The Words of In Jin Moon
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The Words of In Jin Moon |
In
Jin Nim speaks at Belvedere on March 27, 1988
Good morning. Today, as you know, is a very special day. My younger brother Hyun Jin experienced the most remarkable moment of his life when, at 1:38 this morning, his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. His name is Moon Shin Won. Hyun Jin is a little shy right now, but he is really grateful to True Parents for bestowing this blessing on him. At the hospital I felt his renewed rejuvenation and his true determination to carry out Father's will.
I am here today because Father asked me to speak to you. What can I talk about? As the daughter of True Parents, the only thing I can really talk about is the heart of True Parents.
I see you gathered here every Sunday, and I see that many of you are hungry for love, hungry for some direction or new inspiration from True Parents. But you have to ask yourselves, "How many times do I come to Belvedere with a desire to give something to True Parents?" How many times do you come here only with your need to receive something from True Parents, instead of just wanting to inspire them with your eyes, your hearts, your faces? This is a simple question, and yet you don't have a simple answer, do you?
As Unification Church members, what is the goal of our life? Our goal is not just to be struggling Moonies. That is not why God put us on this earth. We are not here to fight each day and night just to maintain our faith. We are here to go beyond, to become greater, to become like True Parents. We say ' True Parents" so many times, but do we really know the historical significance of having True Parents here? How often have you thought about this? Was it just for a glimpse of a second, or for a week when you first joined the movement? You realized the truth in listening to the Principle, and you were given an understanding of God's will and God's way. You said, "Yes, I found it! I want to live it!" But then, aft, r one year, two years, three years, where are you? Do you have that same spark that you experienced when you first heard the truth? That is what we must ask ourselves every day.
Father has said many times that it doesn't matter how many years you've suffered, or what you've achieved, even if you become a state leader or the publisher of The Washington Times, for instance; if you make a big mistake the next day, everything is lost. So how can we keep consistent faith? Not wavering like a serpent, but pure, untainted, and constant? In this 20th century, in this age of the Messiah, many people claim to be a messiah or a prophet. You've heard of the evangelical preachers Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert. They are good, God-chosen people, but they were not able to maintain themselves consistently in doing God's will. That's why they could be tempted and become corrupted by power, wealth, or women. So as Unification Church members, who are to inherit True Parents' heart, how do we keep constant? Do you always need Father 24 hours a day, holding you up by the arm and saying, "Okay, sister, brother, march on, I'm right behind you!" How can you expect that? You say you want to liberate True Parents from their suffering, and you pray to Heavenly Father, "I want to liberate You from Your suffering." But how can you really do that, if you always depend on a crutch?
We have to be able to perfect ourselves and unify our mind and body so that our spirit self and our physical self act as one. If you are always residing in two halves, your physical self wanting material things and your spiritual self wanting a higher spiritual awakening, how are you going to exist? How are you going to do anything based upon your true, unified self? You know, the unity of the mind and body is such a profound thing. There have been many great historical philosophers and thinkers in the past, and yet they have not really understood how the mind and the body are to work together. People suffer because they are not able to become one with the universal truth. They suffer because they are not able to connect to True Parents.
Happy
Homecoming Day for True Parents, March 17, 1988. Back row, left to
right: Hyung Jin Nim and Young Jin Nim. Seated, left to right: Yeon
Jin Nim, Father holding Shin Myung Nim (son of In Jin Nim and Jin
Sung Nim), Jeung Jin Nim, Mother, and Shin Jeung Nim.
As I stand here, I am inspired by all of you, because I know it's not easy being a Moonie. You have to be strong to be here. When somebody spits in your face, you have to have a greater heart of love to not spit back at them. And in a way, you have to see this person almost as your loving spouse, or your loving child, or your loving sister or brother. Only when you see them in that loving light do you want to restore that person and give them salvation.
What is the True Parents' heart? Simply put, True Parents' heart is the heart of true love. Father has preached countless numbers of times to you about true love, the ideal family, being one with God, and creating the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. And yet, after hearing these inspirational words from Father, how many times. did you let them just go in your right ear and come out your left ear?
