, but he didn't think of them as the parents that heaven truly wanted, or the brothers that heaven truly wanted. He was thinking of the ideal parents and the ideal brothers, but in that time period, when Jesus looked at them centered on himself, when he asked whether they were brothers that he could love, and parents that he could love, they weren't. (156-42)
Today, why do we use the noun phrase "family member," and where did it start from? Especially young people should know this precisely. Jesus had a younger brother but he couldn't love him; he had parents but he couldn't love them; he had relatives, but he couldn't love them. We have to relieve his sorrow that there were churches, and his nation, and his people, but he couldn't love any of them. (22-295)
3) Who Could be a True Family Member
Today, you use the phrase family member but that is really a fearful phrase. If you do wrong in your course of belief, then you become an enemy who is blocking the position of Jesus who was testifying about the will of God. You become an enemy who blocks the position of Jesus who was fighting against Satan, and you become an enemy who blocks the will that was trying to restore the human race by going to the cross. Then what kind of person is Jesus' family member? He will be a person who resembles Jesus who was willing to give the word to everyone; he will be a person who can feel all of Jesus' heart which includes worrying, caring, and sighing when he was working so hard fighting against Satan.
Therefore, you must know that when Jesus was going the way of the cross, a person who just followed was not his family member, but a person who could understand Jesus heart until he went the way of the cross is the family member of Jesus. Also you must know that the biggest sorrow of Jesus in his thirty-some years of life on the earth was not having a true family member who testified for him, a family member who could fight against Satan with him, a true family member who could go along with him when he was carrying the cross to Golgotha, and a true family about whom he could brag to the heavens and the earth. Then what do you have to do these days? You must testify about God's will with full devotion just as Jesus was sorrowfully seeking to testify about God's will two thousand years ago. You must become the people who will realize God's will in place of Jesus.
You should have Jesus' heart of concern to accomplish the will of heaven, and know his heart as he fought with Satan and his tragic heart and decision when facing the opposition of the people of Israel and the Jewish religious leaders. Beyond that, you must be a person who can feel his tragic heart which even determined to sacrifice his life to destroy all the elements which blocked the way to accomplishing the will of heaven.
You must also be a person who has the mind to be a sacrificial offering for your people by carrying the cross on your back. You must also be a person who can be a living sacrificial offering for the Israelite people, who can harmonize with Jesus' heart who was here two thousand years ago, and who can have the personality of Jesus. You must not be a dead sacrificial offering which yields in front of Satan. You must not give up testifying about God's will, and penetrating deep into Jesus' heart; you must not be defeated fighting against Satan.
Therefore, you can be a true family member only by being a person who at the very brink of death still has strong determination and the heart to lead the enemy to the bosom of God's love. Then, who caused Jesus' heart such sorrow while he was going the way as a representative of God's immense will? People who were the closest to Jesus caused his sorrow. His sorrow wasn't from the rejection of the Israelite people who had been prepared; his sorrow wasn't from the rejection of the believers of Jewish religion. His biggest sorrow came when his beloved disciples, who had followed him, some even for three years, couldn't believed when they had to believe, and couldn't die when they had to die. You must know this correctly. Then what do you have to do to be called a true family member of heaven?
First, each of your individual hearts should harmonize and move together. Through that, you should know to fight for one purpose (will), and for that will, you must know to determine to die to accomplish that will of God. You must be a person who can relieve the sorrow of Jesus which was caused by his passing away without accomplishing heaven's will two thousand years ago. You can be called a true family member when you accomplish all these things. Then, what should you have as you go your course of faith? You should be a person who has true family members. When you go home you should have true family members in that family; when you go to church, you should have true family members in that church; and when you go out into society you should have true family members in that society.
Also as Jesus testified in place of God, fought against Satan in place of God, and died in place of God, 1) you should testify for Jesus, 2) you must fight for Jesus, and 3) you must be willing to die for Jesus. (3-141)
Then up to which level have we come? We have made the Unification Church group. This is as same as establishing the Jewish religion again. Also the group of people in the Unification Church is the same as reestablishing the lost tribe and the lost brothers. In that way we, who are in the Unification Church, are brothers. Without the relationship of brotherhood, the tribe cannot be formed. Also without connecting to the brotherhood relationship, the church and the people cannot be formed. Neither can a nation. Therefore we have the mission to connect centering on the relationship of brotherhood. It is in that sense that the phrase "family member" is used. Since through the family members, the brotherhood relationship is formed, this phrase "family member" can be the foundation for establishing the kingdom of heaven.
You should know that this is why the Unification Church members use the phrase "family member." So between the Unification Church members we have to give and receive the love that Jesus couldn't give and receive. When an elderly person looks at a young person, he should love that young person like Jesus, in place of Jesus' father and mother who didn't love him. By loving that young person from that position, you restore the position of that elderly person which is the same position as the Jewish religion which didn't love Jesus, and the Israelite people who didn't love Jesus. You have to restore the situation of Jesus' elder brother not being able to love Jesus if you are in the position of elder brother or younger brother as family members. It was God's sorrow and Jesus' sorrow that Jesus couldn't share love with his elder brother.
So a person whose age is in the position of elder brother must care for and love the younger person thinking of him as Jesus. Through that, finally God's sorrow that He couldn't love and Jesus' sorrow that he couldn't love his elder brother will be relieved. God's hope was to have the Israelite nation, the Jewish religion, and Joseph's family, which were prepared by Him, to have them love Jesus. Also Jesus' hope was to love them after being loved. In this way, God's hope was to have them love, and Jesus' hope was to love.
But since God's hope to have them love and Jesus' hope to love were broken apart by the cross, God has sorrow, and Jesus has sorrow. So we have to reproduce this and re-indemnify it. So when an elderly person in our Unification Church faces a person younger than himself, he should love that younger person as though he were Jesus' elder brother loving Jesus. And someone who is in the position of younger brother should love an older brother as though he were loving Jesus, since Jesus' younger brother didn't love Jesus as a elder brother. Since Jesus' grandmother didn't love Jesus, people who are in the position of Jesus' grandmother should love people in the Unification Church who are in the position of grandsons as though they were loving Jesus. Also people whose ages are that of a grandson should love the grandmothers (elderly women) to relieve Jesus' sorrow that he couldn't love his grandmother. Like this, every single one of our family members should set up a relationship centering on Jesus, from the children, to the youths, to the adults, and the elderly.
The believers of the Unification Church are the people who were gathered inside one fence to solve the sorrow caused by the Israelite people, the Jewish religion, and the lineage of Joseph, who were supposed to love Jesus, but did not. You have to love Jesus, but since Jesus is not here, you should love a younger person like Jesus. Also, since not being able to love an elderly person was Jesus' sorrow, young people should love the elderly people as if they were in the position of Jesus.
Through that, God's sorrow and Jesus' sorrow will be relieved. When by connecting in this way, we form a new nation, a new church, a new lineage, and a new family, finally God will be able to greet them with happiness, and Jesus can greet them with happiness. You should know that from that a new gate of heaven will open. (37-171)
4) Attitude an Original Family Member Should Have
Today, people of the Unification Church are going a difficult way. We are using the phrase "family member" for the first time in the history. We are using the phrase "brothers and sisters." Oh this holy phrase! This phrase must not disappear even though heaven and the earth disappear. Even though history is swept away by the judgment or this era is swept away by the judgment, this phrase and this reality should live forever. Even after clearing away evil, this family member of hope, this family of hope, and this brotherhood of hope must remain. To do that, for this family member of hope to live, we have to go beyond the historical way of the cross. So we, of course, have our own crosses, and we still have the crosses of the family, the tribe, the nation, and the world. (156-67)
Where did the expressions "we" and "family member" in the Unification Church start from? They started from the tradition of the cross, and the place where blood and tears were shed. Therefore it's a relationship that you can't lose no matter what you would be given for it, and you can't exchange no matter what you would be given for it. If your parents oppose this relationship, then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with your parents; if your people oppose it, then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with your people; if your nation opposes it, then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with your nation; if heaven and the earth oppose it then you have to go this way even if you have to break your relationship with heaven and the earth.
You have to die holding on to this way, and you have to live holding on to this way. You must know that the sorrow is a the world sorrow, so when you seek to relieve the world sorrow you must stick to the way with tears and this is the way that the Unification Church must go and it is the way of the teacher of the Unification Church. (153-64)
The standard of the words "family member" is a high-level standard. If you reach this point, your relationship with your lineage doesn't matter. A lineage, a blood lineage doesn't matter. This place is the place where people who are not in the same blood lineage can have a relationship stronger than that of brothers of the same lineage, and can attend parents who are not their parents in a relationship stronger than that with their parents, and attend a family which is not their family more than their family. (26-19)
Do you walk in and out of the church door as you wish? You can't do that. The "father" that you call out to here is not the father that you should call so easily, and the "family members" are not the something that you should call to so easily. They were built on a foundation where thousands and millions of saints shed sweat and blood. The issue of coming to this holy place is not the matter. In other words, the listening to sermons is not the issue: one's self is the issue. You should critique yourself about whether you still have a tendency to repeat the conventional views of belief and habitual life. (12-10)
Today, we should know all these internal matters; we should determine once more to complete this mission and to establish this will. You must know how important each family member is. If one family member is missing, you are missing an individual that Jesus can love in front of God who has been seeking it through the course of the history of six thousand years, and you are missing the family that Jesus can love, and you are missing the brother that Jesus can love. When you say you love one person, then that one person could be an individual, or could be one person of the family, or could be one person of the brothers. (37-176)
You must realize that you are one family member centering on God. You have to think about how precious the phrase "family member" is. (22-296)
These sons and daughters who gather here are heroes. We call them church members of the Unification Church. We call them family members of the Unification Church. Please let us not to forget this extraordinary heavenly meaning which is hidden in the name "family member." Please let us know the extraordinary fact that without that family member none of us can have the brotherhood relationship, and if we don't have the brotherhood relationship, then we cannot attend the parents. Heavenly Father, we earnestly pray that you will make us one and let us become soldiers of heaven who can go out and fight adoring your day humbly on our bended knees in front of your will. (153-183)
4. The Value Of A Member Of The Unification Church
1) We Are the Substantial Fruit of History
Today, when we members of the Unification Church pray, we pray "Ah! We are the substantial fruit of the history," right? If you are the fruit of the history of six thousand years, then the essence of your good ancestors and the essence of your bad ancestors would have reached you, right? So the fruit itself would definitely by affected by those things.
Therefore the reason the state of your spirit is not smooth is because you are spiritually the fruit of both those good ancestors and evil ancestors. Therefore, nowadays, this place is fallen, but all the good things and bad things of history are intersecting here. They intersect, but what do we have to do? We have to make the good things into the main fruit and the bad things like the peelings. Do you understand? Nowadays make all the good things into the main fruit and all the bad things like the peelings. (51-252)
You don't know, but behind one person coming to this place, there is a huge historical effort. The public merit of lots of ancestors has been accumulated. In a field where the owner is harvesting in the fall, he automatically sings a song. A melody of praise comes out. But if there is a person who says "It's too hard. I don't want to do it," while he is harvesting, then he is not the owner. The place where the farmer harvests himself is the place where his effort turns out to be glory; it is not the place where one bears fruit with grief and a sigh. Isn't it a place where the suffering and effort float away and humming accompanies the harvesting, the place where a hopeful tomorrow is promised? It is the same for ourselves. (49-63)
Even if you are living as a poor farmer who is holding a weeding hoe and digging up and eating a bellflower root, you have to have the mind that you are fishing the heavens and the earth with that weeding hoe. You must know that all the kinds of grain are the substantial fruits of the culmination of historical and manmade relationships, and you should be able to praise this. You must know that this kind of person, even though he is living in the deep mountains in a thatched house, will become the leader of the country. From this viewpoint, the Unification Church will be rich on the worldwide level. Do you understand? (26-56)
The people of the Unification Church, who have appeared as the substantial fruit of the harvest, if they are confident and become substantial beings who can accomplish what they pledge before heaven, then we must realize that these beings are really precious beings. We should know to praise them. We should admit their rewarding value, and present them and their praiseworthy appearance without shame in front of anyone from the course of history.
In this era, we must have the confidence to go in front of the 3 billion people of humankind, or in front of the people who have particular rights to be citizens of the most developed country of the world. And furthermore, we should be able to stand up and be able to tell our descendants who will be born later to follow our example of this tradition. You must know that the season when you affirm your own determination is the season of harvest and the season of praise.
Looking at it from this viewpoint, when not just us humankind, not just us believers of the Unification Church, but also lots of spirit persons who are in the spirit world say that the people of the Unification Church are really established as the fruit of the historical harvest, then we have to feel that not just the people of this era, but also the spirits who died and shed blood as sacrificial offerings on the alter of religious martyrdom in the course of the history, those beloved spirits are watching and asking us to solve the sorrow of the whole. They will feel our happiness as a bigger happiness then when they achieved the determination of their own day of triumph. We must not forget that there are a lot of good ancestors like that. (48-350)
Today, when you pray, you proudly say loudly, "we are the fruit of the six thousand years of the history of God's providence." That is right. But if it is so, then the light of your combined history must shine. When something which was lost in history meets an element of life which can bring it to a new level of value, no matter where it is, it is a principle of nature that its original color will greet the new world centering on the sprout which could greet the next spring. Special thoughts and caring are not needed there. It naturally happens like that. There is no reason to complain about whether someone is noticing you or not. (59-32)
You have to go through the winter season to bear fruit. This era is the age of harvest and the age of accomplishment. In the winter season the cold north wind blows and everything freezes. In the middle of that ,new life grows silently while it is buried deep in the earth. If something doesn't bear fruit after it, we have to cut it down. Jesus cursed the fig tree which bore no fruit. He showed the viewpoint of the Last Days. In the Last Days you have to cut them and graft them onto a new branch. (10-303)
If you took at yourselves, if someone asks you, "Who are you?" then you'll say, "I'm a historical fruit." You know that. But what kind of historical fruit are you? A historical fruit fulfills the condition to stand in the position of the coming Lord, having him as a standard, not centering on oneself.
To do that, you have to unite absolutely with the internal standard. You must unite with the internal standard as I absolutely united centering on God, however hard a time I was having. When that standard gets rarefied then you have to eliminate everything and you have to sacrifice the rarefying standard once more. Otherwise, however hard you work it wouldn't be effective. (156-242)
We are the substantial fruits of history. What are we? [The substantial fruits of history] And next we are the substantial fruits of the present age, the substantial fruits of the future. It's awesome! Yes, you are the substantial fruits of history. Then if this kind of substantial fruit has been eaten by worms and bugs and has holes through it, would that be good? When you cut open an apple, is an apple whose black seeds roll out and fall on the ground good, or is an apple whose seeds are sticky and cling to the apple good? You want to become an apple whose seeds are well ripened, don't you? [Yes.]
So you know what's good. Well then, if you were cut open would something like a well-ripened seed come out of you? Do you believe that your second generation will absolutely be the fruit of heaven? If your heart is cut open will a well-ripened Unification Church come out? Would it be all right for this substantial fruit of six thousand years to fall without being ripened like a fruit which falls from the tree? Would it do to worry that the wind might blow and say, "Oh no, it looks like I might fall. If the wind blows even a bit more, I'm going to fall. Reverend Moon, don't shake me. Just let me be still." There are some people here like that.
On the other side there are those who say, "Even if Reverend Moon takes an ax and shakes the branches as he pleases, my branches will never fall until they have been cut." Which side are you on? Are you those who worry whether the wind might blow? [No.] Then which group are you in? [The group which will not fall even if you shake us.] The group which won't fall even if you are shaken? [Yes.] You have spoken well. Is it true? [Yes.] Those who are laughing are on the wrong side.
As people who have backbones, as men who have backbones, as the last substantial fruits, the substantial fruits of the Unification Church, as the substantial fruits of Reverend Moon, as the substantial fruits of God's son, please become the brave fellows who are ashamed before no one. (46-155)
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Section 1. What A Unification Church Member Is (Part 3)
5. We Aim At The Point Of Awesome Blessings
Today, members of the Unification Church say, "I am a member of the Unification Church, but we are able to know that until the Unification Church appeared, history was a course of suffering. The historical relationships were combined from the beginning of the human race until now. It was not the bad relationships which were combined but the historical relationships of the good people were combined and they were directly inherited. This is why God went through the history of the providence of restoration.
So what happens if you go this way? If you go this way then you meet the coming Lord; if you go this way then you go together with the coming Lord to the heavenly castle; if you go this way then you go together with the coming Lord to the palace of the Kingdom of Heaven; if you go this way then you can be the children of heavenly country. Imagine how much it must have cost goodness and how much historical suffering heaven must have gone through to prepare this way.
In the same way that harvesting is directly proportional to planting, imagine how much it must have cost along the way of suffering, especially along the course of the history of the restoration through indemnity. We must think of this. At this place, individuals are mobilized, families are mobilized, tribes are mobilized, peoples are mobilized, and furthermore the matter of the rise or fall of a country is in the balance, and on top of that the matter of the rise or fall of the world is in the balance. (43-291)
We, the Unification Church members, must know how much our ancestors devoted to leave this will to us. What the principle teaches is true and up to the point of being able to say that, lots of sages devoted themselves and sacrificed their lives to steer history to one destination for this one purpose until now, and to cope with their own eras. They connected everything to this final point and you must know that you are the people who have met with the last intersecting point.
So there can't be any miracle more surprising than this. The content we have is so historical, and so extraordinary. So if a person, who doesn't have the personality to unite with it, follows but worries about it and walks back and forth and around it, then the blessing will not stay as blessing, it will take everything back with itself when the blessing leaves. You must not think about this lightly.
Today, this blessing is not a blessing we can deal with as an individual; it is an extraordinary blessing that has to be dealt with as a nation and as the world. When you think about this you say, "How grateful am I for this blessing." When you bend over to work for this blessing, you must keep in mind that this blessing is connected to you on the foundation that your ancestors made an effort and bent over hundreds and thousands of times, and it's not enough even if you bend over thousands or even ten thousands of times. In loving that will and longing for it, only if you make an effort to add more time, night or day, to shed tears and blood, will your ancestors visit you to give the blessing of the gathered devotion. That blessing is the blessing which has come to us, and we are responsible for it. (43-293)
1) Be Great and Proud
You look like you lack luck because your face is flat and your ears are curved inward, but in the spirit world they know you as people carrying luck. Especially your ancestors who are closer than ten generations from you, are tense with expectations. Because the history of the restoration happens centering on ten generations, if a bad descendant appears, then the ancestors in the range of ten generations judge him with the words, "You scoundrel. You are trying to ruin us."
Therefore if there is a descendent who has good ancestors, then those ancestors actively cooperate. You are standing in such a position. The spirit world will be eternally, eternally happy if you, who is in such a position, fight with excitement and style and win all the time wherever you go. Evil spirits will fall back with surprise even before they show up. It works out like that. So these ancestors will attend you as though attending a king. You should feel this feeling. (14-21)
We are proud to have become one true child centered on True Parents. We are proud to have become a Unification Church member. To become Unification Church members. Are you like that? You have to brag about being a Unification Church member from now. (116-218)
We are stylish people. We are stylish people who are walking on the road of a proud life which the world envies, heaven and earth envy, and all the saints and sages in the spirit world envy. We are people whom heaven can't throw away, who have the background and the content which heaven will not just praise us but will also come and tell us that they love us. (171-29)
You are the people with a high dream. You must know that you are the people who are going forward to find the dream. So you should go forward to find the dream right now, today, this year, next year, and in the future. What a wonderful dream this is. Nothing opposes this dream in the world nor in history, and there is nothing which does not welcome this dream. We must be proud of the Unification Church members as people who realize that kind of dream, and are standard bearers with flags. (116-28)
So, where are you going to go? You should go straight. You should go the right direction. You should go not as insignificant people, but proudly, proudly with marching steps. Post "The Unification Church" on your forehead saying, "I like Unification Church members better than self-centered people." How appealing is this? How appealing this is. There is no such a thing as this in the world. How appealing this is! When the Unification Church comes and God asks, "Mr. so and so! Did you do the activities of the Unification Church proudly or in a shameful way?" Then you have to answer in front of God. I walked around naturally even with smelly clothes on. Once before, my shoes were completely worn out. I was proud as I wore them and walked around. I went proudly even when I went fishing, or wherever I go. I receive contemptuous treatment that no one knows about, but numberless people will follow behind me. It's for sure. They will follow even if I tell them not to. Do you understand? [Yes] How great? (177-227)
2) Blessed Place
When you know the Will, it's infinitely high; when you know the will, you'll be in the Royal Family lineage as children of heaven; then in what direction should you go? The time that you can live in the place where you can receive the blessing has almost arrived, but if you can't handle the blessing, then it will all be taken away from you and you will become a beggar. We should be at the point where we can receive the blessing and not be at the point where we can have our blessing taken away. We have to get into that range. I know that heaven can set up the foundation from the part which it trusts. You don't get blessed right away after you join the Unification Church.
There was a time when I also suffered having to ask others for food, and I was coldly turned away at the door. You knew the way Reverend Moon was going is true. And you knew also that heaven is true, not false. Then you have to attend heaven truly. If you go to a hungry place, then starve like a hungry person; if you go to a place of death, then you should be more sorrowful and more eager than the patriots in the past. If you don't become a main character with that kind of heart, you cannot relate to the heavenly fortune. (13-203)
Then comparing today's Unification Church people with Noah of the past, with Abraham, and John the Baptist, who is more blessed? Who is more blessed? You are more blessed. The time to be blessed has arrived. Look.
John the Baptist who was raised richly, ate locusts and honey. But did locusts come and jump into John the Baptist's mouth while he just sat still? So he had to run around the fields to catch them. Think about it. Does that look respectable? When his mother, father, and relatives looked at him, wouldn't they have been at a loss for words? Think about it, how much they would have been at a loss for words. How much did he look in the crevices of rocks to get wild honey? Doesn't it sound great? Actually, if you look at what he was doing, he was crazy. (57-305)
You are more blessed than God or Jesus or Reverend Moon. Because what I did in my whole life, you can do in 6 months. If you don't oppose, and say "We, all the people in the Unification Church, like being Moonies," then it doesn't even take half a year. It doesn't even take half a year if you don't oppose and like the Unification Church. (102-194)
Now the fact that you became a Unification Church member. . If Reverend Moon's words are absolutely correct, should you think it is an honor to become a Unification Church member. or is it a hopeless thing? [It is an honor] (80-337)
3) Place of Joy
OK, why is the Unification Church happy? We are happy because we are religious people. The Unification Church members are happy because we are the religious people who centered on God set love as the model. You might hear the words, "You are happy because you are religious people," for the first time.
