The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1983
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The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1983 |
Following the Leaders' meeting June 1, 1983, Father gathered state leaders and IOWC leaders for a one-day conference June 2. During the day, Father brought out his notebook and shared the Eight Points of guidance for the New Dispensation 1983-1985. Below we present the Second Point, which addresses the topic of spiritual leadership.
Our leaders cannot succeed without spiritual help. In order to receive help from the spiritual world, you must suffer more than the Pilgrim Fathers who came to this shore suffering. Surpass and go beyond their level of suffering, then they will be mobilized.
From within each region, each state will organize a prayer vigil and each team also will have their vigil. According the Bible and through the gospels of Jesus you know that so many miracles occurred through the power of prayer.
Each member should select himself a person and then serve him. Each of you should consider yourself an Abel so select someone to be your Cain. Nobody wants to be recognized as Cain, so that means that everybody must behave like Abel. Compete with each other from a spirit of service and be filled with bubbling enthusiasm. Then you can tell him that he has this one defect, so that's why you treat him like a Cain. This will really uplift the serving spirit and bring down heavenly power, don't you think?
Through the day in everything you do, volunteer to take the lesser place, rather than the better one. And if you practice this for 3 years you will truly be changed.
The leaders must set the tradition of being the example for others. You state and center leaders aren't just standing there finger-pointing at the members telling them what they should do. You must always be in the position of saying, "Follow me." Willingly, joyfully you must set the example before you ask them to follow. When they see you they will say, "Let me go first, I will do it, and I will do more." This kind of spirit will be created in lecturing, fundraising and in every field where you go first.
Meet civic and political leaders like mayors, police chiefs, governors, saying that you are capable of helping the state, that you can provide people for manpower. Sometimes you can propose projects; sometimes let them propose projects State leaders have been very deficient in meeting people. You just don't like to do it; you are too timid. Timidity prevents you from meeting people.
Already foundations have been laid, but you have to climb up, and reach to higher foundations all the way. The Regional Director will tell you that your mission is to meet that official, or that leader, and then you will go by all means.
Unless you meet leaders at the top, they may get a bad impression from the mobile team -- they'll get a bad report which they'll read and have the wrong impression. So before this happens you must be the one that they meet, and you can give them a positive image. The mobile teams will be travelling around to new places so you can meet with media people and have an interview with them.
You don't have too many spiritual experiences, but the Korean leaders do -- so as much as you can, get spiritual leadership from them. If you have some spiritual experiences such as some extraordinary vision or dream, report to the Korean leaders and let them interpret it for you. They can give you incredible insight. To become a spiritual leader you must know how to become a good conductor. When you look at those spiritually-open persons, maybe you look at them as if they were mentally ill patients? No! Many times you can appreciate spiritual phenomena and use it for the good of the movement.
Sometimes people say funny things -- so don't push that person aside and say that he's crazy -- sometimes this is spiritual phenomena -- so you must ask advice from the leaders and ask why those phenomena occur, and how you can interpret those things. Maybe sometimes your lips start moving like speaking in tongues -- in that case you become like a microphone. Spirit world is using your mouth as their organ and instrument.
You must know how to analyze these situations and how to deal with them. One of the phenomena which occur with spiritually inclined people is that they can go for periods of time with no eating and no sleeping. Then you have to feed them or get them to work hard physically, then they will be able to sleep. Or you have to change their atmosphere. You should be able to lead and handle these situations -- don't jump to sending them to a psychiatrist or mental hospital. When you have received that training then you can control the situation.
When hundreds of members really pray hard together, all kinds of things occur. Sometimes a grandmother will begin dancing like a ballerina -- in this case a ballerina spirit has come through her. You can get great instruction out of this kind of person, even a professional ballerina could come to learn some techniques.
In every state you need at least 3 spiritual people, so that you can accept and learn the spiritual changes through them. That's the ideal. Always think about the strong and weak rhythms, and the optimum: three points. Sometimes you receive strong messages, sometimes weak ones. When such a message comes, you might have to go to a public square and shout it out. Other times you have to control it, and reflect upon the message, and adjust it. For example one person is in a trance and one spirit man comes to him, and then in a split second a second comes but you don't notice this difference -- yet the spirits' messages are totally different and then you feel confused. Then you think that person is crazy; from minute to minute he's saying completely different things.
In the religious community, unless your spiritual reliance is greater you will never succeed. It is for that reason that religious leaders are never boastful or prideful of their own accomplishment. Once you boast about your accomplishment, all spiritual assistance will cease. Instead, make yourself grateful to God, realizing that you are totally inadequate, but feeling, "God, how great You are, and it's You who have provided the way for good success."
Your acknowledgement should be that credit belongs to the spirit world -- not you. When you are walking you're never walking alone but with support.
Always keep yourself focused on the goal so that the cyclic plus and minus energies can come, and your conductibility can be so perfect that the spirit world can immediately act.
For that reason those Ph.D.'s in religion and theology become the obstacles for their religious practice. Those persons insist that they studied it all, and are trying to judge things by their own knowledge. Persons with a great amount of erudite knowledge will probably never have opportunity to be spiritually attuned. But a grandmother in the countryside, totally uneducated, who totally gives the credit to God and the spirit world -- by doing so, great things can happen.
Let's say the intellectual person who has already done something great, already attributes that success to himself, "I have a Ph.D. and I can do this much." He takes the credit to himself and spirit world is cut off. So the Bible says,
"Unless you are like a child you will not be admitted into the kingdom of heaven."
"Like a child" means naive in a way. So when you go out preaching or lecturing all of a sudden fantastic words come from your mouth, then you should confess that you could never even think of such a thing, but that God gave it to you. Thank God. This is a very important religious practice if you are to be a spiritual leader.
Spirit men are seeking someone who has a rapport established with them so they can come down and have give and take. In a sense, they're always looking for an ideal mate here on earth so in order to get spiritual assistance quickly, you must make yourself accessible to spirit persons. They're looking for the ideal type, so make an art of the ability to relate to the widest variety of people; then you are continually making yourself available. They are always ready to come.
If your character is genuinely beautiful, and very easy to attune to and you deal with other persons harmoniously, as soon as you can please 1,000 persons -- that means you are able to receive 1000 persons approaching you from spirit world -- do you follow?
The Bible says the one who makes harmony is the Son of God. Then the entire spirit world comes down to help him. When you serve ten persons in a family they will come and want to talk and share with you. Why did Jesus have 12 disciples? Twelve different personality types for him to serve and by doing so, he is serving and perfecting all mankind. The 12 are 12 different types of men, so different types of spirit world could open up. So the virtues of Christianity are to endure, to have patience and to love. That means to have harmony with everybody, then spirit world can come down near to you.
All the newcomers will need training and education but you will conduct it with parental heart. Think of it this way: the person I gave my first love to -- that longing kind of first love -- for him or her, there is nothing I cannot spare. In order to win a spiritual child you must go beyond that feeling toward your first love. What was the fall of man? The fall of man was that first love act. Even though it was an illicit act, still there was incredible power of love involved. In order to restore that we must go beyond it.
You must deny your own family, your own parents and children and give all your love to heaven. Jesus spoke in this spirit, but no one understands why he spoke that way. It's not just thinking and concept; you have to live it. Practice this kind of restorational love.