The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009 |
At the Saturday service on July 18 (and at the Sunday services the following day), Hyung-jin nim testified about the spiritual experience that permitted him profound insight into True Parents' redemptive love.
You know brothers and sisters; we had a very important meeting this Wednesday. We elected regional woman leaders for our Korean church. All the Korean central members were here. We had that election, and I asked some questions that I want to ask you. I asked them, "Why are you an Unificationist? Why did you choose Unificationism?
Think about it. There are so many incredible religions in this world. Christianity talks about the incredible sacrificial love of God. Buddhism talks about maha karuna brahma vihara, the ocean-like compassion, incredible virtues. And they are so established. Christianity has over a billion followers. Scholars say Islam will probably be the largest religion by 2050. So why do you choose Unificationism? It's still small. It's a cult in many people's eyes. Why do you choose to be an Unificationist?
This question has been racking my brain ever since I really started taking life seriously. Ten years ago, after Young-jin passed, I started studying religion, frying to find the answer to this. I studied the world's religions, travelled to very remote areas, stayed in monasteries and with different religious communities -- in Italy in Tibet, in China, wherever -- and studied different religious traditions, becoming one with them. For ten years, I've been training; every morning we've been doing devotional training, ascetic training, monastic training.
For about two years now, I've been doing ministry. In that time I've experienced incredible Christian communities that talk about the incredible love of Christ, the incredible sacrifice, the agape love of Christ, the passion of Christ. Passion is suffering, but in that suffering is the great love of Christ, the great sacrifice that Jesus paid for our sins.
From Buddhists I have heard about Buddha's great compassion. So great is the compassion that they let go of the fact that they can get into Nirvana, or heaven, so that they come down and save and liberate the sentient beings on this planet, and on the other planets. It's such a great compassion that we do not want to do harm even to a little insect.
I heard about the great devotional love of Mohammed, when following and being obedient to God's will and God's word, that incredible devotional love towards God.
But how then is our Unificationist teaching greater? You know, Sarah Coakley, my Christian theology professor at Harvard, said, "I'm an Episcopalian priest because I believe that this is the best religion." We're Unificationists. We must believe somehow that we have a higher truth, that we have a greater insight into reality into the truth of the universe, into the truth of the divine.
We've heard about our true love... I've heard all the standard explanations of true love -- love that can make Satan naturally surrender, love that gives and gives, or love that lives, exists, for the sake of others. I've heard it millions of times.
I was a theologian as well. I was wrestling with this. Here it was, in my head, but I couldn't feel it in my spirit, in my emotion, in my heart. Somehow, I started feeling, Wait a minute! We are teaching an incredible true love, but is that not the same or is it at least similar to the great love of Christ who offered his life, laid down his life for the sake of the sinners of the world, his friends? Is not the true love that we talk about somehow similar to the great maim karuna of the Buddha, the great compassion that doesn't even harm one little insect? Where is the great true love, the devotional love, that Mohammed had for God as his master? That great love! Isn't the love that we are talking about at least something similar to that?
We, as Unificationists, have come to believe that we are teaching something similar to that. Somehow, yes, they have great teachings in the other world religions, and we are one of them. And we are all going to the same mountain top.
But this is very unsatisfying as an Unificationist, if you have faith. You chose this religion because you believed that it had the greatest truth. You gave your life; you were inter-religiously married, because you felt that was the truth, the highest way. Somehow it is unsatisfying to say that we're all the same.
I know for a fact that Christians don't say that. I know for a fact that Buddhists, when they talk about the supreme highest enlightenment, which is anuttara-sambodlii, they don't say that. They say that the Buddha attained that. But we as Unificationists have come to believe that maybe we're just kind of the same thing.
I had been racking my brain: How is it that the true love we talk about is greater than the incredible agape love of Christ, the incredible compassion of the Buddha, the incredible devotional love and service of Mohammed? How is it greater? It was so elusive! I could not put my finger on it, could not get it. How is it that love as Unificationists understand it is an incredible elevation? I heard it was, but I couldn't sense it in my heart, couldn't feel it... until this Tuesday! I really had an incredible Tuesday. I had a life-changing Tuesday this week.
Jesus said, in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." And Jesus did this. He sacrificed his life. He walked the way of the cross. He laid down his life for his friends. But after he died, what happened? Christians saw Jesus with their spiritual eyes.
What happened after he was crucified? They saw him descending into hell to liberate believers and bring them to the path, bring them to paradise. They saw Jesus with their spiritual eyes. Not just with their physical eyes. His body was on the earth, his body was physically on the earth. But the Christians saw him with their spiritual eyes. They saw him descend, for the sake of those souls, into purgatory.
