Sun Myung Moon's Words from 2000
|
|
Sun Myung Moon's Words from 2000 |
Honorable and distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen!
I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation for the Universal Peace Award my wife and I have received here at the United Nations, this historical landmark of world peace. Let me use this opportunity to speak briefly on the theme, "Breaking Down Boundaries and Practicing True Love."
Ladies and gentlemen, if we could break down all the boundaries in this world, world peace would come necessarily. But the thing we have to remember is that God is not the lord of boundaries. Satan, the Devil, first made them. Satan and his followers are dwelling wherever there are boundaries. Satan sits on the boundary between Oriental and Western civilizations, for example.
God did not create boundaries among the various different cultures, traditions, races, etc. God desires one unified world, a world without boundaries.
God does not have even the concept of boundaries. Therefore, He does not tell us to take revenge on our enemies; if He did, it would imply that He had such a concept. By loving our enemies and bringing oneness among us, boundaries will naturally come down.
Thus, God's strategy and tactic is to have us love our enemies. That is a great strategy. It is unfortunate that throughout all human history until the present, people have not understood the value of the words, "Love your enemies." Unification Church members, as representatives of human history, have come to understand this strategy and are practicing it in reality By exemplifying these words, they have become leading lights who can bring peace to the world.
What do you think? When our hearts are not happy, when our bodies are not comfortable, when we are dissatisfied with our actions, when we speak angry words, don't these create boundaries? Therefore, unless we unite our mind and body through the five senses, all kinds of boundaries will come into existence. For this reason, we need to reflect upon how many boundaries we are living with in our daily life.
When we say, "Go beyond having enemies. Stop building boundaries," some might think we should pull out our eyes. Actually, there are two kinds of eyes. If without differentiating evil from goodness, our eyes welcome anything we see simply as good, then enormous boundaries will be built. The same is the case with hearing. If we rejoice over hearing the words of goodness or truth and at the same time listen to all the evil words of this world and support them, then boundaries will be built also in our ears.
Members of the Unification Church are not prohibited from singing popular secular songs, while some Christian denominations have rules against it. The question is not whether we sing popular songs or classical songs, but rather how we can digest the lyrics of those songs. Does singing the song create a boundary, or does it break down a boundary? If by singing a certain song or by speaking rough language a person is able to break down a boundary and thereby create a wider and less restricted world, certainly that will please God.
In sum, wherever we live with boundaries, whether through our senses or in our environment, we belong to Satan's side. On the other hand, if we can live without boundaries anywhere, we stand on God's side. Satan is the champion at building boundaries. On the other hand, God is the master of breaking down boundaries. God, the King of kings, does not like boundaries at all. He hates boundaries the most.
Ladies and gentlemen, look at Korea. Do you think God appreciates a Korean who says that the 38th parallel that divides the peninsula is a good thing? Of course not! Hence, if someone works hard to remove it, that person will become God's favorite champion. If all seventy million Koreans have the determination to die for the cause of removing the 38th parallel, then the reunification of North and South Korea will come without doubt. That task, however, will never be easy We must understand that those who want the 38th parallel to continue to exist in the Korean peninsula are on the side of Satan, the Devil. Satan is the master of the 38th parallel, and God is the master of whatever efforts are being made to remove it. That is why Unification Church members have been leading the movement to tear down the 38th parallel.
Ladies and gentlemen, when the day comes that people everywhere want their children to marry their enemies, desiring to have sons and daughters-in-law from among their enemies, the entire world will be automatically united. This is the gift that I would like to offer to you tonight. Where boundaries exist, certainly Satan and his followers reside; but God and His people, born of His lineage, dwell where love and harmony abound, without boundaries.
Today, Unification Church members are very much interested in developing the leisure industry, which encourages people to travel all over the world and live anywhere in the world that they desire. This foresees a future international federation based on the United Nations, established someday in whatever location and name. When it is established, we should all come together under the name of this international federation. For this purpose, Rev. Moon suggested to Unification Church members that they gather a special fund, called the Total Living Offering Fund. In the future, we will use this fund to facilitate the development of this international federation of the United Nations.
In the Old Testament, animals representing all of creation were sacrificed on behalf of humans. They were divided into two, which represented two parties struggling against each other, the right side in the position of God and the left side in the position of Satan. However, as a result of the failures of some of the central figures in the Old Testament Age, God and Satan came to struggle over Jesus -- who, as the Son of God, had a value far above that of the creation. As a result, when Jesus, the eldest Son of God, came to earth, he shed his blood, with his body taken by Satan and his spirit belonging to God. Because Jesus must yet recover his physical body, he proclaimed that he would return.