Things like philosophy and science cannot pursue eternal and true love centering on God. However, you can't be happy without God who pursues true love, so a person who trusts true love becomes a greater person. You can find God and God's love here. If you can conclude that you can find God and God's love here, then you can make a great revolution and a great new transition period which never existed in the history. Why? The happier you make the world the greater culture you can establish. Can you understand? [Yes]
In that sense we, the Unification Church people, are happy. Are we truly happy people? [Yes!] Why is that? Why? Why? [Love] Because we know God as the subject of my love. . . No matter how great I am God is still the subject; anyhow I look at it, He must be the subject? Only He can be the subject no matter how great I am. Do you feel good or bad? [Good] How is that possible? How can you say in front of God, who created the heavens and the earth, that only He can be my subject . If you bring a bullet saying that you are a true person and hit the target, than it is totally possible. The essence of love is the unified world; it is becoming one. (93-149)
We Korean people, now also the Unification Church members will be like that. All the Unification Church members, are you all happy? Are you happy or unhappy? [We are happy] Unhappy or happy? [Happy]
It's a big problem. What kind of happiness is that happiness? There are millions of kinds of happiness. Elementary school kids, A, B, C, D. . . When there is a question in the test saying "Fill in the blank, if after writing down "A," then they change it to "B" and get a hundred points, aren't they happy? That is happiness. Isn't it? Someone who is hungry, someone who is hungry will be happy with one bowl of rice. But, what happiness is that happiness? It's not the happiness of each day. It's not the happiness of a month. It's not the happiness of a life.
Then what kind of happiness must you look for? Eternal happiness, eternal happiness. That eternal happiness should not only be good to hear for the ears. Because it's like a song, it's eternally good only for the ears! It must not be like that. It should also be good for eyes, also good for nose, and then also good for mouth, also good to the touch, and also good to the feeling. That kind of happiness. . . That happiness is not for a moment but for eternity. (162-178)
Worldly people brag about the person they like and hate the person they don't like, but let's not do that. We are four-sided, not one-sided. Why are the Unification Church people happy? In this sense, by saying that we will resemble the ideal of the love of God, we are happier than anyone else. Then let's see if that's true. Everyone, is God a true father? [Yes] Are you truly God's son? What kind of position is that position?
In what standard do you want that position? We are wanting better than Adam and Eve's position before the fall. Understand? We are saying let's be a father and a son in a better position than before Adam and Eve had fallen. Are we like that? Are we like that really? [Yes] Really like that? [Yes!]
We are hoping for a standard that no one ever thought of in the history of religion, so when that comes true, how happy would we be? Therefore we are happy. The place where that happens is the place where Satan's false charges disappear. It's the place where there is no relationship with Satan at all. If you set up a relationship with God in such a place, then who could possibly separate that son and daughter? In that sense, the Unification Church people are happy people. We have to know this is true. Since these are the people who say they will possess the deep world of God's love which human history never thought of and never experienced, the conclusion that they cannot be unhappy is inevitable. (93-163)
Today, the Unification Church members feel happy after they join the Church. Like "Wow! I'm happy!" But this is not guaranteed at the point when you have just joined. You must digest this from the beginning to the end in the realm of dominion to be guaranteed that happiness. You can't have conclusive happiness without being such a subject. The conclusion can be made that happiness is guaranteed on the foundation of triumph. (76- 210)
So, therefore we can't avoid thinking about the problem "Where is happiness?" here. See, we come to know that happiness doesn't exist where words exist, happiness doesn't exist at the place where you accomplish something, but we find that happiness is related with oneself only after the final victory. Living is not happiness. (76-210)
4) The Value of the Family Member
God is an eternal being. Therefore He moves to make the laws which He established eternally. In this same way, if the Unification Church, starts something, then we have to push through and go eternally even through any kind of suffering, and with the determination to die we must make an effort until the purpose is completed. That is the rewarding value of being a family member of the Unification Church. Are you that way or not? That way or not? Yes or no? [Yes] Then will you do that or not? [We will.] (85-329)
Then let me ask one thing. After joining Unification Church is there anyone who thought something like "Oh, no, I shouldn't have joined the Unification Church. I'd like to live once more in the world?" Raise your hand. Isn't there anyone like that? Isn't there? [No there isn't.] Do you understand? When you joined the Unification Church, did you join after fighting and giving up your life and everything with triumph? There is no boundary line. What is your situation? [We joined after triumph] Look. Someone who is just sitting here without any boundary, someone who is in here but doesn't even know that he is in the Unification Church, that is the same as not knowing the Unification Church. Such a person can go out any time.
I came here by fighting for 30 years. How difficult it was. How many times I was insulted; how many times I was hit; how much I was ridiculed, and how patient I was along this difficult road. However hard it is, even if you die, you have to try to go this way; otherwise you can't go this way. Even if I die, however difficult it is, I don't think about going out to the world. Since I fought so hard, this is the place I have fought so hard to establish, so I don't think of the world even if I have to die. I will die here. But you are not that way. You aren't that way, right? Huh? You aren't that way, right? [Yes] Why aren't you that way? If you did win after fighting with all your effort putting your life on the line, you say "I'll just go out."
The being who knows the value of the Unification Church the best is God. And next? [Reverend Moon] It's Reverend Moon. The person who knows second the best is Reverend Moon. Then, if there are a thousand people here then there are a thousand ranks. Do you understand? [Yes] You can't feel value beyond what you have felt or what you have experienced. Do you understand what I'm taking about? [Yes] I'm not sure about the people who left and rejoined, but you won't feel resentment or sorrow at all even if you leave. You only know that much of the value of the Unification Church. That's the member of the Unification Church. (93-275)
You must know clearly from now on. You must know this clearly. You don't know how important the present is. We are the heavenly army, the army of the human race. The army of goodness. Understand? [Yes!] Do you know how much Father thought about this for 40 years? I also fought a lot with time. God knows. How miserable Reverend Moon was. No one else knows besides Him. You have to know this clearly. You are at a historical, important point. You don't know how valuable is to be active in this time period with father. (135-185)
6. The Case When One Leaves After Believing In The Unification Church
1) When One Rests it is Because he Doesn't Understand Yet
Now we are not in a situation to just discuss something. We are not the people who came to just go out for a walk. You are people who came to risk your lives. Everyone, aren't you? Would you die on the side of Jesus, or would you die on the side of your husband, or your children? Married ladies here, on which side would you die? [On the side of Jesus] You too? Would you die on the side of elder brother Jesus? Would you? Some will say, "Oh, no, I can't die unless I have married." Women, what do you mean getting married? Men, what do you mean getting married? Forget about it. Unless it becomes a foundation where God can be happy, it will all be ruined.
The reason I spent my whole life going the way of suffering and being persecuted was because I knew that. "Go ahead wind, blow. I can't be broken, rather that wind shall be broken. Blow very hard, harsh wind. I don't want to turn back. I'll go straight." I went through the harsh wind and waves but still my energy and surplus power are strong. There are people who have gone this way and become exhausted and left, but I went on without feeling sympathy for those falling away even though I looked straight at them falling away with my eyes. While doing that I have come forward this far.
From now on, there also will be a lot of people who will fall away. The issue is for whom you are moving. Someone who believes the Unification Church for oneself will fall away. With the mind "I will live for the world, and I will live for the nation. I can't live before that nation lives, and I can't live without having a nation in the world which has accomplished the Will." You should be a person who can say, "I will hurry forward for the will of the nation and the world even if I have to die." (50-75)
Reverend Moon is a tough guy. A tough guy. You would have all backed off. Looking at the people who joined and left. . . When they look at me, they say "Ah, great guy." At the market, the one who finishes the latest and checks the place and checks who cleaned up best, he becomes the owner of the market. Doesn't he? He becomes the owner of the market. It's the same. In the world of righteousness, if you joined the Unification Church, and if you want to be a better person than the Unification Church members, then you have to take care of everything after Reverend Moon dies and the Unification Church passes away and perform a funeral service for them; then you should say I'll go the way. That kind of person can receive more blessing than the Unification Church members. A person must be that way. (82-25)
A person who has left the Unification Church knows only one third of the Unification Church. Do you understand? People who were in the Church but who left thinking of "Ooh, I'm tired. I'll just go to graduate school. I'd rather seek success. What's all this about God? It seems He exists, but also it seems He doesn't, what do I know? You know only when you reach the end." They left without even knowing one third of the Unification Church.
The reason they know only one third of it is because they don't know about Reverend Moon. Do they? So they even know less about God. They only know what was taught centering on Jesus. The principle is only taught centering on Jesus. The standard of the principle teaches up to completing Jesus' will. Understand? It taught completing Jesus' will but not about completing the Unification Church's Reverend Moon's will. Were you taught that or not? [No.] So they don't know it.
Since they don't know that, they don't know about completing God's will either. Therefore, people who left the Unification Church with disappointment are the people who left not even knowing one third of the Unification Church. In the sense of percentage, they didn't even reach thirty-three percent. Understand? For example, someone who wants to graduate from university must go through the first, second, third, and fourth years. But if he left the university after finishing only half of the first year, is he related to that university or not? He is not related. (37-41)
If there are lots of students in the university who don't study enough to pass, it doesn't mean that prestigious school is bad. The more students who fail, the better the school is. I don't think the Unification Church is bad because there are a lot of people who leave the Unification Church. You must know that. Understand? [Yes] Do you want to leave now? [No] Will you pass? [Yes] A lot of people left. A lot of people chose the way of failure. It wasn't to make them fail that I gave them a lot of difficulties. (111-33)
2) They Come Back After They Leave
If you taste the Unification Church once you can't leave. I'm saying, you can't leave after tasting the Unification Church once. A man would rather leave a woman, but not the Unification Church. It has that strange power. Do you agree? [Yes] (73-170)
So someone who joined the Unification Church and tasted the Unification Church and who has a truly effective conscience, that person will come back even if he leaves. He joins again. It's inevitable for him to rejoin. He can't stay apart because he knows he'll be miserable. (131-222)
That is the reason why the people who left the Unification Church have such a hard time. They wish all these things could be washed off. If they joined for the will, then when they leave they have to wash it off. But when they leave without washing it off, it catches them so they are always uncomfortable. (51-251)
People who joined the Unification Church can't live outside of it. When I went to Korea this time I heard the news that one person who left the Unification Church was crying, "Oh, no, my heart wants to go there to see him but I can't," after hearing the news that I was coming. Do you understand what that means? [Yes] The atmosphere of the Unification Church is good. Is it good? [Yes] (102-23)
A person who leaves the Unification Church cannot go to other churches. When they have a religion again, then they have to come back to the Unification Church. That's because it is rewarding to follow the way of the Unification Church, so there is no other place to go. If there were a way for us to go by a different path, then I would be the first one to go there. (35-110)
3) Example of the Family Members Who Left
If we watch carefully, what kind of people are the people who leave the Unification Church after joining? They are the people who say, "Ooh, the Will is good but when will it be achieved!" They are phantoms, phantoms. (158-297)
I heard a grim report from a person who had left the Unification Church. He asked me if he could rejoin because there is no other way, and it's inevitable to go this way, and that's why he came back. Centering on the Will, there is a content here which can't be answered. He went outside to the world and tried all sorts of things, but he said that he came back because there was no other place to go.
It is good that he at least came back now, but there will be suffering on the way. There will be even harder difficulties on the way, and I wonder how he will go over them. Ask yourself and think about whether you can handle the responsibility of it. If you can handle the responsibility of it then I have the tolerance to forgive you even ten times. But if I forgive you when you can't handle the responsibility then it gives you double the guilt. So I stayed still with no response. Do you under, stand? When you leave, you walk out standing straight up, but you can't do that when you rejoin. (33-8)
There was a interview with ex-Unification Church member recently on the radio. He said, "We ex-Unification Church members also support Reverend Moon. We hope he acknowledges it." Then, why did they leave? Ex-members are the people who all left a long time ago without admitting that they were wrong, and they said that the Unification Church was wrong. But now they are saying that they were wrong to leave. I heard that kind of thing for the first time. (118-152)
People who left the Unification Church after believing it still. . . One time I met such a person in the street. I am at peace. I don't think of him as having left. I am going this way with an attitude to accept him back anytime he comes back. But he turned around, and when I went beside him, his throat was choked up and he was crying saying, "Reverend Moon, I became like this," with tears pouring down.
Why did he do that? According to the action of the power of the universe, a betrayer of love can't take his proper position. A great power is moving there. Therefore there are no persons who oppose Reverend Moon among those who left the Unification Church. I don't like the president of the Church; I am leaving because I hate this person; "I don't want to see that guy. . ." They are that way. They are the people who had left their families after hearing the Principle, people who had had to jump over the wall because their fathers and mothers opposed it. (171-248)
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Section 2. The Way Of The Unification Church Members (Part 1)
1. The Three Types Of The Way
1) The Three Types of the Way Centering on Good and Evil
Human beings are going roughly three ways. One of them is going the opposite direction of the way of goodness, opposing goodness; another is going a kind of neutral way, neither this way nor that, and the other is going the way of heading towards goodness and being responsible for it. In other words, there are people who are going the opposite direction of goodness, people who are going the way of no gain and no loss, and there are people who would even die for the purpose of goodness.
Then what kind of way are we walking? How was it in the past; how is it in the present, and from now on what kind of way must we go? We must go the way where you would die for the purpose of goodness. And then when a certain time arrives, you will sing a funeral hymn and expel the evil elements of the world of humankind. You have entered a very difficult way. You will know yourself when you realize the things that you should, that this is the inevitable way you cannot help but go. This is not the midway course nor the way which is opposite of goodness. You must realize that this is the way where you have to establish a relationship with the Absolute Being. From a religious point of view, there are three ways; the way of betrayal aiming towards evil, the way claiming only to follow the conscience, and the way aiming for the best goodness. Here, it's different to live by conscience and to live for God.
Through past history we can see that there was the way of evil and the way of human morals shown by the conscience. This kind of historical background keeps us bound by convention and makes it hard for us to go the absolute way. It makes it hard for us to get out from the habits of the past. You must cut off these habits and go on. Humankind must go somewhere anyway, but where and how should it go? It goes without saying that humankind must go the way of living for God and for the Absolute Being. This fact is impossible to change even though heaven and the earth change.
But you have not even emerged from your own problems yet. The body is close to evil and the mind is close to the conscience. There are still lots of people who are at the point of doubting whether there is a God. But God is not some fantastic Being, He is a Being who really exists and who does things. There are three separate ways; then where must one's first step go? Of course it has to go the way of living for God and for the Absolute Being. Then how do you go while you go the way for God?
Just as there are several ways of working for the nation, there are several different paths along the heavenly way. There is the way of a servant, the way of an adopted son, the way of children, and also the way of parents. Then what kind of way must we go? Which position should we be in to go more elegantly and to have more value? We could just be in the position of a servant. But you wouldn't want to go in the position of a servant to go all the way with the determination to sacrifice all. God also wouldn't recommend that you go that way. How about in the position of a brother? Not that either. How about the position of an adopted son? Neither God nor your yourself will want this. (11-237)
2. The Original Way Of Life Completing The Three Kinds Of Love
Now there are three ways to go. How can you go the way of parents? You must know that. Our providential history is like that. And then how do you go the way of the bride and groom? And then how do you go the way of children? Isn't that it? Those three loves are the important points for God to visit. Therefore, viewing things through parental love, conjugal love, and children's love, through these three ways, which way are you going on? If you can't go on all of them at the same time, then you either have to go the way of love as a child, or go the way of conjugal love with Reverend Moon in the position of bridegroom and all of you in the position of brides, or go the way of love which is like raising a child with parental heart. These three kinds of love exist in the Unification Church. Do you understand what I mean? [Yes] (63-302)
It's up to you to determine which way you will go among the three ways I talked about before. You should be capable enough to go your way. A lot of children must appear who will say, "Father, come to me." He is a Father who can't come even though He wants to because there are no children. You must be a prince of triumph who can say, "Oh Father, who wasn't able to come because of Satan. Please come. How bitterly did you suffer? Come and be honored." You can get into the realm of heaven only if you are a person who can bow in front of God as such a prince. To prepare the way for God to come and to prepare the nest, you must go forward saying, "Oh Father, please discuss with us and please direct us." God has wanted to be here in the midst of the beautiful rivers and mountains of Korea, but He could not because of Satan. Now you must build the realm of heaven and tell him, "Please come." Do you want to do that? [Yes] Then let's do it.
Everyone, this alone you must never forget. There are three separate ways, and we must go the way of being responsible for the world of goodness centering on God's Will. I am doing this because I knew this. I will never just die. Even if I die, there will be branches, and there will be new shoots, and the Will shall be accomplished. So let's not hesitate to be in the front line of going the way of the Will (11-244)
3. The Way A Unification Church Member Should Go
1) The Way of God and a Unification Church Member
The way the Unification Church is going is not the way of living for Reverend Moon. You have followed Reverend Moon so far, but you were not following Reverend Moon. You followed God. You must follow God. If you deny God here then you are an enemy. It's better to die than to exclude God in front of Reverend Moon. It's better to die than to exclude the human race in front of Reverend Moon.
Therefore, it's a clear fact that the Unification Church is the group which has the mission to relate to the world culture and to present in a logical system of ideology how to tell people that they must go this way centered on God through obeying the moral laws; individuals must go this way, the nations must go this way, and the world must go this way. This way is about how to meet God, not about reaching the goal of Reverend Moon. (71-76)
God is taking the responsibility to lead you and goes ahead and takes responsibility to fight for your way. Do you think that is easy? Look what kind of fight that is. To protect me, one being, what kind of fight does He have to do? He has to protect the world. Isn't it that way? And He must defend not just the world but also the nation. Also He must defend the atmosphere of the tribe or the family. Without defending those, God cannot take me with Him. Consequently, God has to desperately defend the world's front line to lead one person, myself (51-33)
What Reverend Moon is teaching now, and the way that Reverend Moon wants to go is the way where God will be able to interact with the universe, live with the universe, and unite with the universe. That's what he wants to find. That is the Unification Church. Understand? That can't be denied theoretically. You know about the providence. Providence is this kind of way. (117-115)
The way God goes and the way humankind goes cannot be different. Of course Satan and humankind go different ways. (51-27)
2) The Way of Fate that a Unification Church Member Must Go
Today, what way is the way you have to go? It's the way to find the liberation of my historical, lost homeland, to find my original homeland which was lost in order to greet the day of my homeland's liberation day. The people who believe in religion are the people who go the way to establish God's nation. Therefore you run into the obvious conclusion that the religion which doesn't have sacrifice as its essence is a fake religion. Understand? You must know this. What do we have to do to go that way? You have to keep sacrificing for others. So you become a driver, but should you individually drive and pass the individual stage quickly, or stay as an individual? You must pass the individual stage.
Without sacrificing as an individual, one can't take over the family's duties; without sacrificing as a family, the family can't take over the tribe's duties; without sacrificing as a tribe, it can't take over the people's duties, and without sacrificing as a people, they can't take over the world's duty. Therefore religion sacrifices.
Someone who will be patient until the world level realm of religious nations is established will be saved. Our Unification Church is following this formula course of the law. The individual must sacrifice for the family. Not the family of Satan. We must sacrifice for the family which God considers ideal. The family which God considers ideal doesn't mean the kind of family that is in the Republic of Korea today. In that sense, in the Unification Church citizens of the world gather together and celebrate, and make a family. It's different. (56-176)
Where will Unification Church members go? Where will you go? The many colors of one's own bag of fate is all personal fate, but if you belong to the Unification Church then you have to go the way of the fate of the Unification Church. Is that right or wrong? [It's right] Come on, you all, it's wrong. Is that really right? [Yes]
OK, then let's talk about how it is really right. It is right. It will be clear after listening to the following. The way of destiny of the Unification Church is different than the individual way of destiny that you carry in your bag. But you can't say, "Since I'm wearing blue glasses Unification Church members have to wear blue glasses." Many religions exist in order for individuals to get into heaven and to receive blessings. The way of destiny of the Unification Church is different. It's not a way of receiving blessings; it's a way of receiving punishment. What can we do about it; it's destiny. Do you understand?
We'd like to receive blessings and go on our way, but the destiny is to receive punishment. What can we do about it? So, what are you tied to? Are you tied to the way of your own destiny, or tied to the way of destiny of the Unification Church? [The way of destiny of the Unification Church] The way of destiny of the Unification Church. Are the minutes tied to the hour or are the hours tied to the minutes? To the minutes? [the hour] I guess you know it. Also, are the hours tied to the day or the day tied to the hours? The hours are tied to the day. Also are the days tied to the month or the month tied to the days? [The days are tied to the month] I guess you know it after all. It is that way. (120-25 2)
Unification Church members sit and say, "Everyone goes out witnessing, and everyone does pioneer witnessing; that's what we do every day. It should be all right even if we don't do that. It's enough if everyone follows Reverend Moon. Oh, I don't like restoration through indemnity. I don't like restoration through indemnity. We should just live like other people. How nice it would be if we could do all the things that other people do and also go this way. That useless Unification Church indemnity, indemnity! That's for ugly and simple people to do, not for smart professors like us, etc., we can't do that." But we are going this way of destiny. (14-130)
We can't turn back while we are going on the way. At any rate, we will have to return after reaching the end of the world in eternity. We are to return, but we are not to return before reaching the end. That is the law which God's love enacts. Understand? For that reason you still have to go on after death. If there is a spirit after death, that spirit also has to go on. You can get into the original ideal heaven which God created only by passing through that. Will you experience the resurrection of the second coming after death or now? [Now] (Laughter)
So now, we know the formula. I have to love myself, and you and then love them, and then what do we have to do? These kinds of love; that is to say, parental love, conjugal love, and children's love, you must know that it should be the way of life of the Unification Church members to apply these three great loves of God to the whole world, not just within the wall of your families. You must love the universe more. Love the universe more than your husband, and love the universe more than your children. If you think, "Oh no, I wish it were more centered on me, then God's love doesn't come. You cannot reach God's love centering on your selves.