How many of you come to this holy place without preparation, seeking some form of rejuvenation? The Principle teaches us clearly that for the foundation for the Messiah, you need two prerequisites -- the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance.
What does this mean to us as Unification Church members? You know that when Jesus came, he could have gone two roads, either the one leading to his becoming the King of Kings, or the one leading to his crucifixion. When Heavenly Father sent Father to this earth, Father also could have become the King of Kings, but he had to go the way of the cross. It is a sad testimony to history that, because the Christians in 1945 were not able to accept Father, because the people had laid no foundation of faith or substance, Father had to do it all by himself, for 40 years. Father fulfilled the foundation of faith through his countless inspirational words, and he fulfilled the foundation of substance by embodying these words in his life. When we look at this man, who has lived exactly according to what he has spoken, how can we say anything against him?
Maybe in a way it's easier if you don't see Father at close range, but let me tell you something. Father is the greatest man I know, and Mother is the greatest woman I know. What makes the Unification Church so special compared to all the other religions of the world? We have True Parents. We are living day to day with True Parents. They're not something written in history books that you have to look up in the library. They're here!
We can listen to them speak and we can be inspired by them.
True Parents coming here to earth and giving you the truth is the most valuable thing in the world. If God put a 100-carat diamond right on your lap, what would you do? Your eyes would light up, and you'd say, "Oh, what an incredibly wonderful gift!" You would probably buy 100 bottles of Windex and clean it every morning and evening, making sure it shone like the top of the Chrysler Building, wouldn't you? But when I say such a simple thing as, "God gave you the truth," how many of you are ready to jump up and say, "I cherish this more than anything! I cherish this with my life!"
Parental heart -- that's what I want to share with you today. What is parental heart?
It's the heart of true love. From a historical point of view, the heart of true love has been the heart of suffering. Biblical history is an account of tragedy after tragedy. Because Christians were not able to accept Father, Father's life has been one imprisonment after another, one humiliation after another, one curse after another, being spit upon again and again. If you think you have it bad on the streets, when people spit at you and speak obscenities to you, how bad do you think Father had it? You know sometimes when I look at Father's face, my tears just begin to flow. And I say to myself, "No matter how tough my life gets, I will not let Satan dominate me! I will not let Satan get the better of me!" When one man for more than 60 years has done this much for God, why can't I? At 22 years old, I have the energy, and I have the future ahead of me. Why can't I, or all of us, do as much as Father did? Father said many times that we have to become little Sun Myung Moons. Father is bestowing this gift upon us, saying, "Come on, try harder, and you can be like me. You can even be greater than me." That's what Father wants.
Every Sunday when the True Family has 5 o'clock pledge, Father says to all of us, "I want you to be better than me." When I hear those words, I am grateful, and yet I tremble. Always with great blessing comes great responsibility. Father speaks to you every Sunday, watching your faces, smiling at you, and sometimes scolding you. When Father gives that much love to you, you have to reciprocate that love by going out to the front line, giving 100 percent to your mission, loving your spouse, loving Heavenly Father, loving your brothers and sisters.
True
Parents officiate at the 8-Day Ceremony of Shin Won Nim, the first
child born to Hyun Jin Nim and Jun Sook Nim.
After all, we are the Unification Church. Look how beautiful this audience is! There isn't just black hair or just blonde hair or just brown hair. There are blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes big faces, small faces, handsome faces, ugly faces. They're all here, right? I'm not saying one is better than the other, because we are all made in the image of God. You should take tremendous pride in that. You need that pride because when you sleep with 10 people in the same room, or go around in vans witnessing day after day on IOWC, it can kind of wear you down. I understand. I have been witnessing too, you know. I've been fundraising too. I know what it takes. My whole family knows what it takes. But yet, we have no room for complaint_ Do you know why? Because the man who suffered the most and gave the most doesn't ever complain. How can I complain when, compared to Father's suffering, my suffering is like the size of an atom?