Ever since Jesus, the Son of God, was divided into the two realms, problems likewise have continued to plague the spirit world and the physical world. Further, men and women were divided, and the mind and the body were divided, remaining in continual conflict and struggle. Therefore, Jesus, who went to the spirit world to restore God's dominion over that world, must still return to earth in order to restore God's ownership of the physical world and bring oneness between the two worlds. What, then, would he do when he returns to earth? He would marry and establish his own family. Nevertheless, Satan took Jesus' body and the physical world with it, while God could claim the spirit world as His.
In the spirit world, Jesus has been toiling for two thousand years to bring the hearts of people on earth to one direction and lead God's dispensation centered on Christianity. However, Christianity also divided into two: Catholicism and Protestantism. They became enemies to each other and fought each other just as Cain, the elder son, had fought his younger brother Abel. Thus human history has developed, constantly creating more boundaries, multiplying struggles. We, therefore, have to liberate ourselves from this attitude of erecting boundaries and struggles.
And so when the Lord returns, he will unify the heavenly world. Then, to bring oneness between heaven and earth, he will conduct many marriage ceremonies, bringing together men and women from tribes and nations that have been divided for thousands of years. He will conduct this providence centered on the Unification realm, which is in the same position as the chosen people of Israel in Jesus' day This is the very Marriage of the Lamb prophesied in the Bible.
There was a wonderful opportunity immediately after World War II when heaven and earth could have been united centered on Christianity. At that time the Christian cultural sphere was united and leading the world. With Jesus playing the leading role in the spirit world, a united Christian cultural sphere was prevailing all over the earth. That would have been a perfect chance for Jesus and the Holy Spirit to come to the earth and substantially marry as husband and wife. They could have started laying the foundation to resolve all of the existing problems resulting from the separation and division between mind and body and between man and woman, and built the veritable Kingdom of Peace on earth.
I am not talking about something vague and unclear. Who should have married first from the perspective of God's ideal of creation? It was Adam and Eve. But due to their fall, they created the first human boundary -- and the source of all subsequent boundaries. Now, in order to break down that barrier, all men and women should be restored to the state prior to the fall and then should marry Then, not only our ancestors, but God also, will rejoice with dancing. When such a world arrives, it will be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
However, such a day has never existed in human history. Instead, people have been grieving and struggling in pain, entangled by countless boundaries. Accordingly, the starting-point of peace in the world requires that humankind find the way to break down this primary boundary. Yet the people of the world have not understood. This is why Rev. and Mrs. Moon have come into this world in the position of True Parents, giving God's Blessing to the men and women of the world and showing the world, for the first time in human history, the way to resolve the most fundamental human problems.
Even if there are a million boundaries, I am certain I can break them down. How can I do it? True love is what makes it possible. To get rid of these barriers, we have to know true love as God knows true love, otherwise we cannot do it. This means that we must know God one hundred percent.
Ladies and gentlemen, the spirit world consists of heaven and hell: heaven is likened to a world of daylight, and hell can be likened to the nighttime. But someone who is unable to tell the difference between day and night, how can he possibly take control of the boundary between the realms of heaven and hell? It is impossible. Only a person who knows them in reality can have dominion over the two worlds. That person can eliminate the darkness, because he clearly knows the substance of hell.
God, who is omnipotent and omniscient, can eliminate the darkness. But first we must know God. Can you say that you know God? How well do you know Him? Is it your understanding that God is pleased with wealth, power or knowledge? Such a God could never bring liberation to humanity You must fully know God in order to expel Satan completely and resolve the fundamental problems of this world. Moreover, even if you fully know God, do you also know what it is about God that is useful in bringing down all the boundaries erected over thousands of years? This is the important thing.
God is the master of the universe. Then shouldn't there be an environment where God can dwell -- a neighborhood and a nation where God can dwell? In order for us to know God, we must restore His nation as a realm that is objective to His governance. Still, the earthly environment remains blocked by numerous boundaries. By taking them down, we should build a world with which God can be happy. Wouldn't all creation like to be governed by God? Indeed, all creation is anxious to be liberated from its groaning -- from pain and persecution caused by the control of Satan, and from the many borders that divide it.
Ladies and gentlemen, more than anything else, we need to understand God clearly, and we need to understand clearly the way to build the Kingdom of God. Then, wherever we go, and in whatever situation we are in, we will automatically receive answers about how to deal with difficulties among the world's diverse cultures and traditions.