It came to me in a kind of a vision-dream, that the reason we don't understand true love, the reason we really can't see why it is greater, is because we understand it only with our physical senses and physical eyes. In the dream, I saw True Parents descend into the bowels of hell. I saw them going down there, crying, weeping. They were running down there to save the fallen children of God. Father ran up to this huge demon that was torturing and punishing these souls and he said, "Take my flesh, take this Holy Spirit, this messianic spirit, in that child's stead! Let that child go! Take my body and do as you will..." And he flung his holy body, his messianic body, into the hands of the demon, and that demon ripped him open, shredded him, and tore him into pieces. It was an absolute horror to see.
With our physical eyes, we see that True Parents have been imprisoned six times. They've been imprisoned, incarcerated. They've been demeaned, dehumanized, imprisoned and tortured. They suffered a seventh imprisonment -- in the helicopter crash. That was a prison when it hit the ground and burst into an inferno.
Christians saw Jesus with their spiritual eyes and continue to see him with their spiritual eyes to this day which is why when you enter a Christian church, you're going to feel some kind of incredible Holy Spirit.
Every time True Parents were unjustly incarcerated, tortured, lacerated and beaten physically, their spirit bodies were descending into the most dangerous and evil hell. They were sacrificing their spirit and flesh for the sins of all mankind. There, they were pierced and cut and ripped and torn. They died so that we might live. They gave their lives and took our place. They took my place in hell, so that I would be free, so that I could have a place in heaven.
They did this not once, but they did it seven times. They died for us on the individual level, and for the collective sin of our family, tribe, [ethnic] people, nation, world, and cosmos (which includes the spirit world) -- the seventh stage, which was the substantial resurrection. They ascended to the eighth stage, completion, which is God's stage, because of the power of that true love, that parental love, at which they will die and die, forget and die again, so that no harm will come upon their children. That is what we are talking about when we're talking about true love. And because of the power of that true love they overcame physical death.
We know the story about Father being thrown out into the snow. Physically he was dead; spiritually he went into hell. True Parents have been resurrected seven times, this most recent time in the helicopter, from the cosmic-level death, entering God's realm and opening the kingdom for us.
When I received this, I realized I had never understood what parental heart was. I never grasped what true love really was! I could never put my finger on it. I had all the standard explanations -- they exist for the sake of others, they give and give and give -- yet I could not feel it. What is it that we are trying to inherit?
I realized that True Parents have died for us seven times. They have sacrificed their flesh to be unjustly beaten and incarcerated. Whether it was in Korea when it was under Japan, or in North Korea, or being imprisoned in South Korea or America, they offered their bodies to be beaten and their spirits to be torn. They went into the lowest realms, so that we would be free. They rose from the grave, not once, but seven times -- and this is not because of any human power, but because of the inheritance of the true love they received, and of which they are the manifestation. Because of that incredible victory from the individual to the cosmic level, because of their deaths and their resurrections, we have been given permission to enter into the nation of Cheon Il Guk, even though we do not deserve it -- I don't deserve it -- and even though we are filled with sin, and even though we are filled with flaws and imperfections.
Let's give it up for God and True Parents, brothers and sisters! [Applause]
We have to understand why we call them the Savior, why we call them the Messiah. You see, in John 15:13 Jesus talks about the greatest love. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Listen to those last words: "for his friends."
You see, we know from the perspective of the Principle that Jesus was the second Adam. The second Adam to come to fulfill the purpose of creation, which was to establish and inherit the parental heart of God, to establish a true family and inherit the parental heart of God. That was what he needed to inherit. But Jesus went too early. He did not have time to become a parent, and he was crucified. He inherited an incredible love, an incredible love that sacrifices for his friends, that meant he could lay down his life for his friends. That was what Jesus said was the greatest love.
But you see, True Parents came as the third and final Adam, who came to inherit the parental heart by establishing the True Family. I am not saying that the True Family is perfect. By establishing the True Family, True Parents inherited the true love, the parental heart, and that's the victory. They showed us the greatest love of all. Much greater than the love that Jesus spoke about in 1 John 15:13, of laying your life down for your friends. They showed us that the parental heart is so unbelievable. It is the heart that is willing to die for their children, and die again for their children, and forget and die again for their children, without any complaint, without any reward.