How many of you here are blessed? How many of you here have children? When you look at that beautiful child that God gave to you, you see a reflection of yourself, right? That's why you love them so much. Because he talks like Daddy, or she walks like Mommy. That child is your flesh and blood. And yet, when you have a blessed family, you must never forget that no matter how beautiful a child you have, that child could have never existed without True Parents.
Father is not just a man of suffering; he is a man of humility. It takes a lot for a man, any man, to scrub floors in a prison. It takes a lot for a man to be able to give up his whole life for the sake of the world. And it takes a lot for a man to love other children more than his own. Let me be frank with you. Sometimes I or my brothers or sisters got frustrated and we asked True Parents, "Father, if you love us and preach the doctrine of love, why are you so busy loving everybody else and not us?" Of course when we asked those questions we were quite young. Now we understand why Father loved the members more, and in our eyes it makes him even greater. Father has always lived the Principle life, no matter what. That's what is amazing about Father. He not only speaks it, but he lives it.
What is the test for truth in this day and age, when people think everything is relative and everyone does his own thing? How do you know that something is the true will of God? Through the Principle you know that God's will is unchanging and eternal; it is constantly moving towards fulfilling the purpose of creation, which is goodness. You can see that God is not a whimsical God; God is eternal. He is constant, and He is absolute. Many of you had the opportunity to attend Heung Jin's conference. It was a very interesting experience, was it not? It separated the sheep from the goats, didn't it? You were directly confronted when he said, "If God says this, are you going to follow it?" Where is the truth? The truth is in True Parents. People can shove candies and ice creams down your throat and say it's good for you, but if Parents say it's not good for you, then it's bad for you. Simple as that. When you have that absolute connection of give and take with True Parents, then you will have no problem.
As blessed couples, you are very special. If you don't get anything else out of this Sunday message, I want you to know that you are special people, because you are serving True Parents on the earth. Thousands and thousands of spirits in the spirit world long to be in your position, attending True Parents day to day. Do you understand how special you are? But it is your five percent responsibility not to abuse that specialness. You have to be confident and think, "I'm a Moonie and I'm proud of it!" You have to want to share that specialness with the world. There is nothing more I or any of my family can say. You've all heard the Principle.
You know the truth. My existence, and my family's existence is only, in a way, to testify to the greatness of True Parents' love and the true way of life. We hear the words "true love," "absolute standard of love," "True Parents," "brothers and sisters," so often that we forget the significance of each word. We forget the significance of our existence and our attendance to True Parents. We as Unification Church members should never, never, never forget these things. You should never forget Father's suffering and tears or the blood he shed in prison. You must never forget Father's love for all of you. You cannot just be an individual who uses the Unification Church as a protective shell against the outside world. How are you going to restore the world this way? If all you are trying to do is maintain your faith and maintain your belief in True Parents inside the Unification Church, how can you go out and proclaim to the world that Heavenly Father is living with us? Don't use the Unification Church or Father as a crutch anymore. Father says we have to perfect ourselves. That is our five percent responsibility. It is that measly five percent that you have to work on. It's so simple, right?
In
Jin Nim speaks at Belvedere on March 27, 1988
You each made an incredible decision in your life when you committed yourself to this movement. It was a new beginning. And yet if you don't continue to make the effort, you will always be faltering, just trying to maintain your faith in your little space. We are unlike other religions that advocate giving up the material world and burying yourself in a monastery or a nunnery. Some people think that this is the way to salvation. Of course another grout those who totally reject God, say that this world is too evil for a God to have created it. But what is it that makes us different from atheists or nuns or priests? The difference is that we advocate restoration. How are you going to restore 42nd Street? By staying in a monastery? By totally rejecting God? No, you have to move those people with the word of God and cleanse their souls. Give them God's word so that their original minds can come out.