Surely, God exists in heaven. However, today's world is blocked by countless boundaries. How did this happen? It happened because there are hardly any people who know God, His Kingdom, and the tradition in His Kingdom. Once people clearly know these, liberation will take place in both the spirit world and physical world. We will even be able to call out, "Hey, Satan!" and he will obey. Then we will come to know the way to live in unity with God's heart and with His Kingdom, in a culture with heavenly tradition and values.
People who know God are the ones who live with love for the sake of others. Therefore, instead of seeking love for our own sake, we should seek to love others for their sakes, making them masters of love and letting them dance with love. Thus, we can become God's heirs, people who know God and beautify and protect His Kingdom. Satan will have no way to interfere with the heirs of God.
If you love your enemies, transcending anger and hatred even in situations where they kill the ones you love, you will come to have dominion over the world of enemies, and Satan will retreat. Eventually, the world of your enemies will show respect to you. If you live for the sake of others to the extent that you love your neighbors more than your own parents, then Satan will run away. Whatever you have given, God will reward you thousands of times more.
Again, what is the secret of knowing God, His Kingdom and His thought, which will enable us to chase out Satan from everywhere? It is to live for the sake of others, die for the sake of others and practice love for the sake of others. When we do that, Satan will certainly run away. And he will not just run away without doing anything. Before he leaves, he will break down all the boundaries that he had erected around us.
What will happen next? Once Satan is gone, the people who had been headed for hell will all be able to rise up and enter heaven, by practicing these principles of eternal life. Eternal life will finally become a reality People who call on God, the Source of love, as their Father will earnestly desire to practice God's tradition of living for others and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years. This is how individuals can become the people of eternal life, practicing the tradition of eternal life and endowed with God's eternal lineage.
Eternal life is essentially an attribute of love. Even God, when He created the universe, adhered to the standards of absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. God lives this way, always desiring to invest more love for the world, even though everything in the world is transient. For this reason, there is no being that cannot help but attend Him as the absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal Lord.
We humans, created as God's children, should likewise be able to completely invest our own love absolutely and eternally If we do so, then the Kingdom of God will become our kingdom, and God will belong to us.
In short, our life-style should be the same as that of God, the Master of the heavenly tradition. Then we shall surely become God's sons and daughters, and eternal life and immortality will necessarily be ours. That is why the Bible verse, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it," is so true, although it may sound paradoxical.
Ladies and gentlemen, God is great, but has He ever really become the Lord of love?
True love is something you cannot experience alone. You cannot create love by yourself. For a man to experience love, he absolutely needs a woman. Having a woman whom he can love is the necessary qualification for the man to be the subject partner of love. This is a surprising fact. No matter how great a man he may be, without a woman, his situation is like that of a widower. What does it mean to be a widower? A widower is a father who lives alone. It is a pitiful life. Living alone, a widower cannot accomplish true love, no matter how rich or famous he may be.
God has true love, true life and true lineage. He also has true conscience -- a mind that is even, not bumpy. It may seem that God has everything. Yet without a partner of love, how would He express all His values? By Himself He cannot express them, not for eternity.
Why is that so? A man is only half a person. No matter how great he may be -- even a prime minister or a president -- and no matter how big he may talk, as a man he cannot escape from being only half a person. Likewise, a woman is only half a person.
Why is a man only half a person? He has the convex part, but not the concave. For complete love, both the concave and the convex are necessary. A woman is the other half who supplies the concave, which a man does not have. Thus, a man accomplishes perfect true love only with a woman.
We understand that at the fall of the first human ancestors, their bodies and minds could not unite with the lineage of God, but instead formed a connection with the lineage of Satan. As a result, God could not see His grandchildren, who should have become His third generation. Through the providence of salvation, God has sought after His third generation and tried to connect them with His lineage.
God's sons and daughters who multiplied over the earth were supposed to become, without fail, the good seeds that God and Adam wanted. Wherever they were sown, they were supposed to be the children of original creation who would be breast-fed by their parents and who would follow them instinctively to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But due to the fall, the lineage of Satan came to slither about within our bodies. Therefore, we should be ready to die, to cut our vein and bleed out our blood ten or twelve times over, if that is what it takes to be reborn.