Once we realize this spiritual dimension of the seven tortures, deaths and resurrections, we will realize why we say that Jesus and the saints bow down to True Parents. Why are they overwhelmed by the power of True Parents' true love? True Parents took on the burden of our own individual flaws, our families' flaws, and flaws of tribes of the past, present and future, and they died seven times.
When we understand that they went into the lowest realms, took our places in those realms, in the lowest hells, so that we could enter and be free in the eternal kingdom, we can finally understand why we call them the Cosmic True Parents, the King and Queen of Peace, and King of Kings.
As I mentioned, for ten years I have really been searching for this. My problem was that I'd studied a lot of religious texts and scriptures and communities, and that was wonderful. I had incredible experiences there. But I didn't understand that this spiritual dimension was here. You can't understand this with just your physical eyes. It's the same as if you were a Christian. You can't understand with your physical eyes that Jesus died for your sins. It doesn't make any sense. That's why Christians have spiritual eyes that are open.
I've even done ministry for two years. I've been teaching the Principle, I've been teaching about true love, and I didn't even know what it was! I could not put my finger on it; what is true love? How is this different or greater? How is it a greater love than the great love of Christianity, the agape love of Christ, the great compassion of the Buddha. I could not understand what it was, could not feel it, but finally now I realize. I did not realize it on my own. It was given through that vision-dream.
No finally, after I realized about the seven deaths and resurrections of True Parents, once I understood and experienced this, something incredible happened that had never happened to me before. I literally just started weeping and weeping and weeping, like a baby! I was so repentant.
So what did I do then? I wrote a report to Father. I said, "You know what, I am a minister and I didn't even know what true love was. That's a pretty big sin. I'm here talking about true love, and teaching the Principle, and I don't even know what it is. Really, I don't really understand what it is."....
In Matthew 17, Jesus ascends a mountain. He goes up the mountain, and the disciples are following him. All of a sudden, they see him floating; this is known as the transfiguration of Christ. In Matthew 17:2 it says, "His face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light." Jesus showed his divine status, that he was not just a normal man. Jesus was up there, and Moses and Elijah were there, and Jesus was talking to them. That event is known as the transfiguration.
And after I had this insight into True Parents' seven deaths and resurrections -- into the incredible heart of a true parent, who will die for his or her children over and over willingly and then forget about it -- that night while I was writing this, I fell asleep. I had a dream in which I saw True Parents come spiritually. True Father came spiritually, and I saw his face. He was smiling, but when I walked up to him, from his eyes shone this incredible light as bright as 10,000 suns, just like the transfiguration of Christ that we hear about in Matthew 17... Spiritually I felt calm, and at ease, and at peace in my heart.
So I wrote the letter. I was too ashamed, actually, to go to see True Parents. I had not really understood what they had done; I had not really understood their love.
And that morning after Hoon Dok Hae, Mr. Peter Kim read the letter to True Parents. He said that while he was reading it he had a spiritual experience. While he was reading it, he started weeping and weeping. He said, "I never understood True Parents' true love. I didn't get it. I've been serving them, right next to them every day, and I didn't understand what kind of true love they gave to me." As he looked up and saw True Parents, he saw True Mother weeping. He saw Father trying to hold back his tears, but, as he told me, Father couldn't hold them back. "Finally the children understand," Father said.
You see, brothers and sisters, what I realized that day was that Father couldn't tell us, he couldn't tell us what has happened. Just like the Christians who had to understand Jesus with their spiritual eyes and realize the spirit of Christ, Father could not tell this to us, for we see him with physical eyes. It's in the Principle that true love gives and gives, and forgets and forgets. Father couldn't say "I did this for you all." He forgot about it, even though he died for us. He forgot every single time he died for us. The individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world, and cosmic levels -- he forgot.
But he did hope that one day we would understand, that one day we would see him with our spiritual eyes, just as believers in Jesus Christ see Jesus with their spiritual eyes -- and understand this incredible, immense true love that we have received.
And when we do that, we realize something incredible, we realize that our life is not ours, it's not ours. When we realize that we are the recipients of this kind of incredible, immense love that is willing to die for their children over and over again, we realize that this parental heart is what we are trying to inherit as their children.
So it was in front of that incredible, incomparable grace and love that I realized that this is why we say we have to live with True Parents. That's why we say we have to glorify them. That's why we are singing songs of praise and thanksgiving. Now I understand why we have been singing those songs of praise, gratitude and the victory of true love.
Brothers and sisters, what can we learn today, on this first anniversary of the substantial resurrection? It's now our time to open our spiritual eyes to this incredible, sacrificial, parental heart of true love and inherit this true love.