We are going this way in order to reach God's love. For that reason you must, if you earn money, earn money not for your children and your family, but for the world and for the universe and for God. How great this is! If the universe lives then our family naturally lives, and if God feels happiness then I naturally feel happy. It's a principle. If you give out everything centered on love, then from that point you are to be filled, automatically. Do you understand what I mean? [Yes] That principle can't be wrong. It's absolutely that way. This is the formula that Unification Church members can have. (125-100)
4. The Way Of Restoration And The Way Of The Principle
1) The Meaning of the Way of Restoration
You can't establish the world of eternal love which God wanted to establish if you just leave the world this way. It is only by completing the ideal of creation which God, the Absolute Being, originally intended that God can bring back His original authority. He has made that ideal the standard and He deals with the evil world, and he is leading the world towards the world that He originally had as an ideal. This is God's providence for the fallen world. You have to know that the thing that is needed for this providential course is the way of restoration.
In other words, without going the way of restoration, fallen humankind cannot go the way of perfecting an individual, and without going the way of restoration the Will of perfecting a family cannot be established. Also, without going the way of family perfection, the perfection of the people or the perfection of the world can't exist. We arrive at the fact that it is the inevitable destiny of fallen humankind to go the way of restoration. If you think about it, the only way that an individual, family, people, nation, or the world can become perfect is by going on the way of restoration. We are learning this through the Principle. (63-153)
To go the way of restoration you need the Messiah, and to get recovered from an illness you need an object for the condition. It is that way. Understand? [Yes] To be restored, you need a doctor, and then an object for the condition, and time. Don't they say, "Take medicine for three days. I have to give you medical treatment for a week." Do they or not? It is that way, so a person with an illness must keep faith in place of the Messiah, the lord. Be a representative. Understand? You must believe the word of the lord, the doctor, more than your own word.
Therefore, if you look at the Principle of the Unification Church, you need a sacrificial offering for restoration. And a sacrificial offering requires time, and then an object for the condition. And then I said a being representing Adam is needed, right? A being representing the son, a being representing the Messiah, a being who can carry it out as a representative, that is. . . If someone becomes a person who keeps the doctor's orders, then even though he dies, he becomes an Abel-type being. Can you feel that? Can you feel it or not? [We can.]
Therefore, whether you like the Unification Church's Reverend Moon or not, if you have an unconditional attitude about Reverend Moon's words, and say, "I'm the representative of Reverend Moon," then you become an Abel of the Unification Church. And then what do you have to do? You have to set up an object for the condition. You have to take the medicine. If he says take the medicine lying down, then you have to take the medicine lying down; if he says take it while running, then you must take it while running. You can't know why he asked you to take it while running until you are in his position. You don't know it until you become a doctor yourself. Right? If he says chew it, then you have to chew it, and if he says spread it and eat it, then you have to eat it like that. If he says eat it at night, then you have to eat it at night, and if he says to eat it at the top of a poplar tree, then you have to go up and eat it. (laughter) Why do you laugh? You have to obey absolutely in setting up a object for the condition. To do this it takes time. You have to know this.
To be restored you need the Savior, you need a doctor and centered on that doctor's words you must have an absolute condition, time . . . This is what we call the way of restoration through indemnity in the Unification Church. Understand? When restoring something, we don't just restore it. What do we do? We do the restoration through indemnity. If something is out of order to an amount of ten, then to fix that you have to work as hard as ten. If an illness has accumulated for 10 years, then to recover from it you have to take care even it takes longer than 10 years. Then how can you restore something? It cannot just be done; it is done following the rules of the Principle.
When giving a condition, the doctor doesn't do it just as he pleases. When he prepares medicine, he doesn't just mix this and that kind of medicine. He puts them in according to the rules of the Principle. Going this way is the way of restoration. That's how it is. Now, let's reach the conclusion. How must you go the way of restoration? You can't go alone. Understand? [Yes] You have to find the way of restoration, but since you can't go alone, you have to meet Messiah and then find the way. Understand? [Yes]
What do you have to do after meeting that Messiah? You have choose the rules of Principle as you go the way of restoration. After meeting the Messiah, the doctor, you must choose the rules of the Principle centering on that doctor's words. The way of restoration is the way we must seek, and the way of the Principle is the way to go step by step; the conclusion has been reached. Do you understand what it means? Without doing this, God's ideal world, or the ideal object world which can give God joy, the world of love will remain just our fantasy You must know this. So we, who have entered the way of restoration, have to find that way.
Then how do you go the way of restoration? On the way of restoration, there is the way to restore the individual, the way to restore the family, the way to restore the nation, the way to restore the world. In heaven, on earth and also in the spirit world. they are sighing. Speaking in a phrase of the Unification Church, we have the responsibility to restore the cosmos. Then we must know what kind of being God is, and we must know God well. Only after restoring God, can you go up to the level of God's love. The way- of restoration is left like this. Understand? Saying something like, "Well, it's enough to just go to paradise by believing in Jesus," is the same as saying it's good enough to just go to kindergarten.
Since humankind has fallen, it has to go the way of restoration, but to go that way of restoration it has to find the Messiah. But there are lots of people similar to the Messiah. But there is only one true one. Centering on the individual, the way that God can go as the way to represent the world, to represent history, or to represent humankind is only one way. There can be only one way; can there be two? There's only one. That kind of one, centering on that best one, He is uniting.
Nowadays, in the fallen world the are lots of similar things, but since the one true person hasn't appeared, the thought of the second coming exists. The one who comes in the Last Days represents the past, represents the present, and represents the future, and he comes as the standard of individual perfection. And then he provides the method to prepare a prescription to perfect the individual. And then he teaches the way to perfect the family, to perfect the tribe, to perfect the people, and to perfect the world. The Messiah is the being who has the responsibility for all of that. Understand? [Yes]
For an individual to perfect himself, he has to go the individual way of the cross; that way of the cross is the way of the sacrificial offering. If you say you don't like that way of the cross, then you can't find the way of individual perfection. (63-183)
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Section 2. The Way Of The Unification Church Members (Part 2)
5. To Go The Way Of Restoration
To go the way of restoration how do you have to go? You cannot go the way of restoration thoughtlessly. To complete the purpose of the restoration that God wants, you must first establish the model for perfecting the individual. That model must be something that has surpassed all the standards. God wants a family to set up as a model, a nation to set up as a model, and a world to set up as a model through the model of the individual. This way is the way of the Will that God is pursuing with humankind along the way of the restoration. (63-153)
How does God live? God lives for the whole world. How does God love? God loves the whole world together. How can God be happy? By watching people who are happy having give and take, God is happy. That's how God lives. That is how God goes His way. So the course of restoration goes backwards. If we had not fallen, then everything would have come from here like this, but because we fell the branches are divided. So we have to kill this and use it as fertilizer, and from here we have to stick it here backwards. To develop this backwards, we must be more for the whole than for "myself." There is no way to go backwards without having an ideal to be for the whole more than for "myself." We have to be powerful as an individual, and powerful as a family, and powerful as a tribe. And then we have to go backwards and break through. (79-232)
1) The Restoration Starts From an individual
Today if you try to expand the area of the mission of restoration, there is an age of the mission of individual restoration. First you have to perfect the individual restoration. But perfecting individual restoration doesn't just end with the perfection of individual restoration. Perfecting individual restoration is done to perfect the restoration of the family. They mean the same. We have to pull out everything that is attached to the tail. If "I" have pulled out "myself" then I have to expand that and pull out my family, and pull out my tribe, and pull out my people. This is the way to expel Satan. In words, we must take them away from Satan or expel him. (68-11)
Where does the viewpoint of the Unification World start? It starts from the individual, from yourselves. But the individual is also divided. It's divided to the body and the mind, and the part that does wrong is always the body. The part that does wrong is always the body, so if you follow what the body says to do, then the world of mind gets conquered. The part that always does wrong is the body. (56-87)
If we place God as our ultimate goal, can we say, "Ah, then I should find the universe," and start from the universe? No. Then to go up to the universe, let's think about the shortest path. Where should we start from? [From the individual] The individual is the issue. Then when the individual is starting, can that individual start thoughtlessly? No. If God is here, then between God and the individual we should mark a straight line. . . This is the goal point, and this is the beginning point.
Then what is the shortest path? So however broad it is, it starts from "me," an individual. Then "my-mind" has to unite. That's why God orders our mind to "unite with the body for the world restoration." If the mind and the body don't unite, then the mind goes it's own way, and the body goes it's own way; they go separately. Then they can't go to one destination. An indecisive person cannot have success.
Therefore before you start along this long way, the first thing you have to do is to unite your body and your mind. Therefore, the first step of the way that we have to go is having the body and the mind become one. The mind goes through the way of the body. And then where do you go? What direction should you head? What is the closest direction? It's the family. You must know that in the family there are parents and spouses and children. These people must unite. This has to become one. It can be concluded that the object realm must become one. (70-12)
2) The Way of Restoration is Decided
The way of restoration is originally clearly decided. That program can't yield even a single step. Not even a single step. While knowing that, if there is anyone among you who is thinking of some strategy to be promoted, just go away. I won't get involved in that. At first I may support him, but in the end it would be him who might conclude he was used; I don't get used and then complain and go out.
But that is not done for the individual purpose of Reverend Moon of the Unification Church. It's for the world and heaven and earth. You must carry this ideal as you go on your way. You can't fulfill all the standards of individual and the standards of the family. You can't fulfill them. Could you do it in your whole life? To come up this much, it took six thousand years. You can't do in one generation that which took thousands of years mobilizing humankind by heaven and the earth. So what do you have to do? Die for the bigger world, sacrifice for the Will. Let's sacrifice for God's Will. Let's live a comfortable life after sacrificing. Live comfortably, but say "I don't want to live comfortably by myself. Father and the whole must live comfortably. This is the way of the Will. Someone who lives that way, will never be ruined even though it looks like he'll be ruined, however much he sacrifices and sacrifices again. (45-195)
3) The Formula of the Three Stages of Restoration
You must win over Satan by separating Satan from yourselves, and go into the realm of God's love. And then you must experience the heart of God who seeks to sacrifice you in order to save your neighbors and brothers and the whole world. These three stages are God's formula. (52-56)
You must remember the formula of three stages. That is: 1. after separating Satan from yourself, 2. come into the realm of God's love, and then 3. sacrifice yourself for other people. You must remember these three stages. When you study, you must study not just for yourself, but for God and to save the whole world. (52-59)
4) The Way of Restoration is a Pioneering Way
The way of the providence of restoration is a resentful way, a way of sorrow, and is a pitiable way. Also, the person who seeks goodness must go the way of sacrifice. How much hard work must heaven have already done in order to be able to lead us on such a way? Now you know this and must form a direct relationship with God.
When you try to feel God, you must know how much He is to be pitied. Pitiable God, how big would that pity need to be? Also how great would the sadness of Jesus been, Jesus, who came to the earth to save all the people with God's will? Jesus was mistreated and pitiable. Do you know how much he was mistreated and how much to be pitied? The disciples of Christ also went a pitiable way. How pitiable it was. You have to remember this. You must go this way not by thinking of your relationship with the Unification Church but your relationship with God. (13-32)
Everyone, after you joined the Unification Church, how serious have you been? Have you been serious or haven't you? How serious do you think Reverend Moon was to develop this way? You don't know that, do you? How serious the way to find the Principle was, and how much difficulty I went through in order to accomplish it. . . If a man has determined something, then he must accomplish it. In the process of accomplishing it, thousands of billions of satans, invincible satans in the spirit world were mobilized, and real visible beings which seemed to be been controlled by Satan were mobilized and attacked in full force. Thinking about the way of restoration on which I had to go through such a process, wouldn't I be at a loss for words or not? (70-30)
The course of restoration must start from the bottom. It is a process of being hit and then taking away. Being hit means becoming worthless. It means losing the value of existence at that time. But if one goes lower than his original character, Satan cannot strike. That's because heaven takes pity on one who has gone below his original character. To restore the whole universe you have to restore the blessing. The blessing is a public thing. So you have to be sacrificial offerings in the world level public standard. Reverend Moon didn't have sympathy for beggars. But from now I'm going to sympathize with their children and open a new way for them. (11-247)
You have to say, "I am trying to give the truthful life. I am trying to give hundreds of times more than what I received." Also you have to say, "Satan, since you know this, you can't make a false charge." No bad things will happen if you set up this kind of condition. You don't receive restoration. The way of restoration is pioneered. By receiving something from the satanic world, you can't accomplish the history of restoration. You must give something from heaven. What do you give when you give? You must give a truthful heart, must give a truthful personality, and must give truthful sermons. (14-12)
There is no haggling on the way of restoration. When we came to this world we came by ourselves, but when you go you can't go by yourself. You have to bring a lot of people. A human being can't live outside of society. The reason Jesus visited his disciples who betrayed him is there. We should know Jesus' sorrow, that He was able to take only one thief with Him. From the position of knowing these circumstances, we must prepare ourselves. (14-105)
It's an undeniable fact that can be seen if we look at history, that this is the way that God has come, this way of restoration is the way of destiny in which the individual must determine to sacrifice himself, and in order to bring the historical beings of the past, present and future to life, the individual has had to suffer. If we move the people and bring them up to the world level course of the fight, and place them on the world level stage, then we can quickly face all the enemies which are all over the world. If you are struck, how should you be struck? Receive all the critical scornful laughs, be ignored, and be disregarded and be treated with contempt. (151-268)
5) There is only one way of the Principle
Reverend Moon says, "I'll go." Where does he go? He finds the one way and goes. Then where do the Unification Church members go? Can you find the one way? [Yes] Can you find the way of the Principle? You have to follow. Follow. You must not say, "I'll follow, but it's night or whatever time, and I'm hungry, so I'll have a meal and then follow." If you eat that meal at night, then you get caught by the condition of Satan.
This is a problem. If you get caught by the condition that you ate at night and then came, then even if you passed, you will fail. If it would be all right to do that, then I would rather party at night and not do all these things, but why do I not sleep at night and get blood-shot eyes and act like a crazy person? To not get caught by any condition. You must know this. There is a way that the Moon fellow who founded the Unification Church should go. On that way who goes in front? God goes. And Satan follows behind.
If there is any condition, Satan tackles and hits. It's a fight to go beyond these conditions. In other words, to go over the 38th parallel, you must not step on a land mine or be destroyed by a grenade. So, to live for others, can you go any way you want? If there is a land mine, then you have to go around the land mine, not just go any way you want. There is only one way. There are not two ways to go to the realm of heaven. There is only one. If heaven sends its messenger to relate with this fallen world these days and to make a path for them go one way, then the way he builds cannot be two ways. There cannot be two ways of the Unification Church. Do you understand what this means? (15-286)
In the Unification Church, whether you do this you must go the one way, and whether you do that, you must go the one way. Even if you go around and around for a while, at the end you must go that one way. It's not wrong to say that it is life to go this one way even if it takes a thousands or tens of thousands or billions of years. The fallen descendants are all hanging from that stitch. If you can't go there while you are living here, then you can't go even if you die. You must know that clearly. Even if it takes thousands or tens of thousands of years, even if you have to go around and around, you must go. Understand? [Yes]
Without exception, since there is one way of the principle. . . There is one way and even within it you can't just go as you please. You can, not run around as you please. You must know the historical fact that the wilderness was crossed with the guidance of the pillar of clouds and the pillar of fire. God has to be in front. If there is a condition for Satan to make false accusations, then God can't be in front. You must know that. In leading the people, as long as the people are caught in a trap where Satan can make false accusations, the people can't be lead. The Israelite people stayed in the wilderness for 40 years. . . The Israelite people were the people who had to reaffirm their determination to break through, even if it was a long distance, by their determination to go through all the circumstances of thousands and ten thousands of years, by uniting into one heart centering on the absolute purpose, the restoration of Canaan, which God established.
We must know the fact that, nevertheless, when the determination of the people got weak, Satan invaded so the people couldn't go forward. So we have to walk the way of the Principle. For the 600,000 people to go, they had to go by falling into step with Moses. Understand? Someone who does it as he pleases falls behind. You must know that if one falls behind, unless the time of the wilderness comes again then there will be no way for him to go to the spirit world. That cyclically comes again. In hundreds of years or in a couple of years. You must now that grim situation correctly. I am doing this work because I know this correctly. (135-290)
6) The Seven-Year Course
Our Unification Church members must go the seven year course without any exception. In the Bible weren't there seven years of famine? We have to go through seven years of famine of the individual, seven years of famine of the family, seven years of famine of the people, seven years of famine of the nation. Now is the very time that we are going through the seven years of famine of all the levels at once, the individual level, the family level, the people level, the national level, and the world level. (12-330)
The seven years of famine, that word famine is very right. At that time it was a way that was very difficult for anyone at all to endure and live through it. What if on the very first day that you begin to go that way you are immediately persecuted. You are persecuted immediately. Nothing goes the way you want it to. Everything opposes you. So the servant's position, you may not want to be like a servant but you cannot help but be one; you are pushed to the position where you don't want to be but cannot help but be. In that way things can be finished. (93-61)
All of the believers in the Unification Church today and all of the many people who will find this belief in the future, all of them will have to go this seven-year course. It must be gone. Without doing that one cannot be connected to the heart of restoring the heavenly heart which was lost. God came that way, your ancestors came that way, Reverend Moon has come that way, and you must find your way along that way, too. If this goes to the national level, it can become shorter. Seven years can become seven months and seven months can become seven days. Before this mission is completed there remains the seven years of famine on the world level.
What is the mission you have to fulfill during this seven years? You must obtain your individual realm of dominion; you must obtain the realm of dominion of the victory on the family level; you must obtain the realm of dominion of the victory on the tribal level; and you must obtain the realm of dominion of the victory on the people's and national levels. But you who are the descendants of the fall cannot go this way alone. So God establishes the Lord and prepares such a way in the physical and spiritual worlds and has you go that way. You should know that the course of restoration is like this. (14-246)
The Unification Church members are participating in a seven-year course which is an Abel course through which Reverend Moon can determine the destiny of the people. If Reverend Moon goes east, follow to the east; if he goes to the west, follow west; whether you are a branch or a leaf, you must not fall off or break. (17-140)
"How many years have you been in the Unification Church?" "I've been in the church for 10 years." "If you've been here for 10 years, that's longer than me, what have you done? "What do you mean, what have I done. I've believed in the church." "What happened because you believed?" "What do you mean what happened. I just waited and am still the same way." Oh, you rascal! You are worse than one who doesn't believe. You have to remove the tumor. And you have to place a plaster on it. Whether you like it or not you have to reverse things. Will it do to just remain the same? No, it's not right.
Therefore, the way that the Unification Church is going is the way that the individual is going, the way towards the family, the way towards the tribe, the way towards the people, the way towards the nation, the way towards the world, the way towards heaven and earth, the way towards God's love, it's all evident like this. If it's a way that definitely must be gone, even though the world is not united, then after going into spirit world, even if it takes billions and trillions of years, it is a way that we cannot help but follow. But if you go that way after death it may take zillions of years, but if you do it while alive you can do it in seven years. Which way will you choose? While you are living? If you could go laughing and dancing while you are alive how nice that would be. But it is not like that. (57-266)
6. Our Attitude In Order To Go The Heavenly Way
1) The Way of Unification Church Members Envisioned by Reverend Moon
What kind of way is the way that the Unification Church believers have to find? It's not the place that so-called humankind is crying for, nor the place where the flag of the peace is waving in the wind. Rather it is the place that humankind hates the most. You have to go and find the place which humankind avoids the most. Go and find it, but with what appearance? You should go representing the appearance of Father who sought us for six thousand years.
We must know He is a Father who cries when we cry and who tries to comfort us when we cry. Therefore you must have a heart which cries, and even if you are in the place that makes you cry, you must be a person who holds the other people who are crying and comforts them saying, "Don't cry. You have hope in you future, so don't cry," and you must pass on to them happiness, hope, circumstances, and heart. You can inherit heaven only in that way. It means you can inherit heaven and earth.
Then you are able to rule, of course, the powers of heaven and earth and even the powers of the hell. Therefore we must go. It's a fact that this historical trend is coming in front of us; you must go with all your mind, will and devotion wherever you go. Where all the mind, will, and heart go, any problem can be solved. Everything in the world will all be solved. Other than this there are no problems. (11- 103)
Today, what do we, the Unification Church members, have to do? We must go out and pioneer. In pioneering, we must pioneer the way of individual hope, pioneer the way of individual circumstances, pioneer the way of individual heart. And in that way pioneer the way of the family, the way of the tribe, the way of the people. . . Through that the coming lord will be one stage ahead. If we go ahead, in order to support Him, if we reached the time of the people, we must be in the unified position to unite where we can accomplish the responsibility of our own tribe and by centering on the standard of God's hope. (154-127)
2) The Unification Church Members' Way is a Difficult Way
The Unification Church says, "Let's restore the world! Let's pull the world and put God in front and go! While God pulls the Unification Church and goes, let the Unification Church pull the world and go." So it's difficult. Is it an easy task or is it a hard task? [Its a hard task] How hard is that? Everyone has to say "I, at least one, must sacrifice myself, mustn't I? I myself shall die and save the world." Everyone must. The Unification Church people must. You have to be like, "I shall lead the world myself in front of God. I have to do that for the world to make them follow God even by sacrificing myself. Day or night, for my whole life, I must go out and live until I die. That kind of conclusion gets made. Understand? [Yes]
Is believing in the Unification Church an easy way or a hard way? Which one is it? [Its a hard way] How hard is it? [Very] You have to block your ears. . . If the senses of the five sensory organs are all active, then they collide. You go like a dead person even though you are alive. The phrase "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life will find it," means that. (112-93)
How am I going to lead our Unification Church members in the future? Reverend Moon, who is speaking here, will tell you frankly. The way the Unification Church goes is really hard to follow, so you must tighten your belts really tight. You have to tighten it up so much with, out caring about pride. That's the way it is. In that way, well, you are not allowed to go around with good clothes on. If you are a family then you have to start from the tips of the housekeeper's toes. You have your housekeeper do a lot, right? "Hey, bring some water!" "Yes, your majesty." You must correct all that.
