Sun Myung Moon’s Life In His Own Words
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Sun Myung Moon’s Life In His Own Words |
Originally, God wanted the whole human race to have but one hometown, the place where Adam's family was to have lived. Who would be the proprietor of that hometown? The proprietors should be God and True Parents, with God being the center.
If Adam and Eve had not fallen, they would have become one with God and become true parents at that time. Therefore, the place that was based on their realm of love would have become all humanity's hometown. If that had come about, God, the father, the mother and the children would all have become one.
However, the opposite occurred. People became self-centered, centered on Satan's love, and lost that hometown. The human race inherited satanic life through satanic love, and thus people cannot stand in front of God. The human race was expelled; people lost their hometown. Instead of receiving God's life, it was from the devil that humanity received life.
Though born of parents love, they were expelled because their lives were assuredly from the devil. What occurred along with that? The human lineage became stained with the devil's blood. Because human beings were of the devil's lineage, they were expelled and became those who have lost their hometown.
From that perspective, what are God's bitter pain and grief connected to? The hometown! What about Jesus' bitterness and grief? The hometown! What is the hope of the countless righteous people who have lived throughout history? The hometown!
Next, you must know about the realization of the homeland, which is religious people's hope, humankind's hope. Eden should have been the birthplace of those who were to be true parents, but this was lost through the Fall. Therefore, the owner of Eden should have been the one born to be the second True Father. Since the hometown of all humanity is wherever the True Parents were born, as members of the human race, your hometown must be the True Parents' birthplace. From the providential point of view, Father's birthplace should be your hometown, and that original hometown should be a sacred place.
You should cultivate the feeling that you were originally meant to have, deep within your heart, toward that hometown. Let us cultivate those original, deeply-felt emotions toward that hometown! Where is the hometown toward which we might cultivate those original heart-felt sentiments?
Chongju County. Why Chongju? Why have Chongju and Korea become the hometown and the homeland? It is the conclusive will of God and was determined so that we might win over the world and return to God. In the heart, the starting point and the ending point are the same. Our course should be a balanced one.
The name "Chongju" is good, isn't it? Who determined the place of settlement? God did; God determined it. It was not determined by me or by the Korean people. It was determined by God and without doubt it is the fast road to our hometown. Chongju is really a good name, and it has the qualities to become the hometown of all people.
People from Pyong-an Province are like ferocious jungle tigers. Even people from Russia and China cannot match them. They are people who travel freely beyond boundaries. From that perspective, people from Pyong-an Province are people who can go beyond their boundaries; they also possess good diplomatic skills.
Do you know why people from Pyong-an Province are not given recognition in official positions? Because once given a position, they will take over everything. So don't belittle them. In South Korea today, many of the people from the North are among those with the economic power, and among them, many are from Pyong-an Province. Of course, there are also a few from Gyeongsang Province and Gang-won Province, right? [Laughter]
That is because of God's protection. Everything must be equally distributed. Compared to a fish, they are like the head and the body, while the rest of the people are like the tail. Therefore, the people from Pyong-an Province are enlightened.
Why are they enlightened? Because that is the original birthplace of Korean Christianity, and it is the first place in Korea to absorb Western civilization, thus the people's thinking is quicker.
There were many famous people who emerged from Chongju County in North Pyong-an Province. Chongju is famous. The center of the independence movement is not Seoul. Christianity was at the center of the struggle with Communism. Like many powerful generals on the frontline of a struggle, many famous people emerged from Pyong-an Province.
Even now there may be famous people emerging from there. If Chongju County alone is mobilized, then North Pyong-an Province and the entire North will follow and will be mobilized in turn. Because of that, Kim Il-sung could control everything from Pyongyang.
There is a place called Dokon Village in Chongju County, North Pyong-an Province. That is my birthplace. Six hundred families settled there in an attempt to emerge from poverty. There were approximately three thousand people in those six hundred families. The teaching of the Osan School was the core of Dokon Village, which is why many intellectuals emerged from there. Thus, even though they were fugitives from poverty, their intellectual level was high.
These people formed a villagers' association among themselves. Even though scholarships were offered to the needy, they were refused. Even though they were poor, they would not accept help from the others. Those needy people said, "We will definitely not accept any help; we will solve our problems by ourselves." Also, even if a bag of rice were offered to them because they were poor, they would refuse it.
