"This speech was given to the convention of Women's Federation for Peace in Asia held in Japan this August (1991)."

I would like to express my sincere congratulations to the Women's Federation for Peace in Asia for having grown, in a period of barely five years since your founding, to the point of being able to host such a wonderful fair as this.

Your country Japan is the object of envy around the world as a "miracle of the modern age" for the way in which it rose from the ashes of defeat in war to become one of the world's economic superpowers.

What is even more fortunate is that, even while it was accomplishing this remarkable industrial growth, Japan has taken care not to lose sight of traditional Eastern values. Japan has always paid considerable attention to issues concerning the family and social education. Such remarkable success has been possible only on the solid foundation of the meticulous and sacrificial efforts of women such as you, working as mothers and as devoted wives to raise healthy families and protect your homes. As a fellow woman, I share the pride of your accomplishments.

Leaders of the Women's Federation for Peace in Asia, the world is now in a historic period of transition. For over seventy years since the Bolshevik Revolution of l917, the Soviet Union was the sovereign power of communism, an ideology that conquered more than half of the world, took the lives of hundreds of millions and placed entire mankind into the crucible of terror and fear.

Now that county finally has taken down its Red Flag and is disappearing into the annals of history. This represents the defeat of the atheistic worldview and the limitations of a philosophy of dissention, struggle and hatred. It is a declaration of the downfall of the system of the Communist Party's one-party dictatorship.

On the other hand, the collapse of communism serves to help us realize an important fact about ourselves. The collapse of communism does not represent the victory of the free and democratic world. Communism set out by calling for economic equality, but finally met its end as a result of economic collapse.

In a parallel manner, the free and democratic world set out with cries for the ideals of freedom. In the shadow of that freedom, however, we see violence, sexual immorality, drugs and other symptoms of a confusion in values that is leading to the collapse of our own societies. As the curtain falls on the Cold War of the past four decades, we see it has been a contest with no winners. On both the right and left, there are only losers. The lesson we must draw from recent events is that this is the time for all of us, in the communist and free democratic worlds, to renew our efforts to seek salvation.

Capitalism and communism each had their beginnings in the West, and each was rooted in materialist values. For this reason, it was inevitable that eventually both would prove insufficient to satisfy the true desires of men and women, who possess a spiritual aspect in addition to the material.

Thus, the world today has entered an age in which Eastern societies, with our emphasis on spiritual values, must play a central role. Historically, the Asian continent has given birth to a number of spiritual cultures. Finally today, the time has come when the East must fulfill its mission in history as the world's spiritual pillar. The contemporary age is often called the Asia-Pacific Age." In fact, this will prove to be yet another great turning point in history.

Respected women leaders, I believe the reason Japanese society could maintain its historical values over the past and increasing economic abundance is that the women of Japan have eschewed public recognition for themselves and have chosen to dedicate themselves to the sacrificial task of protecting their families. In fact, the most important aspect of these historical values is the value system centered on the family. There is the old Eastern saying, "With harmony in the home, all can be accomplished." This signifies to us that the family is the basis for peace.

The most important element in building such a family is true love. "True love" refers to that absolute love that is centered on God. To have true love is to love that which cannot be loved. A person living in true love cannot help but love even his worst enemy. True love is a sacrificial love that enables a person even to lay down his life for another. Thus, within true love we are able to completely transcend all dissention and conflict not only among individuals but also in societies and nations. These will all pass away, and we will have true peace.

True love will become the motivating force for creation, propagation and development. Anything else that we may give out is simply spent and disappears. True love, in contrast, becomes greater the more we give it out. It returns to us in a much increased form. True love is what makes it possible for there to be such a thing as eternal life. The family and society that practice true love will never meet with ruin but instead will develop eternally.

Thus, the teaching of my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, for us to "live for others" indicates the basic direction we must follow in order to achieve a world of peace. The origin of such true love is God. God created man and woman as a way to actualize His true love. Why do you suppose that when God created us, He created men and women to be each other's mate? The reason is true love. God created us in this way so that there would be an environment of true love where the husband could share his love with his wife and the wife her love with her husband. By sharing their love in such a horizontal fashion, the husband and wife would be able to possess the love of God, their Creator.

When a man and woman marry, they are trying to create their own horizontal realm centered on true love. At the same time, from the vertical viewpoint, marriage is the way for us to possess the love of God. There is the right of inheritance in true love, and so it gives us possession of the Creator and all creation. This is how human desires are finally satisfied.

In this way, women cannot experience the love of God without men. Neither can men come to possess God's love without women. Thus, from the standpoint of possessing God's love, men and women are endowed with equal value to each other. When a husband and wife become one with each other, they become partners in God's true love. Then in this state centering on true love, the Creator and humanity come to have equal value to each other.

