God's Will and the Ocean by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Let's look at the Good Go boat. Water can come in as much as it wants. You can bore a hole in the bottom of the hull and make a test. Even if people are inside the boat, they can still stay there because of the foam construction within the hull. It's been built for safety. At the same time, it's a very fast boat. If a storm is coming, you can outrun the storm. Of course, it's not the most economical boat because it takes a lot of gas to run it, but for a training program, it's well worth it. We want a boat that is safe and fast, rather than slow and economical. For training purposes, the Good Go is best.

In any training course, the harder the training is, the more you learn. The training itself is what makes the program worth it. Ultimately, we want to go into the fishing industry. That's the future. How can we help America and the world solve its problems if we don't have any money? In the fishing industry the work is incredibly hard, but the return is good. In order to accomplish any task however, one first has to accomplish the training period.

Some members are now in the process of creating Japanese restaurants. You may think that a restaurant business is just a small thing, but it has many implications. First, it is a business where many customers come in and out. You can reach out to these people. You can talk to them and make good relationships. You can serve them and display the real spirit of service. We are religious people, and we also have to work in this world. For this reason, the restaurant is an excellent type of business for us to be involved in.

Now, the Japanese restaurant is in fashion. Everyone wants to try out this new kind of food. When your customers come, it will probably be their first experience. You can serve them with your full heart so that they fall in love with the food, with your restaurant and come back again and again. We are beginning with Japanese restaurants, but we need not confine ourselves to them. We come from many backgrounds, Italian, French, Indian and all kinds of cultures. Our members will have no problem making their own special restaurant because they come from all over the world.

There are not too many businesses where you can invest all your money and then, in just three years see the return. With restaurants, a certain amount of money is invested and within three years one can see the investment come back. We can make even more restaurants, and after the success of these restaurants we will have made such a track record that we can borrow money from the bank and they know it will be safe. It will be no problem to pay back all the money. We will lay that kind of foundation. Most importantly, we will teach people how to eat fish. The future diet will be fish. Once we make our investment and make success from that, we can branch out and further success is guaranteed.

In your restaurants you can serve many people every day. You can make a difference in your community in this way. Think about it. The spirit of America can be uplifted in this very meaningful and yet practical way. The American people can be making friendships with us. They can get to know us in a real way. How can we save this country? In a real way, how can we do that? We are making a foundation to really save this country through everything that we do. We can reach people through practical service. We may be selling machines, boats, cars, fish or sushi. What's important is that we truly serve people and make a good relationship. We are simply making our foundation and though it is modest, it will someday extend all over the country and have a very good effect.

It's your country. Don't you want to see a good future for it? You have to be able to offer your time, your money, your effort. People misunderstand us now, but in time they will see the real motivation behind our work.

In the fishing industry, we have to make a whole new foundation. We will go out and catch the fish. We will buy it and sell it to our restaurants. We will be the distributor and the retailer. Why is the fishing industry so low at this point? It is because fish is too expensive to take home every night, so most people don't think of buying it, except for special occasions. However, is fish expensive when it comes from the boat? No! The fisherman gets the least of anyone for all his work. From the boat the price is so cheap, but who gets the money? The middle man -- he buys the fish cheap and sells it at too high a price. That isn't fair. It isn't fair to the fishermen and it isn't fair to the consumer.

We have to think about the profit for the public. We will have to supply a good meat for a cheap price. Someday, people will welcome the Moonies because of this consideration. When we began to train for tuna fishing there was nothing but ridiculous opposition. That was because everyone was so afraid that they just panicked. However, when they fished with us, side by side, they saw how we behaved and they knew that we were sincere. Then the price went up for the fishermen. Our movement had an influence upon that price hike. We lost everything in that investment, but the fishermen were really happy. They could sell their fish to us for a higher price. This year they were even expecting and hoping for something of the same. They were concerned about my having to go to Danbury. They were wondering about the price and they were worried that we would give up on helping them. You can reply something like this when they ask you if I am coming at all this summer: "You put him in jail. Everyone for so many years wanted to get rid of Reverend Moon, but now you see that if he isn't around, the American people suffer." Make them think about that point.

We must train now. That is the only thing we have in mind for this summer. I have been looking at your faces and I have studied them. Your fortune brought you here. You may not be extremely happy to be here; you may be thinking about the hard work ahead of you, but there was no choice in a sense for you. You did not arrive here by accident. You felt something calling you and pulling you here. However, you must focus and put your heart into what you are doing. If your heart is not here, then something may happen.