It is an unalterable fact that our lineage is contaminated. This is a serious matter. Did you ever realize that your body was in such a state? Think about it! It is frightening that the blood of your enemy envelops your bones and courses through your flesh, as it has done for hundreds of millions of generations. It is alarming that you have not recognized how miserable is the condition of yourself, in which your body dominates and tramples your mind.
The fall can be likened to connecting with a line running east-west when we should have connected with the line running north-south. Being so, our problem is how to correctly reconnect with the north-south line instead of continuing to mistakenly connect with the east-west line. The way of cure by disconnecting and reconnecting is the Blessing of the Unification Church, namely, the International Marriage Blessing, which reconnects us with the original lineage.
If in the beginning Adam and Eve had not fallen, they definitely would have become our external parents, bequeathing to us the lineage of God's love. United with Heavenly Father as our internal Parent, and sharing God's absolute true love, Adam and Eve would have become the spiritual and physical ancestors of humankind. The moment when they would have stood at the central focal point, able to unite with that love, was to have been their wedding day Experiencing their first love on their first night together, they would have become one body centering on God.
But due to the fall, all that was lost. God wanted to sow conjugal love into humankind from His standpoint, but He could not get hold of a place to do so. Instead, God became a God of failure.
Can God love by Himself? Even a beautiful and talented woman needs a man, and even an ugly man can fulfill her need. A woman has love, life, lineage and conscience in her mind, but until a counterpart in the shape of a man appears they are not set in motion. Love is not activated. A life of loving is not activated. Lineage is not developed. Conscience is not objectified. Likewise for a man, only through the appearance of an object partner, namely, a woman, are his love, life, and lineage all actualized.
If Adam and Eve had waited until age 18, they would have received God's blessing and authorization to become husband and wife and the true ancestors of humankind. But they fell at 16 by playing with love as children play with fire.
Ladies and gentlemen, is anyone born as a woman because she desired to be born that way? Is anyone born as a man because he desired to be so? Many men are arrogant and boastful, disregarding and belittling women. Such men cannot avoid going to hell.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know why God became a miserable God? God is the great King of true love, but He lost the position where he could love as he truly wanted to love -- by dwelling as one body with the first human ancestors. God can be compared to a widow or a widower, alone by Himself and unable to feel the true love He adores. Having lost the object partner of His heart's true love, God became a sorrowful God.
By becoming object partners in God's family, Adam and Eve were supposed to establish the seat for the Lord of true love, and thus to liberate God. They could not fulfill this responsibility; nevertheless, their lifelong desire was to let God occupy the seat of the Lord of true love.
Therefore, the first condition to receive the Blessing of the Unification Church is to live the tradition of truly loving in the position of God's bride and bridegroom. Although that tradition was lost, the true, unchanging love of God remains. As long as we as husbands and wives never ever deny that love for all eternity, we will definitely be joined to the lineage of God's sons and daughters.
Who will prepare the seat for the Lord of true love, the place where God establishes His lineal relationship and can truly love a man and a woman? Only that man and that woman can do it. In other words, Adam and Eve must restore through indemnity the position of counterparts to the Lord of true love by becoming God's bride and bridegroom.
Out of the divine polarity God gave birth to a son and daughter; they were born from these dual aspects of His nature. We have to know, therefore, that the son and daughter have equal value.
As a husband and wife with equal value, we can restore the true love of husband and wife that God desired. Also, because God could not love babies in the womb, we through our babies born in our family can restore for God the position of the Lord of true love for sons and daughters, which He could not enjoy From this point, we can restore for God the Lordship of siblings, the Lordship of adolescents, the Lordship of husband and wife and the Lordship of parents. In this way, our children can become God's long-sought grandchildren.
God is the first generation, and Adam and Eve constituted the second generation. But God's grandchildren, the third generation, were taken away by the Devil. When we deal with all this through our sons and daughters, we can restore through indemnity the position of the Lord of true love on behalf of God. At that point, God recognizes you as the second original parents, standing in the position to possess the love that was meant for Adam and Eve.
Only after thus passing through three generations can God as the Grandfather and we as parents truly love God's grandchildren and raise them as the perfect seed for tens of thousands of generations of their descendants. When grandchildren receive true love from the first two generations together, the grandfather is the representative of the spirit world and Adam as the second generation is the representative of the kingship in the physical world. The lineage of true love substantiates the two worlds in this way.
Grandchildren who are born into this lineage will have the value of the fruits of the Kingdom of Heaven in the future, representing both the spirit world and earthly kingship. This will be the third generation that is qualified to rule the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. From that generation onward, the fruits of the Kingdom will spread outward. Thenceforth, children will grow to mature character and true love only by their parents' instruction, without the need for religion. They will all become fit for Heaven. All people will realize the original model of the eight stages of true love, fulfilling God's ideal of creation.