If the first created man and woman had established love between themselves in such a way, they would have become true parents, that is, the initial point from which God's love could be actualized. Unfortunately, mankind lost the true parents who were to have stood in God's place as the substantiation of true love, and so it has been necessary to recover the ideal of true parents and to establish a point of origin from which to realize true families, societies, nations and a world centering on true love. Thus, the world of the future will be an age not merely of the 'global village" in which the geographic barriers between us are overcome but also of the "global family" brought about through true love.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, having come to know this absolute path of true love, has lived his life not for his own benefit but for the benefit of God and humanity, in spite of innumerable instances of persecution and suffering. In this way, he has laid the worldwide foundation of the Unification Church.

As the wife of one involved in such a global endeavor, and having this bond of victory centering on true love, I have been able to share his pain. The pain felt by the head of our house has been carved deeply on my marrow as the pain of the entire family. No matter what difficulties I face, I thought of the loneliness my husband would experience and tried always to maintain my smile so as not to betray my inner emotions.

I have lived for others in order to seek my happiness as a woman in the love of parents, the love of my husband, and the love of my children. As a matter of course, therefore, the goal of my life has been to live each day in greater gratitude and devotion to others than the previous day and to work so that I can live tomorrow in still greater gratitude and devotion.

Also, the reason I could be successful in carrying out my role as the mother of thirteen children, who have now grown into fine men and women, is that our entire family became one centered on true love. In any family in which God is able to dwell, the parents and children are able to share in His love, in His life and in His hopes for the future.

Respected leaders of the Women's Federation of Peace in Asia, the coming twenty-first century must not be the age of either U.S. /Soviet confrontation or an age of multipolar confusion. Instead, it must be an age in which the world becomes one centered on God's true love. The age is past in which economically and militarily stronger nations could prey upon their weaker neighbors and dominate the world. Now in this age, we must accomplish a world of oneness in which East and West, North and South, and all cultures, races and ideologies are fused into one based on Godism's teaching of true love.

Having begun in Asia, Godism must now go on to build a new Asian-Pacific civilization. Asia centered on Godism will be free of antagonism, dissention and struggle. Asians must demonstrate the model for establishing world peace through the practice of true love, in which each individual places the interests of the whole above his own.

Japan, which has been blessed with vast wealth, now needs to take a leading role in establishing world peace. Based on a spirit of true love that seeks to live for the world, Japan should serve the world. It should approach world problems as if they were its own and seek to sacrifice itself for the sake of the world community. In Seoul on August 27 and 28 this year, Rev. Sun Myung Moon founded the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace and the Federation for World Peace.

The religions of the world have been given the mission to bring together all people centering on the one God and to build a union among them through true love. The reality, however, is that in the flow of history, religions have split into hundreds, even thousands of rival groups. The enmity and struggle among these groups has deteriorated to the point of bringing chaos to the way of faith through which humanity can seek God.

In the name of religion, innocent people have been condemned. Untold amounts of blood have been shed in innumerable wars fought in the name of God. Faced with this historical fact, we must acknowledge that without unity among these religions, there can be no coming together of peoples' hearts. Without religious unity, the hope for world peace only becomes increasingly more distant. Thus, it is a great historic accomplishment that this year a structure has been established for the unity of the religions.

Following the First and Second World Wars, the League of Nations and the United Nations were founded in order to resolve postwar issues. Existing international structures, however, fall far short when it comes to resolving the many serious issues left by what can be called the Third World War, that is, the Cold War of the past four decades.

Today's world community needs new means for working out solutions to conflicts between ethnic and cultural groups, to wide disparities between rich and poor and for establishing a true system of ethics and values. It is, thus, most timely that a new international structure called the "Federation for World Peace" has been founded on the basis of true love and the new philosophy of Godism.

The Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace and the Federation for World Peace represent the human mind and body. As such, they are working in the same direction and have a foundation that allows them to cooperate with each other. This suggests that the accomplishment of world peace is already close at hand. Rev. Sun Myung Moon has already prepared the important elements for creating the environment for world peace.

Respected women leaders of Japan: By practicing true love that seeks to give to Asia and the world, you can make today's historic turning point an important opportunity for Japan and Asia to take on substantially increased roles in the world community. I ask you to increase the breadth and raise up the level of your lives to fulfill your roles as the mothers of Asia and of the world. I ask you to take the lead in building a new world. No one can escape this fateful task that history has assigned to all of us today.

When Asia stands upright centered on the true love of God, then its future will be eternally bright and the world will be able to look forward to a future of hope, with the establishment of eternal peace and order.

In closing, I ask you to continue your diligent work for peace in a new Asia and for the future of the world.