Many times at the university, I bump into people who say, "Rev. Moon is supposed to be a religious leader, so why is he interested in the fish business?" People say that Rev. Moon cannot be a true man because a religious person would live in a hut made of cow dung, with a little wooden pulpit in front of him, reading his Bible. That's your stereotypical good, pious, religious man, right? But let me ask you something. Where do these ideas originate? In the fallen world. And when you come into this church, don't you have stereotypes of what a heavenly person should look like? Do you have the idea that holiness comes with sparkling blue eyes and angelic blonde hair and a gleaming smile? How many of you come with that mind-set and even dare to judge the True Family! How many of you have said, "Well, True Father is a great man and True Mother is a great woman, and one beautiful woman at that, but how can a religious man's son play rock and roll? How can a religious man's son or daughter compete in the Olympics? Why do the True Children go to school in secular institutions?" The True Family is stretching all your concepts, forcing you to become more broad-minded. Having such narrow ideas is like saying to Heavenly Father, "I want to restore the world, but not those people on 42nd Street. Maybe you can give that responsibility to somebody else." When you are serving Heavenly Father, you have to be unconditional. How many of you, when you get into a fight with a brother or a sister, say to yourself, "All right, I'll say I'm sorry, but only because I want them to say they're sorry back to me!" Or you buy a wonderful gift or write a beautiful card for a brother or sister, thinking, "I hope on my birthday they remember me!"
Father doesn't give you love saying, "Since I gave you love, I demand it back!" When Father gives you that pure, untainted, flowing, vibrant true love, you just melt, and your original mind says, "Ah, this is the drink of water I've been waiting for!" You are motivated voluntarily to do the will of God. That's the difference between communism and Godism. Communism uses force, but with God's love, the desire arises from within you and you really want to give. That is basically True Parents' heart. It's really beautiful, and when I see your eyes twinkle like that in agreement, that's beautiful to me and to my family.
I want you to understand one thing. When you see me speaking like this, please don't see me as In Jin, as an individual. I am a part of the True Family. I don't exist without True Parents, without my family. We're like one body. The body acts as one, and all the fingers and toes, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the ears act in unity. Suppose a person is writing on the blackboard with his right hand and his left hand starts wiggling around, thinking, "The right hand is getting all the attention at the blackboard. Why doesn't anybody pay attention to me?"
Wouldn't that be strange?
What makes this child [referring the young blessed child directly in front of her] so beautiful? Is it his brown hair? This hair is no different from a horse's hair, so what's so beautiful about that? Is it his brown eyes? Is it the way he sits so coyly, looking up, smiling at us? It's actually all these things harmoniously combined, unified into one being, that allows us to know him as a beautiful person.
I love green, but I don't think I'd like everything to be green. I don't think you'd be very beautiful with green hair and green eyes and green skin! It's that inner play of giving and receiving among all aspects of your body that makes you beautiful.
That's what makes True Parents beautiful to all of us. They are our living examples of harmony and unity.
All you have to do, brothers and sisters, in order to follow in True Parents' footsteps, is to say to yourself when you get up in the morning, "Okay, today I'm going to be like True Parents." And the next day, "Today I'm going to be like True Parents."
And the next day, again, "Today I'm going to be like True Parents." No matter how much you've done in the past, no matter how many members you've witnessed to, no matter how many wonderful things you have done, the next day brings a new challenge, and you must bring to it a new determination. Take one day at a time. You can do a lot in 24 hours. The Kingdom of Heaven may seem far off yet, but if you take things one at a time, it will come.
At
the celebration of the birth of Shin Won Nim on March 27, In Jin Nim
sings a song dedicated to Hyun Jin Nim's new baby.
I want you to know that all of True Family is with you 100 percent. You may not see Un Jin Nim, Kook Jin Nim, or Jeung Jin Nim and the younger ones, but that's because we are doing what Father has asked us to do right now. Kook Jin's in Korea, Jin Whi Shi is in London, my husband and I are in college, Hyo Jin Oppa is here doing music, and Hyun Jin and Un Jin are going all over the place getting ready for the Olympics. Do you think riding horses day in and day out is an easy thing? Do I look like a bookworm? Let me tell you, I'd rather be somewhere else than cooped up in that library. And I don't find any truth there that I don't already know. Education means nothing to me without it being centered on True Parents. The reason why I study, and the reason why the True Family prepares to do so many different things, is so that when we go out into the world we will be able to communicate with lawyers, PhD's, sportsmen, musicians. The people who are to be saved are not only within religious communities, but everywhere in the world, and there are many, many kinds of us. That's why Father is pushing his children out. When Hyun Jin or Un Jin falls off their horse and breaks a bone, they still get up the next day. Why? Because they love True Parents, and they love you.