So the scholarship and the bag of rice would always be left unused. Dokon Village is like that because it is the place I was born, isn't it? [Laughter] Twelve people from there had graduated with a doctoral degree, and quite a few businessmen were from there. When I observed the people from Chongju, I felt moved because their attitude was very good.
I was actually born in Doksong Village, Dokdal District, Chongju County, North Pyong-an Province. The Chinese characters for Chongju County, Dokdal District mean "the place that achieved the standard of morality."
Those for Doksong Village mean "a place that reflects a standard of morality as high as the stars in heaven." The name was later changed to Dokon Village, and "on" in "Dokon" means "gentleman" or "learned person." What knowledge resides in the word "on"? Doesn't that knowledge symbolize the lord? Because it became known as Dokon Village and Sangsa Hamlet, everything there developed.
Rumors spread that Sangsa Hamlet was loyal to South Korea. It's easy to do what everyone else does, but our village was strongly united against communism. That resembles me, doesn't it? Because I have higher thoughts. "Sang" means "high" and "Sa" means "thought," so together it means elevated thinking, which means one must be thinking about God, doesn't it? The place name is Sangsa village, so it developed a reputation for being sympathetic toward South Korea. Ah! All because of a place name...
Thus, people like me who are born there must become people who think about higher things. It means not thinking about one's own home but about the larger reality. Also, we should think that our home address is 2221 Sangsa Hamlet, Dokon Village, Chongju. If we expand on that, it can be limitless.
No matter how far a person goes, he cannot leave his origin. The feelings in his heart don't change; he cannot sever the emotional attachment he has to his origin, right? That is because he and his hometown are connected through the spreading roots. No one can live separated from one's roots, so inevitably we long for our hometown. From this perspective, my life is connected to my hometown and it is important as the place where I received 80 percent of my education. Therefore, no one can cut off from one's destined relationship to his or her hometown. Isn't that true?
If I came to my homeland, where would I want to go on arrival at Incheon airport? Even though this is my homeland, I would not go to Seoul, even though it is at the center of my native land. I'd go beyond Seoul, beyond the center of the country, to my village in North Pyong-an Province, in Chongju County, where my house stands in the midst of the hills and nearby streams. That is where I want to go. My journey will end there because that is my origin.
It is all about returning. What is it centered on? We return centering on an emotional standard. But where am I going? What am I doing? To put it simply, I am a person who longs to return to his hometown. Where am I going? If I am asked, the answer is that I'm going home, not to a false hometown but to the true hometown.
I want to use the hometown, where I was born -- the yard that I grew up in, the village that I played in -- as a classroom, a place to enlighten people. Therefore, before you die, you must hear the story directly from me of the time I spent playing at the foot of a mountain. You must have a precise understanding of my history. Once in the spirit world, you will feel ashamed if you haven't visited that place. In the future, those who understand Unification Thought will think of that place as our church's Mecca, as similar to Jerusalem in relation to Christianity.
For you to become a royal citizen of heaven, you must be able to say that you attended the True Parents from the beginning to the end. For that reason, you must visit True Parents' starting point. True Parents only come once in the course of history. At that one time when this occurs, you are in a position to accompany the teacher on a visit to his hometown, the rightful hometown of all humanity. This is precious... You must understand this fact and be determined to go there even if you must look death in the face.
Is the Unification Church's Rev. Moon the product of any special place? [Laughter] I am the product of Pyong-an Province, am I not? Do you know where the ancestors of the Pyong-an Province Moon clan come from? We are Jeolla Province people; from NamPyung in Jeolla Province [South Korea]. That root hometown, NamPyung, is next to Naju. If you think along those lines, I'm a Jeolla Province man. [Laughter] I said it in that way to help dissolve the grudge borne by people from Jeolla Province. I wouldn't mind if people from Jeolla were to go to Gyeongsan Province and say I must be on their side because my roots go back to the village of NamPyung. That's logical, isn't it? [Laughter]
When I looked into the ancestry of the Moon clan, it struck me that the Moon clan began from an illegitimate child. When we look at the family tree, there was a certain king at the time of the Shilla Dynasty King Ja-bi, who through a prophetic dream learned that a special child had been born in the country. The dream instructed him to go to a certain place, to a rock now called Moon's Rock, where he would find a crying baby. That was how it started. From the providential view, Bal Ju-ja, the founder of Hwarangdo, is from the Moon clan. [A seventh-century martial art and philosophy derived from Buddhism and Confucianism that embraced scholarly and physical training and whose adherents were instrumental in unifying Korea from three warring kingdoms.] We cannot clearly explain how he is, though, because the stories of such complex connections are rather convoluted. Moon Hong-gwan [a church member] has said that King Lee Tae-jo's second son spoke about this.