When we restore this, we will become a unified tribe transcending the twelve pearly gates of spirit world and all the barriers in the physical world. This will open the gate to the liberated world of heaven and earth, the unified palace of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in heaven.
There are eight stages of true love: in the womb, infancy, childhood, adolescence, marriage, parent, grandparent, and king or queen. Until today God could not have a firm foundation of tradition to substantiate these eight stages of love on the earth. God could not become the Lord of true love of these eight stages. They remained entirely vacant. How, then, can we solve God's shame and resentment? The True Parents fill the emptiness of the eight stages and perfect them by uncovering and teaching all the secrets of the satanic world and the Kingdom of Heaven. They reveal this gate of lineage -- the only way humankind can go to the Kingdom of Heaven. Every man is supposed to become a perfected Adam; every woman a perfected Eve. If God is her Lord of true love while she is in the womb and as an infant, and if she makes God her Lord of true love as a child, an adolescent, in her marriage, and through the stages of mother, grandmother, and queen as well, she will possess the real partnership of true love and perfect herself.
A family on earth, with its visible relationships, is only half a family. To become whole it must unite with God's invisible partnership. This means establishing unity of spirit and body. Such families will inherit the lineage and the tradition of true love. When our families do this, we will automatically participate in the unified realm of heaven and earth, and we cannot help but become heavenly people and a heavenly family This means that we will enjoy the freedom of God's sons and daughters and become lords in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Every person, man and woman, is the external substantiation of God and God's beloved partner. The invisible internal God and we His visible external substantiations have been waiting for this reconnection of lineage. This work is to be accomplished centered on mothers and wives. Once we are connected to God's lineage, we should live being proud that we are external substantiations of God.
The wife plays a key role in connecting her family to this lineage and tradition. The children also play a role. Ultimately, tribes and nations, even the whole cosmos, should be connected to God's lineage. Lineage is so important.
Why do we marry? It is so that a man who is half a person, and a woman who is the other half, may meet each other to become a couple experiencing perfect true love. God doesn't want to dwell with only a half. When a man and a woman meet each other to become perfectly one, God too unites His internal character and external form in a relationship of true love, establishing the vertical tradition of true love.
We have to respect our ancestors. We have to truly love people. We have to build unity by establishing true leadership. A king who lives well while ignoring his people is a swindler and heir of the Devil. He is making boundaries.
Today, humanity must undergo an internal revolution. We have to receive the heavenly fortune of true love from Heaven, establish it in the family, and let God stand as the absolute Lord of true love. Through this great revolution we, as resultant beings, come to serve and follow God, our cause, with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. Only this way can we attain a state of perfection, with no boundaries. Whenever a being deviates from this ideal, an opposing subject appears and a destructive barrier is raised.
From now, therefore, you should not gamble by creating boundaries in your path of love. Any woman who thinks, "My husband should love me. My children should love only me and should not love their father," etc., should give up that attitude. A woman has to embrace her children and receive the love of their father. If she raises her children together with her husband and returns her love for his love, she belongs to God.
Because of a woman, the gate of love to God's eight stages was destroyed. Hence, women have to show their utmost devotion to recreate their husbands and sons and daughters, perfecting in front of God the position of the Lord of true love of His eight stages in their blessed families.
Having elevated our families in this way, we can go on to prepare the kingship of true love in which we can love and thrive from the individual level to the family, tribal, national, worldwide and cosmic levels. Then we will be free to travel anywhere, even through the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and the twelve gates of the Kingdom of Heaven in the spirit world. We have to know clearly that unless we become qualified sons and daughters in the lineage of God, we cannot become the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven and on earth. I cannot emphasize this too much. It is the key to removing boundaries.
The task of removing boundaries includes the lowering of national boundaries through the work of the United Nations, getting rid of religious boundaries, tearing down ethnic and racial boundaries, and ultimately destroying the boundary between heaven and hell. Yet, since all these boundaries stem ultimately from Adam and Eve, the false parents, no one other than True Parents can break them down. God alone cannot do it, and certainly Satan cannot do it -- he is the one who has been creating them. Who can stop the conflict between God and Satan? Only True Parents can resolve that war, since the false parents started it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will leave this place this evening with determination to go out and destroy every boundary, bringing this message of liberation to all humankind.
Thank you very much.