I am especially concerned about accidents. Don't make bad relationships with one another. On the boat this is serious. We have to be careful and train ourselves. On our own boats, with one another, bad things should never happen. It is even more serious if you work on a boat where no one has any religious background. On a regular commercial boat, if you make enemies, it would be very easy just to "lose" you over the side of the boat. An "accident" could happen and no one could prove it was otherwise. Do you understand? Things like this happen, so we have to learn here how to make good relationships.

The ocean is a very difficult place. Always follow all the safety procedures on your boat. It's important to know how to swim. If you don't, you must always wear the life jacket. You will see many different things on the ocean. Sometimes a huge whale will come by your boat and mess up your lines. You are students and you will have to learn all kinds of things this summer. You will learn about fishing, but you will also learn about life as well. Think about the future, about the past, about the people around you. Think about your life of faith and why you joined.

Don't be anxious. Take your time. Don't try to be a Ph.D. while you are still in elementary school. Those who are Ph.D.'s may look at you "greenhorns" and think, "Oh, when are they going to have experience with things like me." We must understand that there are many unexplored areas in the ocean. We are going to discover things in the ocean that others never even dreamed about. Such things will come to pass. I am serious about developing a submarine which will explore deep underneath the water.

I am also extremely serious about building a marine college here in Gloucester. We bought the land to build that college, but the community became scared and cried out, "Oh, Reverend Moon is going to take over and exercise some kind of tyranny." Well, now they know that this just isn't true and they are beginning to accept us. Someday we will make the marine college come true. Imagine, America is such a developed country, a nation that honors God and is a first rate nation in the world. However, this beautiful house was closed to us for four years. They didn't allow one person to come in. They said, "The Catholic Church was okay, but the Unification Church -- no!" Is there any other nation in the world that has freedom of religion like the United States? We had to fight back and claim our rights. We had to threaten to sue them in order to use the Gloucester property. They thought about it and realized in the long run that they were going to lose. Our motivation was not to fight, but we had to challenge such an unrighteous act.

Now we are to begin our training and this is a new era for the ocean. A new age is beginning. This is a truly historical happening in which you are now participating. Why? Because someday in the future, all the people in this area will know clearly about Unification Church. And many of them will join. Don't you believe that? There will be millions and millions of people who will join from all around the world.

They will come here to this very port of Gloucester, to this very house in Gloucester where you were able to hear from me personally about the meaning of this training program. You, the class of 1984, just seventy-six members will be considered the "Pilgrim Fathers" of this new age. Now, you have responsibility for a Good Go boat all your own during this summer. In the future, people will have to be selected. Maybe only one out of one hundred thousand can be selected and only seventy or eighty people can come here and be allocated a Good Go boat. Today, you can train to be a captain for a boat without much competition. Those of you who came here and are already complaining about the long hours and hard work, raise up your hands and tell me, "I want to miss this chance to pioneer and be the forefather of Ocean Church." You are free to leave. If you have no vision of what it will be like ten years from now or twenty years from now, you can go. You must realize that this is a historical moment we are in.

Each year that I came fishing here, every single fishing day, I went to the boat, whether there was a storm or good weather. No matter how late we had gone to bed the night before and how early we had to rise, I went to the boat. But now, it is not as safe for me to go about freely. This is a reality that I have to contend with. I am making a firm stand against atheism, against communism and many of them would like to strike me down. It is difficult for me to be with you every day as I have done in the past ten years.

I expect you to be autonomous. You must become independent and pioneer your own way, especially this year. Otherwise, how will you become a self-supporting person? How will you support others on your way? Each and every one of you have to understand the meaning of this training period and live up to its standard during the next two months. If you experience how difficult it is to go out on a boat every day, think about my experience on the New Hope for the past ten years. Never once during any of those ten seasons, did I lay down and sleep on the boat. I put my entire will power and whole heart into this training. Every moment while I was on the boat, during the long tedious wait for the tuna, I was always praying to commit myself even more for the sake of God and mankind. That is what I want you to inherit here.

As you know, the tuna also has some spiritual aspect, being part of creation. Sometimes when your spirit is dull, the tuna may even be more spiritually sensitive than you. The tuna which you are after weighs more than 500 pounds. To get to that size, it is eighteen to twenty years of age. Think about it. To get to that age, what kind of dangers has that tuna already escaped, time and time again? Over and over, the tuna was on the verge of getting caught, but it somehow escaped. By the time a tuna is 500 pounds, it is a very smart fish.

The tuna know that the lines hanging down are there to catch him. For a tuna to bite the bait is not a normal thing. It is an accident. Just like human beings who have an accident after drinking alcohol, the tuna gets drunk on eating the chum and then, in one mistake, it reaches out and bites the bait. The secret which makes the difference here is for you to concentrate and with all your heart, mind and effort, draw the tuna towards you.

