Good morning. (Good morning)
Let me start off with asking you a question. “Can you please everybody?” (No, no way, no)
Well you try to, out of the goodness of your heart, I guess. But is it doable? I want to talk about politics. The topic is politics.
People normally want to go into politics because they want to change society, so “I have to get involved in law making. I have to become a law maker!” That’s the basic reasoning, right, where people become politicians because law can change, forcefully if it has to, certain social behavior of people, and by changing certain environments and having the authority to change, at times, with authority, personal behaviors, can perhaps create an ideal world without measure.
What the heck are the Founding Fathers then? Why do you call them Founding Fathers? They all want to emulate the Founding Fathers if you want to become a politician right? But it took several centuries to come to a point where there’s an IRONY! The position of political authority is not something of a parental position, or a stature of some grandeur. It’s a civil servant.
You’re a civil servant. You’re not the Statue of Liberty, or stuff like that. You’re not a symbol that lands on a mantelpiece somewhere. Functionally speaking, you’re a civil servant. That’s what politicians are, right? That’s how we think, don’t we? Children get taught that way in public schools about politics. So what happens to the politicians?
Okay, let’s talk about why we don’t like politicians. (Laughter) Why? (laughing) Why don’t we like politicians? THEY’RE HYPOCRITES! We all say that they’re hypocrites. They talk. They have two tongues, a forked tongue you know. They’re the devil incarnate. They say one thing and they do another thing.
What is the nature of their hypocrisy? What layers of lies do they commit? Fundamentally they’re politicians out there, especially these days, there’s no place to hide because there are eyes everywhere, ears everywhere. There are no secrets. It’s becoming more and more apparent. Good!
So literally speaking, there are criminals out there. They’re just out there to take as much as they can, steal as much as they can, using that platform. And there are people who have lies for their agenda, and there’s one who trumps that, who wants to be God. And that’s the tragedy. That’s why we don’t trust politicians.
How do you become God to begin with anyway? Why the heck do you want to be God? He is the most miserable entity in the universe right? If He is supposed to be the parent to all humankind, there is more suffering than glee, right? Obviously. He is the most miserable person and you want to partake in that misery. Why the heck do you want to do that? For what reason? You know that your life is short and why do you want to do that? Why do you want to play God?
The thing is, at least God walked the walk. If you just tell people to do something and you don’t walk the walk, that’s not cool. You can do that just sitting in a lawn chair right? Anybody can do that. Just flipping through TV channels, or surfing the internet on your laptop, and seeing something and saying “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll tell people to do that because I have the power.”
Well that’s not going to last. That’s the problem. A lot of people play those three levels of lies, and that’s the reason that we don’t trust politicians, because of that kind of hypocrisy. You will do certain things to a certain extent, but everything else is just self service. All the propaganda is just self service. That’s a problem. And there are the outright liars and thieves. That’s why we don’t trust that parental position on a national level. Because that’s the reality. In one form or the other, they fall into that basic category, and that’s sad.
Now how do you change this kind of world? It has to be REAL! It can’t be spiritual, okay? Otherwise God would have done it a long time ago. There’s no exception. You might have a moment of something, a reckoning, a final reckoning you might say. Okay? But still in the end, it has to be done … the right way. And guess what? It has to be real. No hocus-pocus stuff! I’m sorry, but that’s the only way to do it or its not going to happen.
How are we going to change the world when we can’t even bring people together that we know, for a reason, for a cause, something, anything! It’s just silly stuff. And I hate to say it but … I’m worried. (After a long pause)
Even if you have a vision, it has to be realistic. Right? Just having a vision doesn’t mean anything. It has to be … implement-able. Otherwise it’s useless. And what kind of influence do we have, what degree of persuasion in terms of our belief our purpose, and based on it, preparation, to deliver to the people that we’re reaching out too that can be effective?
Where do we stand? We need to measure ourselves properly. If we don’t know our limit, then we can’t grow. Everything has to line up. There has to be proper alignment to achieve proper growth. You have to know your limit. Especially if we’re WILLING this stuff. Aw man, we’ve got to know our limit. It better be packed, it better be perfect for whatever it’s worth in the range that it exists. Otherwise you’re going to grow up mutated.
I started this because of my son, dead son, nothing else, and I just got to know you, some of the faces. Now I know their names. That’s about it. I’m here because I want to be here. It’s a pain it the butt! (laughter) That’s about it, nothing else, and you know that.
(Hyo-Jin-nim talks in tears)
All of you, in a way, you’re politicians to take care of your children right? You make the law right? You say to your kids “AS LONG AS YOU LIVE UNDER MY ROOF BLA, BLA, BLA.” (Laughter)
So from that kind of ordinary innocence, something good should come out of it, okay? That’s about it. The only way that can happen is y-o-u d-o-n’t l-o-s-e t-h-a-t i-n-n-o-c-e-n-c-e. (Emphasizing each word) No matter how snakeish you have to be just to survive, okay? Because you have to be a snake to survive. Right? You have to be a snake, a bigger snake than other snake, so you eat the other snake. (Laughter) A lot of snakes eat snakes, you know. They have to.
It’s going to take time to change the world, a long time. But that’s just survival stuff. As long as you believe in idealism and want to hold on to it, that’s what you keep, something of original essence.
I don’t know everything, but everything has it. That’s what you hold on to as best as you can, because in the end you’ll be judged. Judge me!
See you next week. (Taps on the podium)