A new kind of concept must appear. We have to start from the tips of the toes of those who empty out outhouses. How far should we go from there? You train yourself from there, and how far do you go? We have to go through the course of trials which can make us to go up to the top of the world. Therefore after joining here once you know things, you can't help but go. (151-264)
Do you think you would have stayed if the way the Unification Church goes were easy? I mean the ugly people like you. You must know that. (102-40)
The way to find God is a hard way. It must be hard. Right? The hard way is the way to be blessed. Trying to take responsibility for hard things is the shortcut to being God's children. Reverend Moon has also tried physical labor, has had to borrow money to live, has been beaten by groups of people, and has been treated contemptuously. I have lived in the slums, and helped beggars. But that didn't make me a cheap person. (11-216)
3) The attitude of mind to have when going the heavenly way
A person who goes the true way as a member of the Unification Church, holds on to heaven and earth, and can't let go even if one tries to let go. A person who seeks the way of being God's children can't let go even if Reverend Moon of the Unification Church gives him a hard time. Also, in order to restore this world, God can't let go of Reverend Moon. If you hold hands then hold them tight. You must hold tight and complete this. Worldly people have to do that, too. (45-194)
With clenched teeth, you have to go up to the stage where you find that you can pledge to heaven and earth, "In God's name, I love him more than anyone else," about the person you cannot love. You have to try pledge in God's name that you will reach the place where you will be able to sincerely relate with a full heart to someone whom you can't relate to. (87-291)
You came voluntarily to this way of persecution which others don't know. You don't know for sure whether this way that you have started on will lead to ruin, but then again it probably won't, so don't throw away the determination of the first day you started going this way. The determination of that day. While going this way, there will be harsh storms and thorny paths. But you must know that along this way that you are looking to and going along there are traces of the blood of heaven. The way you are going, in the end is not a way that only you will go. For you it's a way that you are going for the first time, but God has gone that way billions of times. We must know that along the way there are traces of the blood that He shed. Abraham went that way, Noah went that way, Moses went that way, Jesus went that way, and lots of disciples went that way after Jesus, but you don't want to go that way? Then you must be punished after going to heaven.
To go that way you need a heart which desires to establish the heavenly tradition. As you take a step you should feel your ancestors' blood burning; when a thorn grazes your skin you must feel that the thorn that was scratching your ancestor's skin, that the thorn was scratching my body. Someone who goes this way is an individual of a period, but he isn't a person who ends in one era. He becomes a person who has gone with Father for six thousand years.
So everyone, even if you are imprisoned while you are going this way, I hope you will be a person who sheds awestruck tears. You should pray, "The fact that I, this person, who is a descendent of sinners, unworthy and who was on the way to destruction, can be in such a place of glory like this, on this way that you have been seeking, I thank you and am awe struck. I am in grateful awe that my dirty self can even put a foot on this foundation where many martyrs have shed holy blood." (10-210)
It's not because Reverend Moon orders, but you are going the way you must go. Hence you should say, "Thank you for teaching us, Reverend Moon" (27-299)
We, the Unification Church members, must go that way voluntarily. We should go voluntarily rather than God pushing us to go. Jesus was sorrowful because his disciples weren't responsible, so let's voluntarily be responsible. If you voluntarily leave your family, voluntarily leave your church, and voluntarily go away from your nation, then that becomes the front line for the Will. (36-337)
We have to go to the gate of the castle of heaven, but how do we find this? How do we find it? So, it's hopeless and desperate. Whenever, wherever if He says go, then you must go. You must go. He made it all like this but you don't want to go? Will you go crying, or go smiling? [Smiling] Will you go with a hopeless feeling or with hope? Which one? [With hope] Will you go without wanting it? Will you go by being forced, or voluntarily? [We will go voluntarily] You answer very well! To go there you must be brave. (106-45)
4) The Secret of Going the Heavenly Way
In the way of the restoration that our Unification Church is going, what is the main concept of it? It's the way following the sacrificial offering. You must know this. What is a sacrificial offering? The Bible says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." What does it mean by with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind? It's asking for your life. The conclusion is simple. It's asking for your life. It's loving God by giving your life. To give your life, don't give it after being forced, but give it with so much joy you seem crazy. (48-114)
We, who have started to go the original way that humankind must go after all, we must throw away everything and go. First we have to put aside material things, and then parents and children, that is to say our families, and then we must go the way such that we even lose our nations and the world. (3-61)
You don't become Unification Church members by listening to the Principle of the Unification Church. That kind of person can't even be ranked. What do you have to do to become a Unification Church member? You must go straight. Listen to the Principle and going straight you must reach all the things that you have to restore and work your way up. What do you have to do if you hear the Principle? You have to do activities and while you obey orders you should study Reverend Moon. Without going directly through the heart of Reverend Moon, you can't find the direct way to go in front of God. (25-97)
Wherever you are you have to go this way. When you go, will you go directly or go around? [Go directly] Anyone can go the way that goes around. That kind of way, you can go just by going, and no one bothers. But the direct way is the way of crucial moments. There is no time to wait in the direct way. (27-28)
In living life and living a life of faith, Reverend Moon himself has to walk the path that he can unite with centered on a certain standard. That is the absolute standard so he has to go to a place which is as absolute and serious as that. If that standard and that direction don't match, it's obvious that the Unification Church will not last long. Therefore, in our living environment, and in a historical period, if an individual doesn't unite centered on one standard, it's always the rule that he will be eliminated.
If a person named "A" was going along centered on a certain standard, but he doesn't unite with that standard and breaks down in the middle, and there is a person who can unite with that standard in a closer position, then he must give his position to that person. In this way it gets developed. Looking at things centered on the way our Unification Church is going, there must be a way for the individual to go. There must be a way that each individual must go as an individual.
And then there will be a certain standard of the Unification Church that a family must go. If one is a Unification Church family member, then as a family member, if it is a tribe then as a tribe, there will be a standard of the way that Unification Church members must go. Moreover, if there is a society that Unification Church members must establish, then there will be a never changing standard to go as a society, and there will be a never changing standard to go as a nation which the Unification Church members are hoping to make. There must be a nation which unites with that standard. There will have to be the ideal nation that the Unification Church dreams of, that is to say, the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth.
There will have to be an absolute standard that doesn't change with history, that is firm even though history changes, an absolute standard for the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, the world. Then, today, how do we have to go the way that we have to go as a member of the Unification Church? There will be an individual standard that the individual must go, which tells how the individual must live. The family will have a standard of the family that tells how the family should live. Or if it's a nation then there will be a standard for the nation.
When the standard of that world and the standard of God agree, wouldn't that be the unity of the completion of God's will and completion of humankind's will? Thinking about this kind of problem, as a member of the Unification Church, think about whether you are living a life that is united with the individual standard, and whether you are living a life that is united with the standard of the family, or whether you are living a life that is united with the standard of the tribe, or the standard to go as the people, the standard to go as a nation, the standard to go as the world. Which standard is your life united with? This kind of problem is a important problem for a believer. (45-160)
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Section 2. The Way Of The Unification Church Members (Part 3)
7. The Time And The Mission Of The Unification Church Members
1) What is the Unification Church Group?
What do we, the Unification Church group all try to do? What are you all gathered here to do? To give the power of the life of love back and forth with the world. That's the conclusion. Centering on the power of life you can communicate with God. With that love you can go up to a position equal with God. How great that is. That is one endorsement that Reverend Moon got from God for the first time in human history. That is a historical gift which no one had ever received since the beginning. Let's hand it down. Do you understand? [Yes] (105-78)
Think about what people will think if you answer, "They don't drink; they don't smoke; they are neat; they save money by not even using makeup; they save much more than the corrupted American young people and help the world," when someone asks, "What is a Unification Church member?" If you do this movement, how does the world become? Do you like that? [Yes] (118-109)
Then what do the Unification Church members want; what does God want, and what do you want? What do we do after we gather like this? What are we going to do by congregating like this? Because there are no true parents with true love, we are here to find the true parents. And since there are no true couples, we are here to train to become true couples, and since there are no true children, we are here train to become true children. There is nothing else. If you get involved here once then, eternally, eternally. Eternally. You love eternally. (92-116)
Then, what does the group of the Unification Church do? What is the Unification Church group doing? The Unification Church is a group saying we should live centered on God. Does living centered on God mean by living while doing business? There are lots of kinds of living. Living while doing what? [Love] Let's live while loving. While loving. Loving whom [God] Only God? Living while loving should be centered on God and you and your mind and body should know to live happily. That's how it is. (164,20)
The Unification Church members are, they are Reverend Moon's disciples. So what are they? Should they be sheep or goats? [Sheep] (laughter) There is no objection. (123-33)
You must know what the Unification Church group is for. The group which has the secret of Satan, the key to beat Satan's love individually, to beat it as a family, to beat it as a nation, the key to beat it on the world level, that group is the real Unification Church. You must win over Satan's world and have the key of heavenly love. (130-178)
8. The Internal Mission And The Value Of The Mission
1) Internal Mission
What mission do you, the people of the Last Days, have? You have the responsibility to inherit and accomplish the historical heavenly value which has been prepared for the substantial restoration and which can represent the universal value. (2-332)
What is the task for us people to work on these days? First we have to cast off Satan's false charges. In that way you have to reach the day when you can be testified to as Jesus was, "Truly you are God's son; you have the qualification to own God; you are God's son who has a relationship of oneness with God." (1,123)
The mission for the Unification Church followers is to unify your divided self by weeding out your heart, and to unify that separated heavenly heart and your human heart. Our whole body must become a substantial tool for the harvest, even if it is just the dull edge of a weeding hoe. With our substantial bodies, we must lead the world which is falling into destruction nowadays and go over to the new world centering on God's heart. You must know that this is the mission of the Unification Church members. (20-193)
2) Our Extraordinary Mission
If you think that the insignificant people of the Unification Church, who have been going through a course of persecution in the land of Korea, are the center of God's wish when looking at the current world, in view of the current situation centering the Will, this could be a tremendously amazing, invaluable blessing, if you call it blessing, but you can't help but say that it could also be a frightening thing if you call it frightening.
Saying that the Unification Church is in that kind of position today, is saying that the present Unification Church is facing a precious and extraordinary world level event. When we recall history until now, that history was continually a history of sadness, but this era which has appeared centering on the Unification Church must not be connected to that history of sadness. Shouldn't this time period be the most important point of time ever in the historical eras, a time when we must overturn sadness and must determine to bring the result of happiness. Then comparing the way of the Will in the past historical periods, or comparing lots of ancestors in history who followed the Will of the providence, with the Unification Church members in our current era, all the things that our ancestors were loyal to and into which they put their whole hearts, as a result they left a history which was not hoped for in front of God's desire and they worsened His sorrow.
Hence, the fact that the mission to restore God's happiness and hope is in the Unification Church, makes the mission which is given to each individual extraordinary. Therefore we must not discourage God again in any kind of situation, and we have to present the concept of happiness and hope in front of God. We have to recognize again that we have such a historical mission. A lot of patriots came and went in the past, but if they look back on their past, they will not be happy with it. That past should just flow away.
Also, even if there are people who had a realm of culture that they could brag was excellent, that good past is still not something to brag about. Those are just parts of the past which will just disappear in the midst of God's sorrow. Therefore we should be able to put all the precious civilizations of history, and the passion of the many patriots and the dutiful way of filial piety even though we go the way of death, and we should be able to leave all these works accomplished by hard work as happiness in the middle of God's deep heart as conditions to look back on. We have this kind of responsibility, the responsibility that we have as members of the Unification Church is extraordinary. (37-185)
It's not because we are fools that we get beaten by this people. We are not getting persecuted because we were born in the lineage of bad ancestors who came and went in history. We are born with the fortune of the era and with a historical relationship to thrive better than any other, but by striking this small group, God is indemnifying the sorrow that this people would receive. That is to say, by our getting hit for the people who would by ruined through following the trends of the thought of the world, the people who were supposed to be hit are indemnified.
Today, because we know this fact, we determined while pounding our fists on the ground not to shed tears centering on ourselves when we were sad or ran into difficulties. Even at the point of starvation or the very crossroads of life and death, we didn't shed tears because it was sorrowful to be dying. We must not forget the serious, historical fact that we have shed tears centering on the problem of what way this people have to go and what would happen to the future of this people if we died. I don't know if there are people who came to the Unification Church for the first time, but you must know the fact correctly, that the Unification Church started with such a extraordinary mission, and has a history of fighting according to this mission.
Our being hit, rejected, and persecuted individually, or the Unification Church being hit, rejected, and persecuted is not for our, selves. We are being hit representing this people which should be hit. Also, through God's hitting us in the position of goodness, He is extending the holy hand of love to forgive this people. (22-91)
Nowadays, the Unification Church has been proclaiming a new ideology in this latter half of the 20th century. This group says they have appeared to represent the course of restoration of the history of heaven, and as the people who have appeared with the mission of the new age, they have a strategy that they have to be struck; they have to be rejected; they have to receive all sorts of persecution and suffering from the world. Being in a position like this, today the Unification Church member's responsibility and mission look like they are nothing. But by the internal meaning, you must know that you have a tremendous, awesome, heavenly mission. (154-181)
9. The Mission Of The Unification Church Member
1) The Mission to Expel Satan
True Parents came to this land, but what do the family of the True Parents and all the Unification Church people who are following the True Parents have to do? They have the historical mission to cancel the right of Satan to make false accusations to the world. (137-26)
Then who has to take care of the responsibility to expel Satan? "I," as a member of the Unification Church, have to take care of it. After bringing Satan to his knees, God can step in. You don't know this. Understand? [Yes] He can only say, "You are my son. You are my daughter," after laying out Satan. That's when He finally steps in. The law of nature is that way.
These days, if someone commits sin, then can his parents take the guilt for him instead? Can that parent say, "I'll be executed instead of my child; so please forgive my child," if their child is someone who is to be executed? [No] The law of nature doesn't allow that to be done. The one who committed the sin must indemnify it, if he committed sin. Humankind committed sin, not God; humankind committed sin, the unforgivable sin of betraying the law of nature and the law of morality. (85-201)
2) The Mission Related to Jesus
How was it when Jesus came to the earth? He was born in a stable; while he was living he was treated contemptuously, and when he died, he was crucified. Therefore it's the assignment for the Unification Church members of these days to feel the heart of Jesus going "the way of the cross." (6-285)
How could there be national boundaries in the realm of heaven? This world is our father's land, and we are the sons and daughters of our father, so this world is our land. This is only possible by love. Loving with this kind of love, you have to start from the family. Since the starting point of this love is a family member, you must know that in the Unification Church, we don't call the members of the Unification Church believers, but rather family members.
Then what is the mission of a Unification Church family member? Loving that kind of love. Love in the family, love in the Church, love in the nation, by our solving the sorrow of the three great loves we can take the place of Jesus who is God's son. God had sorrow because of Jesus. Since Jesus gave sorrow to Him, we have to solve that sorrow from a position better than that. So we have to establish the realm of heaven while we live. Do you think I blessed you for no reason? By that you indemnify that Jesus was not able to become a bridegroom, and not able to have his own son. This is the main concept of the Unification Church. In this way, it's indemnifying everything horizontally. Isn't this great content? (41-257)
Today the heroes of Unification, with their banners flying high, by relating to Christians all around the world, and by relating to lots of different religions, have to relieve Jesus' many sorrows, and relieve the sorrow of God's restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven, the sorrow of the restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven. (154-275)
Unification Church members also have to relieve Jesus' sorrow. It's the view of the Principle that you can't inherit Jesus' concept without indemnifying the failures that Jesus had. Understand? [Yes] Without completely relieving his sorrow, without restoring this, the family that Jesus was hoping for can't be established. Also the people, the nation, and the world that Jesus wanted can't appear.
Why is that? Because Adam fell centering on an eight member family, at the time of judgment the eight members of Noah's family were left. It works like that. It's the same for the Unification Church. It works like that. That's why Unification Church members have to go the way to relieve Jesus' sorrow. Then what is Jesus' sorrow? It's becoming a son and daughter that God can officially recognize and bless. To relieve his sorrow we have to find the thing that Jesus lost. (19-115)
3) The Mission to Put Love in Order
Who am "I," the member of the Unification Church? "I" am the one who has the responsibility to catch Satan. "I" am the one who is perfected Adam, Eve, so "I" have to expel Satan from this earth. I have to expel him from in front of God's will. Don't I? [Yes] When you are walking around the streets of New York, if you see bad guys, are you just going to ignore them and lay low, or will you be a person who shakes them up and resolves the situation? When you see the American youth all falling and talking about free sex and acting like animals, will you be a person who does nothing, or a person who cleans it up and organizes it? "Someone who organizes it." (91-67)
We have to establish this new tradition and destroy the weapon of Satan, which is sweeping over the society of America, and fundamentally destroy all the decadent forms of love of the young people of the world, and set up a new order. Then why do Unification Church members say one should suffer? Why do they do fund raising and witnessing? To come into contact with the way of true, deeper love. That's the purpose. We are going this way in order to contact the way of three-dimensional, true love, whose content is deep and broad. That is fantastic. (123-198)
We have to cut off this decadent trend of youth. It's our mission to block and completely get rid of the trend of the world with an authority no one can hold back, and to cut all relationship with the world of death which Satan is leading, and to protect against the forces of death. Fulfilling this responsibility and the mission as a hero of the Unification Church is not done as an individual; when you can handle this responsibility and mission centered on heaven and earth on a world level, then finally this heaven and earth will be harvested as perfected substantial fruit in front of God. (20-193)
Who will be the cleaner who can clean the bag of the world's sin? The Unification Church members should. Reverend Moon has been working as a cleaner cleaning America's bag of sin. (172-168)
4) The Mission to Connect All the Races
Unification Church members are to live for the world. Live centering on what? Live centering on love. To love the world, you have to love the individual, have to love the family, have to love the tribe, have to love the people, and have to love the nation. Someone who hasn't loved the people can't love the world, and someone who hasn't loved the family can't love the tribe.
All the rules of the Principle are like that. Unification Church members go around saying, "Let's love the world centering on love." From that viewpoint, for Unification Church members it's not a problem for a white person to love a black person or for a black person to love a white person. How can it be proved? For Unification Church members even marriage is not a problem. They are different. They do not do it because Reverend Moon is a dictator ordering them to with glaring eyes while holding a bat. I can pull them to me even eyes are closed. The fact that, centered on love, Unification Church members are in a position to put out this kind of ladder and to shoot out toward the world is a universal, historical issue. Therefore with this love we have to set up an anchor for the mind and set up an anchor for the family, set up an anchor for the society, set up an anchor for the nation, and set up an anchor for the world. (307)
Then, during that time, what do the Unification Church members do? While Reverend Moon goes out to work on the world level, here in Korea you have to connect this historical relationship with the world relationship. The realms of the peoples and the realm of the world are not connected yet, none of them. The people who are following Reverend Moon are not just Korean people but citizens of the world. All the races are connected. Understand? Therefore when you assume a responsibility like this, the angelic world will cooperate. (99-271)
Unification Church members have gone beyond the borders of the nations. In our church, marriage is called the blessing. It is the blessing. A German, a lady who is a direct descendant of Hitler and an English gentleman. . . They don't know the language. The German woman knows only German, and the English man knows only English. And they marry each other. Isn't that a beautiful marriage? Elderly people couldn't marry like that, could they? They couldn't even on the pain of death. Well, I put them together like that and tell them, "If you marry, your first son will be this kind of son, so try to live together. If that's not true than my words are lies; wait and see this that time." Wouldn't they live together until then after hearing "you will have a great son"?
And after living together that's what happens. You can overcome the borders of the nations. A lot of Unification Church members in Japan are ready to come and help work for the liberation of Korea. They will come even if they have to ride a submarine, saying, "Even if the Japanese government blocks us, let's cross the Straits of Korea." Can you believe that? Liberation of the border lines! Germans, these Germans who stand proudly and say confidently that they are the most intellectual and gifted people in the world and they have the most mathematical minds, when Reverend Moon's ideology, God's ideology goes into those peoples' heads, what kind of people do these people made in Germany become? What do these people made in Germany become? They become Korean people made in Germany.
What kind of Korean person? They become Korean people who say we should unify north and south. And of course all the five races, too. Among the races of the Five Oceans and the Six Continents, there are many races, but if they know Reverend Moon and when they have the ideology that Reverend Moon teaches, even though they are all over the Five Oceans and the Six Continents, and within the borders of different nations, they consider it an honor to become a Korean who was born in their region. Understand? Yes, the borders are a problem; the borders are a problem. But the borders are not problems in front of God. Race isn't a problem in front of God. And religion isn't a problem. (166-110)
5) The Mission to Unify Denominations
So, "our mission," what is your mission? It is to save Cain. As an individual, you are an individual Abel, so you have to save an individual Cain, then save the Cain-type family. If you become an Able-type tribe then save the Cain-type tribe, and if you are the Abel-type Unification Church of the people then you must save the Cain-type religious body of the people.
In that way for the first time you can become a person qualified to relate to the nation. Understand? [Yes] Then what is the most urgent thing? The issue is not developing the Unification Church. How are you going to be Abel, that is the problem. If that happens, then the hope of the Unification Church is completely fulfilled all at once. Now do you understand the course of restoration? [Yes] The individual Abel has to restore the individual Cain, and the Abel-type religious body must restore the Cain, type religious body. Right? That's the way it is. (46-147)
Today the established churches say that they will all go to heaven, the Presbyterian Church, the Catholic Church, all of them speak loudly about it, but look at it. The person who is standing here, what he is doing is a movement to unify the eight great religious organizations. Among them, the Jewish religion, the Catholic Church, and the Protestant Churches are included, and then Buddhism and Islam are included and Hinduism is included. And then Confucianism is included and then the Unification Church, eight religions.
Other than the Unification Church, the seven religions are all divided and fighting. I'm providing financial support for a movement to unify the religions. How in the world can that be? Have you ever heard such a thing? But the people of the established churches, the Presbyterians, they just say, "Oh, that Moon guy is a heretic." They don't know the world. I do this movement to unify all the denominations, and the leaders of the religions meet me behind the scenes and secretly exchange documents and so. on, but just like mere children with no sense they all just babble on.
Then is religion a problem or not? [Its not.] So I founded the Congress of Religions, but it's my sorrow that I can't go any place I want. just looking at that meeting. . . One time, when there was a world conference of the Congress of Religions, about eight hundred famous people gathered. They all wanted me to visit their churches once, but there are circumstances which don't allow me to go places freely. It is an amazing fact of history that someone is working from behind to deal with the complicated levels of religions and is asserting, "The one God has a Will. It is eternally one," and is working to realize that Will.
In who's name? Not in the name of someone named Moon, but in God's name, in God's name! In that sense, a person like the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church. . . and the Roman Catholics are opposing it. Even though there are lots of Cardinals who are on my side. That will disappear in a few days. Unified religion which is impossible by human's power. . In history, no matter who it was, there was no one who didn't want to unify religions. But they didn't know the way that God wanted and God directed. (166-111)
In heaven and on earth which denomination is the denomination that can teach the religious life that can take this kind of responsibility on God's side? We have to find it. The family which dedicates itself to heaven and follows that view of hope in its life of faith, the family that teaches that belief, what religion does that family believe? We have to find that. Such families have to unite and cut off all relationship with their blood lineages, and cut off all worldly relationships, and through the love of a relationship that can become one they should form a new relationship of the tribe and they should seek to restore the people, the nation, and the world.