If you really concentrate and become spiritually attuned, you will wake up one day and while you wash your face and prepare to go to your boat, you will sense at what hour that day you will catch a tuna. Sometimes you are waiting and waiting. Your mind starts to wander and then, you have a sharp awakening in your mind. At that moment, you realize, "Oh, in five minutes a tuna is going to strike the line." As soon as you feel that, the tuna strikes. Every one of you, if you apply yourself, will experience this at one time or another.

There is some kind of law or principle at work here. If you invest all your heart, you will catch a tuna. You have to be able to know and envision what is going on underneath you, when the small fish are coming in and when the tuna are moving with the currents and tides. You must be able to see it without even seeing it. This takes concentration.

I am thinking about dedicating the money made by the New Hope to some charity in Gloucester. If that is the case, then wouldn't you expect the tuna to bite even more? The spiritual world would encourage the tuna to bite the New Hope's lines. This year there is a quota and I am hoping that two-thirds of the quota is caught by Moonie boats. In order to do that, you really have to love your bait. Bait is the direct cause of catching the tuna. You have to connect with God's love and then put that into the bait. You are the connecting point.

A clean boat reflects a clean spirit. An orderly boat also reflects an orderly spirit. This means that all your jigs, rods, reels, lines, hooks, everything is in the right place. I can tell immediately if your boat has received a lot of heart or very little heart. And if you are praying deeply, the spiritual world will help you, inspire you and bring tuna close to your boat. Through these experiences you will discover that God is alive. If something bad is going to happen to you, you will be sensitive to that. This year, we have to be concerned about safety. The best way to avoid accidents is to be serious and put our whole heart into what we are doing. You must take care of yourself spiritually. Always keep yourself orderly.

I want to ask you an important question. "During this season, how many times will you fight with your brothers and sisters?" You don't want any such circumstance, but sometimes you get involved and a situation arises. What will you do at that point? You should not allow any fights to happen. You have to avoid creating the circumstances on land before you even go out to the boat. In the morning, while you are fishing, don't let the things inside of you get to you, even if you are burning up inside. On the way home, you can bring something up and try to discuss it then.

Sometimes you will be in the boat and the wind will be blowing, a storm will be coming. This is a very dangerous time and it is very bad to let your feelings out at this time. It is better when you come home and have a hot shower and a good meal. Then, you become generous and you forget the words which might have made you angry. Don't let things bother you while you are out on the water. No matter how someone might agitate you, just ignore him. Think to yourself that it's some neighbor's dog barking at you.

Keep your goal in mind. You didn't come here to fight. You came here to fish for tuna and this is your purpose. Don't get involved in anything that is not the purpose of your coming here. Some days you will dedicate your whole heart and there will be absolutely no result. Then is a good time to repent. You can repent and try to find the area that you missed, that you didn't understand and apply. You have to be so serious. After this training course, you will become an independent person at some time in your life. If you go out on the ocean as your livelihood and cannot catch fish, who is going to help you? Will the government subsidize you? Will God give you money? Probably not. Don't count on my coming to help you. I cannot always do that. Can you do it? Will you come running to me or will you be very serious and do it? Those who can, and will do it, raise your hands. How about the women? What will you do if you cannot catch the fish? The tuna will laugh when they see women coming to catch them. If you want to get quicker results, just listen to the men for once. And then the tuna will say, "Well, even though they are women, they respect the men; we can tolerate them." So you women, don't fight against the men. However, never be outdone by the men in putting your whole heart into it. You can beat the men that way, that is okay.

Do you wonder what I am doing all day long while waiting for tuna? Catching and landing the fish is only about one hour out of the day. What am I doing the rest of the time? I seem to be doing nothing, just sitting there watching the lines in the water, but every moment I am putting my whole heart into the effort. I check the bait on the hooks. Every once in a while, if the fish aren't biting, you have to reel in the line and look at the bait. You should change the bait three times a day, even if the fish don't seem to be around. When I look at the buoy, I can tell if there is bait at the end of the line. I don't know if Gerhard can tell this or not, but Gerhard should be able to. It's a normal thing to know this. If the bait is gone, you have to reel in the line and put new bait on.

The human being is actually a very sensitive, knowing creature. You should be able to tell from experience about the current and what it is doing. You should be able to tell how the hook is hanging from the line in the water according to the current. Especially two lines, the seven and a half fathom and the ten fathom line are the ones most likely to catch. You have to be really attuned to your bait and how it goes down the lines. You will also discover many related kinds of phenomena. You may use six or eight lines, but all season long, there is just one line that the tuna will bite. You may think, "Well, that's just the favorite position for the tuna." So you change the line's position, but still the tuna bite that line. How do you explain that by today's science?