They're doing it for you, and to bring glory to the Unification Church and to the poor country of Korea.
Some members write me letters asking, "Why do we do such crazy things like creating the Universal Ballet? Why do we waste all that money on such a thing at a time like this?" It is simple -- because the performing arts have to be restored along with the rest of the world. Building a newspaper like The Washington Times is part of restoration. We have relief projects all around the world helping the sick and hungry. We have a hospital in Japan. There is a fishing fleet in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Father is a universal man. And we have to be universal men and women just like Father.
Father looks strong and vibrant, but don't forget how old he is! Usually people over 60 are preparing to die. Wherever Father goes, people are so hungry to see him. Many times when Father visits members, Mother and my brothers and sisters and I try to get him to leave a little early so that he can rest a bit. But if I say, "Father, please rest," he says, "Don't say that to me, girl! Even when we are sleeping, on the other side of the world there are people fundraising and witnessing. And even as we're sitting here, there are Unification Church members behind the Iron Curtain giving up their lives. Many are in concentration camps. Many have died." When True Parents, as the universal father and mother, hear such reports they say, "News like that hurts us just as much as Heung Jin's passing did."
As we know, Heung Jin's ascension to the spirit world is a wonderful thing. Yet in reality, this has been the most painful and frustrating thing for our family. If the people 2,000 years ago had been there for him, Jesus would not have had to go the way of the cross. And if we had been a little stronger, a little more unified, maybe Heung Jin wouldn't have had to be sacrificed. But Father accepts Heung Jin's sacrifice with a grateful heart. Just as Heung Jin is my brother, he is your brother, too.
Let me tell you, frankly, how great Father is. The thing that moved me the most was when I saw him at the hospital just after he had come back from Korea, and he saw my brother lying there comatose, breathing only with the help of a machine.
When I saw Father and Mother's faces, my heart was saying, "Father, please do something! Please pray for your son!" But Father did not even waste an ounce of selfish tears praying for his son. The only thing he prayed was, "God, let Thy will be done. We pray that if this body is sacrificed, then it will be sacrificed for Your greater will." What kind of a man would pray like that? From a fallen point of view, he would be a crazy man! Yes, he's crazy -- crazy for God, because he knows the aching heart of God. He knows the pain God felt when He saw His own children -- Adam and Eve -- falling and was not able to do anything to stop them. When I see that total, unconditional love in Father and Mother, I have no words to express my gratitude and admiration.
I never realized how much Parents loved me until I had my own son. And when I saw my son's face, when I saw his first smile, when I heard him speak his first word, it was just music to my ears. It was the most beautiful work of art. When I see my baby, I realize that as much as I love that child, that's how much Father loves me and my brothers and sisters and all of you. What a profound love that is -- the parental heart of suffering, of humility, and of unconditional love! So when you experience happiness with your husband or wife or your beautiful child, think not only of your own happiness as a family. Every brother or sister's suffering is my suffering and True Parents' suffering. We are together in this. We are unified. And if we can perfect ourselves, if we can inherit that beautiful parental heart, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
My family and I want to tell you to be strong, to go out there and build enough faith through prayer and through your daily experiences with Heavenly Father to perfect yourselves. That is your responsibility. My brother cannot do it for you. I cannot do it for you. Father cannot do it for you.
Please know how great True Parents are, and how great True Parents' heart is, how absolute and eternal and constant that true love is. That's what we live for after all -- true love. Won't you please join with me and my brothers and sisters? Won't you please join with our Father and Mother? Won't you help Heung Jin in the spirit world? Then please raise your hands. Thank you very much.