We must find a group which can struggle to fulfill this responsibility and to have this kind of idealistic relationship. Without doing that you can't go to the new Kingdom of Heaven of the restoration. You can't go to the promised land of hope. Today in the Unification Church we all say let's unify. Some people will get angry when they hear that. They will get angry saying something like, "Unify what? Huh, the great historical saints of the past were not able to do it, but the evil people of this era, the Unification Church, is going to unite? There is nothing that can be done even if he is angry.
Watch and see whether the one who is angry will be ruined or the one who made him angry will be ruined. One or the other will be pushed out. He will say, "What? The Unification of World Christianity? I can handle it up to the Unification of World Christianity, but they even put the Holy Spirit in it!" I even put an ugly lump on it. (laughter) Before asking if that has been done or not, the issue is whether an adventure which can unify it has begun or not. Do you understand? (158-298)
6) The Mission to Unite Ideologies
The Unification Church members have to make a decision. In the Last Days, both the communist world and the democratic world will be ruined. Now the age that it is possible for them to be ruined is evolving in front of our eyes. At a time like this we must decide quickly. If you don't determine something like, "If we are going to be ruined, then pack stuff up and let's be ruined altogether," then both will be ruined. This could happen. This is a time like that. They have both bumped against a wall and are spinning around arguing.
The communist world says the communist world is good, and the democratic world says the democratic world is good. So they have to hold on to something; to be happy one needs a partner, they have to hold something. But the Unification Church appeared at this time. Among the religions it appeared saying let's unify, and the communists say let's unify the world. . . That has to be relative relation. (63-133)
If you want to unify. . The word unify doesn't exist in a place where you are alone. Unify means a different state. . . the circumstances are different, the situation different. There, the positions they assert are different and the chronically diseased environment that they were calling a tradition, is stuck. We must clean up, delete all these circumstances, and turn around everything that was going in different directions until yesterday and make them into one. To do that you have to be stronger than the two people in different circumstances.
If you want to make ten people into one, then you have to be stronger than those ten people. If you want to stand in the position to make ten denominations into one, then you have to be stronger than those ten denominations. Shouldn't it be like that? It's easy to say. That's the only way. You must not think of it as something to watch with interest when you join the Unification Church. If you joined that way, then you joined wrong. To unify lots of spiritual worlds and to unify lots of ideologies. . .
Today, looking at the trend of the whole world, in the place where democracy and communism are confronting each other, you have to go over this by stepping on one with your left foot and stepping on the other with your right foot. However firm an ideology and however firm a belief a person of faith may have, he must go over all that. You should have a confident belief and spread it out in all directions, and if you whip it around then it could be rolled in. You should have that ability, shouldn't you? That is how you unify them. People who are weak and say "let's unify" can't do it. Such people, who are like scarecrows which get blown away by the wind, cannot unify them. (151-13)
Today there are a lot of Christian churches, and there are many peoples on the earth, but those who can assert for God, "God is justice, God is alive, and he is the ruler of the world" are disappearing one by one. In a moment of destiny, in this kind of environment, someone who stands on the side of God, and proclaims Him, could disappear as was Jesus' destiny. It's the same. In the same way as the thief on the right side was vindicated and the thief on the left subjugated, representing the democratic world and Christianity, at least we, the Unification Church must say until the end, "God is alive. We are God's children. We must live for God."
It's the destiny of the Unification Church to fight in the front line, with the phrase "victory over communism," saying, "The communists must be destroyed because this is how they are." Understand? [Yes] The world is concentrated in Korea like this. An association which stands in the position of the thief, who was on the right hand side when Jesus was being crucified, on the side of God, on the side of Jesus, and which beats down the communists and persuades the communists and has a message which enables them to tell the communists, "You are evil because of these reasons," an association that God officially recognizes. and that can admit God's existence, is on the side of heaven.
Who is on that side? It's the Unification Church. You must know that that's why we started the "Victory over Communism," work. Understand? [Yes] As children of God we work with the heart of God. Going the way of suffering of the cross for heaven, forgetting death, saying, "The communists must be destroyed! They are evil," for the side of heaven, in the same way as the thief on the right side of Jesus was on Jesus' side until he died and went to paradise. It's the ideology of the Unification Church to open the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth by completing the works on earth. By doing this work, a day of world level liberation will come to this nation. The fight of Cain and Abel centered on world history will finally end and we will go toward the worldly nation and then the second day of liberation will come to Korea. I hope for this. (160,217)
Today in this world, an ideology saying that God exists is confronting an ideology saying that God doesn't exit. One world centers on material, and the other world centers on mind. The world that says "God exists, is on God's side, and the world that says "God doesn't exist," is the world of Satan and the satanic forces. When these two worlds collide with each other, the result determines the destiny of God. Therefore the battle to defeat Communism, is the battle of God. (78-249)
What kind of thing is the Kingdom of Heaven? What is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth like? It is people like our Unification Church family members living throughout the whole world. That is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. If all the people on the earth live like Unification Church family members then that is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. What is that world? The church is a world that is together with God eternally, and it is a world without communists. No one denies God's existence, no one doubts about God. It's the world where everyone becomes one and calls God "our Father." And then Satan's temptations. . . There is no Satan. The world which God rules, that is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It's God living together with us. (79-304)
That's why our Unification Church tries to complete the mission of restoration with the heart of a parent, in the body of a servant, shedding blood and sweat and tears. The Unification Church has a trial to overcome, that is a crucial way that no ideology or thought system can go over, a crucial way that neither democracy or communism can go over. We have to go the way that they can't go, and we have to do the work that they can't do. (16-173)
7) The Mission to Find That Nation
Now what we have to know is, we must take revenge against the enemy of our parents; we must take revenge against the enemy of our relatives; we must take revenge against the enemy of our nation; we must revenge the enemy of our world, and we must revenge the enemy of our heaven and earth. Do you have your nation? Have we had a nation yet? A person who is in the realm centering on religion doesn't have a nation. He is a citizen who doesn't have a nation. He has some kind of foundation called the people. . . A citizen without his people. If a wind blows from the east then he is pushed to the west. and if a wind blows from the west then he is pushed to the east.
Religious people have been those people who have had to suffer from storms on every side, and grope along the dark paths caused by the powers of darkness as they haggardly went their way. (156-130)
People will say, "I'll go to the Kingdom of Heaven." But if you want to go to the Kingdom of Heaven, then you have to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. If you just go to the Kingdom of Heaven, then who establishes the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you wish God to establish it? You must live historically valuable lives. You must live your life attending your ancestors and living for your descendants. You have to relieve the sorrow of your ancestors, and fulfill the dreams of your descendants.
Then are you living that way nowadays? The ideal that the Unification Church members want is "our nation." A person, whoever it is, must live in his nation. That is an absolute condition that is given to humankind. Without any exception everyone has to live a life of hope-filled righteousness for the sake of righteousness and for that nation. Establishing the direction of the ideal through thought, and establishing the laws of righteousness through living life, one must live for the nation and its righteousness.
Do you have that kind of nation? Since you don't, shouldn't you find and establish it? What nation is that nation? It's the nation of the ideal, the nation of unification. It's the nation where all people can go. There can be no exceptions when establishing this nation. Here the families will cooperate, the tribes, the peoples, and the world will all cooperate. That's how you can unify, and the family, tribe, people, nation, the world can be unified. (18-213)
We have the Unification Church but not a nation of unification. So what "Protection of the Front Line of Unification" means is protecting the Unification Church. It's famous in America these days. And that affects Korea, and it can also become a means to make the Korean government and our Unification Church unite. So from now on we will not fight for restoration in the nations all over the world. We must do natural restoration. This is a problem. The satanic world rules by striking people. God's strategy is to make one naturally bow down on his knees by being chased and struck.
So we must know clearly that if we don't follow Heaven then we cannot restore God's authority. Looking at it from this position, what we have to do in this present age is to find the nation. We don't have God's nation. Can a person who doesn't have his nation have an ancestral hometown? He doesn't have an ancestral hometown. The Japanese have a nation, Japan, so they have ancestral hometowns in Japan, but looking at it from God's providence, there is no nation of God, since there is no sovereign nation which is God's nation, no one can be registered as a citizen.
We have only the registration of the religion. Cain and Abel have to be one to complete the restoration. That has become the formula of development for unification. Salvation can't be done by just Cain or by just Abel. You can't return if you don't save Cain and push him from in back so he can be ahead of you, and if you don't establish a realm of protection from behind. That is the teaching of the principle. Therefore there is no way to greet the parents without Cain and Abel being one. A religion is in Abel's position and its nation is in Cain's position. Therefore in the same way as Cain killed Abel, historically the leaders of the nations persecuted the religions.
The Kingdom of Heaven will not appear on earth if you don't establish the nation of victory by making the nation bow down naturally centering on religion. The person who tried to do that was Jesus. If the Jewish religion and the Israelite people had become one centering on Jesus, then that would have established the Abel, type nation. (55-79)
It is correct to say that where we want to live is the heavenly nation; we want to live in the heavenly nation. Is there a border line in the heavenly nation? [No] Are there two languages in the heavenly nation? [No] Is there a difference between the races? [No] Then what is the heavenly nation? Since all the people were born from the heart of God, all humankind are brothers, brothers. Looking at it centering on God, they are all God's children, so they are all brothers, and by looking at it centering on the realm of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth then they are citizens. The people of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the citizens, the inhabitants.
There are three major factors in establishing a nation. To form a nation you need sovereignty. And there must be the people. And then there must be the land. Has this world become a world where God rules? [No it didn't] Also did this whole earth become our nation? Is it a nation of God? Did all the people in the world become the people of one nation? No, they didn't. You talk about the Kingdom of Heaven but the Kingdom of Heaven is formed after all these become one. Since this is not completed, there are still Cain and Abel left, and the fight is still going on. We cannot rest. We can't live. (66-281)
What is your wish? It must be finding this nation. At the time of the first Israel, the nation didn't become one and the nation was lost. Therefore only if in our age we find that lost nation again and greet the Messiah who is coming there, and not be the nation that casts him out, but rather be the nation that welcomes Him, then it will be the time when God's hope and will can be completed. The Unification Church people are the people who claim to represent that time. Understand? [Yes] Do you know it clearly? [Yes] It's the Messiah's mission to go horizontally toward the world level, it's not Messiah's mission to fight for the nation. (58-264)
heard that some high people in the Korean government first heard about the Unification Church by going abroad. That is embarrassing. Someone went to America, and one person of fame asked him, "I understand you are from Korea. Do you know the Unification Church but he said he didn't, and that embarrassed him very much. You must know it's not dark right under a lamp. In this situation we must wake up again. We must have an attitude which is not a shame to the fact that as the third Israel on the world level we have a special authority. You have inherited the spirit of Korea and the blood and soul of the Korean race, so you must eliminate the miserable situation of this people and leave a new tradition.
This is the faith of the Unification Church. Because of it, the activities of the Unification Church are absolutely needed by this people. Therefore, when we look at the sunlight coming to us, we must long for the Kingdom of Heaven of freedom. You have to long for the day when all the people, of course, but also all nature will be happy. And you must be the people who determine not to spare any effort for that day of tomorrow. If you don't, you should know that you don't have the qualification to be a member of the Unification Church.
When you hold your spoon to eat a meal, you must determine that you will cast the evil people out of this land, and when you hold your chopsticks, you must be burning with determination to get rid of the evil people. You must carve into your heart the fact that you are the hidden heroes, and secret envoys who always go forward to establish the Kingdom of Heaven of goodness, the third Israel. It's our mission as heroes of Unification to push ourselves to go the way to establish the third Israel. (21-164)
You are not here to be loved but to love. Understand? You are here to love. I, who represent heaven, must love, to be in the subjective position. If you are in a reciprocal position then you have to be loved, but isn't it the thought of the Unification Church, nowadays, and our situation to be in the subject position? Therefore, being called subject we must love.
Then loving in what place? Love from where you are standing now. Love the Unification Church members. Love the Unification Church.
Go crazy in order to love the nation. That nation should go crazy in order to love the world, not go crazy in order to love simply the nation. Then the nation develops. The world must not go crazy in order to love the world but go crazy in order to love the cosmos, and the cosmos should go crazy not in order to love the cosmos itself, but go crazy in order to love God. (59-56)
The world which that nation and that righteousness have realized is a world which is the world of love where everyone enjoys giving to each other, the world where lives of serving and sacrificing for God's Will shall shine. You should know this. Therefore that world is not like the world in which we are living these days. (3-121)
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Section 2. The Way Of The Unification Church Members (Part 4)
10. We And The Time
1) This Time Period
Then what kind of time is this time? It's a time that it could be good or it could be bad, and it could be difficult or it could be easy. It's the time that everything in the world will collide all at once in front of our eyes. To digest this and to go over this, what do we have to do? A person must appear who has the ability to keep only the things that can be happy, and who can digest the hard things. Without that kind of person appearing, the person who can inherit such a world can't appear. It's that way. Do you understand? (64-338)
Then, what is this time? It's the time that you should gather all the power and show the real aspect of the Unification Church. Understand? It's the time to show the real aspect of it. (131-59)
If we look at the Unification Church now in terms of the age, from a historical, providential position, the Unification Church has already passed the night-like time of suffering. Morning is coming. A time like spring is coming. There everything has to change. Don't things change in spring? All the plants put forth sprouts. The light that makes them sprout is itself beautiful, but you must know that the environment which makes them sprout is also beautiful. Here in this place where an absorbing harmony is realized with the environment, and all the beauties of nature are arrayed. In the same way, by greeting the new spring you should fill your heart with the world of love, and if the environmental world is bad, then you have to digest it. Aren't people like that?
Trees take in carbon dioxide and make oxygen, but humans take in oxygen and make carbon dioxide. They have give and take with each other. In this way they harmonize by cooperating together. So to speak, they are coexisting while forming a relationship with the environment. The time like that has come. We must become new, but how must we become new? This morning you have to take a new stand by casting off your habitual faith of the past. You have to discard your attitude of life which dealt with the night, and absorb and digest this environment with a subject nature, which is able to greet the new environment and the new spring. But since it's spring we shouldn't gather together thinking we should rest saying, "It's nice, it's spring. Now that spring has come here too, let's rest!" Such people cannot hope for fruit or anything.
From spring, we must pass through summer into fall. Therefore I cannot just let you settle down in spring. Someone has to push you out, must drive you out. Who must send you out? Someone from the outside cannot push you out. Then Reverend Moon cannot help but send you out. To where? So that you can go towards the fall season. Because it will not do to just leave you here, there is not other way but to send you out in the direction heading towards autumn even if it takes thrashing you with a bat.
2) The Signs of the Time
So history is entering the time period of intersecting. Since that happens not only on the earth but also in the spirit world, these days, the 60s, most of the youth in America are having spiritual experiences. They call it neurosis, neurosis. They call it neurosis because they don't know this. (75-219)
We have to correctly know our own identities. In spite of the urgent mission which is approaching us, the Unification Church members who flow along with this current time period, whose footsteps are dragged into the environment where they can be ruined and disappear without leaving even a trace, are highly foolish people. Those kinds of people can't be Unification Church members. The more confusing the environment is, the closer our time has come. You must know that as the rumors you hear become more urgent, it is not our end that is coming, rather our time is coming closer. The day that we can break down this wall and go through, the world will have a new beginning because of us.
3) Match Yourself to Your Own Time
Today you were born with a relationship with the heart of God, so you must reach the conclusion of this within this time period. The fact that only we possess this one time period which didn't exist in the past and doesn't exist in the world of this era, is an extraordinary and infinite blessing, and you must know that you have been given something with such value that it can't be traded for anything. If you miss this time then you can't meet it again even if you wait a thousand years.
Therefore, we must know how precious this time period is that we are living in. When we live the life centering on the will for 10, 20,30, or 50 years, that life must be begun by entering through the seven year course. If our lives begin with this seven year course then how precious is this seven year course in our lives? If you cannot unite this seven year course with the will of God totally then you cannot live in the realm of God's love with God's will, for the course of your life which should be centered on God.
If we think about it from that standpoint, we must realize that this seven year course time period which we talk about in the Unification Church, is the most precious time period which you can't buy with any amount of money. A person who misses this time period cannot have a true life course. You should know that it took so much hard work to bring before us this seven years, which seems like a moment, like morning dew which disappears. God did infinite work until now to prepare this one time period for us. God, who knows that without having this one time period He can't form a relationship with true children, did infinite work to prepare it.
Also not only God, but the saints and sages, the patriots of old who pursued goodness through the way of truth, until now sacrificed themselves to prepare this one time period. But in the end they couldn't do it. And after all that, our meeting this time is not by chance, but by the correspondence of rules and necessity. If this time does not come, then the necessary family, necessary nation, necessary world, and necessary cosmos cannot appear. The family, nation, and world which the Will desires cannot occur by chance.
For those families, nations and world to occur, they have to match that one time period and have the necessary conditions. Therefore there has to be a time period which is the standard to determine the final destiny of our fallen lives. We must not just let that one time period go by. You must know that only by pushing forward throughout your life with that one time period as your beginning can you live a true life. (26-115)
The only people who can conform to this period by matching their own period are we who know this will. No matter how many people will be born without knowing the will, they will be people outside of the family. Our individual destiny which is to establish in this era a true appearance in front of our descendants, centering on our destiny which is to walk that kind of life course, what kind of appearance are we going have for our descendants of the future?
You must be creating now the value which will be manifested then. Going to the west and going to the east centered on the Will, and being devoted to and loyal to the Will, is not done for some person. It's to establish oneself before the nation, and it's to establish oneself before the world. It's all to match one's own time well. By matching one's own time well, that time can become the time of humankind, and by matching one's own time well one could represent the time of the nation and the time of the world. (26-120)
You have to work adding your young passion to Reverend Moon's youthfulness. You must clearly remember that now this is the only time period to obtain the condition of glory by participating in the great work of recreation. What must we perfectly feel? First, you must have the heart, "I'm not the same as you." Can't you do it? I can do it! You always have to be prepared with this kind of mind. (8-329)
4) The Way Not to Lose the Time Period
Don't miss the time period, don't lose the time period, and don't let your work be taken away. Reverend Moon will now tell you the way not to lose those things; there are only two ways. Don't be an offensive person, and be a person who loves people. . . If you do just those two, then you can never lose those things. You just have to pass that. That's all there is. I checked it out and that's all there is. (94-143)
5) Now is the Time to Do Activities
Until now, it was the time of prayer, but now the day of celebration is coming. When you have a celebration, it's OK to eat as much as you want and get tired and take a nap. But now is the time when we must suffer and go over that door sill; you can hear the sounds of food frying and rice cake being beaten to prepare for the party, then how can you sleep? A person who sleeps, in spite of that, is an insane person. You are like that right now. Everyone, should you run around, or what should you do? The time has come to all run through the streets in every neighborhood to spread the news that we have to celebrate. In other words it's the time that we must witness. Nevertheless there are people who say, "That season has come again. I must rest a little during the summer vacation." What remains if you just rest unconditionally? (33-22)
By going to Danbury, I accomplished all indemnity on the world level. Going to Danbury was as same as going with the cross on my back in a position with the whole world opposing me. What was the purpose of carrying the cross on my back? The purpose of carrying the cross on my back was to unify the spirit world and liberate the earth. Unification is the purpose. So then, when I went to Danbury, all the groups on earth were involved starting with America. From the Jewish religion, Christianity, all the religions, and then from America, through the Communists, and all the nations in the world. . . Anyway, through the CIA they researched 25 nations. They were trying to catch me and put me in jail by finding any condition. In this way all over the whole world they opposed me with their full effort.
Then why were we struck? What is the purpose of it? It is to struggle for the spirit world. Obtaining the spirit world was the purpose. They tried to hit and break down and destroy our Unification foundation. There, the American government and I were one to one. The United States of America was the plaintiff and I was the accused, and we fought. In that way I turned this over. What tuned over really means is that the spirit world came into the realm of unification. So because the realm of unification has occurred in the spirit world it has to keep pace with the earth. From now on, the work that you do is not your doing. Behind you there are many spirits which are all connected here. Of course you ancestors are connected, but if there is a religion that you especially believe then centering on that religion's leader, they are to concentrate completely on what you do. Therefore if you believe and hit something it will break down.
You must not think that you are alone. Tens of thousands, and millions of spirit people are mobilized. So forty million is not a problem. The several hundred billions of spirits in the spirit world are all trying to plow furrows centering on left and right. They are trying to plow furrows. If you want to plow a hard field, then the plow has to be hard. And then the ox must be strong and the person who is plowing has to press down hard. However strong the ox is and however hard the plow is, the person who is plowing has to press down hard. The ox and the plow are all ready. Now the spirit world is pulling like an ox. We have to press the plow down centering on the principle. Then who presses this down? Your leader must press this down. Then in that way it can be plowed deep. This depends on your faith. You must know this. (164-167)
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Section 3. The Life Of Faith For The Unification Church Members
1. True Life Of Faith
1) The Wish of a Person of Faith
We, the Unification Church members, are walking a different path. Ordinary people in this world do not know that they are in the state of the fall; even for those who believe in this do not understand clearly how the fall took place. In other words, they do not know the standard of the original human being.
The ordinary perspective on the life of faith is that we can gain salvation if we just believe in God and if we believe as His children. What, then, is the wish of a person of faith? What is the purpose of salvation? It is undoubtedly to become a true human being. In true human beings, there are true man and true woman. If a question is raised for God as to what is His wish, then what would be the answer? What would be the God's wish? God would also wish for true human man and true woman. It is natural. God would only wish for that.
What would be the utmost wish for a person of faith? In our terms, it is the perfected human being. What is the perfected man? It is the true human being. What is the purpose of pursuing the providence of salvation? It is also to find the perfect man, the true man.
What is our wish? It is to attend God of true love; it is to attend the True Parents centering on God's true love; then it is to become the true sons and daughters centering on God's true family. Our wish is to form a true family and become one.
2) The Reason Why a Standard of Life of Faith Is Needed
There should be a certain standard of how a life of faith should be today. A standard is needed. God will have certain standard of expectation on how a man should be and how a woman should be as He looks at fallen mankind. Centering on the standard of God's expectation, the people of the world today are divided. Centering on that standard, this world is divided into the four directions of north, south, east and west. Humanity lives everyday with a desire to develop centering on that standard; there would be a standard which can exemplify the ideal.