Because there were many patriots from the Moon clan, an imperial decree later dictated that in the future, descendants of the Moon clan should never be used as servants. There were books written about this. So from the King Lee-jo era onward, the Moon clan never again served as servants. Looking at it providentially, the story somehow fits.
Also, because members of the Moon clan are smart, they have occupied places in important organizations. Moons are intelligent and are also stubborn. They are notably stubborn people. During King Lee-jo's reign, Moons did not occupy official positions. It is not that they could not occupy these positions, but they did not occupy them. Therefore, they did not do so of their own free will. From this perspective, they are a clan with a sense of values and integrity. People in the Moon clan are frighteningly stubborn people with a strong conscience; and they will never deal with anything unrighteous. The descendants of the Moon clan now number four hundred thousand, and it was from that lineage that I was born.
Moon Hong-gwan! [Yes.] What did Confucius say about something coming from the Moon clan? [He said that a saint would emerge from the clan.] What more was said? I don't know if Confucius really said that... [Yes, there are many old sites related to the Moon clan. Each of these sites has its accompanying strange legend. There are stories that come down from the NamPyung Moons, from the tomb of the Chungsook Moons, and the tomb of Grandfather Moon Ickjeom of SanChung that a saint will come from the Moon clan.]
One family tradition that was passed down through the generations is that a hungry guest should never leave empty-handed. Whenever a guest visited us, he would never be turned away empty-handed, even on a celebration day. We had that kind of family tradition.
Thus, we fed so many people from everywhere. During the time of the Japanese occupation, people were robbed of everything, thus they had no choice but to flee to Manchuria for shelter. During that time my mother fed so many of these refugees passing by our house. My mother fed an average of about thirty to forty such people every day. Though she did this almost every day throughout her life, I did not hear her complain even once.
We owned a flour mill. It was very warm because there was a small fire burning. It was occupied most of the time by one poor beggar or another. Though we asked them not to stay there, they would always come back because they could not find anywhere else they would be fed. As a result, I got very close to the beggars.
During the winter, when a beggar came asking for food, either my mother or my sister-in-law would rush to the kitchen to prepare food. If they could not find any food, they would offer the beggar food from their own table. In this way, sometimes they would be left without food themselves.
A family that feeds beggars will never be ruined; it will have descendants who will be welcomed by people everywhere. That is why a person like me was born, isn't it? I am also someone who would feed the people of the world. During my lifetime, I have given countless sets of my clothes away and fed countless people. Why did I do that? This is because I am always thinking about the equality in love and life.
Great-Grandfather Moon Jeong-heul (11.3, 1841 – 11.26. ,918) [All life spans are based on the lunar calendar, which has months that are numbered, not named; thus this is the 11th month, 3rd day of 1841 according to the lunar calendar.]
If you follow me, you must know my history and know about my ancestors, especially the story of my great-grandfather. From my great-grandfather to my generation is four generations. At that time, my great-grandfather moved to our present location, Sangsa Hamlet. His family left its original hometown and later, while enduring many difficulties, was blessed by Heaven and became quite successful.
My great-grandfather had three sons. Among them, my grandfather Moon Ji-kook was the oldest. Next was Moon Shin- kook, followed by Moon Yoon-kook, who lived in Paju. Our house was the eldest son's house and during my great-grandfather's time, they lived quite well. They were quite a respected family in that region because through Heaven's blessing, their inheritance was great. [Later, The body of Moon Yoon-kook was re-interred at the Wonjeon]
My grandfather was illiterate. He didn't go to school or to a village study class, but he knew the story of the Three Kingdoms from the first to the last page. Once he started something, he would continue nonstop until the end. He had the ability to hold listeners spellbound. Once someone started to listen to him talk, he would never leave until the story ended.