The spiritual world is like the dark horse in a race. It may be the most unlikely thing, but it happens. Maybe you pick up an old line that someone else threw away. They caught lots of tuna on that line, but finally they made a new one. And you have all new lines, but you put that old one on. Then suddenly you catch a tuna. How can you explain that? It has happened. That's why I am telling you these things. You have to love your equipment, your hooks and lines. You have to cherish the ones that catch, even bring them to your bed because you never want them out of your sight. That kind of feeling, that kind of love is okay. This love is connected everywhere and it connects in an invisible way, in a most unlikely way.

The Japanese members come around to me and say, "The New Hope is becoming an old boat, it's more than thirteen years old now, Father, let's change it." I don't want to hurt their feelings, so I say something like, "Oh, you think so?" Actually, I am wondering, "What are you talking about?" Already, if we were to write the history of how we began this training program, 99% of it would center on the New Hope. Even if we got a brand new boat, even if someone donated it to us, we would never write as much about it.

It is like a marriage. If you are married for ten years and your wife gets old, do you try to get rid of her and get a new one? How would the New Hope feel if that happened? Would it be happy or sad? It would cry out! Instead, I am thinking of when I give all these things to the next generation I will change the boat and give the new one to them. At that time, I will retire the New Hope and put her in a special museum. The New Hope will understand because this is normal. The boat knows it cannot live forever and it will agree to a replacement at that time. I truly feel that way. I have that kind of sensitivity to the New Hope. This says something to all of us. How are we different from the rest of the world? Through our heart. We are making a heartistic world which is quite different from what most other people are doing. If we are going to ride on the New Hope and on the One Hope boats, we must really love them.

When you are allocated a boat, don't ever say, "Oh, I want a new boat." Don't ever say that. Just love that boat and eventually that boat will return all the love to you and catch a great deal of fish. Talk to your boat. Say, "I know you worked hard last year. I'm going to take really good care of you this year. Let's get together and be successful."

At the end of the day when you are coming back, clean out the chum area and get rid of the bad smell, take care of the boat and really clean it. Then when you look at the boat, you feel good about it. And the boat looks so good too. Take care of your boat and treat it right. This is your responsibility. In the daytime, you are too busy to keep it clean because you are trying to catch fish; the boat understands this. However, on the ocean, if something goes wrong, even if it is a small thing, you have to take care of that.

After a few weeks of serious experience you will understand how the engine sounds. You will be able to hear when the engine is going over its capacity. You have to slow down at that point. The engine is like the heart of the body. In the ocean, if the engine quits, you will be in a serious situation. In fact, the engine is almost more important than your life. You have to think like that. We should never overwork the engines. Sometimes you cannot help it if the case is an emergency. However, never push your engine for no reason. Love your engine just like a member of your family, like your wife or your husband. Then it will never go out of order.

When the birds are flying around and looking for a boat to land and rest upon, which boat will they pick? We can see this particularly in small villages. There are lots of houses, but always one house has lots of birds that come there to rest. Remarkably, that house is the one which is very prosperous. It's true. The reason for this is that such a house has a great deal of love which has probably accumulated from generation to generation.

We have to bear in mind then, that Moonie boats are to be loved with one's whole heart. Actually, I wondered if you needed me to come and talk to you this year. Then I thought about the New Hope and said, "I've been coming to the New Hope every year and it will miss me." I couldn't tolerate the thought of that. The New Hope has recently been fishing in Montauk and I have been there fishing on it. I asked for it to come back to Gloucester, however, it has just been sitting here for several days, so I couldn't help but thinking of coming to Gloucester and visiting it. I wanted to talk to the boat and tell it, "I fished with you all last summer, every day, but this summer I can't fish as much with you. I hope you can understand." I know that the New Hope will understand if I am not around so much. I am telling you these things because I want to urge you this year, not to let your loved one, your boat lose its spirit. Don't let it be damaged. Just as you would protect your own body, take care of your boat with all your heart.

I have a reason for bringing you together this summer. Some of you are Ocean Church members and you have already tasted this training experience. Others of you have sold fish, but you never knew how hard it was to catch them. You simply said to the fishermen, "Go out and catch the fish; I will just sell it for you." However, this wasn't right. Those who sell the fish should also understand how hard it is to catch them.