This is proper. God would push forth the dispensational purpose centering on the absolute standard. There would an absolute standard which God envisions. If God establishes a particular religion, there would be a certain standard upon which the purpose of that religion is based. That standard would not be an incomplete standard but a perfected standard, an unchangeable standard, and an undeniable standard. How much we united with God's standard would be the decisive factor in achieving happiness or misfortune, in achieving fulfillment or discontent.
We, therefore, should always align ourselves with the standard which God is expecting. Its direction would be set toward a particular direction. Unless a compass is malfunctioning, it would point toward the north. If its direction is altered, it is not because of its essence. Its direction might have changed momentarily due to factors in the environment or certain obstacles; however, it does not change essentially.
From this viewpoint, God is the same. There is surely an absolute standard for individuals, families, tribes, people, and nations. We must understand that whether we unite with that standard or deviate from it would determine whether or not we can go the shortest and straightest way to our perfection. From this perspective, the standard for the life of faith is most precious. Does an absolute standard of life for the individual exist? No.
Has any religion taught an absolute standard for the family? No. Nor is there an absolute standard for the tribe and the nation. From such a viewpoint, wouldn't it be fair to say that most people until now have led a life of faith without understanding the fundamental issues of what level of a life of faith they should seek, and how to accomplish its purpose?
What, then, would be the consequences? Naturally, when an individual does not conform to the standard for the individual, there would be a judgment centering on that standard. Even if a person has achieved perfection in an individual realm, when that individual did not unite with the standard for the family, there would be a judgment centering on that standard. We cannot deny this.
Then, is there any way for us to avoid this situation? Is there any way to overcome this? There should be a direction, a general way of life which can unite with the standard for the life of faith, of goodness. This is the critical issue. How can we set the direction correctly so that we may pass through the standard for the individual, and which would help us approach the standard for the family? What is the common direction which can help us to approach the standard for the tribe, people, and nation? We must think about this.
What is the one method by which we can come closer to the standard of the life of faith? You cannot place the purpose in yourself. It may be my purpose but the focus should be on the object. In order to achieve the purpose, I must sacrifice; if I sacrifice others for my purpose, it will be accomplished. Isn't that true? If I want to achieve a goal with a magnitude of ten, then I should invest the sacrifice equivalent to such a magnitude. I cannot drag it out from somewhere else. Therefore, one method of approaching the standard of the life of faith is to place its purpose not in myself but in someone else.
Also, one issue we must always remind ourselves of is that there is a standard which God is requiring of us. There would be a standard for the individual, family, society, nation, and the world. Who, and which people would remain in front of that standard? That is the important question. Goodness is not based on the content that centers on the respectable character of one generation. Rather than being dominated by the environment of any particular age, goodness maintains its dominion over that age, transcending historical precedent, because goodness is based on the content that centers on eternity. From this perspective, we can understand the involvement of God in goodness.
When looking at any particular religion, for example, the character of its founder matters but God is always involved. God does not change according to the age. History is changeable; yet, God is capable of bringing history into perfection by shaping its change. God does not lose His subjective authority in the complex and intricate environment of society; rather God is capable of dominating such a social environment and of achieving the realm of unified purpose centering on the standard and authority as the subject. We can understand the religion that has such a God as the foundation. From this perspective, the standard of the life of faith is necessary. What is the standard of the life of faith? We should connect with the love of God by pursuing His character.
3) The Desirable Standard of the Life of Faith
What should be the standard of the life of faith? We cannot base the standard on the things the people of this world ordinarily interact with, because the life of faith seeks after infinite value. In other words, the standard of the life of faith is not money or any glory in this world. Since the center of infinite value is none other than God, therefore, the standard for the life of faith should be placed on God. We should not recognize anything other than God. The most critical issue in our life of faith is the object of our faith, God. What is next then? God has us, human beings, as His object. We place God as the object of our faith, but God has human beings as the object of His faith. These two objects pass each other. Thus, we are standing in the gateway here. We should, then, uphold the fundamental ideology with regard to God at the risk of our life. At the same time, we should have the same attitude toward humanity.
4) The Significance of the Life of Faith
When God created human beings, He certainly believed that He had created us as His object of infinite value. How then can human beings, who do not have the conviction of possessing ideal value as God's object, progress toward beings of infinite value with the same infinite conviction from the position of object? This is the primary problem.
We should long for an infinite life and make progress by determining for ourselves that God is the center of that value. The life of faith denies the earthly life within the realm of the finite and places life within the realm of the infinite, eternal life, a life in the Kingdom of Heaven as the standard. And through our daily life the life of faith always strives to absorb the element of life that can unite with the ideology of that infinite Kingdom of Heaven. In so doing, it tries to re-create the eternal life and maintain the point of unity with the realm of the infinite. Our life of faith is the same. When I say I am living a life of faith, I am not living on the earth in the ordinary sense. God has one great standard for His Dispensation, and within that standard, there is a focus point to which I should align myself. Such a focal point in my daily life and in my life as a whole. There should be such a focal point throughout our life.
What kind of life of faith is necessary for us today? The conclusion is simple. To connect with God's desire, God's situation, and God's heart. Wherever you may go, whatever work you may do under any circumstance, you should always strive to stand as a conditional offering of pledge in that specific day, time and environment. Such a life is the life of faith. You should know what you are trying to accomplish by going on this path. Imagine you are dying with the present state of your mind. Can you confidently think "Oh, God is protecting and guiding me." It is a serious situation. That is why the problem of death should be the uppermost struggle for the religious person. The life of faith seeks to resolve the problem of death while alive.
When a person decides 'My path is this', that person cannot relax. You may not know about the people who are facing a death-sentence. I have many experiences living together with such people; they are so serious as they await their sentence. When a person faces his last month in August (in which there is Korean Thanksgiving Day), it is impossible to describe the state of his heart as he appreciates every moment of that month. He appreciates even when there is a windy and stormy night. 'Oh, this would be my last experience with a storm.' You will feel the gasping of his serious heart as he experience all things with new emotion.
When we think about these things, how many among those who are walking the life of faith truly determine every day of one's life with such a seriousness and evaluate the life which has been given them by God? This is a serious problem. I can continually go on this path because I am in such a serious position. Even if others may waste their lives insignificantly, I do not. You have to have a clear mind. You must surely understand that our life of faith is not a path which receives judgment after death but receives judgment while we are alive.
5) The Purpose of die Life of Faith
Everyone living on this earth did not start from the God of goodness, but they started from evil. Thus it is necessary for them to be engrafted into the good, true olive tree after cutting themselves from the old root. That is why the notion of the Second Coming, the concept of Messiah and the notion of Savior are necessary. What, then should the Savior do? He should come as the true olive tree, cut away the whole of humankind and engraft them into the true olive tree. In doing so, he must allow humankind which started from evil to set the condition of judging evil and starting again from goodness. And he should make them fulfill the duty of adopted children and then make them stand in the position of children belonging to God's direct lineage.
Progressing toward that position is the purpose of the life of faith. Then, should you cut away or not? Where should you cut? Is it all right to just cut away your legs? If you only cut your legs, you will not die. You should cut the neck. Then you can die. Our purpose in living the life of faith is not to find reality but God. Consequently, we feel we are confronting and opposing reality. In our ordinary life, we face problems in concrete ways and as we confront a situation we can get quick results. When we encounter problems or have some desires in our ordinary life, we can discuss these things with someone and they can be resolved, or something can be attained, quickly. However, the world of the life of faith is not that free. (66-37)
As you call upon God, as you cry out for God's will, as you seek after God's ideology, and as you fight for God's glory, what is the purpose of your life of faith? First, the purpose lies in yourself becoming absolutely firm and resolute. Unless one has the (absolute) conviction that no historical sorrow can subjugate him, that no suffering of this age can dominate the unshakable foundation laid in his mind and body, God cannot trust that person and cannot resolve the situation of that age through him. (12-304)
What is the purpose of faith? It means that you go forward on the global level, and beyond that, on the cosmic level where you can sing about the value of goodness, centered on a vigorous body, mind and heart. ( 10- 127)
The word "faith" means to become a true man. Then what is a true man? Playing with God, resting with God, sleeping with God and living with God: the man who wishes to do all these with God is the supreme, true human being. God is looking for such a true man. By the same token, we human beings are looking for true things and a true world. And a world that lives with God is a world of true love and true happiness. Then the ideal world can come true for the first time. (60-284)
The goal of our faith is to become people of God's nation. If we do not, the way for us as God's children to freely take pride in all humankind and all things and to be loved by them will not appear for us. The man without a nation will constantly be under attack by Satan. He will be in a miserable situation. There are many cases of such absurd tragedy. Then where is the nation God desires? Where is the nation God is to use as a stepping-stone? That is the question. (55-79)
6) The First Rule For a Life of Faith
You should show historical repentance because you are the fruit of historical sin. This is the first rule for a Unification Church member's life of faith. What is the first rule? The beginning of faith is to realize that we are the fruit of historical sin. That is why we should repent. You may say, "Oh, in what way did I sin? I didn't commit any sin." But you are like old, hollow pine trees that are toppling because they are hollow inside. You look like green leaves now but it is possible that you will fall off the tree before your time. Then when autumn comes, you are just leaves that, instead of supporting the fruit in its ripening, drop off without any connection with its maturing.
For that reason, you have to repent of the historical sin. This is where what we call sin came from. Do you understand? What kind of sin? You have to feel your historical sin. So you must take responsibility to cut off the historical sin. You must ruthlessly get rid of this sin.
You must fight with yourself, saying, "Trample on my neck." You have to invest your authority and power to stand on the front line of conquering yourself. And then you should shout to yourself "You must follow my orders and do as I want." That's the first step for a life of faith. (68-315)
The beginning of a life of faith in the Unification Church is to feel that you are God's child, so that you can restore the position of children centered on God's love. If someone who is loved by God is neither proud of God's words nor wants to shout them to the cosmos, he cannot stand in the position of God's child. (22-205)
2. Distinguishing Aspects Of Faith In The Unification Church
1) The Three Elements of Unification Faith (Absolute Faith, Absolute Self-denial, Absolute Love)
Because Adam fell, though he was the parent of humankind, his family was destroyed. Thus the broken family is to be recreated by the establishment of religion. The original family must be restored. Why did Adam fall? It was because of his disbelief. Disbelief was the first cause of the Fall. What was the next cause? He fell because of too much self, assertion. He was a self-centered person. He was centered on himself and he fell.
Next, he required the realm of love to be centered on himself. These were the three elements of the Fall. Disbelief, and what was next? Self-assertion, centering on himself, and expecting the realm of love be centered on himself. These became the stepping stones for Satan. That is how the fallen angel emerged. For restoration through indemnity, we must deny these fallen natures. Then, how can we deny them?
By going the opposite way. It must be completely reversed. Absolute faith! Absolute faith originated from this. We must reverse the effects of our ancestors' fall due to lack of faith, and go upward. We must go upward and over the point where our ancestors fell. We must have absolute faith. What does absolute faith mean? It means that we should continue progressing until we die, while we are dying and even after our death. You don't really know absolute faith, do you? Where is the limit of absolute faith? To compare it with yourself as a living person, it means going forward even though you are dying. I will continue that way even if I am dying.
When I die, I fall not to the side, but to the front. What I mean is that if I deny my faith I am choosing the way of death. How about Unification Church members? For restoration through indemnity to occur, you must go the opposite way. And it begins with complete self-denial, not with self-recognition and self-affirmation. Perfect religion comes out of self-denial, denial of the fallen world. That's why you should deny the world, deny the nation, deny the tribe, deny wife and husband, deny man and woman, deny yourself, and deny your body and mind. You have to know denial covers a wide range. You should even deny your own body by centering on your mind. The body is Satan's first dwelling place.
This is the boundary line between mind and body. The struggle between mind and body was caused by the Fall. The Fall brought about this fight. Why did George Hegel address this concept of struggle? When we analyze the Fall itself, there is the concept of struggle within the human being. We have considered it as part of human nature. However, this was because we didn't understand the Fall. Behind it, good spirits and evil spirits are dropping anchors and putting up nets. Do you understand that? On a Korean ship, nets are hung on a big rope. But we don't know about the anchor and just put up the nets. The small fish in the net are human beings.
How sad this is! That's so miserable and tragic. There is no solution. No matter how hard we try, there is no way to slip out if it. We should tear the nets to pieces. We must destroy Satan's nets of the realm of the Fall. We must deny the whole world. Not by conciliation, but through breaking or reversing the old ways. They should be broken off. Cut the rope and even the anchor, and destroy them. Due to the ancestors' deed, religion cannot emerge with a positive concept. The first requirement is absolute faith to deny our ancestors' disbelief. Absolute faith. Is that clear? Well, do you have absolute faith? For this reason, we must investigate why the ascetic way is needed. Today, do you want this Reverend Moon to investigate the secret world of religions? If you ask the clergy only these three questions: "Why should you go the ascetic way, why should you sacrifice, and why should you believe absolutely?" they will be unable to respond with anything except "Well, all salvation is through belief." Don't be deceived by Satan's dramatic smoke screen strategy. (126-35)
Absolute faith! It's the subject of my prayer these days. Peter's belief was not the problem. Absolute faith was; do you understand this? What's next? Sacrifice! Absolute what? Sacrifice! I am a person who knows my relationship with God well. What's the first rule? It's absolute faith, absolute faith. What should you do with absolute faith? You must go this way even when you are dying. Prison is nothing: you should go this way even though you are dying. Jesus prayed, "My father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." Even though he died away from home, he died not for himself, but for the sake of God. He became a glorious offering. Do you understand? Do you understand what your limitations are? [Yes] You have to be bold even when you are dying. If you have the mind, 1 am dead," then you should be placed in the other world. Can you follow me?
A leap will occur -- a leap. The Unification Church has developed in that way. When you have made up your mind to die and go forward -- even at the most difficult point where you can't escape down into the earth or up into the sky -- God will surely appear. So it doesn't matter to me whether God is there or not. There are so many of His works, works that are like dreams. God always works as he desires, and with people who have absolute faith. What is the second rule? Self-denial. You have to one hundred percent deny your eyes.
Today, I know Unification Church members often go to the movies. When I was a young man, I didn't go to the movies. I didn't take a tram. When I lived in Noryangjin, I used to go downtown on foot, giving the money for the tram fare to beggars on the street. I prayed with tears that in the future they could devote themselves to realizing God's will on behalf of the Korean people. When I traveled to Japan for the first time, I pulled my coat over my head from Seoul -- which was called Kyungsung then -- to Pusan because I couldn't stop crying: "When liberation comes to this country, furthermore to the world, I can represent this people!" Concerned about people who had lost their internal and spiritual attitude, and the direction the nation was to take, I had stepped forward in the struggle against Japan.
When we are ready to be a plank, even a stick, sacrificed to build a bridge, God will come to us. Self-denial. The eyes desire something to see, the mouth desires something to eat! Until I was thirty years of age, I was hungry every day. Even if I knew something, I denied myself. You cannot imagine how hungry I was. Hunger is so terrible a thing. I stopped listening to things I wanted to, I stopped sleeping in a comfortable bed. (126-238)
You should deny yourself. Throw away all thoughts centering on yourself. Absolute what? Faith. And next? Absolute denial, self-denial. at How should you deny yourself? Can you do it easily? Lower your head. Bow your head.
And why must you deny yourself? The enemy! You should digest the enemy, love the enemy. That's not easy. You must not only deny yourself ten times, a hundred times, but also confront the situation in which you must love the enemy. Otherwise, you can't be on God's side forever. You are on Satan's side, right? if so, we'll always be dragged toward Satan. That's the border line. Absolute denial: what's next? The third is absolute love. That means digesting the enemy. Revenge isn't forgiveness. After digesting the enemy, that enemy must willingly give us his nation, all his authority, and the rights of the elder son. And we must receive them. (126-41)
Finally, absolute love will remain when absolute faith and absolute obedience are gone. Belief, love and hope, there are always these three. Then what's the first? [Love.] After belief and hope have gone, in the end love will be left. Likewise, absolute faith will be gone. What is absolute faith? If you follow a certain religious leader, even though there may be a long time, perhaps thousands of years, between his time and yours, on the basis of your heart of faith you can be horizontally in the same age as him.
For that reason, you must believe absolutely! When you believe absolutely, you'll see that he is with you, and lives with you. It is the faith that reminds you of such a fact and encourages you. All of you should have absolute faith. You should go forward believing in the Unification Church absolutely. (46-99)
3. Faith Through Experience
Which way is the Unification Church going to? Which way will Reverend Moon, the leader of the Unification Church, choose? And what kind of command will God, who is teaching Reverend Moon, give to him? Those are the questions. This way isn't for joy. We're taking this way to feel the real meaning of sorrow.
Nobody knows a person's painful sorrow except himself. Faith by experience is therefore emphasized in the Unification Church. It encourages you to feel God's heart. Why do we lay emphasis on faith by feeling? If you don't understand God's sorrow, you cannot draw close to God. For children to be devoted to their parents, they should know their parents' sorrow completely and try to remove it with a heart greater than their parents'. Then they can be filial sons and daughters. How much did you make the foundation to unite with the heart of a loyal subject or of a virtuous woman? How many times did you become one? Faith is decided according to the degree and the frequency of desire to become such a person. (43-26)
Where will heavenly judgment be made? You can't take pride in your merits and efforts for heaven. It isn't made based on those things. Only the experience of God's heart and Jesus' heart within yourself, bearing fruit-a relationship that cannot be broken even by God or Jesus-will establish the condition for eternal life. (4-107)
Are you feeling God's presence through mystical or spiritual experiences in your life of faith and your daily life? Is there anyone who sees me often or receives guidance spiritually, during prayer or in a dream? Please raise your hands. It should be one hundred percent. That's the power, pride, and treasure that only we have.
Until now, because religions have not had such experiences they have lost their way and have been secularized. However, as we know God, who is standing at the final place, the Unification Church, we men and women can plow through the storm and the flood, and can leave behind our dying wish when we pass on. That's a wonderful fact. (87-191)
Today, all Unification Church members are pulled by Heaven; however, if Heaven leaves us we are likely to be exhausted. The reason is that we are ignorant of the importance of faith through experience. Faith means pushing through any persecution if something valuable, which can gauge victorious results in the realm of life centered on God's purpose, could become better after we deal with it. Never surrender. But if the result of a deed should be negative, no matter how hard we try with all our strength, we cannot but retreat. You must not do something that enables retreat. Can you guess how much damage this does? Once we retreat, it is too difficult to make up for it. When we think of this, we cannot imagine something turning out in a negative way. We don't feel like seeing such a thing, or even such a person.
That's why those who are in a state of grace for the first time tend to avoid people. They should not freely touch this thing or that thing but just deal with mundane things. If there is something that would awaken their greed ordinarily, it is better not to touch it. It is easier if they deal with things that they had treated neglectfully before. They should never touch the things that arouse greed. The same with words. They should not make excuses. In following an actual life of faith, spiritual experiences occur.
Even if you don't have such spiritual experiences, you should raise your ability to analyze your feelings in daily life. Do you understand? Relationships between three people bear much fruit for the one-on-one relationship. This means that by making such efforts in a triangulate relationship, you can feel naturally moved by an experience of a relationship that you were not directly a party to. Similarly, you can freely seek the motivation to develop your lives in this way. (40-289)
You have to pray and make sincere devoted effort to receive such experiences. You should know this. Don't ignore those revelations or dreams. How to adapt them to our real lives and how to apply them to the practical reality: this is most important in a life of faith. (76-153)
During a regional lecture tour, although I had set my destination, after making a telephone call I would suddenly go to another place. Like an electric wave; like a guided missile. It's the same action as a guided missile being attracted by steel. So, do not ask me to send you to heaven. Your going to heaven or not doesn't depend on me, Reverend Moon of the Unification Church. On whom does it depend? It depends on yourselves.
What is the most important aspect of experience in a life of faith? It is the relationship between subject and object. Because there is God, who loves you, then, keeping in mind that "God is always the subject," you should feel that as you become more and more serious God will not be able to forget or neglect what you are doing, and that He is with you. Therefore, when you are feeling grateful in your life of faith as you come to pray, God will be with you. You may not feel it at first, but when you reach a certain level you will feel it naturally. (58-312)
You should analyze the process of your life and gauge the results. You cannot assess whether God or the Devil is with you without reaching the position of being able to connect internally with your environment and being able to analyze what percentage of your feelings are right and wrong. Therefore, such a faithful attitude is needed. If you develop such a faithful attitude, experiences will certainly come your way.
On that level, you don't need to pray before going out. When you make a first step, you are able to sense immediately, "Oh, that's good" or "That's bad." What kind of way is this? Is it a good way? Does this way make God happy or sad? You can discern these things at once. When you have a bad feeling, you won't go a certain way. You must be able to sense that. So you have to do your best to develop faith through experience within your environment. (40-288)
4. Why believe in the unification church?
Why do you believe in the Unification Church? To learn the grandfatherly principle. Do you know what the will of a grandfather is? Who is the grandfather? Isn't God the grandfather? Truly, God is the grandfather, isn't He? Why do we call God Grandfather? What do you call him-1 do not mean your grandfather in your home but the original grandfather in the Garden of Eden. So God is the grandfather, Adam and Eve are the father and mother and you are the grandchildren.
So why do you believe in the Unification Church? What must we do when talking about recreation and restoration? The Unification Church must establish the way to receive parents' love and God's love. It is the reverse way. Originally, we should have been born out of God's love. We should receive God's love the moment we are born. And we should receive the love of parents. . . But this was reversed because of the fall. Then, how can we be born? In reversal, we must receive parents' love and next, brother and sister's love. So if you members do not love each other then you cannot receive love. (83-243)
This is the meaning of Jesus' words. What do you call those who wish to die? (The living) And what do you call those who want to live? (The dead). Those who are first (will be last) and those who are last (will be first). The true meaning is here. That is the meaning of being a pastor.
In the future, the church leaders will have to shed many tears. For those who were Christian before, you know that there is a world of difference between the Christian church and the Unification Church. Christian churches do not even qualify for kindergarten standard. This may sound proud but even so, the Unification Church has already had that label stuck onto it. It is not a fake. Why don't you try dying and you will find out that I am not mistaken.