Our house is located just along the village's main road, and if you visited grandfather Moon's house, sometimes you could find about thirty guests in the guest room. My mother had a strong character, but she attended my grandfather her whole life without a single word of complaint. Because of my great-grandfather's influence, my grandfather, who occasionally drank and smoked, finally stopped smoking. After my great-grandfather passed away, my grandmother started smoking because she was lonely. She also stopped, though, because she was spending money on cigarettes instead of on feeding the hungry.
My grandfather was one of three brothers, the youngest of whom was a minister. He was in charge of the North Pyong-an Province organization during the March 1, 1919 Independence Movement. With other leaders throughout the country, he helped decide on the movement's plan of action. He led demonstrations against the Japanese government with the teachers and students of Osan School and his church congregations and other local citizens, waving flags and marching throughout the streets of Pyongyang. Eventually, he was arrested by the Japanese police for leading a demonstration. He served two years in prison. After he was released, he could have lived with his family in his hometown, but instead he wandered in a part of Korea that was unfamiliar to him in order to avoid Japanese police harassment. He died in Jeongseon in Gang-won Province.
In those days, W70,000 was a very large sum of money, but he sent all that money to the provisional government in Shanghai. To carry on such activities, he had to wander until he finally passed away in an unfamiliar province.
With such lifelong achievements, he could establish a foundation on which God could work. He sacrificed his family -- in fact his church and his own life -- for the purpose of saving the country, and he carried a heavy burden throughout his years as a wanderer.
When I came to South Korea, he was the only relative I had here. My cousin Yong-gi later had a dream in which my Great-uncle Moon Yoon-kook appeared to him and told him how he had passed away and where. My cousin went to that place and found that it was just as Moon Yoon-kook had said in the dream.
I would say my father was a very honest man. If he borrowed money in an emergency, he couldn't do anything until he had paid it back with interest within the time he had promised. In any case, he was a man who kept his word. I'd say he was a champion in being as good as his word. He had a clear conscience.
My father had a four-hundred-page hymnbook. He took good care of it but didn't carry it with him when he went to church. One day I asked him, "Why don't you bring your hymnbook, father?" He answered, "It's a bother to carry that book. Also, I'm afraid I might lose it. It's better to leave it at home." [Laughter] "How can you sing without it?" I asked. "How? I sing with others who are singing. If I don't know a song I can look at it in the page of someone else's hymnbook," he replied. He had, in fact, memorized the words to all the hymns.
My body is tough and strong. Really, I am strong. My father was strong enough to go upstairs carrying a bag of rice like this. I am from such a strong line that I am healthy even though I am already over seventy.
I'd say my mother was a female general -- yes, a woman general. She was considered an enterprising person. I am afraid that doesn't accurately describe her, but in every situation she did play an active part. I am like my mother in many ways. At first glimpse, I am a man with a large, sturdy build. I am a man of great strength and a man of muscle.
My mother was a woman of strong character. When she flogged laziness out of a boy with a switch, she didn't stop halfway. I am a stubborn, unbending person like my mother. Once I have made up my mind, I never give up. Indeed, that's what I'm like.
My mother gave birth to thirteen children. My wife had thirteen children too. It seems to have been transmitted from one generation to the next. Having many children is a family tradition. Many of my siblings died early, but eight brothers and sisters out of thirteen managed to live. [Including Yong-soo (Daehyung-nim), Hyo-soon, Yong-myung (the name Father was born with), Hyo-shim, Hyo-su and Hyo-sun (Father's sister who is still living in North Korea)]
Can you imagine what a difficult job it was for my mother to marry off her six daughters? I thought it was such a pity for a bride to get married into another family while burdening her family members and relatives with preparing the wedding. Though she had to get married, the bride may, I thought, be full of rancor on her wedding day against having been born a girl who is compelled to go into another family, leaving a heavy burden on her own family.
In marriage, the status of the bride's family is evaluated by the gifts that are prepared for the groom's family. In my hometown, they are called "courtesy gifts." Clothes and a lot of other things had to be prepared to make up a bundle of presents. In Pyong-an Province, they used to count how many yards of first- class cotton cloth the bride brought to her new family. Every family had to try to send good gifts in order to establish good standing with the groom's family.