When you have separate channels, when there is just the one who catches and the one who sells, the one who sells always makes demands. He will say, "Oh, I don't like the fish you are catching. You should do this and you should do that." If they have to catch the fish, they will understand and they will not be able to blame the other so easily. At the same time, fish are often wasted after they are caught by bad handling on the boats. They are spoiled in many different ways. Therefore, you have to learn from each other and work together more closely.

Americans can learn a great deal from working with Japanese members. They have an advantage. I have watched them closely for the past several years. The Americans manage boats and they are always sloppy. On the other hand, the Japanese boats are always very tidy. Do you agree that the Japanese are tidy people? They keep everything very neat and orderly. There is very good proof for this: go to New York City and look at the automobiles parked on Fifth avenue. They look really dirty even though they are owned by rich people. However in Tokyo every automobile is spic and span. There is no dirty looking car in the streets of Tokyo. This tells us something about the personality of Japanese people in general.

These are observations. Please keep your boat tidy and up to the Japanese standard. Another point about Oriental people is that they tend to be more frugal with money. Look at the Japanese people, the ones in Happy Group. They are small, they are not so aggressive, but every single one knows how to manage money. Even though you may not like it, you have a lot to learn from them. That is why I am putting you together, so that you learn from each other. The first step is for the Western members to observe the Oriental members.

Let me ask you another question. Do you like me? How come you like me? I am not a Western man. My eyes are slanted and smaller than yours. My skin is brown, not white. I am a Korean man. What if I were to say, "Okay, I'll put someone else in my position. Well, how about Gerhard? He is a very big man. He is seven feet tall and has a big face and big hands. His one foot is larger than both of mine. Maybe I should put him in charge of Unification Church because he is bigger." Do you think that's a good idea? Should Gerhard replace me? You don't think so? Well then, how about Mr. Reagan? Do you think he would fill my shoes? He would never be able to perform as well in my place. I have a capability that cannot be replaced. In the same way, the Japanese are capable of certain things and you cannot replace them. The American leaders and the Japanese leaders are different. In the face of difficulties, the American leader tends to think of a way to retreat. On the other hand, the Japanese leader would never think of retreat. Also, in the religious life, in the life of faith, they are your elder brothers. They were blessed earlier and have pursued this life much longer, so don't complain about them.

I am not favoring the Japanese. Americans may have a better potential, but the Japanese have already proven themselves. Be honest with me. Which one would you take? Once the Japanese have made up their mind to do something, they will do it for the rest of their life. If they get a job in a company, they serve that company for all of their life. How about an American who runs a Japanese restaurant? He hires two cooks, one is American and the other is Japanese. After one year, the American cook gets offered a better salary and without a single regret says "good-bye," and leaves right away. The Japanese would never do that; he would stay with that same restaurant for ten to twenty years. For this reason, the American owner should learn a lesson and hire the Japanese. Once their heart is tied to something, they will never cut from it. You have to become just like this. I have a great deal of hope in you and that is why I have brought you together with the Japanese members.

This begins your training for the summer. Go out and learn from the ocean. I am asking you to be serious and especially have no accidents this year. In tuna fishing, if you don't catch anything for one or two weeks, you begin to lose concentration. You may kick the baskets around and the lines may be on the deck and you just don't care about it, but the tuna strikes without any warning. Your feet must never be standing on any lines. This is very serious. Always pay attention to where you are and where you are moving on the boat.

Keep everything orderly on your boat and this will minimize accidents happening. What will you do if your feet get caught in a line? Be very careful about this point. If you ever get to that point, you would care less about the tuna. It's your safety, your life that is in danger. This summer I am stressing the point that you protect yourself from danger and accidents.

Organize yourselves like a tree. Each ten boats will have a leader, and then, each three boats will have a trinity leader. These three boats should especially be together as a trinity. Look out after each other and help each other. With this kind of organization make sure that no boats are out of order. Take very good care of one another. Three trinities should back up each other and one boat should look out for all three trinities. That is how all boats should be organized for the training courses to come.

Your main concern is not to let your boat get out of order. If your boat goes down, you cannot go out. You should do everything to prevent that. This is the way we shall do it. Today is the beginning. After three more days, we will finish the training on land and we will all go out and begin fishing. Whether I continue to be here or not is not the focus of this training. Don't be concerned about that. I have already done enough tuna fishing. I already know enough about that. Don't worry whether I am fishing or not. Every morning, we will go out at a certain hour. This is our tradition. You have to follow that. However, I am now exploring other kinds of fish, such as striped bass and flounder. Later I will go to Alaska for halibut fishing. Those who make a good record here can go with me. Your concern this season is to become real fishermen. Sleep in the boat and eat in the boat. This summertime is priceless. It is valuable training for you, for the rest of you life. I only want you to put in all of your heart and effort. God bless you.