With the coming of the decade of the nineties, the world underwent great and unprecedented changes. An attempted coup by the conservative wing of the Soviet Communist Party provided the momentum for the astonishing events that culminated in the demise of the Soviet empire -- the powerful empire that had, for the better part of the twentieth century, shaken the world under the slogan of global communization.

On the wake of the whirling events of the disintegration the Communist bloc, the President of Russia, Mr. Boris Yeltsin, visited the United States and declared, in a joint session of the Senate and the House, that Communism had died and would never again be allowed to be revived in his country.

Yet, the republics that comprised the former Soviet Union, now free from the shackles of Communism, are at a loss as to where to go and have not yet recovered from social chaos and economic bankruptcy. Meanwhile, in China and other nations that still keep Communism as their national policy, a situation of contradiction persists between their endeavor to attain economic reform under an open-door policy and their adherence to the socialist system and to Communist dictatorship.

By the way, the situation has not been much better in democratic countries. The United States, still the champion of the democratic world, for a brief moment enjoyed the glory of winning the Gulf War. But the glitter of that victory has quickly been dimmed by the staggering red ink of the U.S. economy, and now the United States is losing its leadership role in the world.

Now that the ideal of Communism has declined and there is no strong leadership in democracy, the conflicts deriving from national and religious opposition and from economic friction are erupting throughout the world, throwing dark shadows over the future of humankind. The situation is further aggravated by the spread of AIDS and by a losing battle against poverty and starvation in developing countries.

In such a state of disorder and unrest, the world is now earnestly seeking for a new vision and a new leadership to guide humankind. In such a situation, only the Unification Movement, promoted by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, is offering a bright light of hope.

Unification Thought, which is Rev. Moon's thought and the ideology of the Unification Movement, is also called Godism or Head-Wing Thought. "Godism" refers to the thought that has God's truth and love as its nucleus; and "Head-Wing Thought" refers to the thought that is neither of the right wing nor of the left wing, but embraces both.

Only Godism, or the Head-Wing Thought, or Unification Thought -- with its spirit of promoting love for others from the perspective of a God centered view of value can eliminate hatred, hostility, and materialism from Communism, the left-wing ideology, and eradicate egoism and self centeredness from democracy, the rightwing ideology. This will reconcile the two opposing wings and will guide the people of both sides to advance together toward the realization of the ideal world, a long cherished desire of God and humankind.

Moreover, Unification Thought is the thought of God, the purpose of which is to reconcile warring nations and conflicting religions through the true love of God, the supreme center that has established all religions. The purpose of Unification Thought is also to achieve the goal of one world family and to realize all everlasting ideal world of God's love, through solving fundamentally and once and for all the numerous and difficult problems that afflict humankind.

The author of this text has been organizing, from an ideological perspective, the teachings of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The author, who has experienced quite a bit of suffering in his own life and has borne many of life's problems, when presented with the teachings of Rev. Moon, found in those teachings many astounding truths that would completely solve the problems of human life.

But there is an old saying that a bag full of gems can become a beautiful necklace if they are strung together on a thread; but if left as they are, they may easily get lost. Likewise, if the precious teachings of Rev. Moon had been heard and then left as they were, part of each of those teachings might soon disappear from the realm of our memory, just like gems easily disappear if not strung together. The author could not dispel such a fear.

Moreover, the author, who had suffered from problems of human life and had been saved through these truths, wished to string them together into a necklace of truth and convey them to those who might also be suffering. So, he undertook the task of organizing a number of those teachings, as though lie were connecting gems into a beautiful necklace. That is how the various Unification Thought books were developed.

The present work includes the teachings that have been imparted by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon up until today, arranged with that kind of attitude, tinder Rev. Moon's guidance. Naturally, therefore, this book cannot be published under the name of the author, since the content of the book is nothing but what Rev. Moon has been teaching, arranged in a certain order. This is a similar case to that of the late President Hyo Won Eu, of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity of Korea, who published Divine Principle, the content of which came from the teachings of Rev. Moon, not in Mr. Eu's name, but in the name of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.

Following the same pattern, the first Korean edition of Unification Thought, which was titled Essentials of Unification Thought (handwritten in Chinese calligraphy by Rev. Moon for the book cover), was published in 1973 under the name of the Unification Thought Institute, which was established under the direction of Rev. Moon. (The English translation of that first book was published under the title Unification Thought.)

It should be noted that, even though the author intended accurately to present the thought given by Rev. Moon, it is always very difficult to ensure absolute accuracy of expression, because of the author's lack of ability. That is why the first edition contained so many difficult points to understand.

Since Unification Thought is a theoretical system of a great thinker, namely, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon -- it was necessary to make it available to scholars interested in philosophy. Accordingly, copies of the book were sent to a few international professors through members of the Unification Church. Shortly after that, there was an unexpected response: Some professors pointed out that, publishing a book without the author's name was an unfair irresponsible attitude on the part of the author, because lie was evading responsibility for any controversies that might arise from the book.