People have to eat food and wear clothes. Food and clothes are essential and so these are usually prepared for a daughter's marriage. In the case of a woman marrying a man of noble birth in a home with many elders... Women didn't have nylon stockings in those days; all clothes were made by women who picked and ginned cotton, spun it into thread and then wove it on a loom. My mother was a champion in doing those tasks. She was tough and strong. The average woman wove three or four fangs (sheets) a day, but my mother did twenty jangs in two days. When my elder sister married, my mother wove one pil (roll of cloth) per day. The situation was so urgent that she couldn't let a second slip away. She did the work in an instant. I was born with such a gift of being good at doing things quickly, as you know. [Laughter]
My mother and father loved me very much. It is natural for every mother to love her children, but for my mother I was very special. If I were to go on talking about this subject, you would cry many times.
My older brother was so deeply spiritual that he knew ahead of time that Korea would be liberated and that the Korean War would break out. He had the attitude of solving all problems he faced according to guidance from the spirit world. He suffered from ill health, but he had never even dreamt of curing himself with the help of medicine. He tried to overcome it through prayer and faith. Finally, through his religious life, he recovered. For my older brother, I was somebody. He thought highly of me as the greatest younger brother in history. Whatever I asked him to do, he never failed to do for me. Whatever I told him, he absolutely believed.
I was forced to part from this affectionate brother. The country was divided into North and South.... I think all my family and relatives must have lived through a series of ordeals and disgrace before they died... From a historical viewpoint, it was an essential course for them to pass through because of me.
I have a different origin. To say it once again, my origin, I think, is different from those of you here in Korea. Our ancestors were special. Are you upset? Are there any Mr. Moons among you? Raise your hands!
You might say, "How dare you neglect us? We are also the children of blessed families." Yet my birth was on the basis of stronger conditions, under Heaven's plan. The standard necessary for God to allow me be born was on the basis of a preparation of the lineage beyond that of those of you born from blessed parents.
For decades, I struggled to uncover absolute truth. Along the way, I suffered more than you or anyone ever could imagine. Such blessing cannot be inherited without a foundation. It is contrary to reason. If you were born in a family, you have to love the representative -- who might be your parent or the king of the country -- to the point that the mark your love leaves is admired by your descendants forever. Then you can be a family heir. That is the principle of inheritance; so it cannot just be done any way you think fit.
Therefore, the day will come that people will love the Moon tribe. I mean, the day will come when they will respect the Moon tribe and attend other members of that tribe as you attend me. You should stand on God's side and pray to God. This practice should be set up as an unchanging tradition.
There should be the eldest son with the birthright of Heaven. The heavenly birthright! In order to connect to the world the Moon tribe had to go beyond the national level. The eldest son of the Moon tribe with the birthright is like the high priest and should become a leader of all the world's representatives.
What will become of a man who is making effort for others' sake? He will become a central figure. If you keep on working in your country's public interest, you Moons will come to constitute the central tribe, and the day will near when the Moon tribe can inherit heavenly blessings. [Applause] Any volunteers who want to live like that with me, raise your hands and let's pledge to do it together!
Modern history since World War I is composed of a succession of imbroglios and wars throughout the world. You have already learned that history does not proceed in an accidental manner, but moves in relation to the indemnity conditions people set. Judging from that viewpoint, it is natural to conclude that God surely does prepare for a new age in the middle of this chaotic situation, the Last Days. Therefore, World War I was a challenge to humankind on the global level, a matter of life or death for all the people of the world.
Usually everything becomes clear within three years of a major incident occurring. From that point of view, the fact that I was born in 1920 is... I was born three years after 1917, in 1920. Even though I am now known as Rev. Moon, I was not Rev. Moon then.
Korea was then Japanese territory. It could be said that I was born in Japan. Japan ruled Korea for forty years. So I was born under Japanese sovereignty. Because the new Adam was to be born in Korea in the near future, Japan desperately persecuted Korea.
The 1920s was a time of privation in Korea. The country was experiencing difficulties because of three years of bad harvests. And an uprising, the March 1 Independence Movement, of Koreans fighting against Japanese domination, occurred around that time. I was born in the second year of those three years of poor harvests, which began in 1919 when the March 1 Movement broke out. In the middle of that severe trial, on the foundation of my family's suffering, connected with the March 1 Independence Movement, I was born.