Those who say that if you believe in Jesus you will be blessed are crazy. They talk about whether God is now living or dead, and whether Jesus in heaven is living or dead. Will they receive blessing? Please think about it. Is Jesus at peace? How serious was Jesus when he said, "Father, not according to my will but Thy will?" Isn't it true that his hope is still unfulfilled? The conditions for Jesus' return are still not established so can we say we believe in Jesus and receive abundant blessings? Instead you should say "I believe in Jesus and am willing to die." Those willing to die will receive blessings, and those who want to receive blessings will die. Even those who believe in the Unification Church -- in order to receive blessings had better not come. The Unification Church is not a place where you can just believe and then receive blessings. (48-127)
Then, why do you believe in the Unification Church? When you listen to the facts, do you believe for the reason that it is good for you, or do you believe so for the good of the Unification Church? Also, for what purpose was the Unification Church established? For the good of the Unification Church? (No) No. It is for the good of Unification Church members.
The Unification Church exists for the benefit of the Unification Church members, and the members live for the good of the Unification Church . . . they exist for the sake of each other. What will happen through this give and take? [The ideal will be realized.] The ideal will be realized. When you exercise, is it easier to go in a straight line and then suddenly turn around, or is it easier to circle around gradually? It is easier to turn gradually in a circle. (86-117)
Do not think of receiving blessing in the Unification Church. You must think of giving blessing to others. Fundamentally, in the Unification Church you must sacrifice your blessing for a larger purpose, such as the nation and the world. If you go this way then Reverend Moon will take responsibility for your future. You must become the kind of person who does not need me to pull you along. Do you come to the Unification Church to receive blessings? Do you live for the purpose of receiving blessings or are you willing to die for sake of giving blessings to the people of the world? Please answer quickly and wisely. If you answered wrongly, though you had not intended to, you could be breaking the rules. Do you believe in the purpose of receiving blessings for yourself? No. [For the sake of giving blessings.] (99-321)
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Section 4. The True Believer
1. The Attitude Of A Believer
1) A Heart of Longing is Necessary
What should be the attitude of a believer? You must have the heart of longing. You must know that because we have this fateful relationship, you cannot help but have such a heart of longing. So what is heaven longing for? Heaven is longing not for believers but for those who practice and substantiate their faith in their daily life. Similarly, heaven is longing for you as well to become the kind of person who will substantiate this faith in your daily life. Also, heaven is not longing for the appearance of a country of hope, but for citizens of that land with that kind of lifestyle. Today, we have to go beyond just the word "faith" and be able to substantiate our faith in our daily life.
That is, we must become members who live our lives with heaven, citizens who live our lives with heaven and a church that is one with heaven. If we live this way we can become believers who can sing praise and return glory to heaven. This is what heaven is longing for. Although God has taught the way of faith to countless numbers of our ancestors who lived throughout history, what is it that He has really longed for? We must know that God has been longing for them to become the people who can live life together with Him, rather than just be believers. So we must know what heaven is longing for us to be.
God is longing for us to become people who can happily sacrifice, be willing to die and be resurrected for the sake of our faith. God longs for us to become people who can call him "Father" and sing praises to him in the eternal ideal world. He hopes that we can be those who can go beyond death and be resurrected into life. All of you must know that God dearly misses you and has been persevering to find and meet you. (6-84)
2) You Must Have the Attitude of a Debtor
What should be the attitude of those believers who are living in these last days? We must become the text book that heaven and humankind are hoping for. We should inherit and substantiate this content throughout our lives. We should become the people who can inherit this content in our lives. This is the hope of believers and heaven. (151-258)
All of you should know that the attitude of a believer must always be that of a debtor. As a believer, what should be the most important element? It is the attitude of a debtor. Have you paid your debts? If you have no debts, why not create some debts as a form of training? You must experience the hardships of a debtor. It is truly miserable to stand in the position of a debtor who cannot repay his debts. (43-108)
We have an important mission. Today, you should set up the condition to repay all the debts through your daily life of faith in your crazy circumstances. That means you must assess yourselves whether you are really repaying your debts through your daily life. Today, in your life of faith, you must be connected in relationship to settling the debt of the eternal God, that of parents that of the creation. As the conditions for the age to indemnify all debts have arisen, you must reflect on what kind of heart to have. (1-112)
3) You Must Have Unshakable Determination
An upright believer does not have the attitude of "myself." Even right up to the brink of death we should be able to say, as Jesus did, "it is done." With joy, we must be able to bring to a conclusion all our past suffering, and our hope. The person who has achieved this possesses the eternal kingdom, and dwells in that heavenly kingdom. We must know that God's will is to find this kind of person. (6-76)
Those who stand on the goal line of ultimate victory should take that final step and cross the line: then new hope will appear before you. You will see a new day. A new ideology will come into your hands. To create a relationship with that ideology you must know that the heavenly condition, that same path, still remains to be followed.
For this reason, in front of this historical destiny, we need to prepare resolutely for anything. From this perspective, please reflect on yourselves. Do you have the proper attitude as a believer? Has your life of faith built up a heart of longing? Have you had that desire? You cannot go this road if, having an old-fashioned faith, you believe everything will be solved and accomplished by itself. In that we must go forward with the right attitude of faith, although we may be confronted by the power of death, we must survive to neutralize it. There must be some, thing that remains. Aspects of passion, faith, endeavor, endurance-all these must remain. You must understand that this is the first level of inheritance from Heaven.
To make your way through the complex realities of today, you must seek and go forward with ambition. Keeping in mind your ties with history, with the present age and with the future, and longing to be a person of ambition, you must find this quality and go forward. You will be hampered by innumerable foes in your quest, but you must fight them and fight them again, advance and advance again, clash and clash again. Thus, supporting the altar of patience with your shoulders, feet, hands, bodies and heads, you must become the offerings who prepare to cross over the pass of patience. If you do not, you will never be a person with the attitude of a true believer or who seeks for God's will and the heavenly truth.
4) You Need to Have a Rounded Mind
We think of history as being the record of the lives of individuals and that history develops according to the actual life situation of individuals. Also we cannot deny that the goal of history has been to reach a kind of ideal utopia. For that to appear it is absolutely necessary that the past be cleared up and that we then pursue a kind of inner human relationship which can unite with a new ideal.
Therefore we must stand firmly centered on absolute values. We should not become wavering individuals. Since we are endowed with absolute life, we must stand with confidence in a perfect position from where we can bring our foundation of faith to conclusion. We must be standing at the point at which we can establish common ground. This position, at which we unite with eternal life, must be connected to life's historical course, and in advance of this, one individual among us must be the starting point. (6-131)
In your life of faith there is a time for repentance and a time for receiving grace. The time for receiving grace is also the time to share it. It is due to repentance that we receive grace, but you receive grace not just to keep it to yourself. You have to share it. In order to have a life of faith, it is absolutely necessary to get out of the position of a bystander. Now you obey and follow Reverend Moon, but that doesn't mean that you center your life of faith on Reverend Moon. Actually you are leading your life of faith centering on yourself. Because of that, people of faith set up and keep their way of faith all by themselves, in disregard to all the other people around them.
On your own, in a realm of deep heart of which even people close to you have no experience, you must be able to live a satisfying life of faith with gratitude centering on heaven. No matter how evil the world around you is, you must have a life of faith such that you can look at heaven and earth and say, "Thank you, I am deeply happy." If you can not do that, if you cannot feel that way, you must at least be able to say from the opposite position, an extremely sad position: "I am a sinner. I fall short in everything, please give me courage." You must make time for personal repentance. (153-136)
So, as a religious person, what is it that you have to be most careful about? Whether your work is great or small, whatever it is, don't treat it as an individual matter. In other words, you must make your mind rounded. If you put enough air into a balloon it will become round. Have that same kind of attitude of mind. Don't let your mind become crumpled, but keep it completely round and taut like a balloon. Otherwise, if your mind is insecure or wrong, centered on individual desire, your rounded mind becomes jagged. When your mind is rolling like a ball, it has smooth contact with a flat plane. But if it is jagged, only the points have contact. In that case, it will not smoothly stimulate anything but will act against everything.
The more we experience that, the more our conscience is stricken and the standard of our conscience will gradually go down. Therefore you need to keep your mind taut like a round balloon. In so doing, when we receive a stimulus, our whole mind must be able to resonate. If you have two tuning forks and strike one, the other will vibrate with the same frequency. We must have a well-rounded mind that can become a resonating vessel. For this purpose, we must always make effort to feel the spiritual vibration coming from our subject. A person living a life of faith therefore needs time to meditate. Meditate while longing for good things. When you meditate, open the door of your mind completely and make your mind round.
Then, centered on God -- God's original nature and your original nature -- a person with a spring-season character must have the attitude to have a complete relationship and resonate with the spring-season nature of God who is the subject. Then, centered on this resonance, when you have a desired purpose, God is certainly with you. You must know this! And, in the situation of not being able to feet this resonance with God, think this way: God is looking at your work. Even if you do not feel His direct relationship with you, that relationship is there. You must think that God is involved with what you do, that God's will is being planted there, and that now is the moment to approach Him centering on His will. You must think that way. Looking from the viewpoint of centering on the work itself, God's will is already being accomplished. (40-278)
In living a life of faith, do you have an explosive and stimulating power in the center of your heart which is moving unceasingly towards the world of God's will? When you have that heart then it is evident that God is with you. On the other hand, if you don't have that power it is evident that God is separate from you. When your heart is pouring out love for humankind, and you have the mind to share your life limitlessly with mankind, it is clear that you belong to heaven.
Self-centered love and proud self-centered values are evidence that God is already leaving you. You must know this. Such a person is not going toward heaven. He will reach his limits through his self-centeredness. The world of self-centered limitations is quite different from the world of God's will. (32-21)
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Section 5. Unification Family Life
Speaking of this issue, there is no excuse for not taking the road of virtues in friendship, of being positively recognized by one's superior, or of being trusted by one's subordinates whenever there is a choice in one's decision between good and evil. Do you understand this? I want you to examine and compare the choices. Those who excuse themselves are generally losers. I don't want you to use excuses whenever something happens. Reverend Moon never uses excuses even if it means his death. If confronted with facts of the matter, he might wince with his answers, but never excuses. It's Reverend Moon's way of life. Only the straightforward people will survive and inherit their environment.
We need "honest believers" more than anything else in view of this conclusion on honesty. How do we get honest believers? From our present decision making. Therefore, we must react decisively when good cannot stop evil's invasion. Thus Reverend Moon does not dilly-dally when something happens. Never. You cannot afford to. Whenever you feet negative, you must shed the feeling immediately. It's wrong to go before the public while you are still affected by bad feelings. It's a serious matter. When we consider our whole lives, we realize only those who stick to a firm philosophy-not just in religious matters-but in ordinary life, will survive. I want you to know that only people like that achieve anything worthwhile in history. (45-269)
You must believe as a child does. (46-177)
1. Patience Is Precious
What is the reason we must endure and be patient today? Because, unless we are patient, we cannot repay our indemnity and cannot resolve the grief that heaven bears. Because heaven and earth follow the ways of God, if you get angry when God gets angry and grieve with God when he grieves, you will be judged in Satan's world. In our journey toward heaven we are constantly taught to be mild and meek, to endure without rancor. (1-113)
God answers our prayer by saying, "You must kill yourself, and you will receive blessings." It means that blessings come only after endurance. It matters not whether the endurance is in private affairs or in the public domain. "Endure, endure" we are told, and endure continually.
In the Orient, the word for patience implies that one should endure even under the threat of a knife. We all know how painful it is to stick a knife in our heart. But do you understand that one who is struck with a knife one thousand times is one who triumphs one thousand times? You must know it now. Think and think before you act, and then think and endure. All actions must be preceded by thoughtful consideration. Do you understand? Reverend Moon likes to play the game of patience. "Great Fatherland" are not my favorite words, but it is a precious phrase. But every time you hear that phrase think about one thing: What should I do first whenever there is a problem? Think that you can inherit all of God's blessings. (93-320)
The Bible says, blessed are those who endure to the end. It's not easy to endure to the end. But it doesn't mean an end only because I die. It doesn't mean an end only because the whole family dies. It could mean the end of the spirit of a people, the end of a nation, or the end of the world. Thus the end means not just the end of your family, your people, your life in this world, but beyond this world where we no longer exist.
Can you imagine the hardships of following God, forsaking yourself, your family, your people, your nation, to the very end of the world? The journey is fraught with difficulties that dog the traveler all the way to the end. One cannot take to the road for the peace, comfort, hope, wish, or glory of one person. (51-25)
For this reason, anyone who wants God's blessings must endure. When you give alms to a poor person, you should not say, "Hey, you are a young fellow, what's the matter with you?" Instead, say, "I hope this small token will bring you many times more today." You can say this many, many times. But if you say, "You rotten son of a gun, get one thousand blessings today," he would say, "How wonderful that you say it. But I wish you didn't call me you rotten son of a gun." Be patient and endure.
It is spring time now. Nowadays, there are machines doing the tilling instead of an ox. In the old days one would drive an ox to till the soil and whip the animal's butt once in a while, hollering, "You rotten animal, why are you behaving like this? I raised you for this time of the year but you are behaving so poorly!" But instead, one should tell the beast, "Hi, I am very sorry that you have to be used like this after a long winter of inactivity and poor feeding." One should be more patient than an ox so that heaven recognizes one's virtues. Do you understand this? (127-89)
Instead of clever patchwork to smooth over a situation in the moment, one should be patient in all sweetness. One should live a blessed life with a blessed mind, to await true blessings. Do you understand what I am saying? (127-89)
Our endurance should not end midway, it should go all the way. For this, God has endured for six thousand years. You must understand that. Who is he? He is our father. Because we inherited his flesh and blood and his virtues, we must be like him. Because of this we must endure like our world philosophy. For whom, you say? For God. Children's duty begins here. Children's loyalty begins here. The liberation of nations and of the world begins here. Here we welcome the good world and the bad world as hell is no more. Isn't that so? We must endure under this philosophy.
There is an old story. There was an old woman who used to be married to the last grandson of a 5 generation family. Someone asked her how she had endured it all. The woman told him to open some large jars in a storage room. Inside the three or four of the jars, filling them to the top, were the words "patience." Not just being patient. But enduring patience.
There must a purpose in endurance. Endurance is impossible without a purpose. We must risk our lives to capture all the foes of God, all the foes of mankind. We must find our Lord once again as representatives of this world. For this we must endure. Our purposefulness must be strong. There is no point in just enduring. What's the point in crying out, "This is killing me!" Even as we endure and bear up under difficulty, we must be thankful and sing hymns. Do you understand? God will simply forsake us if he finds out that we are not enduring thankfully but with bitterness. What do we need to endure? What do we need? "A thankful spirit!" A thankful spirit. We cannot endure without a thankful spirit. Without a thankful spirit, we cannot unite with God just simply by enduring. (44-28)
2. The Value Of Overcoming Hardship
Once you decide on a grand purpose, the biggest problem is how to overcome the hardship of holding to the time and process to achieve the purpose. The most important point is how to maintain the momentum around the purpose in our daily existence. It is possible for us to individually overcome some of the hardships, but when the energy runs out we face corruption, disappointments, defeatism which cause failure. Therefore we must have a certain stimulus in our daily life that brings us gladness and idealism. In our multi-directional life, a positive stimulus is imperative. (66-38)
Some of you are agreeing with me but actually shaking your heads inside. This is why your character is important. In your journey as a believer, to conquer oneself is more difficult than to conquer the world. Viewed this way, our first cross to bear is conquering ourselves. (46-95)
A believer must overcome great calamities. Believing is overcoming. It is like dying in the process of overcoming difficulties. We say, sacrifice, serve, and don't even raise your head about it. So that those who want to live will die and those who want to die shall live, and in the process of overcoming difficulties if one is ready to die, one finds that the great calamities are overcome. This is the important lesson in solution-finding for all ignorant people. Religions have been teaching this secret for ages. (47-119)
People tend to think that when the Messiah comes their own nation will be in glory and they will be in hog heaven. The sad bitter history of Israel shows that people vanish if they don't think about the whole of humanity. That's why in our journey we cannot triumph without overcoming hardships. Then with what do we overcome? We cannot overcome anything with tricks or talents. Only with a sincere heart. Therefore, the final weapon is always how much you love God, how much you long for him, how much you feel his grace and love, and how much you have been upholding the father, son bloodlines. (42-228)
1) Give Thanks for All Things
We must thank God for everything he has done for us and also for the 95 percent of the mission that is yet to be accomplished for the world. What is the basic purpose of religious life? To give thanks to God. This is the basis upon which the fall of man can be overcome so that our unity with God can be re-established. Am I going to give thanks only for the favors that I've received? Of course not. God's work for us does not always show itself in favors. He is with us through thick and thin. We must thank God not only for the favors but also for the hardships in our fight for restoration. Thus, we must understand that the weight of the cross must be viewed as part of his favors for which we give thanks. (29-338)
Then, how should we give thanks? Aren't there many others less fortunate than myself? We must look at those people, not those better off than we are. We must be thankful, saying, "I am a member of the Unification Church in a death struggle for our belief in and knowledge of God, but how many people don't know about God or the Church? I am so fortunate!" We must sing praise to Him at all times. God will shed his tears in response to our hymns of thanks in the midst of our struggles. When we cannot really go one step farther, God comes along and blesses us by saying, "You, my son, you don't need to endure any longer." As we endure our journey in hymns of thanksgiving, God tearfully says, "Where else can I find a son like you? I will now let somebody else carry on for you." Then he gives us a place of rest and heavenly rewards from his heavenly father's heart. Do you understand? That's why we must give praise and thanks.
You know the fable about old woman Jung? She said thanks for everything, even for the whipping she took, for all the bad luck of her life, for the hardship she received from her mother-in-law, even when she lost her daughter and her husband. She just kept saying thanks for everything (laughter).
All truthful thanksgiving. That's the only correct way. All truthful thanksgiving. You must give thanks and praise. Even when your wife snarls at you in the morning and you and your wife have a screaming match, you should say, "Thank you, God, for my family member's anger." (laughter) Try it that way. Try it three times. Wait for ten minutes and say to the other person, "Do it your way, I don't understand it at all," then it gives a new positive stimulus to the relationship.
So everyone in town called the old woman Jung "the thanks-giver." She became quite famous as a great educational institution in Korea. Don't you think? We must be thankful that we have such an institution amid all the hardships we endured after liberation. It means we are getting closer to God's blessings. That shows that Koreans are destined to survive. For this we should give thanks and praise. Then, should we just keep thanking and praising? No, that's not it. What should we do next? Mutual aid is what we do next, giving aid to others and receiving help from others. Together we live and work. This is when unification will occur. Do you understand? Unification comes when we depend on one another and help one another. The kingdom of God comes this way. (44-29)
Like old woman Jung, thanksgiving is the right thing to do. One who gives thanks cannot be destroyed. Satan has to run away from that person. Even if Satan tries to invade, we must thank God, saying, "This is the indemnity that he wants me to remit." Satan will have to give up with this type of thanks-giver. But if we don't give thanks, Satan will never leave us alone. (34-138)
If you sacrifice yourself for the world, there is no shame in your lowly state of being, even looking like a beggar. We Unificationists must appreciate even a bread and water diet as if it were a five-course meal, and give thanks. The more you give thanks, the higher your esteem in the eyes of all that is wonderful in heaven. Do you understand this? "Yes." (61-210)
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Section 6. Unificationist Lifestyle
1. Meanings And Goals Of Life
1) What Our We Means
Today your life is not just your personal life. It represents the life of all. (3-206)
You life represents the times and the world in which you live. Therefore your salvation is not your personal salvation but that which transcends your self, your family, your people, your world -- ultimately to reach God. (11-254)
2) Unified Life
The Unification Church is possible only when life itself is unified. (155-119)
Life must be unified, like manning a battle station. (12-172)
What kind of church is ours? "The Unification Church, you answer. So, it's the Unification Church. "Yes," But is it unified? "No, it's not," you say. What is it that we are trying to teach? Unified ideas, unified spirits, unified minds, and what next? "Unified life," you say. But can we honestly say we are unified with our ideals when we look at our families, ourselves?
For the Unification Church, the church that insists on unification, there is one purpose, and one purpose only. We are born as different individuals but become one in pursuit of that one purpose. We are all connected. The connection resembles the father and son bloodlines. According to the principles of heaven and earth, we could have all be born as one father and son, but for the fall of man. (155-139)
You must transform yourself so that you become one with God and comprehend his ways. Then you can avoid errors and frictions. There is only unification in ideals, in action, in life. Only then would God find a place of eternal rest on this earth and take eternal delight in being one with man. (3-277)
2. Truthful Life
1) The Life View of a Unificationist
Unificationists must sympathize and love this world and humanity that is like a pitiful orphan. You must understand that you must love them like your brother, like your sister, and like your parents as loving them is the Unificationist's creed.
What is that single prayer for which we bow our heads and beg God's mercy and glory, abundant worth and abundant nobility, and insist that the Unification Church fulfill? It is to find the true parents that we have lost. If we can find the true parents and rejoice in avoiding the life of an orphan, the joy of meeting the true parents overrides our own pride and power. It matters not in what nation this encounter takes place. It matters not what it may mean to the rest of the world. (22-87)
Then, what kind of life view have you been maintaining? All self-centeredness, all selfishness. "Why should I do it when somebody else can do it?" you say. But can you give to someone else that which is your responsibility? "I don't need to eat my breakfast. Why don't you eat it for me?" This sort of thinking would surety kill the person. Responsibility is absolute. We cannot avoid carrying our responsibility. It is a privilege for each individual. (60-284)
Our life view must change. How would you spend your money? You must spend it for your country, for your world. You must earn money for your country, for the world. That must be your purpose. You must live for the world, for the will of God. God does not want to unify the world just for one people, but for the good people everywhere. There are people who avoid confronting hardships, but we must welcome them. Here is how we part company with them, it's like the difference between master and slave that separates the two kinds of people. (174-303)
2) Rules of Life
Everyone needs and loves parents. Everyone wants to see and be with them. But why? For what reason? There is the age difference. Rules of order require superiority and subordination. There is courtesy, and sometimes very elaborate courtesy where children bow to their parents. We must remember the very principle of superiority-subordination in social life and in human ethics. We must want to meet our parents through our unquestioned obedience and subordination. This is the rule of father and son bloodlines. (112-251)
You must now obey the rules in your daily life. Heaven demands that, in order to construct heaven, you must keep heaven's ways. Not only must you know heaven's ways, you must live heaven's ways. You must become one with heaven's love as you understand heaven's ways. God has been working to rebuild heaven, but for what do we need to keep heaven's ways? We must keep heaven's ways through the gospel words of Jesus our Lord. The word is heaven's ways and our own principle. Here is the way for you. You must live heaven's ways by internalizing the gospel as your central principle. (1-337)
We must establish a new tradition that transcends the tribe and the national boundary. We must establish the foundation as the will of God, not our own. It means you must re-examine your habits, past customs, or present fashions. It's different, vastly different. You must know that. Is it understood? [Yes.] You must harmonize the way you walk, sit and do everything else. You must harmonize the way you greet your teachers with the ways of heaven. Even to greet the teacher? Really? Yes, really? If it should be in one aspect of life, shouldn't it be in all things?