Faced with such a criticism, the author explained to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon that, since it was necessary to spread Rev. Moon's thought to world scholars, the author felt compelled to publish future books in his own name, taking responsibility for any misinterpretations or mistaken wording. That is why the Japanese editions, and later the English editions (Explaining Unification Thought and Fundamentals of Unification Thought) were all published under the author's name.

But yet another unexpected result occurred: Quite a few scholars began to think that the content of those books was the author's own thought, even though the author had clearly introduced them as Rev. Moon's thought. That misunderstanding deeply grieved the author's heart.

Recently, however, quite a few Unificationist scholars have qualified as Unification Thought lecturers and now can cope with arguments concerning Unification Thought. In this context, it has now become unnecessary to place the author's name on the book.

Yet, it seems equally inappropriate to place Rev. Moon's name as the author. The reason is that, even though it is almost no longer necessary for the author to bear responsibility for the wording of the book, the content of the book is but a part of Rev. Moon's thought, and one could hardly assume that this book is such a perfect rendition of Rev. Moon's thought that not even a small portion of it would do any harm to Heaven's authority. Here I can sympathize with the predicament of the late President Eu, who likewise was unable to publish Divine Principle under Rev. Moon's name, even though it contained the Principles taught by Rev. Moon.

Thus, just as Divine Principle was published under the name of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, likewise the books dealing with Unification Thought will, from now on, be published under the name of the Unification Thought Institute, whether in Korea or abroad, by permission of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon -- just as the first edition was.

The present book is not so different from Fundamentals of Unification Thought (1991), but some supplemental materials have been added. Due to the above mentioned reasons, however, the present work is titled Essentials of Unification Thought, with the subtitle of The Head-Wing Thought under Rev. Moon's instructions.

Unification Thought deals with all the areas of thought, and the unfolding of it, that is, the order in which the various areas have been arranged, is similar to the order of God's creation of the universe. That similarity will now be made clear.

The first area is the "Theory of the Original Image," concerns God, the fundamental cause of the universe. Next, since in the order of creation by God. All things were created ahead of all human beings, "Ontology" is addressed, as a theory concerning all things. After the creation of all things, human beings were created; therefore, the third area will be the "Theory of the Original Human Nature," which concerns the original human being.

After creating Adam, God brought beasts and birds to Adam (Gen. 2:19). Upon seeing them, Adam gave them names. This means that, while observing all things with interest, Adam engaged in cognition and thinking. Therefore, the fourth and fifth areas are epistemology which is the theory of cognition and logic which is the theory of thinking.

Adam and Eve were to perfect the Three Great Blessings. This means that they should have perfected their personalities in order to realize the world of the ideal of creation. The world of the ideal of creation is a world with values centered on true love. Therefore, the sixth area is be axiology, or the theory of value.

If Adam and Eve had perfected themselves by fulfilling their portion of responsibility, they would have taught their children their experiences, and their children would have matured through a relatively light portion of responsibility to perfect the first blessing. Thus, the perfected Adam and Eve would have educated their children. Therefore, the seventh area is the theory of education. Since the first blessing is followed by the second and the third blessings to comprise the Three Great Blessings, the theory of education also deals with the educational aspects of the second and third blessings. When human beings mature, they marry and form a family, as was originally intended; therefore, the eighth area to be addressed is ethics, which deals with norms within the family.

Next comes dominion over all things. The human being is to have dominion over all things, and all things are to return beauty to the human being. Accordingly, the ninth area is the theory of art. Since dominion implies, not only dominion over nature, but also all the different kinds of human activities, under the concept of dominion are included economics, politics, society, culture, and so on.

Though Unification Thought does not address politics and economics as such; nevertheless, it addresses the laws governing historical changes in those areas. Accordingly, the tenth area to be addressed is the theory of history.

There exist invariable laws consistently at work in all fields of human endeavor; and the theory dealing with these laws is methodology, which is the eleventh area to be addressed. Because of its all encompassing nature, methodology should have been placed right after the theory of the Original Image; but since a comparative analysis must be made between Unification methodology and traditional methodologies, it has been placed as the last area.

It was in this manner that the eleven areas of Unification Thought originally came to be arranged. The areas of epistemology and logic, however, since they deal with sophisticated traditional epistemological and logical theories have been placed at the end of the book, right before methodology, for convenience' sake.

As mentioned above, the content of this book is an arrangement of the major aspects of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's thought, covering, however, only the part of his thought that has been made available to the public. It is quite possible that new and deeper points of truth will become available to the public as time goes on. Accordingly, if the necessity arises, such new points will be added from time to time, according to Rev. Moon's instructions.

Finally, the author expresses his sincerest wish that this book may be of help to all the readers who are seeking a deeper understanding of the thought of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who has been living a life of complete dedication, tinder inexplicable persecution.

The Author
August 1992

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