The leaders of the March 1 Movement were religious men. They were, for the most part, Christians. They had an eye for a new direction, not toward Imperialist Japan but toward America, and followed America. Going through the process, Korea soaked up Christian culture rapidly and deeply.
The patriot Yoo Gwan-soon, who died a martyr for the cause of Korean liberation at the age of sixteen, was in the same position as Eve before the Fall. She was Eve in Adam's country. The corpse of the patriot Yoo Gwan-soon, who was in the position of Eve, was divided into six parts. The number six belongs to Satan. The patriot Yoo Gwan-soon was actively engaged in the Independence Movement, sacrificing herself out of loyalty. I was in the body of my mother as the 1919 Independence Movement swirled into motion.
I shouldn't emerge in a country that wasn't independent. There was a war with my life at the center. Ten months from that time, I was born in 1920. [In Korea a woman is said to be pregnant for ten months.] It was on behalf of all Korean women with the heavenly heart to indemnify Eve's sin and to preserve the land of Korea that Yoo Gwan-soon died. From the providential viewpoint, God carried the providence to Japan on the basis of the national foundation created.
I often heard stories of my family having to live on pine tree bark... That pine bark was the food they lived on while I was in my mother's womb. It seems that God loves me nowadays. But why was He so harsh in the days when I was born? He pushed my family into a deep ravine and harried them to death, all the members of my family... That is our history. Because I am aware of the law of indemnity, I can understand the real state of things. If I wasn't aware of it, I should say that everything must be a lie. All the relatives in my family -- from my cousins to my third uncles -- paid indemnity. With my birth, my house went to ruin. Until I was fifteen years old, my family and relatives experienced trouble.
When looking on at True Parents' birthday party, with people from countries all over the world filling a hall, does God envy me, or not? [Not at all.] Why should He be happy? Because I am God's son. Therefore, far from envying me, He must love it that you are celebrating my birthday. Just as you are happy when preparing for your child's birthday, God is also happy to celebrate His son's birthday.
Who knows if the children not born due to the practice of birth control could have become the representatives of all their ancestors or have taken care of the heavenly will on behalf of their nation? If my father and mother had practiced birth control, would I have been born? [Laughter] My mother gave birth to thirteen children.
I might be identified as the little kid from the "Osan House." Because I had small eyes, if anyone said "Osan House Little Eyes," all the villagers knew that meant me. My eyes were so small that, right after she gave birth to me, my mother examined my face to see if I even had eyes. [Laughter] Finding my batting eyes, she felt relieved. [Laughter] Such eyes are necessary for me. My small eyes show I have the aptitude to be a religious leader. When the lens of a camera is contracted, the focus is on things in the distance. Take a look at my nose. From its shape, you can see I will not listen to anyone. [Laughter]
I seem to have been a handsome baby. When I got on the train on my mother's back, people would gather around me and want to hold me in their arms.
In those days, there were no hospitals in rural areas. We had to take the train to go to a hospital in Sonchon from Chongju. There was a hospital founded by a Christian Church. One day my mother took me there by train. People saw the infant nestling in his mother's arms, and one lady said, "What a lovely child he is! I wish I could hold him in my arms! If I could, my family would be blessed." Perhaps she was a woman who was really looking for a child, or a barren woman. But she really wanted to hold that baby in her arms.
Sun Myung Moon is my name. Moon means truth, and sun means to reveal itself clearly. The character for "sun" is a compound of the characters for "land" and "sea." How about the character for "myung"? It combines the characters for the sun and moon. These meanings are relational. Sun and moon must be bound up with truth, as must the land and sea. They should then make one world. Sun Myung, my given names, mean to be aligned with the proper order with the quality of purity that cannot be criticized from any corner.
Then what does "True Father" mean? It is for someone who is everyone's father. What will you become by loving the father of all humanity? You will inherit from the father.
No what am I? At the same time as being Father, I came with kingship. The kingship over the country must be set up and then...
It is said that on the day Chung Do Rung comes, he would receive tribute from seventy countries or so. The book seems to have pointed out the Unification Church itself. [Right! Applause]
And there is another book named Kyugamyurok. It came out after the Chonggamrok. It predicted my name from that early day.