You cannot just do as you wish, like propping up your feet on the desk. You must re-examine it. Like the way the Americans do, as they put their feet on the table like this (laughter). Is this acceptable, can you imagine?
You can see harmony when you took at the world. Seeing that the world is naturally harmonized without a hitch should give you the idea for your motivation. There is nothing that attracts unwanted attention. For example, as I speak, if someone wants to sit near me there must be a careful angle and courteous distance between us. There is a rule of angle and distance, as you move your body this way or that (as he demonstrates), not this way or that. There is a rule for proper angles and distances. Should there not be something? Shouldn't there be a rule? You must understand that there are trials and tribulations in the way of our effort to correct the fallen man's ways. You must overcome these. (66-297)
3) Truthful life
Many people praise God but we must praise the work God has done. A selfless praise of God must become our daily way of life. You must not forget to measure your life in terms of your eternal praise of God's work, not just in moments of prayer, as the center of your life. Truthful life begins with a truthful day, a truthful day with a truthful moment. How to maintain a life based on truthful moments, truthful days, and truthful years, is the very task of your life. Some might say, "this is my own life" and squander their youth. That kind life is wasted life. Even Satan loathes them. Could God love them when Satan rejects them? You must live a life that God loves and Satan envies. (26-128)
We cannot realize our goals without truthful living, without truthful life. All of our deeds are recorded in our afterlife. One click, we see all of our childhood and our adulthood. The truly great winner is one who has a record that his children can be utterly proud of and cherish. You must be determined to become a winner and leave a life of truth. Do you understand? Every moment is a moment of trial for you. You must not waste the moment for which God has been seeking you out. You cannot miss it as it is more precious than a thousand-year history. You must not miss that moment even if you lose the whole world or lose once again all your treasure you worked so hard to gain. You must make every effort, even at the sacrifice of your own life, not to lose that moment.
You only live 70 or 80 years just once. Our life is just one moment, one breath, even when you think your life's effort seems unending. Isn't that so? (26-141)
Okay, you Smith, you Jones, when are you going to start living a true life? Life is just one day at a time. There is no true life that is not linked day to day. No one can attain victory without living life's abundant worth and desiring abundant victory. (26-124)
4) Life's Standards and Foundation
Your personal life is measured by the standards of your Teacher. Reverend Moon does not center his life on himself. You, each individual, a Mr. Smith, a Ms. Jones, must not pursue your own profit. You must aim for heaven. (166-248)
God does not recognize our body. Why, because we are fallen man, born of fallen ancestors. God accepts your conscience, but not wholly, because your conscience is affected by its environment. Your current standards for conscience are different from God's original standards. God's conscience is the standard; nor is your body the standard, God's is. Your life is not the standard; God's is. You are affected by your environment and its ideas. (11-91)
Today you must be able to discern things in your environment. As a farmer must discern crops from weeds you must be able to discern God's ways from Satan's ways. What kind of person would you now want to become? You must become one who rejoices in abundant harvests. You must become good enough to stand proudly before your father. True harvests, not poor crops, must be your goal. So, you must be good enough to receive heaven's blessings in abundant harvests. You must also know when heaven's blessings come. You must know exactly when God wants to send the new principles to save fallen man. You must be able to discern true abundant harvests from poor crops by being able to discern God's new principles.
Mankind still cannot tell truth from falsehood even after six thousand years of history. There is not one single person who, on behalf of mankind, has gained true harvests. If anyone ever lived to harvest, you must remember, it's only Jesus Christ. Your way of life must center on how to become fruitful toward true harvests. You must be reborn and begin your journey of a second life. Your mind is not always filled with truth. It is filled with true seeds and false seeds. It's not just your environment that's planted with false seeds, it's your mind also. You must recognize it's Jesus Christ who wanted to cleanse your mind by sacrificing himself. Now, how is your own life? In your daily life, if you make one move that is not true, then it becomes a false move. All you see, hear, speak, or feel becomes false. You must realize that around you is everything that is either true or false. Today Cain and Abel are in you.
There are true harvests and false crops in you. Your actions are either Cain-like or Abel-like in their nature. Everything has the stamp of Cain or Abel. No matter where you go, you must be able to tell the two apart. Even lowly animals know toxic food from good food. Shouldn't the master of all things know that? Know which is Cain and which is Abel? Among the Unificationists there are some who have faulty yardsticks. One should not use the faulty yardstick and insist on a wrong measurement as a correct measurement, without realizing one's faultiness. Each correct yardstick is based on one standard, which is the correct measurement.
One must measure all things from the central standard. When one speaks, the speech must be based on the central standard; when one acts, the action must be based on the central standard. So, there can be foundations for peace, and for the unification authorities. Some people use their own yardsticks even within the Unification Church. All of you must come to the central standard everyday to see if you are correct. You must check several times as standards can change.
So, there is the constant emphasis of "getting together," and "trying to unite" in your efforts. Get together to do what? just to party? To measure the fitness with the central standard, horizontally and vertically. All angles must be measured against the central standard. You must establish the standard in your life and in your action and measure all things against them. All things must be done that way. I say it's wrong to deviate from this idea, and act accordingly.
Life consists of sleeping, waking, coming, going, being good and bad, as they are the six common activities. All these activities must be measured against the standard. One cannot do as one pleases. You will become God's son and daughter when you measure all your actions against the central standard whether your station in society is high or low, whether your life is good or bad, without being affected by the vagaries of life. Yours is God's family, God's tribe, God's nation when. your life is based on this. Unificationists the world over do not live separate lives. Their lives must be one action, one mind, one ideal. You must be part of this unifying process. You must share your joy, sorrow, and tears, and even bear the cross together. (156-52)
5) Living with God.
We must live with God, with the world, with all of our humanity. I don't want to live my own separate life. I am not even living as a Korean. I want to be part of the Unification Church leadership. Is that true? That is possible only when we place love as our living thought and sacrifice ourselves toward that goal. We must live with this idea. (129-96)
You must become sons and daughters who can answer the father's call even from the valley of tears. You must be able to hear "Bear it as I am here" when you tearfully call out "Father." You must be able to hear "Endure it as I have endured it" when you call to him, "Oh, Father" from the depth of suffering. You must be able to hear "Don't despair as I am here" when you call him at the moment of your death. The question is how you live with your father, consult him, not whether you call on him in his moment of glory. Why? Because the day of his glory is not here yet. (11- 102)
6) The Importance of Daily Life
Our longevity spans our whole birth-to-death existence. Our life consists of our day-to-day existence. What should we do to leave a legacy of true life? The answer is in our true day-to-day life. If we fail in our daily life, we fail in our whole span of life. So, we realize how important it is for us to sharpen our daily wits and discern the battle between good and evil. (26-112)
In our daily life, a moment in our life is not just a moment in our day. Our present moment is simply a link to its past. Even as I speak, my present moment is connected to its past moments, and just as inevitably to its future moments. To view the moment this way, what then is the present moment? We can say there is a line, and perhaps there is no such line, that separates our present. It is indeed surprising and awe-inspiring to think that our present may or may not exist. If we look at one day, there is the day before and the day after. If we look at one month, there is the month before and the month after. If we look at one year, there is the year before and the year after. If took at any youth, there are his childhood and mid-life.
Thus, we cannot deny that every present moment has its past and its future. We are confronted with the thought, as we look at our present moment, that it is a moment of the past as well as a moment of the future. Past and future meet in one moment. Therefore, the present moment cannot deny its past, nor can it deny its future. What is the glorious worth of our present? It is this moment that has inherited the glorious past and that has the potential to establish a glorious future. Without this, there is no glorious present. (68-204)
Our life span contains infancy, childhood, youth, mid-life, and old age. Large or small, every life goes through these stages. A life span covers the whole life, and it is long. It covers the span from birth, youth, mid-life, old age, and the ultimate demise. The whole process is connected through our daily life. Therefore, our misspent daily life contributes to a misbegotten life span. A glorious life span cannot be produced from a misspent daily life, and there is no other way this life can conclude. In view of this, what is the most important factor in a believer's life? It is not how one swears that he is going to live his daily life for God, but it is how he actually dedicates his daily life to God.
Needless to say, a misspent daily life cannot but lead to a misdirected life span. We must remember that, although a day may be spent thoughtlessly, each day is a crossroads between eternal life and misdirected life. The battle is won or lost in daily life. It is a decision of every second, every minute, and every hour. As we recognize this, it's not one day that is important, but every hour, every minute, every second. It's our decision. If we want to live eternally with eternal God, we must establish eternal goals and eternal life span in our daily life. This makes our daily life a very serious affair, indeed. Life and death are decided at every moment. We must realize that our life and death are decided at each moment, and that our destiny is decided in each second, minute, or hour. My sorrow does not begin at this moment. I do not plan a specific day of sorrow. My feeling of sorrow comes at a particular moment. Gladness may go through morning time, noon time, evening and night time, but gladness begins in a moment's time. Therefore, our each breath, each movement, must be thought of in this framework. Let's try to represent our life as a graph. Let's represent your daily life as a graph. What did you do? I met a friend, met somebody else, had a quarrel with someone, etc. Our everyday life consists of so many different events, feelings and actions.
But what is the direction of all these events, feelings, and actions? We very easily forget all about the direction of our lives. Do we ever stop and say, "we came this far this way, so we must turn the other way for a while, trying this angle or that angle." No, we don't. We simply follow our own habits and go on blithely. We may use the compass and correct our misdirected journey, but we have to realize that we are off-course. Should not the believers live their lives differently from the rest of the world? (57-234)
Every step of your journey leads either to Satan or heaven. Either of the two. Everything you see or hear, everything leads to the two. And you waiver between the two. Are you moving forward or backward when you waiver? [Backward!] (102-273)
3. Methods Of Life
1) What is Living Well?
All of you are lost, not being able to see the past or the future. In other words, you don't know how to live or even articulate it. You have only learned it from Satan. People feel pessimistic about their lives. It's because they have not learned how to live. They have fallen and lost their parents. So, they must reconnect to their heaven-earth parents, who can teach them about the orderly relations among members. (12-68)
You want to live well by being members of the Unification Church, but what is living well? It's not just driving a car or eating well. It's living without shame in the eyes of God. (163-33)
2) Living around a Central Theme
How should the Unificationists live? What are the ways of Unification life? With what should they live? It's living around a central theme -- the theme of love. Look, Adam and Eve were to perfect themselves to represent God's horizontal love, but it didn't work out as Adam and Eve became corrupted, and the archangel, wanting to be the lord over them, left his position created to serve man. Man destroyed the relationship by forgetting God's love and perfection.
The error started then. The north-south axis has become non-existent or nonfunctional, sometimes north-south, sometimes west-north. All things are destroyed if there is no axis. The universe is destroyed. All living things and all elements of this university pivot around the axis. Even the most primitive creatures rely on these rules of the universe. It is the ideal operation of the universe. But the fall of man has destroyed this ideal of the axis which connects man with God. (180-158)
The world of today has no center. We don't know which way mankind must go. We don't know what is good and what is evil. No one seems to know the correct ways for the individual, for the family, for the nation, or for the world. (57-83)
You as a whole have lost the center. To speak theologically, it is the indemnity of the fall, the price of the sorrowful and bitter fall of man. (11-16)
What is the wish of mankind? "It's to find the center." Through the fall, man lost his center and is still searching for it. Of course, we want a perfect personal life, a perfect family life, and the world itself wants a center. This center is what builds the perfect world, or the nations, or the tribes, or the families, then the husbands and wives. Some might recognize this by saying, "I've moved a few degrees, a few meters." But many don't even know this.
To speak of the Unification Church, let's say we recognize the teacher as the center of the church. Where is that teacher? We say, in the United States. Then we should all turn toward the United States. If the teacher is the center, then, even if he is in the United states, one must think of how many kilometers the new location is removed from Chungpa-dong. If one goes to Chung Pyung, then one also asks how many kilometers it is removed from the center. How far is it removed in the north, in the south, from the center? One must always think how far one is removed from that very center. One must think of the center at all times.
This does not mean you can overlook the teacher himself. But thinking about the teacher is secondary to thinking about God and his center in all things. Circling ten times is an expression meaning that one must circle the center ten times in order to traverse the outer circle ten times. But when you circle the outer limit, what do you circle first? Of course the center, before you do anything else. A top cannot spin unless it spins at the center-axis. If it does not spin at the center, even one thousand spins cannot be said to be true spinning. Only the spin that evolves around the center-axis can truly be said to be a spin. Do you understand what I am saying? [Yes.]
The world has no center. Christianity has been derailed from the center which is Jesus Christ. America was great when it was centered on Christianity. Things break down without the center. Is man the center? Behold man. The old saying goes, human sentiments change in the morning and the mountain remains the same. Human thoughts shift throughout the day. They change twelve times a day. Isn't that so? Can you trust your own thoughts? Can you trust anyone else's thought of the moment? Accordingly, even scholarly theories change with the times, without the truth. Does the earth have a center? Heaven must send us a center as it is its responsibility. Otherwise, there is no heaven. Unless we are prepared to stand before the center when it does come down, we cannot make the connection with it. What is mankind's wish? To meet the center. When mankind meets the center it will find its family, its tribe, and its nation-state. (64-192)
There is nothing on this earth that can reject God's life and God's love. As we get closer to the truth, as we attain more of the truth, the harder it is for someone to take away the truth that is the center. Even through ten-thousand quakes, even through a fiery destruction of the universe, one who stands by his conviction will not sway or shift. (2, 133)
3) Living for Others
The teacher's most important point is in the word "for." Based on love, one must devote one's full self for God. Once fully devoted, the dynamics of vacuum and high pressure will create motions. When high pressure is totally spent, it will become low pressure. It will become high pressure on the opposite side. Then what happens? Things reverse. When one gives completely, one receives completely. (169-188)
People who want to achieve must wish the outside world well. Do you understand? That's why the Unification Church's creed is "Live for others!" You were born for something. Creation was God's complete dedication, and God's act was centered on love and his creation was for love. Our sin is to insist that the world "live for me." It's also our fall, which is an error from the start. We have been born for others. We must think that way. I was born for my parents. We must all think that way. We receive our lives for parents, for our husbands, for our wives, and for our brothers, and for our country. That's why we have been born, for the world. The reason the Rev. Moon's ideas will emerge in the 21st century as the mainstream thought is because he opposes the "live for me" model in favor of the "live for others" philosophy that he discovered. Speaking rationally, there is little hope that the world will go in the latter direction. That's why the only hope resides with the Unification Church. Tens of thousands of years will follow the idea of living for others in the next century, rather than the live for me philosophy. People don't like the idea and will not follow me. (169-87)
What is the main idea of the Unification Church? It's simply to live for others. If we exist for God and if we exist for something, we can overcome any opposition. Even if the whole world opposes, the Unification Church has survived because we know that we will be saved in the hands of God. (77-302)
Why, then, was God compelled to set up this principle? I will explain it below. Why did God give us the commandment to live for something. It's a problem, as you can see. I will ask you: Let's say you owe someone your life. Would you repay him just half way when your whole life is owed to him? Or would you repay him with all your heart?
What is your true feeling on this? Because we want to repay him 100 percent of what we owe there is the possibility of our salvation.
When Mr. Moon saves the life of Mr. Lee or Mr. Kim, they will repay more than they owe. Thus, favors beget favors. When they repay me one hundred percent, I would in return repay someone else 120 percent. Looked at it this way, giving begets giving until the act reaches the point of eternity as the ultimate destination of such loving acts. If one gives back only 70 percent or 40 percent of what one receives, then it will eventually reach zero, nothing, totally depleted. It is obvious that the God of great wisdom has established the principle because of this very fact about giving. Living for something brings about eternal life as well as prosperity to oneself.
Progress dwells right there. The young people here don't seem to understand this simple fact, do they? One must repay what one owes, with all one's heart and truth. This is the surest way to the kingdom of heaven. Also, what is the second reason we tend to forget this simple principle? Let's say you have a family of eight. The family is composed of parents, brothers, sisters, all together eight members. But it is the youngest of the family who devotes himself to the family more than the parents, brothers and sisters, and where would he gradually move in the family? Why, to the center of great esteem by the whole family. (77-272)
You don't know that much about spiritual matters. Rev. Moon knows about spiritual matters because he is an authority on the subject. The spirit world is reached only by those who live for something other than themselves. You must understand that this is the very principle of the world. We are mere travelers in this world and must find our way home. To find our way home we must learn about the ways of our home. This is what God teaches us, so that we can go home.
That's why God has given us our religious teachings throughout history. The reason religions teach us to live for others, sacrifice and serve is merely to make such teachings the training ground for our entry into this higher world. We can see that with all the principles that God has taught us through history it is obvious that history is God's own handiwork. Now, looking at it this way, I am very certain that whether you live for yourself or live for others will determine your place in the kingdom of God. (74-165)
4) Sacrifice is the Center of Love
Look at religions. Christianity merely talks about love. Christianity talks about "God's love," but what after all is God's love? What is it? What is love? Love is love... (laughter)
Along with Christianity, Buddhists also talk about mercy. Everyone talks about love. No religion can be a reasonable religion without being centered on love. None can be a world religion. If a religion is centered on love, it calls for sacrifice if a higher love is to be emphasized. You must understand that to illuminate the path of love, to lift up the love connections, you must choose the path of sacrifice.
But why so? Why emphasize sacrifice? Why emphasize sacrifice, you ask? There are several reasons. The first is the very contradiction that our body represents. What is the contradiction between mind and body? There is a difference between mind and body. For the body resents sacrifice, resents humble submission, resents obedience.
So, we must destroy one or the other. We must use force to weaken this contradiction and establish a foundation to unite mind and body. Do you understand? [Yes.] Why do all religions emphasize sacrifice and humble submission? Because that's one of the ways to enter the world of faith and love. This makes the unity of mind and body possible and this possibility opens up the way to greater love, true love. We can find the theoretical basis for this assertion. (94-279)
Who is the center of the Unification Church? [True Parents.] What is the center the parents? [God.] What is the center of God? The center of God is love. Who is the center of love? It's sacrifice which makes love grow. It's like this. Is there love without sacrifice? Where there is love, there is sacrifice. For this the center of the Unification Church is the teacher. The center of the teacher is God. What is the center of God? It's love. What is the center of love? It's sacrifice. There is no love without sacrifice. (56-340)
What can outlive us in history as our legacy? Only the spirit of sacrifice can outlive our fallen world. Look around. Is it or is it not true? Don't you see? Only those who sacrifice become saints, historical figures, and great statesmen. Only in sacrifice does our achievement survive. Only in sacrifice do we leave our legacy. What, then, do we give to others in sacrifice? We re-create as God sacrificed himself in the act of Creation. As God created me in his original act of Creation, I re-create myself for the second act of creation. The act of re-creation is an act of remission, a remission through the act of re-creation, and therefore sacrifice is the inevitable element in this sacrificial act of re-creation. (82-240)
Therefore, all historical prophets have borne their sacrificial burdens and have been persecuted. That's historical fact. Why so? Because of our fallen world. The fallen world's master is not a loving God, but his nemesis, Satan the devil.
The prophet comes to this world to destroy Satan's kingdom, and therefore Satan does everything to cut the prophet's head off. This is the law of the wicked world that has martyred many of the religious faithful through the hands of Satan. We are familiar with the many tragic ways this has taken place. Is death the end of it all? By no means. As long as there is God, there is payment for wickedness. Indemnity requires three times, seven times, a hundred and twenty times, one thousand two hundred times for the price of each martyr persecuted.
Depending on the bitterness of persecution, the payment intensifies accordingly. That's the law. So, bitterly martyred sacrifices thus bring back much greater indemnities. In the Unification Church, for convenience, we use the term indemnity for remission. Therefore, good people who choose the right way always face sacrifice. That's why we teach sacrifice. To say "live for others" means to "sacrifice for others." Is there any profit? It's sacrifice. It's our investment. How much should we invest? Invest all you can and all you have, that's how much. I would say, even including your own life. (78-61)
5) Blessings from Hardships
The formula for going to heaven is simple. All it requires is to love heaven and earth. But this requires hardship. There has not been a single person who has been working sincerely. (11-33)
A true religion revolutionizes the human world. So, we say, fast. Do you like to fast? Raise your hands if you like fasting. We want all our Unificationists to experience hardships, hardships. Being with the Unification Church is about as tough as working for a Ph.D. You experience nothing but hardships. But, why? Everyone, remember how a snake sheds its old skin? Is molting an easy process? The snake tries to move into a crack in the rock, if not the head then even just the tail, and struggles. It's the same thing for us, like a snake shedding its old skin. (82-279)
Experience hardships! This is the very first condition you must accept. But this hardship experience is not just for oneself, but for heaven and earth and God. You must have a strong spine. You must struggle in the spirit that says, "If I cannot relieve you of your grief with my hard work, father, then I will try it with my death." (12-168)
Where do the blessing come from? "From hardships." Even those blessed must experience hardships. (151-275)
This teacher is convinced that only through hardships does the Unification Church receive its all-glorious blessings. Before that time, however, there are only hardships, and more hardships. Thus, it is obvious that the Unification Church does not pursue popularity. Then, what do we do? We sacrifice until we have to cry, "Oh, this is killing me. I can't do it any more!" That's what we do. I do this until I fall down. There is nothing we cannot do if there is a will to do it.
So, the Unification Church exhorts you: "Only hardships and more hardships" until your spine is bent into a hunch, until pus streams from your backbone. I say, "Even unto death, try to take a few more steps forward." Upon your death God will bestow the reward of a winner upon you. The winner is one who takes one more step and moves one more inch. The Unificationist never takes a step back, one only goes forward. (34-188)
Do we Unificationists want to live well, or to live in hardship? Which one is it? To live well or to live in hardship? "To live in hardship." But, for whom? For Rev. Moon of the Unification Church? For whom? For God, of course. This is the only way we can please God. (42-33)
